AHC: Germany sells incomplete Bismarck and Graf Zepplin to the soviets

Pretty much what it says on the tin.

I could see it happening with a Germany that is much less resource-independent as part of the soviets basically letting the Wallies do the dirty work of extorting Germany for all their money.
 
They’ve always wanted to be a naval power. If idk, France never fell and they are already on the back foot, naval power is far less important for Germany and the USSR has an opportunity to basically ask for whatever they want, besides arms relevant to the current fight.
 
How pissed will the Soviets be when they find out Graf Zeppelin is a lemon and will never be useful for carrier ops?
 

Toraach

Banned
How pissed will the Soviets be when they find out Graf Zeppelin is a lemon and will never be useful for carrier ops?
Could you tell more about design flaws of this ship?

Well, Germans would have two more easy targets. I don't think that it could change much in the course of events. Eventually I can see that after the War the USSR wastes a lot of resorces to finish Graf Zeppelin, called perhaps Valery Chkalov.
 
They’ve always wanted to be a naval power. If idk, France never fell and they are already on the back foot, naval power is far less important for Germany and the USSR has an opportunity to basically ask for whatever they want, besides arms relevant to the current fight.

Where are the Russians going to sail it and against whom are the aircraft going to be used? They either have to drive it all the way round the world for pacific use or base it in St Petersburg ( and risk "bottling" up in the Baltic) or Murmansk and risk arctic weather curtailing operations. It is also a long way to sail from there to be of any use. Perhaps they could use it to attack the Finns.............
 
Could you tell more about design flaws of this ship?

Well, Germans would have two more easy targets. I don't think that it could change much in the course of events. Eventually I can see that after the War the USSR wastes a lot of resorces to finish Graf Zeppelin, called perhaps Valery Chkalov.

The GZ had a serious list problem that would have made carrier ops in anything other than calm seas dangerous at best. It just wasn’t a well balanced design.
 
The GZ had a serious list problem that would have made carrier ops in anything other than calm seas dangerous at best. It just wasn’t a well balanced design.

There is that. It was a prototype, and it showed.

Her catapults were air powered. Thus, she could launch 18 aircraft, and then her tanks would have to be recharged.

I understand that there were not provisions for a rolling take off.

She had 16 (!) 15 cm guns, in casemates (!!). That is a lot of wasted weight. True, other countries had tried it, but they were removed from other contemporaries. Casemates were long since known to be obsolete by this time.
 
The Russians scrap the Bismarck and Graff Zeplin and use the steel to build T-34s. But the extra resources being used to complete would prevent the Russians from doing other useful things.
Germany has freed up money and resources to do other useful things.
Unless Hitler decides to do something stupid.What are the odds of that?
 
Would probably be better to trade the ships for the tonnage of oil of whatever the ships are. I don't know how that would work, but it would be better than having those two useless ships. Considering the bismarck only got the attention of the RN for a week before being sunk and the Graf Zeppelin just stood in port for the rest of the war. Would have been better to use that port for U-Boats I bet.
 
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