Germans Build Carriers Instead of Battleships?

sharlin

Banned
Sweden already had a 'carrier' for its small fleet, the Gotland, six to eight seaplanes on a light cruiser hull with gun armament too. Considering the size of the swedish fleet and the waters they operated in, she was perfect for their needs. They would not need a CVL. Hell in the 20s and 30s the term CVL didn't even exist.

And then you'd also have to overcome the Swedish reluctance at the time to spend big on the armed forces. Designing, building and manning a carrier is a bloody expensive prospect, the Swedes were building the Sverige class and that was taking up all the money allocated to the Navy. The rest was going on fortresses ashore, especially the Boden complex.
 
Could I ask a - maybe stupid - question?

Every time I read a thread mentioning German carriers in the 1930s I see basically two reactions.

1. Everyone in the 1930s thought that the battleship would still rule the seas so the Germans would try to build capital ships not aircraft carriers.
Aircraft carriers were still seen as auxiliary ships.

Followed by:

2. If the Germans - instead of building some battleships - built a few carriers the Royal Navy would immediately react and build additional carriers too.

Somehow the two statements don´t compute? Can someone explain that?

If battleships are the kings of the sea and aircraft carriers are still seen as auxiliary ships then why would the Royal Navy react strongly to 2-3 German carriers? Given their still existing numerical superiority in carriers (not to mention battleships) and the location of the British isles in case of war? Shouldn´t they be delighted that Germany is building 2-3 carriers instead of 2-3 capital ships?

(For this question I´m disregarding the obvious fact of needing experience in carrier operations.)
 

sharlin

Banned
Folks recognised the advantage of carriers even if they thought they were not decisive in their own right. Some RN Admirals had seen the value of operating carriers as offensive weapons in trials in the 20s or early 30s but were largely ignored.

If the Germans started building carriers en mass the RN would look at it and go 'why are you doing that?' and no doubt carry out studies and exercises. It might take some time to get the RN's rear into gear but they might well recognise that their aircraft carriers would face being outnumbered in light of world wide commitments or deployments during a wider war which by the 30s was recognised as coming in many circles in the military and the RN would be at a disadvantage should war come between England and Germany.
 

GarethC

Donor
Could I ask a - maybe stupid - question?

Every time I read a thread mentioning German carriers in the 1930s I see basically two reactions.

1. Everyone in the 1930s thought that the battleship would still rule the seas so the Germans would try to build capital ships not aircraft carriers.
Aircraft carriers were still seen as auxiliary ships.

Followed by:

2. If the Germans - instead of building some battleships - built a few carriers the Royal Navy would immediately react and build additional carriers too.

Somehow the two statements don´t compute? Can someone explain that?

If battleships are the kings of the sea and aircraft carriers are still seen as auxiliary ships then why would the Royal Navy react strongly to 2-3 German carriers? Given their still existing numerical superiority in carriers (not to mention battleships) and the location of the British isles in case of war? Shouldn´t they be delighted that Germany is building 2-3 carriers instead of 2-3 capital ships?

(For this question I´m disregarding the obvious fact of needing experience in carrier operations.)
The RN has the budget and the UK the shipbuilding capacity to make sure that the Andrew exceeds the capabilities of the KM. The fact that the KM builds carriers is probably enough to spur matching construction, just to be on the safe side.

Politics means that the services are always underfunded in peacetime and the opportunity to get additional builds underway (with their additional command slots for ambitious officers seeking promotion, plus additional admiral posts to command them) to match the KM threat will be leaped upon by a cash-strapped Senior Service.

The German construction is a gift in that sense - it not only spurs additional construction, it additionally spurs competitive investment in naval aviation - at the expense of the real enemy... the RAF.
 
Aircraft Carriers weern't seen as auxilliary ships by the RN.

Buy the earky 30's, they had developed the concept of the 'Balanced Fleet' to include carriers, and indeed different types of carriers. Before WW2 no aircraft carrier was really a standalone strike option except in specific circumstances, particularly in the North Sea, as they didnt have the all-weather capability needed. But the RN most certainly wanted more and more capable carriers. Thanks mainly to the RAF, they got screwed.

DAMN YOU AIR MINISTRY!!! :mad::mad:
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
The carrier wasn't seen as an auxiliary, not in the way you mean or in fact (auxiliaries in the military sense are oilers, tenders, tugs and the like). Carriers were seen as a better version of the cruiser, a fleet scout capable of independent operations as long as they didn't have to square up with the Battle Force.

As was just noted the RN (along with both the IJN and USN) had forward thinking officers who could see the potential for the carrier. Torpedo planes were clearly a massive threat, much like the torpedo boat had been.

The difficulty was that, prior to mid 1940, aircraft engines were simply not capable of putting out enough power to weight to allow for a carrier aircraft that was the equal of it's land based cousins. Once the engines were there you had the first Golden age of carrier capable aircraft, mainly from U.S. manufacturers, but with some excellent designs out of the UK and Japan as well. Then the Jet Age hit and put carrier aircraft at a disadvantage again, at least until the second generation engines with better thrust outputs and trottle reaction came along. That all ended in the mid 50s, as the A-4 and F-8 were equal to the land based light bombers and fighters (repectively) of the era. With the introduction of the F4 Phantom, you, probably for the first time ever had a carrier capable aircraft that was actually better than any other interceptor or fighter-bomber in service (although a case can be made for the F4U, especially in the fighter-bomber role).

I know, more of an answer than you wanted.:)

Could I ask a - maybe stupid - question?

Every time I read a thread mentioning German carriers in the 1930s I see basically two reactions.

1. Everyone in the 1930s thought that the battleship would still rule the seas so the Germans would try to build capital ships not aircraft carriers.
Aircraft carriers were still seen as auxiliary ships.

Followed by:

2. If the Germans - instead of building some battleships - built a few carriers the Royal Navy would immediately react and build additional carriers too.

Somehow the two statements don´t compute? Can someone explain that?

If battleships are the kings of the sea and aircraft carriers are still seen as auxiliary ships then why would the Royal Navy react strongly to 2-3 German carriers? Given their still existing numerical superiority in carriers (not to mention battleships) and the location of the British isles in case of war? Shouldn´t they be delighted that Germany is building 2-3 carriers instead of 2-3 capital ships?

(For this question I´m disregarding the obvious fact of needing experience in carrier operations.)
 
sharlin, GarethC, Astrodragon and CalBear,

Thanks for your explanation.
You explained a lot while some of you added further "unknowns".
- rivalry between the RAF and RN
- resistance from "not that forward thinking" officers.

Should I add that I´m not thinking about writing a TL with German carriers in the late 1930s? :D

You´d need an extremely improbable TL for that to happen. Basically, the German naval aviation officers from WW1 (land-based, seaplane tenders and Ausonia) take control of the Weimar Republic navy in the 1920s and have lots of help from a foreign navy owning carriers early on. Followed by lots of service infighting in the UK once a German government starts to build an aircraft carrier.

Even in that very, very best of circumstances I can´t see Germany having more than maybe 2-3 light carriers and maybe, just maybe 1 fleet carrier.
And that would be very, very optimistic.
 

sharlin

Banned
Basically the RAF was of the view that anything that flew was its, and because of this for a looooooong time the RN had next to no control over the Aircraft, training, tactics or development of what would become the Fleet Air Arm. The RN only got control back shortly before the war broke out and by then it was almost too late.

This (along with a lack of money) is mainly (IMO) What saddled the FAA with generally inferior aircraft that were designed with some pritty damn stupid limitations and ideas such as 2 seater fighters because clearly a pilot can't navigate on his own... for example.

Also like every navy there was the officers and commanders who viewed that Battleships were nigh immune to air attack. The 'tests' conducted by Billy Mitchell were so stupidly stacked that any real evidence or experiments would have shown that battleships would be damn difficult to sink from the air and because the tests were so basically unfair many ignored them. Feeling that with the correct application of AA fire any attacking force could be driven off or destroyed.

Events as we saw proved this school of thought quite wrong, but it still took time to sink in.
 
Carrier strikes were a fairly routine part of US naval training exercises starting in the very early 1930s. That doesn't mean strikes against battleships. The US navy, or at least the dominant thread in it, didn't think that carrier aircraft could sink a fully manned combat-ready battleship with room to maneuver and adequate anti-aircraft capabilities. They were pretty sure land-based high altitude heavy bombers couldn't, simply because they weren't accurate enough. At the same time, US doctrine by World War II was that a three battleship task force was accompanied by a carrier.

As to whether battleships could be sunk by aircraft while at sea, fully manned and maneuvering, to the best of my knowledge, no US battleship was sunk under those conditions, partly because after Pearl the US bulked up anti-aircraft and started using proximity fuses, and partly because by the time US battleships got back into the action the best Japanese pilots had been killed and the US could at least contest air supremacy. The Brits lost one battleship and one battlecruiser to Japanese air, in the case of the battleship arguably due to an extremely lucky hit. It took some effort, but the US knocked out the Japanese super-battleship from the air.

One recent revisionist historian I read claimed that if the Japanese had encountered the US Pacific fleet alert and at sea the day of Pearl Harbor the result would have probably been a tactical Japanese victory/strategic US victory, with the US maybe losing a battleship or two but with Japanese carrier airpower taking enough losses that they would never regain significant combat power. I'm a tad skeptical, but they do point to some very lopsided loss-ratios between US ships at sea and attacking Japanese aircraft.

To put this sort of back on topic, giving the Germans the best carriers they could get short of ASB--pre-planning with the Soviets, etc, would the best use of them be a raid on Scapa Flow in the first few days of the war? Commerce raiding?
 

sharlin

Banned
Giving the germans the best possible carriers they could is a vague statement but lets say that the germans get one carrier with 40 aircraft and two converted ships (cruisers) with 20 aircraft each. Using them against Scapa's pointless so really you want to use them to support the Norwegian invasion although thats risky due to the massed RN ships in the region or have them in the Atlantic pre-positioned to carry out commerce raiding before scurrying home. Either way its darn risky for the Germans.

Also if the IJN had encountered the Pearl Harbour battleships at sea I think it would have been a disaster for the USN. At the time their AA guns were not that great, they would have limited aircover with inferior planes and pilots against the best trained carrier pilots in the world at the time and as tough as the Standards were (the US built good Battleships) they would not be able to do much against a massed series of carrier strikes like the ones launched on Pearl. And any ship lost at sea is gone for good, in pearl they were salvagable, so the USN would loose more ships and a lot more men.
 
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