Immediate purchases would favour modern torpedo boats, potentially sourced from both Germany and Britain while Norway remained technically neutral. Destroyers would also be valuable, but their longer construction time makes them a remedy that needed to begin earlier. A longer-term plan would widen dock facilities for the bulged HMS Gorgon and order seven similar gunships, creating an eight-ship force to replace the elderly coastal battleships. Such monitor-like vessels, possibly fitted with torpedo launchers, would trade blue-water status for concentrated firepower suited to Norway's coast and fjords.
Chapter · 10:10-12:10
Coastal firepower for Norway's fjords
A longer-term Norwegian program combines monitor-like gunships with destroyers and torpedo boats suited to confined coastal waters.