Kriegsmarine with aircraft carriers?

Oh no, not again

They're back! KM carriers out to conquer the world.
But first, since the fall of France was far from a sure thing in the 30s, can we remember that the KM was primaraly going to operate on the North Sea and Baltic, and that geography seriously reduces operational options for German carriers?

511px-North_Sea_location_map_svg.png
 
Eight years?!? Is this a new record for thread necromancy around here?
Well to be fair Vonar Roberts is fairly new, it's an easy enough mistake to make even if you're not, I hadn't read about the Fiesler Fi 167 and Ian's link about the proposed Jade-class auxiliary aircraft carrier is pretty interesting so it's not exactly the most egregious example ever.
 
Never hurts to ressurrect interesting topics. Odds are 80% of the people now on this board weren't around in 2005. Must be noted, however, that there have been many more recent threads about German carriers in WW2 so it's odd such an old one was necromanced.

That said, my answer remains the same. Given the fact they were essentially starting from scratch in 1935 and were hemmed in by the North Sea, it made little sense for the 3rd Reich to build battleships, let alone aircraft carriers. With available bases in Norway, Denmark, Germany, Belgium, and France, the Nazis could challenge British control of the air over the channel and North Sea without putting jury-rigged stukas and bf-109s on airraft carriers.

If you ask me, the only possible type of aircraft carrier that might have made sense for Germany to build would have been a hybrid panzerschiff - basically a fast, high endurance, cruiser-sized commerce raider with some medium/heavy guns and a flight deck for a small but combat capable air unit for reconnaisance, spotting, and aerial defense. Such a ship, or something similar could also have been used to supply and support submarine wolfpacks operating in the north and south atlantic.
 
Well I certainly wasn't here on AH in 2005 so this was a new one for me ... sort of.

My main thought when I first read through this and people were talking about a carrier in the North sea etc. was why waste the time on carriers when all you need is a long range fighter. You don't need that many maybe 150 to be equivolent of 4 carriers(?). Waste your time and resources on those instead ...

If you want a carrier to go with the raiders why not look at converting one of the existing catapult ships already stationed in the Atlantic?

http://www.german-navy.de/kriegsmarine/ships/misc/falke/index.html
 
Never hurts to ressurrect interesting topics. Odds are 80% of the people now on this board weren't around in 2005. Must be noted, however, that there have been many more recent threads about German carriers in WW2 so it's odd such an old one was necromanced.

That said, my answer remains the same. Given the fact they were essentially starting from scratch in 1935 and were hemmed in by the North Sea, it made little sense for the 3rd Reich to build battleships, let alone aircraft carriers. With available bases in Norway, Denmark, Germany, Belgium, and France, the Nazis could challenge British control of the air over the channel and North Sea without putting jury-rigged stukas and bf-109s on airraft carriers.

If you ask me, the only possible type of aircraft carrier that might have made sense for Germany to build would have been a hybrid panzerschiff - basically a fast, high endurance, cruiser-sized commerce raider with some medium/heavy guns and a flight deck for a small but combat capable air unit for reconnaisance, spotting, and aerial defense. Such a ship, or something similar could also have been used to supply and support submarine wolfpacks operating in the north and south atlantic.

That's not far from the Graf Zeppelin design.
 
Not enough numbers...

...That is why I went for the HSK carrying seaplanes, mines and with a support capability for U-boats...

...For commerce raiding, this is the most effective solution. a seaplane gives a long-range scouting capability. It may be able to carry a torpedo or a bomb to damage or sink minor naval units.

An HSK is in essence a strongly-armed 'Q-ship' with the ability to launch a variety of attacks. You can't disguise a pocket battleship. A submarine has fewer options. With the HSK, you can have sabotage frogman raids, spy landings... A wide variety of activities.

And, it's a cheap solution to force projection. The big KM carrier is just a very expensive target.
 
Well building the carriers requires resources already being used elsewhere, so what's getting delayed, U-Boats, or battleships? if it's U-Boats, you've just handed Britain an easier time for their convoys, and if it's Battleships, they can trade in a couple of KGVs for Illustriouses, so either way, the Germans lose.
 
Only possible role I can see for a German carrier is to harrass Brit air activities in the North Sea. The Bismarck might have done better if the Brit reconissance missions were regularly attacked or chased.

The commerce raiding hybrid has some technical challenges that make it difficult if not impossible to operate as advertised. A few of the armed merchant cruisers carried a recon plane or two. A look at how that worked might be helpful.

Personally I'd rather see some of these old threads revived rather than a new & redundant thread on the same subject. But, I've been scolded by the management about thread necromancy, so I dont do that no more.

Thread Necro.png
 
Personally I'd rather see some of these old threads revived rather than a new & redundant thread on the same subject. But, I've been scolded by the management about thread necromancy, so I don't do that no more.
Well rule six does seem to provide some wiggle room on that, seen it on occasion in threads, where if you make a decent contribution or start up some serious discussion that it's somewhat allowed.
 
That's not far from the Graf Zeppelin design.

Actually it is.

I was discussing something akin to the "flight deck cruiser" schemes developed (but never built) by several navies in the 1930's. A 10,000 - 15,000 ton heavy cruiser armed and armored for surface combat but with a full-featured hangar and flight deck (aft, forward or midships, depending on the design) capable of handling between 10 and 20 traditional carrier-borne aircraft. Probably the closest anyone came on practice was the Japanese Tone-class cruisers, but these only shipped floatplanes on their large aft aircraft handling deck.

When compared to US and Japanese fleet carriers, Graf Zeppeln would have simply been an obsolescent, over-armored and under-capable aircraft carrier.
 
Last edited:
Actually it is.

I was discussing something akin to the "flight deck cruiser" schemes developed (but never built) by several navies in the 1930's. A 10,000 - 15,000 ton heavy cruiser armed and armored for surface combat but with a full-featured hangar and flight deck (aft, forward or midships, depending on the design) capable of handling between 10 and 20 traditional carrier-borne aircraft. Probably the closest anyone came on practice was the Japanese Tone-class cruisers, but these only shipped floatplanes on their large aft aircraft handling deck.

When compared to US and Japanese fleet carriers, Graf Zeppeln would have simply been an obsolescent, over-armored and under-capable aircraft carrier.
I believe this was one of the Germans 1942 designs ...

http://www.german-navy.de/kriegsmarine/zplan/flugdeckkreuzer/a3/index.html

odin1.jpg
 
I love the idea of a long distance light commerce raider carrier but surely it would require a lot more support than a regular commerce raider (making the assumption here that moderate use of the shipped planes will chew through supplies faster and perhaps there being less room for safe storage).
 
Top