Kriegsmarine with aircraft carriers?

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).
Thec atch is that you have to figure it out from scratch then build it before the war starts. The commerce raiders were basically armed merchant ships. Easily to modify and based on an old concept and thus more lightly to see service from day one.
 

JAG88

Banned
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.

That is only because the LW required the KM to provide 2m separation between aircraft and hangar walls, just as the LW did in land, instead of recognizing they were operating in a different environment. Change that and GZ can easily carry 70 aircraft.

Oh, and GZ was actually less armoured than US designs, but it was better protected in certain aspects. such as avgas protection.

It is pointless to discuss makeshift carriers when the DKM would have been much better off completing the ones it had begun.
 
That is only because the LW required the KM to provide 2m separation between aircraft and hangar walls, just as the LW did in land, instead of recognizing they were operating in a different environment. Change that and GZ can easily carry 70 aircraft.

Oh, and GZ was actually less armoured than US designs, but it was better protected in certain aspects. such as avgas protection.
An improved Graf Zeppelin would hace still got a roasting in the battle of the Faroes in Winter Warriors by Stuart Slade. No amount of redesign thoughBwould have saved the Werner Voss. (You will have to read the book to discover why the DKM has a third aircraft carrier :eek:.)
 

JAG88

Banned
An improved Graf Zeppelin would hace still got a roasting in the battle of the Faroes in Winter Warriors by Stuart Slade. No amount of redesign thoughBwould have saved the Werner Voss. (You will have to read the book to discover why the DKM has a third aircraft carrier :eek:.)

Havent read that, but with minimum modifications the GZ would have been a far better ship, and with a bit more interest on CVs a bigger threat:

https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=273862

You could fir the aircraft like this:

 
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