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I'm reading a book on WW1 Naval Aviation by RD Layman and it's inspired this .

So as the 19th century drew to a close their was some debate in German Naval Circles over value of Scout Cruisers with Tirpitz not seeing a need for them . In a memorandum of June 1897 Tirpitz wrote " against England ....The value of scouting vessels is much reduced ....such vessels represent in a sense a reduction from the forces needed for the ultimate outcome

Tirpitz was later to change his mind and proposed building a navy of forty light cruisers however when war broke out there were only 6 Scout cruisers in the fleets table of organisation.

To compensate for this a crash programme of Zeppelin construction was initiated as an airship was cheaper and much quicker to build than a cruiser . Tirpitz had initially been against zeppelins seeing them as at the mercy of the winds based on his experience of power of squalls and bad weather from the sailing navy .

The need to fill the scout role and pressure from Prince Henry the kaiser younger brother and air enthusiast made him turn to them .

There was only one operational Zeppelin in August 1914 in fact their had been 2 serious Zeppelin accidents in 1913 which had killed large numbers of the naval airship divisions experienced staff .

Churchill in England saw the Zeppelins as a threat so decided to take an a greasiness of policy of attacking them at their bases . German advances put them out of range of land based aircraft and Churchill diverted HMS Engadine, Riviera and Empress in order to attack Cuxhaven on Christmas day 1914 .This set tone and tactics for British carrier operations in North Sea with focus being on attacking land objectives

They were meant to join Jellicoe's battlefleet at Scapa Flow . Jellicoe instead got the worn out Campania saved from the scrap heap which suffered with unreliable engines .

So what if Holman versus Tirpitz in German Admiralty had lead to more scouting cruisers being built for German Fleet

would their have been less zeppelins ? Would the accidents similar to the British Mayfly accident killed the concept ? Would pressure from Prince Henry have led to more development of German aircraft carriers earlier . Scheer, Hipper and Von Pohl were aware of the value of aviation with Von Pohl asking for seaplanes as early as February 1914

on British side would less Zeppelins impacted on Jellicoe and his use and availability of aviation assets ?
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