The Greenlandian Navy was well aware that its main protagonists were likely to come out of the Mediterannean through the Strait of Gibraltar. If Spain joined the Axis it would likely mean the loss of Gibraltar to the Allies. It would be up to Britain, Greenland and France to interdict anything from the Axis that might get through the Strait and out into the Atlantic. The other side is to try to stop anything Axis getting out at all. That would be done with minefields and submarines. France had built the minelaying Cruiser Emile Bertin which was very fast and could carry a reasonable amount of mines. The big French destroyers could also carry a small amount of mines to go with the Bertin. Britain was building the Abdiel Class which were fast and could carry a goodly amount of mines in a mine deck rather than in the open like the French vessels. The Greenlandian Navy laid down its Pluto class taking the best bits of both classes.
The basic hull would use the Tallai class cruiser type layout with major changes to the layout to fit it better for the task of minelaying. Gone are the 5.5", being replaced with the standard 5" AA guns in twin turrets, the two aft mounted 5.5" are not replaced. Any intrusion into the mine deck being removed. The aircraft handling facilities were removed but the 'hangar' was kept and split up for offices and accommodation. It was eventually decided that a 'chased' gun needed to be fitted aft with 30-40 shells being stored in the aft superstructure. The open mount gun required no penetration into the mine deck. If the ship was being chased it wanted to be able to fire back at its chaser(s). The ships greatest protection was to be its high speed. Get in to the target area, lay the mines, exit, all as fast as possible.
The biggest threat to these minelayers were aircraft. An enemy aircraft spotting one of these ships leaving a target area would call base to get the minesweepers out searching for the newly laid field. Waste of a nights work. The other problem with aircraft was that they tended to attack and try to sink these ships on sight.
Two of the class completed in early 1940 and were fully employed laying minefields around the Iberian coast and into the Mediterannean. Until the fall of Gibraltar, then Malta, these ships were used to take urgent supplies into Malta, bringing out people on its return voyage. One of the ships was lost on this duty, being sunk by Italian aircraft in July 1940. With this loss, two more of the class were ordered, these ships completing in 1943-44.
I looked at the wide open spaces aft of the chase 5" gun and thought "Maybe I should fill the space with 20mm or something similar". My next thought had to be "Where does the ammunition supply come from?".
