Goering is less of a fat stingy bastard

Goering is less of a fat stingy bastard and a naval air arm is developed including German Aircraft Carrier(s).

Where out from here oh arm chair generals? :D
 
Last edited:
The problem with this is that carriers being built also requires the navy to spend resources on them. Its not enough for Goering to put some effort into developing a naval air arm.

And it seems pretty clear that even if the navy and Goering are willing and interested and Hitler supports it, the Nazis are exceeding the amount of resources Germany can realistically (as in, practically) spend on a military build up without building carriers.

Where are they (the Germans) going to get the money, materials, and workers for carriers and all their other projects?

I see a few half-finished carriers that are scrapped some time between 1941 and 1943, and something else being less developed because of the waste of the three "M"s (Men, Money and Materials).

http://www.strangemilitary.com/content/item/114316.html

There is this, but its not encouraging.
 
If they hold off on war for a few years and continue building up, they might be able to finish the Graf Zeppelin carrier that they almost finished building. Hell, they might be able to develop jet fighters to use on the damned thing, though that's kinda stretching it.

If you go in earlier and have them not waste money and materials on battleships and instead have that go towards the construction of that carrier and other things, this might be a lot easier.
 
If they abandon some of the more ludicrous 'secret weapons' they might have a shot. Although that probably requires a different POD.
 
If they abandon some of the more ludicrous 'secret weapons' they might have a shot. Although that probably requires a different POD.

Well, you could say the POD is "what if the Nazis had a realistic military build up program" and Goering not dragging his feet about a naval flight arm comes as a consequence of Nazi concern with making things actually work.

I still point to the MMM question - inevitably a problem for any attempt to quickly build a massive military force no matter how much the Nazis avoid flights of fantasy - but it would at least be possible to explore.
 

perfectgeneral

Donor
Monthly Donor
If they hold off on war for a few years and continue building up, they might be able to finish the Graf Zeppelin carrier that they almost finished building. Hell, they might be able to develop jet fighters to use on the damned thing, though that's kinda stretching it.

If you go in earlier and have them not waste money and materials on battleships and instead have that go towards the construction of that carrier and other things, this might be a lot easier.

The rearmament was all done with dodgy company bonds that would have expired if they had waited two more years.
 
The rearmament was all done with dodgy company bonds that would have expired if they had waited two more years.

I agree. The German economy was a busted flush by late 1939. They simply had to go to war to avoid having to pay back all the money they'd borrowed to finance the rearmament.
 
A Kriegsmarine carrier was just a Navy Cross waiting to happen.

GZ certainly represented a lot of first generation, try to do too much with one ship failure (a forerunner of zumwalt if there ever was one)

The luftwaffe was extremely good at what it was designed for, providing short range tactical support to the army and maintaining air superiority above the army as they advance... developing purpose built naval aircraft made no sense for Germany, when she was and always will be a land power. Why go through all the expense of purpose built aircraft when you are only going to have one or maybe two carriers anyway.

That said if GZ (stripped of her heavy guns so she could have a higher speed) sortied in 1941, equipped with 1941 navalized aircraft (33ish FW-190's as the single multirole performer) she could have given any single British carrier in service a real run for their money; although she would be absolute dead meat against any of the big daddy american carriers
 
Top