The German-built A class was already being delivered before the First World War and represented a roughly thirty-year-old design by 1940. A2 was damaged during the invasion and drifted ashore, while A3 and A4 were scuttled days later. Their three 18-inch tubes, tiny displacement, and sixteen-person crews had been useful in an earlier era but offered little against a modern invasion. Calling them training boats obscures the fact that nothing newer had replaced them in the active force. Their survival on the inventory reflects an interwar belief that another major war was unlikely, turning paper strength into a dangerous substitute for readiness.
Chapter · 2:27:17-2:34:19
Norway's A class and the illusion of submarine readiness
Norway still counted pre-First World War A-class boats as active submarines in 1940, masking the absence of a credible modern replacement force.