Possibility of a German aircraft carrier

Blair152

Banned
What would be the possibility of a German aircraft carrier? Given a POD of
say, 1933-36, would a task force of German aircraft carriers, like the Japanese Kido Butai, for example, be able to attack the Atlantic Fleet at Norfolk, Virginia, and bring the United States into World War II on the side of
the Allies?
 

Wolfman

One of the things you'd need to butterfly away is Hermann Goering's insistance that all aviation assets should belong to the Luftwaffe.
 

The Red

Basically impossible, unless there's some sort of little admiral scenario which wipes out Britain in the first place. Of course if that was the case then you would wonder why Germany is attacking the USA in the first place. Blairwitch wrote about a more subtle German pre-emptive strike in the Rommels Barbarossa/ Brinkmann Meatgrinder book of his ongoing WW2 dystopia, where the Germans manage to pull a small attack off rather well.
 
The Kiat

The Kiat

Wolfman said:
One of the things you'd need to butterfly away is Hermann Goering's insistance that all aviation assets should belong to the Luftwaffe.
Click to expand...


Unless the carrier was made part of the Luftwaffle. I remember hearing the Japanese Army operated its own carriers.
 

Bearcat

Banned
Blair152 said:
What would be the possibility of a German aircraft carrier? Given a POD of
say, 1933-36, would a task force of German aircraft carriers, like the Japanese Kido Butai, for example, be able to attack the Atlantic Fleet at Norfolk, Virginia, and bring the United States into World War II on the side of
the Allies?
Click to expand...

Probably not.

The Germans have no experience with carriers, and they're not going to just start pulling them out of their arse one day. The RN, USN and IJN took a generation to go from experiments to Kido Butai, Task Force 58 and 57.

So the Kreigsmarine has to start earlier than 1933. And now you have another problem: the Versailles Treaty, the Washington Treaty, and the general end-of-WW1 determination not to allow the Germans to have major offensive warships.

And if Germany did try this, the RN would immediately begin building up her naval strength. The Brits have always been touchy about European competitors and simply aren't going to ignore this.

I could see the Germans designing a trans-Atlantic bomber, something like the US B-36, during the timeframe 1935-1940, and using it to attack the US, because Adolph woke up Eleven11 crazy one morning. Not super-plausible, but given the right POD, maybe. But carriers? Pretty much ASB I think.

(And if there was a German "B-36" in 1940-1, it would be terribly expensive, and in the long run would be a waste of resources for the Luftwaffe.)
 

Wolfman

The Kiat said:
Unless the carrier was made part of the Luftwaffle. I remember hearing the Japanese Army operated its own carriers.
Click to expand...
To the best of my knowledge, the Imperial Japanese Army did not operate carriers, but they did operate some small submarines...
 

Blair152

Banned
This isn't totally ASB. Germany was working on an aircraft carrier. The HMS
Eagle, the world's first aircraft carrier, was built on the hull of the Chilean
battleship Almirante Cochrane. The USS Langley, our first aircraft carrier, which ultimately became a submarine tender, was built on the hull of a collier named USS Jupiter. Germany, in 1938, was trying to build a purpose-
built aircraft carrier. Big mistake. She should have converted the pre-dreadnought Schleswig-Holstein.
 

BlairWitch749

Banned
The Brinkmann meatgrinder's operation tiger accomplished this as The Red mentioned. Graf Zeppelin is completed and the Japanese lend Ruyjo to the Germans for the operation. Probably the absolute limit of what could be accomplished in that sort of mission

Carriers didn't really prove themselves till 1941 and Germany was a country of very limited naval resources... unless its the little admiral tl it isn't going to happen
 

Wolfman

Blair152 said:
This isn't totally ASB. Germany was working on an aircraft carrier. The HMS
Eagle, the world's first aircraft carrier, was built on the hull of the Chilean
battleship Almirante Cochrane. The USS Langley, our first aircraft carrier, which ultimately became a submarine tender, was built on the hull of a collier named USS Jupiter. Germany, in 1938, was trying to build a purpose-
built aircraft carrier. Big mistake. She should have converted the pre-dreadnought Schleswig-Holstein.
Click to expand...
USS Langley (CV-1) was converted into a seaplance tender designated AV-3...
 

Blair152

Banned
BlairWitch749 said:
The Brinkmann meatgrinder's operation tiger accomplished this as The Red mentioned. Graf Zeppelin is completed and the Japanese lend Ruyjo to the Germans for the operation. Probably the absolute limit of what could be accomplished in that sort of mission

Carriers didn't really prove themselves till 1941 and Germany was a country of very limited naval resources... unless its the little admiral tl it isn't going to happen
Click to expand...
'40 actually. Ever hear of the British air raid on Taranto in November of 1940? It was supposed to be on October 25, 1940, (Trafalgar Day).
 

BlairWitch749

Banned
Blair152 said:
'40 actually. Ever hear of the British air raid on Taranto in November of 1940? It was supposed to be on October 25, 1940, (Trafalgar Day).
Click to expand...

It didn't really inspre anyone in the axis camp to be honest. It was seen as a sign that the Italian AAA and fighters where not up to snuff. Pearl and Midway got the attention of the Germans enough to start taking the idea seriously (although Adolph's ADD kept them from being completed)
 

Wolfman

The Kiat said:
Why!? Why must you send me mixed messages.... :confused:
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Key words in my post that you're referring to are to the best of my knowledge, because in my reading, I've never run across any mention of IJA-run carriers. Maybe I'm just looking in the wrong books...
 

Blair152

Banned
Bearcat said:
Probably not.

The Germans have no experience with carriers, and they're not going to just start pulling them out of their arse one day. The RN, USN and IJN took a generation to go from experiments to Kido Butai, Task Force 58 and 57.

So the Kreigsmarine has to start earlier than 1933. And now you have another problem: the Versailles Treaty, the Washington Treaty, and the general end-of-WW1 determination not to allow the Germans to have major offensive warships.

And if Germany did try this, the RN would immediately begin building up her naval strength. The Brits have always been touchy about European competitors and simply aren't going to ignore this.

I could see the Germans designing a trans-Atlantic bomber, something like the US B-36, during the timeframe 1935-1940, and using it to attack the US, because Adolph woke up Eleven11 crazy one morning. Not super-plausible, but given the right POD, maybe. But carriers? Pretty much ASB I think.

(And if there was a German "B-36" in 1940-1, it would be terribly expensive, and in the long run would be a waste of resources for the Luftwaffe.)
Click to expand...
Did you read my post about there being no Treaty of Versailles and no Washington Naval Treaty? Building a purpose-built aircraft carrier from the keel up, like the Graf Zeppelin, was a mistake. The Japanese carrier Ryujo was built on a the hull of a landing barge. The German pre-dreadnought Schleswig-Holstein, as I said before, would have been a better choice for conversion.
 

David S Poepoe

Banned
Blair152 said:
This isn't totally ASB. Germany was working on an aircraft carrier. The HMS Eagle, the world's first aircraft carrier, was built on the hull of the Chilean battleship Almirante Cochrane.
Click to expand...

Actually the HMS Argus was the first aircraft carrier converted by the British out of the hull of an Italian liner. HMS Eagle was converted until 1924. Furious and the rest were converted in the 1920s. HMS Hermes was Britain's first carrier built from the keel up.
 
Fenrir_Angerboda

Fenrir_Angerboda

The Kiat said:
Unless the carrier was made part of the Luftwaffle. I remember hearing the Japanese Army operated its own carriers.
Click to expand...

I Believe those were Escort Carriers, Which I'm pretty sure counts as Aircraft Carriers.

Blair152 said:
Did you read my post about there being no Treaty of Versailles and no Washington Naval Treaty?
Click to expand...

You didn't say anything about no Versailles or Washington Naval Treaty anywhere in this thread.

Also, why would the Germans send their Carriers half way across the World to attack America for seemingly no purpose?
Wouldn't their Carriers be better off staying in Europe?
 

Blair152

Banned
Fenrir_Angerboda said:
I Believe those were Escort Carriers, Which I'm pretty sure counts as Aircraft Carriers.



You didn't say anything about no Versailles or Washington Naval Treaty anywhere in this thread.

Also, why would the Germans send their Carriers half way across the World to attack America for seemingly no purpose?
Wouldn't their Carriers be better off staying in Europe?
Click to expand...
True, I didn't. However, the Germans wouldn't have that far to go. They
controlled ALL of France by 1940. That included French possessions in the
Caribbean, and off the coast of Canada, including St. Pierre and Miquelon.
German carriers could be prepositioned in those overseas possessions. Even the Graf Zeppelin, or the Schleswig-Holstein, which could have been
converted faster than Hitler could build his purpose-built carrier. The United States Navy, Royal Navy, and Imperial Japanese Navy, didn't build
purpose-built carriers right away. Did they? No, they didn't. They converted existing ships. A collier, a battleship that was destined for the ARC, (Armada de Chile), an Italian liner, (Campania), and other ships.
Germany could have done the same thing. It's a shortcut but it's cheap. How many Reichsmarks did Hitler waste on his pipedream?
 
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