Short life of the Graf Zeppelin

Hi, I'm in the process of doing a short TL which has the Graf Zepplin completed, but seen more as a tool for propaganda then as a real weapon of war the Graf Zep never leaves the Northern Sea. It disrupts shipping and sinks trade vessels even being responsible for the sinking of a few RN ships sent to sink it. Eventually its luck runs out and it is caught in harbor for repairs by HMS Victorious and sunk.

Any thoughts or helpful tips would be much appreciated.

General_Finley said:

Hi, I'm in the process of doing a short TL which has the Graf Zepplin completed, but seen more as a tool for propaganda then as a real weapon of war the Graf Zep never leaves the Northern Sea. It disrupts shipping and sinks trade vessels even being responsible for the sinking of a few RN ships sent to sink it. Eventually its luck runs out and it is caught in harbor for repairs by HMS Victorious and sunk.

Any thoughts or helpful tips would be much appreciated.

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Good luck. Hermann Goering demanded that anything that flew be Luftwaffe. IIRC, they were working on the idea of putting Stukas (if compatible) on the GF, but the Luftwaffe would never consider developing a fighter that was ready for carrier ops. No escort fighters? No wonder they never finished that ship.

usertron2020 said:

Good luck. Hermann Goering demanded that anything that flew be Luftwaffe. IIRC, they were working on the idea of putting Stukas (if compatible) on the GF, but the Luftwaffe would never consider developing a fighter that was ready for carrier ops. No escort fighters? No wonder they never finished that ship.

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What if rather than using modified 109s it was supported by 190s? Or have a pod that has the Heinkel He 112 beating the 109 and winning the Luftwaffe contest, then having a varient of the 112 designed to preform on a carrier?

General_Finley said:

What if rather than using modified 109s it was supported by 190s? Or have a pod that has the Heinkel He 112 beating the 109 and winning the Luftwaffe contest, then having a varient of the 112 designed to preform on a carrier?

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Can any of these aircraft listed take the regular shock-of-landing suffered by specifically designed carrier aircraft? I know the Spitfire and Hurricane were adapted for carrier ops, but the Luftwaffe's fighters were made from heavier stock, IIRC.

I think both could handle it. The 190 had a robust wide-track gear that made it easy to land for noob pilots, unlike the 109's notorious narrow-track gear that caused so much pranging IOTL. I think a 190 would handle like a Corsair in some ways: wide-track, long nose and quite heavy. Ideal will be the Delta and later the Ta-152, but that won't come online till '43 at the earliest IMO.

RogueBeaver said:

I think both could handle it. The 190 had a robust wide-track gear that made it easy to land for noob pilots, unlike the 109's notorious narrow-track gear that caused so much pranging IOTL. I think a 190 would handle like a Corsair in some ways: wide-track, long nose and quite heavy. Ideal will be the Delta and later the Ta-152, but that won't come online till '43 at the earliest IMO.

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With with a carrier varient of the 190s acting as support craft could the Ju 87 Stuka be a successfull dive bomber? Could it even be modified to serve on a carrier properly?

General_Finley said:

With with a carrier varient of the 190s acting as support craft could the Ju 87 Stuka be a successfull dive bomber? Could it even be modified to serve on a carrier properly?

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The problem is that carrier doctrine and operation takes decades to develop, including a lot of practical exercise. You'd essentially have a very small air wing on a mediocre ship with aircraft that weren't developed for carrier operations and crewed by people with no experience of carrier operations sailing in confined seas in range of land-based air strikes.

I'd rather have a light cruiser to use for raiding if I were on the German naval staff.

I agree with Abdul. The only ones to master carrier doctrine in the interwar years were the British, Americans and Japanese- but all 3 were in carrier aviation from its infancy with 20 years to build the planes and develop doctrine. The Germans wouldn't have anything approaching that, not to mention not having a naval tradition of that quality.

A Stuka would not be able to land on a carrier- they'd need to completely redesign the plane with a new landing gear. Nor do I believe it had the range required. Stukas were obsolete by '41 on land and would be completely vulnerable to Martlets, Hellcats & Corsairs of the FAA without strong fighter escort. Nor would the Germans have a good torpedo bomber unless the Japanese give them a licence to build Jills.

Theoretically if the Graf Zep is completed and has a compliment of modified 190s and Japanese B6N and it is able to pull of a Bismarck and make it into the Atlantic how long before it gets sunk?

If it stays in the North Sea with the Tirpitz, raiding shipping lanes, and being used for German propoganda (even though it is a mediocre carrier) how long before the British sink it?

If it takes part in an anologue of Operation Sportpalast would the planes from HMS Victorious concentrate their attack on it or the Tirpitz?

Other than opposition from Goering, there was also resistance to the aircraft carrier from Doenitz. As a submariner, Doenitz supported the excessive use of submarines for raiding commerce and not surface ships that could easily be blown out of the water by the Royal Navy's large surface ship advantage.

Anyway, since the TL centers around the 'short life' of the Zeppelin, carrier doctrine shouldn't be a concern as the Germans' inexperience in them may cause them to develop suicidal doctrines (i.e. The Germans intended the Graf Zeppelin to go on solo raids as it was outfitted with cruiser armament for defense against surface ships.).

Actually, here's an even better plane, the Aichi B7A. It can function both as a torpedo and dive bomber and even as a fighter if required. Having a top speed of over 300 kts make it a tough target for Allied fighters. IOTL first flight was in '42 but there were engine problems. Since the Germans were quantum leaps ahead of the Japanese in engine tech maybe they modify it for a DB603. Then you can have IOC by late '42 or early '43- on a par with the Martlet until the Hellcats and Corsairs start entering FAA service.

General_Finley said:

Theoretically if the Graf Zep is completed and has a compliment of modified 190s and Japanese B6N and it is able to pull of a Bismarck and make it into the Atlantic how long before it gets sunk?

If it stays in the North Sea with the Tirpitz, raiding shipping lanes, and being used for German propoganda (even though it is a mediocre carrier) how long before the British sink it?

If it takes part in an anologue of Operation Sportpalast would the planes from HMS Victorious concentrate their attack on it or the Tirpitz?

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A ship like Bismarck could take some damage and still accomplish its mission - but a vulnerable ship like a carrier would have a lot of trouble since it could be engaged by a light cruiser and probably not survive the encounter. Imagine if Hood and PoW had encountered Graf Z instead of Bismarck...

If you mean put it in a fjord in Norway like Tirpitz, it's not going to last long at all. Being unarmored, really big, and full of seriously flammable stuff is a big problem.

I have a problem with FW-190's on a deck, for various reasons. If you're serious about building a carrier, you should build a serious multi-role naval aircraft. Seriously.

As for aircraft, the FW-190 A series fighter bombers were already multi role attack aircraft, with the punch and firepower to double as fighters as well. Their wide spaced landing gear was more than sturdy enough for accier operation and when addapted with folding wings, it could be a perfect combat plane, better than anything the Allies had, besides the Griffon engined Seafire Interceptor, which was faster and more manouvrable.

A better mix of aircraft would be a combination of the FW190-A mod for carrier plus the higher altitude FW 190-D inline engined fighter, also addapted for carrier service. The faster and higher altitude of the "Langnase" FW 190 was prefered for the fighterrole, as there were no better fighters in the entire WW2 period available for Germany, since this aircraft could engage any Allied opponent with ease, when handled well by a skilled pilot. The second advantage was the sharing of the same basical parts with other FW 190 family aircraft, appart from its engine, to ease maintenance on the carrier.



As for the scenario, the Graf Zeppelin would likely be used as Admiral von Tirpitz, namely as a Fleet in Beeing in the Norwegian region, heavily protected by Luftwaffe and Naval Airpower as well as concentrated Flak, making any carrierraid by a single carrier airgroup suicidal at best. Tirpitz was only successfully attacked a single time by a concentrated carrierraid by a group of five carriers. Any time a single carrier tried this, it was unsuccessfull.

General_Finley said:

With with a carrier varient of the 190s acting as support craft could the Ju 87 Stuka be a successfull dive bomber? Could it even be modified to serve on a carrier properly?

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No, the Stuka is too short legged, too slow for carrier work. The ideal as described in my Manstein in Africa TL is to use only FW-190's configured as fighters, fighter bombers, and torpedo bombers as needed

The bomber variant of the FW-190 could carry 1500 pounds of bombs/rockets or a heavy torpedo, and it was far more maneuverable, and much faster than a stuka GZ could probably hold 32-34 of them... and the FW-190 would be superior to any carrier fighter till at least 1944

RogueBeaver said:

I agree with Abdul. The only ones to master carrier doctrine in the interwar years were the British, Americans and Japanese- but all 3 were in carrier aviation from its infancy with 20 years to build the planes and develop doctrine. The Germans wouldn't have anything approaching that, not to mention not having a naval tradition of that quality.

A Stuka would not be able to land on a carrier- they'd need to completely redesign the plane with a new landing gear. Nor do I believe it had the range required. Stukas were obsolete by '41 on land and would be completely vulnerable to Martlets, Hellcats & Corsairs of the FAA without strong fighter escort. Nor would the Germans have a good torpedo bomber unless the Japanese give them a licence to build Jills.

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This is not as much of a handicap as one might think... the Germans had an alliance with the Japanese and could solicit experts to come up with tactical doctrine... which for ww2 was pretty much common sense ie keep your carriers away from enemy surface ships, stand off and sink them with your aircraft whilst maintaining a combat air patrol to protect your task force.... albeit the Germans where good at messing up common sense.... nobody on earth would have ever dreamed of using capital ships as raiders (they are far too valuable for this) but yet somehow they did it.

if GZ was completed with ME-109T's and JU-87C's or R's (depending on the year) she could be lethal against anything up to a heavy cuiser... although the stukas would lose heavy to AA fire due to their low speed and approach angles)... a single battle wagon would eliminate GZ's entire air wing with flak quite easily... heck even an AA cruiser like conventry could shoot down a fair number of stukas if they where comming for her
any ME-109T used on an actual combat mission will not be able to fly again... it will either be shot down, or suffer an accident on landing... its landing gear was 25 percent death on the ground, now you want it heading into the wind on a pitching carrier deck at 24 knots...DEATH

the FW-190 was the only German fighter in production that could handle the roles appropriately... but what is one carrier when your enemies could hurl ten against you without even diverting other resources

BlairWitch749 said:

No, the Stuka is too short legged, too slow for carrier work. The ideal as described in my Manstein in Africa TL is to use only FW-190's configured as fighters, fighter bombers, and torpedo bombers as needed

The bomber variant of the FW-190 could carry 1500 pounds of bombs/rockets or a heavy torpedo, and it was far more maneuverable, and much faster than a stuka GZ could probably hold 32-34 of them... and the FW-190 would be superior to any carrier fighter till at least 1944

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Umm, what? This was actually tested out, you know: see here.

And if the land based FW-190 is not quite equal to the Hellcat much less the Corsair, the additional weight needed for carrier certification would only make it worse.

And really, what's the point of a carrier if it's just going to stick close to home and within Luftwaffe protection? It ends up just being a overpriced and sinkable airfield from which only aircraft of somewhat degraded performance can operate.

thanks for all the help everybody .

I have a question about the RN this time.

If the Graf Zep remained in the northern sea like the Tirpitz and played a similar role as the Tirpitz, would there be as big an effort by the RN to sink the Graf Zep as there was to sink the "Queen of the Northern Sea"?

General_Finley said:

thanks for all the help everybody .

I have a question about the RN this time.

If the Graf Zep remained in the northern sea like the Tirpitz and played a similar role as the Tirpitz, would there be as big an effort by the RN to sink the Graf Zep as there was to sink the "Queen of the Northern Sea"?

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That attemption of the British would seem very likely, as the convoy's to Murmansk were at a great (overestimated) risk of being attacked by powerfull surface froces and (if the weather allowed so) airstrikes from both seaborne and landbased aircraft as well as U-Boote. Most likely, the somewhat short nerved First Sealord might cancel all convoy's sailing to aid Russia, untill this threat was neutralized somehow. This was not in the first place by orders of Churchill, who had political goals in this, by showing Britain's abbility to aid an ally, while itself being starved of vital suplies in the needed quanteties, due to the War.

So the most potent German forces in Norway had to be neutralized by any means, or a political difficult situation could occur, when Stalin by himself was going to win against the Germans, which was not unlikely, given the sometimes discutable actions of Germany (Hitler) itself. Such a situation was not wanted, so the aid to Russia had to get through.

Neutralisation is not the same as destroying the ships entirely. A blockade of some kind was as much effective, as long as the German forces remained unable to operate against the convoy's. By putting enough Royal Navy strength on the Arctic, the possibility of German surface actiongroups trying to attack teh convoy's was slim, but the cost for the UK was big, as these forces of their own could therefore not be deployed in other erea's, where they were needed as well.

OCC: okay so here it goes. oh yah and this first update is different from the rest as it is supposed to be the grabber. The rest will be in military history and book form.


October, 6th, 2010
Greenwich, Britain
National Maritime Museum




































The Admiral said nothing but the crew could see it on his face. They had sent 20 torpedo bombers to try and hold of the British carriers, and whilst they had succeeded in sinking one British carrier there would be ten others to take its place while there would be none to take the place of the Graf Zeppelin when it was sunk which the Admiral knew as a given. As the Admiral thought of this he realized then and there that Germany would not with the war, that it could not. There would never be enough Germans and planes to take on the world all alone. And so moments before a Corsair released a torpedo that would strike the tower and kill the Admiral instantly he came to the full realization that the war was lost.

A massive explosion echoed out across the deck of the Graf Zeppelin and then another echoed out as a torpedo tore into the side of the crippled carrier. The first and last of her kind the Graf Zeppelin burnt and sank just like her nation. And so ended the short life of the Graf Zeppelin.


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