In my Alternate world I create a new country I call Scandinavia. This country is composed of Norway, Sweden and Finland (going west to east). This creates all sorts of political problems. Once the Soviet Union settles its internal problems it starts demanding the return of its province, Finland. Finland, as part of Scandinavia, is guaranteed its parting from the Soviets by the League of Nations. Lots of saber rattling but does give rise to the Winter War between Scandinavia and the Soviets in 1939/40. Scandinavia joins the Axis in May 1940 This pushes the Scandinavians more into the Germanic States camp and when the Germanic States eventually declares war on the Soviets, Scandinavia does too.
This joining the Axis in 1940 gives the Germanic States free basing, without interference from partisans, in all those lovely fjords. Leningrad falls leaving the Baltic an Axis lake. The hulks in Leningrad that might be salvaged and repaired could be added to an enlarged Axis Fleet. With Norway also being a part of Scandinavia, I have toyed with the idea of projecting Scandinavian power into the Norwegian Sea and North Atlantic with the use of aircraft carriers. The main source of Scandinavian power is in the battle fleet.
The main heart of Scandinavia is Sweden and it provides the power and main sources of naval equipment and building yards and armouries. Most famous being the Bofors armoury that provides the world with many fine weapons. But these weapons go on the Scandinavian ships first. 400mm (15.75"), 130mm (5.1"), and 40mm (1.57") were the gun sizes chosen for the new ships. The main bone of contention was whether to stick with the twin turrets of the earlier battleship or go to triples. The final result was triples with 3x3 400mm, 16-20 (8-10x2) 130mm, and 24-30 of the 40mm in quad, twin and single mounts.
Joining the Axis opened up the range of Gun Directors and Radar in the German warehouses. Two new main gun directors with ranging Radar and search Radar were fitted while three dual purpose directors were fitted for the 130mm. Lastly a basic air search radar unit was fitted to the mainmast. As further Radar types were added more and more electronic units were added to the ship, right down to predictors for the 40mm guns.
