Kriegsmarine with aircraft carriers?

I was wondering what a german navy with a good carrier fleet would look like. could it possiable help blockade the brits mor effectively?
 
Depends. Which part of the war production gets the axe so that the carriers can be built? While they can be built, I'm not sure as to what the Germans would have to give up to get them, or whether they'd be more than floating targets for the RN.
 
Maybe the kriegsmarine cuts devlopment funds on u boats and focuses on "capital" ships and carriers and this may let england get more shipping thourgh helping in the end?
 
Farah said:
Maybe the kriegsmarine cuts devlopment funds on u boats and focuses on "capital" ships and carriers and this may let england get more shipping thourgh helping in the end?

Your first post wonder if a carrier would make the blockade of Britain better, now you are saying that with a carrier not only will Britain get more ships through the blockade (probably 'what blockade?' in TTL) but also imply that defeat will be sooner.

The Kriegsmarine's capital ships are virtually bottled up in the North Sea where they have to worry about land based as well as carrier based aircraft. The Graf Zeppelin is fairly useless unless it can breakout into the Atlantic, but it would be a very expensive means to enforce the blockade. U Boats get the job done better.
 

jgack

Banned
What if the Germans either win WW1 or get to keep their navy. Then maybe the Germans would have continued building up their fleet, including aircraft carriers. I think the most important use of this would be to provide air cover to raiding fleets. I heard on a History Channel documentary that when the Bismark sortied with Prinz Eugene that the original plan called for Scharnhorst, Gnesenau and Tirpitz to sortie with them as well as I believe it was 6 destroyers. Now, take another carrier or two and I don't think the Royal Navy would have any chance of stopping that force, they could destroy any task force sent to sink them and blast convoys at their leasure. The good people of Britain would be quite slim.
 
Not quite so fast.

Aside from the Bismarck and Tirpitz the other German warships mount 11in guns, easily overwhelmed and outranged by even the old 15in guns of the Queen Elizabeth and Revenge classes, not to mention the 14in guns of the King George V class. The British even had greater experience using carriers and more carriers. The scenario still appears to be a British victory.
 
It would just provide the allies with more ships to sink. The KM would be started well behind the UK and US in carrier construction. Plus they would lack experience in carrier operations. They would be handicapped from the start.
They didn't really have any aircraft designed for carrier operations (There are significant differences in carrier a/c - their landing gear has to absorb much more pressure on landing, the airframe has to resist the impact of landings and catapult assisted take offs for example)
It might make for a few interesting senarios and might prolong some engagments but the end would still be the same.
 
What about a float Plane Carrier.

The British had a great amount of carrier knowledge, from about 1917 until 1940. Put they still had old out of date aircraft, Swordfish Biplanes, I think the problem, would be the aircraft from land bases. The budget of the British navy, was small, and more so for navel aircraft. More of the money went to the Battleship forces. So if Germany had build smaller lighter carriers, and used floatplanes, early in the war, they could have been a major factor in the war. Floatplanes were used by most nations during the post war years.
 
Range...

David S Poepoe said:
Not quite so fast.

Aside from the Bismarck and Tirpitz the other German warships mount 11in guns, easily overwhelmed and outranged by even the old 15in guns of the Queen Elizabeth and Revenge classes, not to mention the 14in guns of the King George V class. The British even had greater experience using carriers and more carriers. The scenario still appears to be a British victory.

The British 15" guns do NOT outrange the German 11" guns at all--quite the contrary.

The 28cm/54.5 on the Scharnhorst had a range of over 44,000 yards at 40 degree elevation, and the 28cm/52 in the panzerschiffs had over 39,000 yards, also at 40 degree elevation.

The British 15"/42 had a range of 32,500 yards ion ships with 30 degree elevation, and only 28,700 yards on the ships without the refit, and therefor limited to 20 degrees.

Range isn't everything, since hits are usually achieved at shorter ranges, but the Germans outranged the oler ships. Gun size doesn't always refelct range...
 

Redbeard

Banned
Germany's fate hinged on her army and airforce and nothing afloat could help her. According to at least some historians even her U-boats were far from victory (I don't quite agree).

So if any carrier is put to service utilising resources which historically were deployed for the army or airforce it is going to damage the German cause and benefit the allied.

The German capital ships didn't achieve very much in the war apart from a shortlived propaganda victory (from 0600 24th of May 1941 to 0920 28th of May 1941), and building two or three carriers instead of Bismarck and Tirpitz would probably not directly damage the German war effort.

But not long after the keel laying (if not announced before) it will be obvious that Germany isn't building battleships but carriers, and the British will react accordingly. So by the time the first KGV was laid down in OTL (1.1.37) the British will probbaly know that Germany is building carriers, and even if all the 5 KGV's are under way (last laid down 20.7.37) I guess at least the last two will be cancelled or slowed down in order to build more carriers or speed up the existing programmes. Most interesting will be the two Implacables laid down in 1939 but not completed in OTL until 1944. In this TL I guess they could be completed in 1942 or in time to take part in stemming the IJN. If extra carriers are to be started before 1939 I guess they will be more like the last of the Illustrious (Indomitable) which was a kind of intermediate between Illustrious and Implacable. Another interesting option would be the last two KGV cancelled in 1937 and the two Lions laid down in OTL 1939 then actually being completed and used later in the Far East.

The existing early British carriers (Hermes, Eagle, 3 Courageous, Ark Royal and 4 Illustrious) will be more than enough to match anything the Germans can come up with. But more interesting, the prospect of meeting carrier born fighters might set the FAA along another path regarding both tactics and planes (bigger strikes and a fighter matching the Bf109T). I imagine a properly navalised Hurricane lookalike (folding wings, hook and droptanks) called the Hawker Blizzard :D . The Skua and the Albacore will be as good as any other power's early war attack aircraft, although a Skua with no intended fighter role would probably be a better divebomber (1000 lbs. bomb instead of 500 lbs?). If given priority the next generation of Firebrand, Firefly and Barracuda should be possible to have onboard the Implacables at comission.

All in all I think the RN will be much better with this German CV challenge, not at least when it comes to later fighting the IJN. It again points to what I know regard as a rule of thumb: "Changes in naval matters in Europe in WWII are likely to have the greatest effect in the Far East".

Regards

Steffen Redbeard
 
Also, the British will respond to anything the Germans do. Historically, they built thousands of anti-submarine escorts - if the Germans build carriers, British building will respond accordingly.
 
Abdul Hadi Pasha said:
Also, the British will respond to anything the Germans do. Historically, they built thousands of anti-submarine escorts - if the Germans build carriers, British building will respond accordingly.

Yes, and to get those carriers anywhere they will have to get past the "unsinkable aircraft carrier" known as the British Isles.
 
More British experience, maybe, BUT!

David S Poepoe said:
Not quite so fast.

Aside from the Bismarck and Tirpitz the other German warships mount 11in guns, easily overwhelmed and outranged by even the old 15in guns of the Queen Elizabeth and Revenge classes, not to mention the 14in guns of the King George V class. The British even had greater experience using carriers and more carriers. The scenario still appears to be a British victory.

British carrier aviation certainly didn't recieve it's share of funding and the RN went to war using the SWORDFISH, a canvas covered BIPLANE as it's offensive arm!

If the KM had deleted all of it's capital warships from the SCHARNHORST on, and had built aircraft carriers, hopefully ships similar in size to at least the Japanese SHOKAKU or the US YORKTOWN in terms of carrying capacity, say something on the order of 80-90 aircraft, AND, if the KM had been able to secure control of it's own aircraft over the loud objections of Hermann Goering, then the KM MIGHT have had a useful, offensive arm.

Have the KM build twice, or even three times as many heavy cruisers for escorts, plus a lot of CLs and DDs, and they might have been able to do real damage!

Put IJN SHOKAKU, with her historical complement of aircraft, in the place of BISMARCK for example. Send along a pair of ATAGO cruisers instead of PRINZ EUGEN, and send along a half dozen FUBUKIs as escorts and let the RN just try and intercept with all of the Battleships they want! Let them send ARK ROYAL AND VICTORIOUS too, if they want! I'm sure that the Zeros would enjoy the encounter!

German aircraft, such as a navalized Stuka and bf109 would have liked to have met the Royal Navy carriers at sea as well! Of course, thei wouldn't have worked forever. After the first encounter, the RN would have had to quickly reequip with somethin more effective, probably American aircraft like the SBD, TBD and F4F, but the first encounters would have been ---"illuminating" to say the least!
 
JLCook said:
British carrier aviation certainly didn't recieve it's share of funding and the RN went to war using the SWORDFISH, a canvas covered BIPLANE as it's offensive arm!

If the KM had deleted all of it's capital warships from the SCHARNHORST on, and had built aircraft carriers, hopefully ships similar in size to at least the Japanese SHOKAKU or the US YORKTOWN in terms of carrying capacity, say something on the order of 80-90 aircraft, AND, if the KM had been able to secure control of it's own aircraft over the loud objections of Hermann Goering, then the KM MIGHT have had a useful, offensive arm.

Have the KM build twice, or even three times as many heavy cruisers for escorts, plus a lot of CLs and DDs, and they might have been able to do real damage!

Put IJN SHOKAKU, with her historical complement of aircraft, in the place of BISMARCK for example. Send along a pair of ATAGO cruisers instead of PRINZ EUGEN, and send along a half dozen FUBUKIs as escorts and let the RN just try and intercept with all of the Battleships they want! Let them send ARK ROYAL AND VICTORIOUS too, if they want! I'm sure that the Zeros would enjoy the encounter!

German aircraft, such as a navalized Stuka and bf109 would have liked to have met the Royal Navy carriers at sea as well! Of course, thei wouldn't have worked forever. After the first encounter, the RN would have had to quickly reequip with somethin more effective, probably American aircraft like the SBD, TBD and F4F, but the first encounters would have been ---"illuminating" to say the least!

Ok, so let me get this straight: You want the RN to abandon the 3-year-old (in 1939) Swordfish topedo bomber with the SBD which wouldn't be in service until 1941 and is a dive bomber or TBM, which wouldn't even be designed until 1942? As countintuitive as it many seem, the Swordfish was, by far, the best pure torpedo bomber of the early war period and on par with its USN analouge, the Douglas TBD.

You also have to consider that both the Swordfish and the Fulmar fighters that the RN fielded in 1940 had a range of ~750 miles, while the Stuka and Bf-109 both had a range of ~400 miles. The RN carriers could thus attack the German carriers without risk of retribution. Additionally, I have my doubts as to the feasibility of navalising a Bf-109: It took quite a bit of work for the British, who were well experienced in carrier aircraft to navalise the Spitfire into the Seafire; the Messerschmitt was just as flimsy.

Lastly, considering the lack of success that the Stukas had against naval ships (as opposed to merchantmen) during the BoB leads me to think that all the effort of having a massive aircraft carrier would be for nought...

Simon ;)
 
How nice that the range of the Swordfish was 750 miles

That means that it could be shot down by just about any other aircraft at twice the distance from it's carrier that other aircraft could. The date for this discussion was May, 1941. At that time, all of the operational Japanerse aircraft were superior to what was on a British flight deck---so were what the USN was flying. A bf109 might lack range, but are you suggesting that british naval aviation ca May 1941 could cope with one? Furthermore, this is a what-if! Existing German aircraft were NOT really suitable for carrier aviation. What sorts of aircraft MIGHT they have developed to meet operational needs of a carrier, especially something like the functional equivilent of a YORKTOWN or a SHOKAKU? The operational NEEDS for such aircraft would have been apparant since about the time that a hypothetical, (~25,000t) carrier built instead of and in service at the same dates as SCHARNHORST. I am suggesting that an aircraft with the combat performance of a bf109 and the range of a carrier based aircraft might have been very achievable. Certainly the British aircraft, suitable for carrier based operations at that time were NOT very high performance either! That might also have been different IF the main German naval threat hadn't come from Battleships but instead had come from a carrier strike group of comparable power to at least that which the IJN sent to Midway!
 
If I'm reading this right, some of the posts here suggest that the Germans will build nothing but carriers? No support ships, no destroyer escorts? Realize that you can't just build carriers, you have to build a whole support fleet for them... can the Germans do that?
 
Dave Howery said:
If I'm reading this right, some of the posts here suggest that the Germans will build nothing but carriers? No support ships, no destroyer escorts? Realize that you can't just build carriers, you have to build a whole support fleet for them... can the Germans do that?

Also what do the Germans give up for the carriers? It would all have to come out of the other branches, so you would have to have less infantry or less tanks or less fighters or something. By doing so Germany now has problems conquering France.
 
Brilliantlight said:
Also what do the Germans give up for the carriers? It would all have to come out of the other branches, so you would have to have less infantry or less tanks or less fighters or something. By doing so Germany now has problems conquering France.

They could build light cruisers, AA ships and destroyers. A heavy cruiser escort is only a qualitative advantage if your opponent is not a heavy cruiser, so in essence having enough lighter cruisers would do the same job. A battleship escort for a carrier group seems unnecessary, and thus not building Bismarck and Tirpitz would provide the materiele required for the construction of these carriers.

Of course, what they then DO with them is another point entirely...

Grey Wolf
 
The germans did not need carriers, but a strong naval-air force, land based. I I think they could never impose a real blockade to the UK, with the USA eager to enter the war and willing to escort their convoys. But if the germans can keep the Royal Navy outside channel waters, they have a chance, at least in 1940. I wonder what could they have done with a decent torpedo bomber or their Ju87 properly trained against ships.
 
Land Based Patrol Aircraft.

If Germany had used Large Numbers of Land Based Patrol Aircraft, with small carriers, build from merchant type ships, using the same type aircraft they were using and winning in Poland and France, and if they had stopped the program of building Large number of Capital Battleships, and build U-boats, then they could have forced British forces into sea battles around the range of it's land based attack aircraft. Large number of Patrol Aircraft, a reasonable number of small Carriers, during the battle of Britian, and a increase in the number of U-boats, after the fall of France, would have been very hard on the British, standing alone, without any support from any other nation.
 
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