What if germany invented and made aircraft carriers during anglo german naval arms race and used them to break British blockade
The sail out to battle, all their planes get shown down with laughable ease, and the British navy sinks the completely defenseless carriers at their leisure.What if germany invented and made aircraft carriers during anglo german naval arms race and used them to break British blockade
Well the British did have the Furious as a kind quasi-carrier in 1918. Technology wise, I am sure the Germans and just about anyone with a developed ship building industry could cut down the works and slap some sort of deck on a fast, large ship. If you did not want to use a battlecruiser because all the ones you had were useful warships and you didn't have any follies around, you could do it to a fast liner. To my mind, the difficulty is figuring out just what kind of deck you would need - hence the Furious with separate decks, and that's something you can only figure out through trial and error and the clock begins to tick.Question: how on earth would they build an aircraft carrier in World War I?
I think more likely: they sally out with the HSF as escort, the GF is predictably waiting, a Zeppelin spots the GF before being shot down, the HSF decides to run home, the aircraft carriers try to launch an attack because their commander is enthusiastic to try the technology, most planes get lost and ditch at sea and some lucky aviators are picked up by British destroyers.The sail out to battle, all their planes get shown down with laughable ease, and the British navy sinks the completely defenseless carriers at their leisure.
Depends on the weather as well,I think more likely: they sally out with the HSF as escort, the GF is predictably waiting, a Zeppelin spots the GF before being shot down, the HSF decides to run home, the aircraft carriers try to launch an attack because their commander is enthusiastic to try the technology, most planes get lost and ditch at sea and some lucky aviators are picked up by British destroyers.
Even if you give KM a few functional fully fledged aircraft carriers in 1939 they cannot break the British blockadeWhat if germany invented and made aircraft carriers during anglo german naval arms race and used them to break British blockade
Gemany's best bet to break the blockade is to not go to war with a nation that has a shipbuilding industry over 6 times bigger than its own.Germany's best bet to break the blockade is to change their naval geography, and the best chance to do that is winning the Race to the Sea.
in WW1 Germany simply didn't have the industry to compete with the UK in shipbuilding
The Royal Navy sees the first carrier, copies it and then proceeds to out build the Germans.What if germany invented and made aircraft carriers during anglo german naval arms race and used them to break British blockade
Yeah four of years of war saw immense advances in aircraft technology. In 1914 dropping bombs mean throwing them out of a cockpit by hand. Carrying a torpedo is impossible and I shudder to think what would happen if someone decided to try dive-bombing. At absolute best a 1914 aircraft carrier could serve in the scouting role, except they won't be able to radio back their sightings and any reports would depend on them plodding back to their carrier to deliver the message. Also I wonder if any 1914-15 aircraft would have the power to weight ratio to get airborne in the length of a carrier deck?The key thing is aircraft capability. In 1914 they would be marginally useful scouts. By about 1915 reasonable scouts and maybe some anti-scout fighters, and maybe by 1916 some limited bombers, then maybe torpedos or heavy bombers by 1918.
It would be hard to justify a dedicated carrier just for that, though a seaplane tender or something like an escort carrier might be useful. It's likely there would be high mechanical and landing losses early on, though later war aircraft were much more robust and relatively reliable.