Improving the 'Graf Zeppelin' Aircraft Carrier - ship and class

Amartus

Hi there

Looking at the Wiki stats, the Graf Zeppelin was heavier than many of the American / British / Japanese pre-war carriers, while having less armour and fewer aircraft.

Is there a reason for this - I would have thought that a heavier displacement would have equated to at least better armour - or was this just bad design on the Germans' part?

Would there have been any way to improve the Graf Zeppelin in a technical sense, i.e. excluding a) the debatable value of a carrier to the Germans, and b) ignoring the inter-service rivalry between the navy and air force that helped to make completion of the carrier unlikely at best?

Many thanks and best regards,
Amartus
 

naraic

You could reduce the hefty armament of 6 inch guns on the carrier. Thry were in barbettes rather than turrets so weren't worth much in a battle but they were still heavy.
 

jsb

Amartus said:
Is there a reason for this -.... or was this just bad design on the Germans' part?
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Everybody's first CV was filled with mistakes or was simply a converted merchant, the only way to improve GZ is to make another carrier earlier but that hits the VT... the other ships you are comparing with had years of developed to help them.
 

mack8

Also put in less powerful machinery, 33 kts design speed is more than enough, how much you need for that, 150,000HP or less (compared to 200,000HP OTL)? I also seems to recall - unless i'm badly mistaken- that the installation of the 16 (SIXTEEN!) 150mm guns was because of some bureaucratic error, the spec asked for eight 150mm guns (in twin mounts?) but someone misunderstood as eight TWIN or something like that, and it rolled from there. Can anyone confirm this or i'm imagining things?
 

Cryhavoc101

You have to remember that the US, British and Japanese were building their 3rd Generation of Aircraft carrier by 1937 (okay technically Dec 28 1936) when Graf Zeppelin was laid down and all 3 nations had 2 decades or more of carrier experience that had shaped their then current designs.

Germany had none of this - and subsequently made a number of errors that probably made sense at the time.

The early Midway class design originally had twin 8" turrets - after all why not - look what had happened to poor old Glorious - so the idea of a Cruiser armament is not all that silly without hindsight.

Only operational experience can get you a good WW2 carrier - the Germans were not capable of building a Yorktown or an Ark Royal in 1937

Having the Blueprints for Akagi or sneaking a look at Glorious is simply not going to cut it
 

jsb

mack8 said:
I also seems to recall - unless i'm badly mistaken- that the installation of the 16 (SIXTEEN!) 150mm guns was because of some bureaucratic error, the spec asked for eight 150mm guns (in twin mounts?) but someone misunderstood as eight TWIN or something like that, and it rolled from there. Can anyone confirm this or i'm imagining things?
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I'm not sure that 8x150mm per side really is that silly without hindsight, if you really think you might have to fight off DDs (or worse case a CL) then you would need 8 guns to give a reasonable certainty of winning. After all look at Lex with 8x8" broadside or Kaga with 5x7.9"....
 
SsgtC

SsgtC

Banned
jsb said:
I'm not sure that 8x150mm per side really is that silly without hindsight, if you really think you might have to fight off DDs (or worse case a CL) then you would need 8 guns to give a reasonable certainty of winning. After all look at Lex with 8x8" broadside or Kaga with 5x7.9"....
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Yes, but Lex was a converted Battlecruiser and Kaga was a converted battleship. And they were converted in the 1920s when carrier aviation was brand new and aircraft were considered little better than scouts. It was entirely concievable at the time that a carrier would end up within gun range of an enemy.
 

jsb

SsgtC said:
Yes, but Lex was a converted Battlecruiser and Kaga was a converted battleship. And they were converted in the 1920s when carrier aviation was brand new and aircraft were considered little better than scouts. It was entirely concievable at the time that a carrier would end up within gun range of an enemy.
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Exactly but the KM doesn't have the,
- 20/30s experience of exercises to tell if its needs guns or not and in what circumstance etc.
- Escorts needed in sufficient number to protect her.

The KM was working with far less information than the USN/RN/IJN did, remember we have access to all the books but in late 30s much of it was all secret. It therefore reverted back to things that are in our eyes far closes to 20s than what we think of as the post treaty designs.
 
SsgtC

SsgtC

Banned
jsb said:
Exactly but the KM doesn't have the,
- 20/30s experience of exercises to tell if its needs guns or not and in what circumstance etc.
- Escorts needed in sufficient number to protect her.

The KM was working with far less information than the USN/RN/IJN did, remember we have access to all the books but in late 30s much of it was all secret. It therefore reverted back to things that are in our eyes far closes to 20s than what we think of as the post treaty designs.
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While I entirely agree with you that Germany was working blind, some things should have been obvious. Like the fact that carriers stopped mounting heavy guns after those conversions. At best, they mounted dual purpose weapons like the US 5"/38.
 

Zheng He

Okay but in the northern and sometimes confined seas a German carrier might find itself operating in are some form a decent caliber self defense guns really that unreasonable of an idea?
 

Amartus

Hi there

Thanks for the replies.

So basically factors would be 1) inexperience, and b) that extra displacement being used up in (relatively) unnecessary large calibre guns?

Bet regards,
Amartus
 

thaddeus

Donor
this may sound far fetched but my scenario would be use their carrier tonnage allotment under AGNA for seaplane/flying boat carrier, sort of super sized version of French Commandant Teste.
 

sloreck

A seaplane carrier really does not do the Germans much good. By the 1930s seaplanes are basically for recon. Seaplane attack aircraft/fighters don't do well if there are "regular" fighters around. Other than auxiliaries for surface ships and maritime patrol, seaplanes by late 30s of attack types or even fighters (like float zero) were only for places where no runways existed or could not be built. OTL seaplane carriers/seaplane support ships were useful in the Pacific where unimproved islands/atolls needed aviation support. A seaplane carrier would do the KM any good against the RN with real carriers, or even for raiding.
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
The KM didn't have clue one for what they were trying to construct. The aircraft were not going to be navy, but would be Luftwaffe commanded (ya, let that sink in). The ship had SIXTEEN CASEMENT mounted 15cm guns (God alone knows why considering the design wasn't finalized until late 1936) plus 10 (later 12) 10.5cm AAA (no DP guns on the ship).

The story behind the 15cm guns is hilarious. The original plan called for four gun positions, effectively one on each corner of the ship. Someone noticed that they could fit a twin mount in each location so 8 guns in four positions. Somewhere in the design process that turned into EIGHT twin mounts (keep in mind the original plan was for four SINGLE mounts). As a result you had an aircraft carrier with a main battery larger than an overgunned light cruiser, but with no central fire control so each casement had to locate and range independently and only a quarter of the guns could be brought to bear on targets approaching from any quarter, worse the 10.5cm AAA mounts could only depress to -8 degrees, making them of only marginal use against a surface target and had a train rate of 8 degree/sec (about half of what it needed to be). The only good news is that ALL the mounts were L31 (the Bismark class had two different mount types that trained and elevated at different rates).

Overall the design was 34,000 tons, 861 feet long, and could carry (on paper) 42 aircraft. The USS Wasp was 14,900 tons standard, 741 feet long, and DID carry 75+ aircraft (it has 75 aircraft on board on December 7th. Lexington was 37,000 tons standard, 888 feet long, had 3x the armor that the GZ was designed for, and, for those gun fans out there carried eight 8" guns (4x2) while being able to operate 80+ aircraft. Kaga was 38,000 tons standard, 812 feet long, carried 10 single mount 200mm guns plus 16 (8x2) 127mm AAA, and operated 72 aircraft with space for 12 disassembled spares (don't ask, it was an IJN thing).
 

PSL

Original Naval Plan 1928 was to build an HMS Glorious style aircraft carrier. At that time 1932 there was no LW just Lufthansa as the secret air force, so the RM where promised a fleet of 400 aircraft to support naval operations. But RM had no interest in aircraft carriers, since the best they could expect was to build millions of U-Boats and surface raiders. Parliament forced the project on the service, which quietly ignored it. So Graff Zeppelin became an aircraft carrier as a diseased surface raider.

Best way to improve the design would be to build two more Panzerschiffe D/E and for a wild card mount STOL landing deck on rear superstructure and trail any combination of C-31 autogyro , Fi-156 STOL , FL-185 /FL-265 etc
 
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Michel Van

Michel Van

the Massiv weight of Graf Zeppelin is because the germans installed some "improvement"

Like two aircraft Katapult system installed on Flight deck (compressed air-driven)
next to that 16 La Mont high-pressure boilers combined to four sets of turbines to give ship top speed of 40 mph; 65 km/h
but the boilers were thirsty fuel bunker had 5000 tons of fuel oil
planned was that Graf Zeppelin had range of 9,600 miles or 15,400 km (at Speed of 35 km/h; 22 mph)

on armament it originally planned for only eight 15cm guns, but the Naval Armaments Office misinterpreted this and order installment of SIXTEEN 15cm guns
also the Naval Armaments Office insist that Graf Zeppelin also be use as Battle ship to sink enemy ships with there guns instead with there Carrier aircraft...
Also were allot cargo onboard like fuel for Aircraft, there ammunition, spare parts, food etc, for solo long range operation on Atlantic (seems the Naval Armaments Office never heard concept of a support fleet)

Improvement ?
Remove ridiculous armament of SIXTEEN 15cm guns and there needed support and Ammunition
Also replaced the complex high-pressure boilers by simpler Ships engine like the US build them in there Aircraft carrier.
give the Carrier a Support fleet (protection, resupply etc.)
and Keep Herman Göring away from carrier project...
 

jsb

PSL said:
Best way to improve the design would be to build two more Panzerschiffe D/E and for a wild card mount STOL landing deck on rear superstructure and trail any combination of C-31 autogyro , Fi-156 STOL , FL-185 /FL-265 etc
Click to expand...
I think this is close to the ideal,

Under the treaty anything with 8" or less guns and a flight deck is a CV so why not exploit this and build a very powerful CA that actually fits in the KMs "CV" tonnage and doesn't require cheating?

They could build a Tone class look alike cruisers but with a flight deck aft,
22,000t
Very fast and long ranged
well protected
10x8" (5xtwin) Max in WNT Article X
16x105mm AA (8xtwin) +light AA
Flight deck, catapult and hangar for 6 Fi-156 STOL
 
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