Graf Zeppelin in Soviet service?

On mobile forgive me. Is it possible that the German carrier Grad Zeppelin could enter Soviet service after the war? If so what service life might it have? What aircraft might it operate?
 
On mobile forgive me. Is it possible that the German carrier Grad Zeppelin could enter Soviet service after the war? If so what service life might it have? What aircraft might it operate?
None whatsoever. The GZ was a 1930's design, and not a very good one at that. Hanger deck clearance would have been insufficient for the aircraft that would comparable to what the US and Britain would be flying. Much of what work had been done on the GZ would have had to have been ripped out and redone. I seem to also recall that there was an issue with the design of their catapults, and these would had to have been replaced/redesigned.

If they actually did want to use it as an aircraft carrier about the best they could hope for is to use it as a training ship for takeoffs and landings. Beyond that it would have been pretty much useless.
 
None whatsoever. The GZ was a 1930's design, and not a very good one at that. Hanger deck clearance would have been insufficient for the aircraft that would comparable to what the US and Britain would be flying. Much of what work had been done on the GZ would have had to have been ripped out and redone. I seem to also recall that there was an issue with the design of their catapults, and these would had to have been replaced/redesigned.

If they actually did want to use it as an aircraft carrier about the best they could hope for is to use it as a training ship for takeoffs and landings. Beyond that it would have been pretty much useless.

Graf Zeppelin did have only one advantage, as it had the most powerful engines ever installed on a German Warship in her hull, which could theoretically have been removed from her and installed in a more domestic USSR build ship of some kind.
 
None whatsoever. The GZ was a 1930's design, and not a very good one at that. Hanger deck clearance would have been insufficient for the aircraft that would comparable to what the US and Britain would be flying. Much of what work had been done on the GZ would have had to have been ripped out and redone. I seem to also recall that there was an issue with the design of their catapults, and these would had to have been replaced/redesigned.

If they actually did want to use it as an aircraft carrier about the best they could hope for is to use it as a training ship for takeoffs and landings. Beyond that it would have been pretty much useless.
To be honest, that would be a useful role. if they seriously wanted seagoing aircraft, they'd need to learn the basics of flying aircraft off of a deck. GRAF ZEPPELIN could supply that quicker and cheaper than designing their first aircraft carrier without knowing how one works.

Everybody's first aircraft carrier was fairly terrible for pretty much that reason. If you can skip that step it will really help.
 
G.Z. cats could do 11,000 pound craft to 81mph.

during the War, the USN H-2 could do 11,000 to 70 mph, the mid war H-4 16,000 lbs to 85 mph

So the cats weren't that bad in capacity, just the trolley system. Unlikely for Soviets to be launching anything heavier than a TBF, anyway on a captured G.Z. at first
 
Were GZ's cats ever tested to that performance?

The Soviets would be hard pressed to find a good naval fighter in their inventory. Almost all of their single engine fighters of 1944-45 made the Seafire Mk XVII of that era look like a long range bird.
 
Were GZ's cats ever tested to that performance?

The Soviets would be hard pressed to find a good naval fighter in their inventory. Almost all of their single engine fighters of 1944-45 made the Seafire Mk XVII of that era look like a long range bird.

Same tech as the cats used on their South American runs, Friesland launched the B&V Ha 139, a four engined float plane that weighed 40,000 pounds
495px-Ha_139_Nordstern_taking_off_from_Friesenland_c1938.jpg
 
Were GZ's cats ever tested to that performance?

The Soviets would be hard pressed to find a good naval fighter in their inventory. Almost all of their single engine fighters of 1944-45 made the Seafire Mk XVII of that era look like a long range bird.

WW2 demanded frontline tactical aircraft, hence the short range types the VVS used in the "Great Patriotic War". Not until the growth of the Red Navy into an open ocean fighting force was there a need for longer range aircraft, something the USSR only started to think of, after the growing threat of nuclear weapons became evident and the USSR was starting to try to catch up with the West (especially the USA).
 
The Soviets developed long-range versions of the Yak-9, known as the -D and -DD, but, no kidding, they were not naval aircraft. The Soviets also developed a spy network which allowed them to get all the information on naval aviation desired from British and American sources. There was also probably sufficient information gathered by them to determine that nothing was to be learned from operating Graf Zeppelin as anything but a target for bombs and torpedoes, which was done.
 
Did Russia receive any carrier-capable airplane's through Lend-Lease?
Yes, they received a few hundred Hurricanes, but were any of them carrier-capable?
Many of those LL Hurricanes were shipped from British overhaul facilities, so is there any chance that a few carrier-capable Hurticanes were sent?
 

cpip

Gone Fishin'
So it's most likely that the earliest Soviet carrier aircraft in an instance like this where the Soviets are pursuing carrier-borne aviation are either:

  • Knockoffs of British/American aircraft; or
  • Modifications of existing Soviet aircraft that are ill-suited; or
  • New designs subject to all the teething involved there.
That doesn't sound promising: but ultimately there's really no way to keep the Red Banner Fleets from trailing technologically unless they'd stuck in the game back in the 20s, and they really couldn't afford to do that.
 

Archibald

Banned
Even a clunky Graf Zeppelin good only for training may be interesting - just to try and convince Stalin he need carriers ? look at China Liaoning. They took an old, clunky, rusted Soviet-era aircraft carrier and it is only good for training. Yet it is a foot in the door for bigger and better carriers.
 
The Graf Zeppelin, (old, clunky) had been scuttled and had to be refloated. Training on such a ship would result in crews trained for that ship. No other aircraft carrier operated like it. It was never confirmed that aircraft could operate from it under operating conditions.

If the Soviet Union wanted to develop the carrier, one could wonder what would have happened had they been so bold as to ask for one, a nice Casablanca or Commencement class escort carrier with a handful of Wildcats and some Avengers to help defend lend-lease convoys or some other drivel.
 
Even a clunky Graf Zeppelin good only for training may be interesting - just to try and convince Stalin he need carriers ? look at China Liaoning. They took an old, clunky, rusted Soviet-era aircraft carrier and it is only good for training. Yet it is a foot in the door for bigger and better carriers.

Stalin didn't need any convincing for carriers, he was actually rather fond of the Soviet Navy.

This post on the SB Russian military news thread gives a nice explanation on why the Soviet Navy never had proper carriers until the Kuznetsov-class.

Khathi said:
Also, on the same note, if anyone's interested, my short writeup of the Soviet carrier programs from another forum, essentially a boil-over from the Mistrals discussion that ended up as an argument about the Soviet carrier doctrine:

The thing with the carriers — well, the West has always been fond of the idea that "The Russians don't build carriers much because they see them as a top cover for the boomers and thus secondary priority", which is quite logical, but not necessarily true. The real reason the USSR has never built a proper CATOBAR carrier is not because they didn't want it or didn't need it, but rather because they couldn't — or, better worded, because they couldn't afford it. The problem is, within the Soviet military the Navy has always been a proverbial redheaded stepson, receiving only a scraps and seconds, especially after the Stalin's death — Uncle Joe has always had a soft spot for the Navy that neither the Baldie, nor the Eyebrowed One had. In fact, Khruschev was suspicious of the military as a whole, and the Navy in particular, but I digress.

The end result is that the Ground Forces, the Air Force and especially the Strategic Missile forces hogged up most of the considerable resource pool that the Soviet military was endowed with, so the Navy brass had to be really considerate with their shipbuilding programs. And we also have to consider that for most of its history the same brass has had only a tertiary say in deciding what they would get. The first say was always on the Old Square (confusingly, despite the name, a street in central Moscow where the CPSU headquarters was located), and the second was the industry, so the brass has always had to negotiate with both of them, which wasn't an easy task to say the least.

So, in short, while the Navy has wanted its own carriers since the 30s at least, there's always been some trouble. They actually almost get approved the construction of the first carrier in 1939, but then there was some little distraction known as WWII, and as the country finally got rebuilt enough to consider upgrading its Navy (not to mention it finally got the Bomb), the major supporter of the Navy, Uncle Joe, has kicked the bucket, and Khruschev was actually cutting the military of all its branches except the missile forces. In Brezhnev times the airs were better, but then the personal matters interfered. The Navy chief of the time, the esteemed Sergei Gorshkov, was actually all for the force projection, but he was a cruiser admiral, and as such poured the Navy's funds into cruiser and destroyer programs, while the rest went to the subs.

This is actually where the "carriers are the cover for subs" myth stems from. It was originally just a justification for continually delaying and cancelling the carrier programs that continued to surface throughout the Sixties and the Seventies. Paradoxically, in the end it even became the tool to push the building at least some carriers through the Party bigwigs, which is where the Kuznetsov and Liaoning (ex-Varyag) come from. You see, the main party ideologue of the time, Mikhail Suslov (a crusty old fella, so dead-set in the olden times of Papa Joe, that his nickname in the Politburo was "The Man in Galoshes" — which went out of style for the 30 years already), held a firm belief that the carriers were "a tool of aggression" and thus unbecoming for the "peace-loving Soviet Union".

So, as you see, the carrier programs were always an uphill battle for the Navy, which had to struggle with its own chief, the indifferent Adm. Gorshkov, the skeptical Defence Minister Mar. Ustinov (a man of industry, he has never held any command except of a militarized artillery plant during the WWII), the openly hostile Suslov, etc. So, despite having completed the preliminary design of a nuclear powered supercarrier in the Sixties (google project 1160), they had to start small, and, as the proverb goes, cut the cat's tail in parts — maybe it'll get used to it. So there were Moskva-class helicopter carriers, Kiev-class VTOL carriers, and, finally, Kuznetsov-class STOBAR carriers which, while not entirely successful, at least were something to write home about.

Only by the very last legs of the USSR the Navy finally pushed through the first true supercarrier design, the project 11347 Ulyanovsk, but the Soviet Union collapsed when the ship was only about 25% complete, and the unfinished hulk remained in Ukraine, together with the 80% finished Varyag, which was later sold to the Chinese. Ulyanovsk was later cut up and sold for scrap, while still-in-trials Kuznetsov had to dash for the Severomorsk lest it would be seized by the new Ukrainian authorities, while the Chinese later completed Varyag and rechristened her Liaoning, after the province where Dalian and Port-Arthur, their main naval bases, are.

The rest we all know — the constant underfunding for twenty-plus years has undermined the Navy and the shipbuilding capabilities to the point that they are struggling even with frigates/destroyers, not to mention carriers. But at least they have started to find their feet under them, so in ten more years — who knows. The shipbuilding assets are getting upgraded, so maybe, maybe. At least there won't be ideological obstacles like Mikhal Andreich anymore.

And, btw, the thing with the nuclear propulsion stems exactly from the capabilities of the industry. While the modern Russia has a healthy steam turbine and nuclear reactors industry, with full know-how and state-of-the-art designs, the gas turbine production was more spread-out in the Soviet times, and much of it (especially a marine propulsion branch) ended in Ukraine. Which wasn't much of a problem until recently, but nowadays this means that it has to be recreated domestically from scratch, which is doable, but expensive ant takes time. Nuclear powerplants, on the contrary, are actually in active production, with a working pipeline, and could be ordered "just now".


Also, here's a list of Soviet/Russian aircraft carrier project numbers courtesy of this thread on Secret Projects:
*Project 66AV or 68AV? (1953): Carrier design based on Project 66 heavy cruiser or Sverdlov class light cruiser?
*Project 69AV (1945): Kronshtadt class battlecruiser conversion into carrier
*Project 71A (1936): 13,000-ton Light Carrier Design
* Project 71B (1937): 22,000-ton Fleet Carrier Design
*Project 72 (1942): 37,000-ton Fleet Carrier Design
*Project 85 (1954): 30,500-ton light carrier design
*Project 1020.0 (1980): 30,000-ton Helicopter carrier design
*Project 1058.1 (1937): 74,000-ton battlecarrier design (Gibs & Cox project)
*Project 1123 (1962): Moskva class helicopter carrier
*Project 1123.3 (1968): Modernized Moskva class helicopter carrier design
*Project 1143.0 (1970): Kiev class carrier
*Project 1143.2 (1972): Modified Kiev class carrier Minsk
*Project 1143.3 (1975): Improved Kiev class carrier Novorossiysk
*Project 1143.4 (1978): Kiev Mod class carrier Baku
*Project 1143.5 (1982): Admiral Kuznetsov class carrier
*Project 1143.5M (2017?): Modernized Admiral Kuznetsov class carrier design
*Project 1143.6 (1985): Modified Admiral Kuznetsov class carrier
*Project 1143.7 (1988): Ulyanovsk class nuclear-powered carrier
*Project 1153 (1969): 70,000-ton Nuclear powered carrier design
*Project 1160 (1972): 80,000-ton Nuclear powered carrier design
*Project 1178 (1990): 44,000-ton Helicopter carrier design
 
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