Some notions of how German y might use 2-3 smaller carriers operational in or from 1939.
Operations in the North Sea and up to Iceland: Supporting or covering raiders headed to the Atlantic. The carriers don't accompany them, they conduct periodic anti reconnaissance sweeps in conjunction with submarines and surface ships. These are to temporarily blind the RN, and keep them uncertain about what the German actions are for. This includes ambushing British ASW aircraft looking for submarines headed for the Atlantic from Germany or later the Norwegian ports.
.... Cover the littoral operation along the Norwegian coast. interfering with British reconnaissance, and tactical air support of the landing force are two separate missions they might conduct. Ferry missions to get Luftwaffe aircraft further north is another.
...Harassment raid on Brit airfields on Iceland. Maybe sink a ship or two there.
If you want to get really frisky, then harassing the Arctic convoys.
Separately there's Baltic ops, extending air support further north and east along the Baltic coast until the Luftwaffe rebases deeper into the Baltic region.
Getting really out there, have one of these small or medium size carriers caught overseas in September 1939, and shelter interned in Japanese or Italian ports until they can rejoin the war
Guys can I just make a general observation about the 'Conceptualizing' of operational employment of carriers by the KM you might want to consider.
IMHO I won't say that responses are a bit blinkered, but I would observe that much of what some on the thread have present seem a bit weighted in the light of historical precedent and hindsight. When comments are made, there persists a general bias towards reflecting modern employment options and concepts proven by Midway and later, without a real reflection on the fact that all this wasn't really known YET. When trying to shape a carrier-based KM consider the intrinsic shaping its professional core endured from WW1 and how it affects its operational planning and concepts for employing a carrier arm. The distant blockade was effective in reducing a powerful navy largely to irrelevance in operational terms, constrained by both geography and the Kaisers policies of employment. It's resurgence in the 20s and 30s included finding means to bypass a repetition of this occurring again. That they may produce a novel approach (pocket battleships anyone?) or not be a reflection of our modern perspective does not mean that they won't pursue what we could consider a sub-optimal approach, doesn't mean it won't happen lacking our hindsight.
Command is the art of the possible, and with the industrial and political constraints faced in Nazi Germany, they will develop concepts and plans shaped by this truism. If they go down that line, without our hindsight and benefit of knowledge the acquisition or employment of Carriers will reflect this, not modern operational carrier theory. Why are so many assuming that they are going to grab bag 25+knot designs or see them deployed forward into the Atlantic in the support of surface forces? Just because that's a modern perspective on carrier use? Limited size or limited speed doesn't mean that they won't have ineffective concepts for the use of less capable platforms, similar to those covered by Carl above. (👍) Even here that gives tactical flexibility to KM surface ops.
I offer you these thoughts of employment for 4-5 small Scharnhorst or Potsdam style conversions and see if that doesn't raise a few questions in your mind, or how it would have made the allies options more complex in response. Remember too, using that same historic hindsight I quoted, on how effective the small carriers operating in numbers, can be without the larger tactical objective seemingly implicit in the attack carrier mindset. (Think the landings at Operation Torch, or the Taffies of Leyte Gulf)
- Imagine Operation Wesserbung, the invasion of Norway supported by 3-4 small carriers. Local air superiority anyone? The Allies lost regardless anyway but imagine the greater cost if the KM had its own localized air support not reliant on the Luftwaffe. How would the Fulmars, Gladiators and Swordfish have fared against 20-60 Me109s on call? Would the IKM have employed them as fighter farms in that role? Remember they still really didn't have an effective TBR in 1940.
- What happens to the Arctic convoys if there are 3-5 Shinyo analogs are shuttling around Kola and the Norwegian Arctic waters, safe sheltering under Luftflotte Fives cover, then concentrated and employed to support selective operations. 60+ Me109s to suppress local aircover in conjunction with major bombing effort by LF5 or covering a surface action group led by Tirpitz et. al.? Creates operational planning problems for the RN, doesn't it? They don't need the high-speed carriers to be effective, 20-22 knots would do the job.
- My old bugbear, raids on Murmansk or more effective support of Finnish/German efforts against the Kola Peninsula (this time with better/more German troops)?
- Suppose they use these in a more raid type objectives, with only small specific exposures outside of land-based air cover for a short time. Punch a hole in screening forces to release a raider into the NA or cover its return. An attack to support an attempt to occupy Iceland perhaps? Short sharp exposures to a limited objective, then withdrawn to rearm and replace AC and losses under a land-based aircover. With 4-5 small platforms there is some redundancy available in employment, unlike single deployment of a GZ type carrier as options.
The point of these speculations is to highlight those small, limited platforms, if there are a few, restore a degree of tactical flexibility to KM operational planning that had been largely denied them IRL. How the KM shapes its own operational planning and concepts if they do go down a carrier development platform doesn't have to mean that the resulting product is necessarily what we expect with our current IRL hindsight. They can and will march to the beat of their own drum, using the sheet of music circumstance has given them. To date this thread has already covered the constraints any such project faces (AC off the Luftwaffe, limited construction base, when the KM actually get platforms and how long to learn their proper use, competition for resources etc.), but don't get too wedded to what modern naval aviation became is what I'm saying. Given resources, even if limited, and the deftness that German operational planning displayed during WW2, don't assume that the concepts and employment of carriers isn't dependent on a specific type or mindset. If it gives them tactical freedom then they will use it,
For me finally, I will say that thinking about it offers intrinsically interesting and not necessarily obvious implications. As an Allied Planner I can't help but feel exploring that potential fully is going to make my job so much harder.
I hope you enjoy my monolog and thoughts and hope it generates some interesting ideas and responses. Great Brainfood for enjoyment. Regards T.