luckynumbernine

Nice videos. I want to elaborate on the Blucher a bit. The sinking of the Blucher was actually a major achievement that ment that the royal family of Norway and the government got time to flee for Great Britain, taking with them the entire norwegian gold supply. Oscarsborg fortress had two 280mm guns which opened fire from a distance of about 1800 metres, scoring two direct hits on the two shells fired. The crew was mainly composed of untrained recruits, that didn't know how to reload the guns (a big thank you to the norwegian socialist-democratic government of 1940 that wanted to get rid of the entire army and navy). Blucher was also engaged by 57 mm and 150 mm fire from other batteries in the fjord, until finally it was in range of torpedo tubes from a fortress inside a mountain (that the germans didn't know about). Two torpedoes were launched, both of them hitting the Blucher. This caused the ship to sink, taking with it over 800 men to the depth of 90 metres. Afterwards, the Lutzow was also hit three times, as the german invasion force retreated from the fjord, not reaching it's target, and thus postponing the invasion of Oslo.