Nazi Carriers

Ultimately, carriers do nothing for Germany. As has been pointed out, the RN had a 7-0 lead in carriers, the Nazis had no suitable carrier aircraft, and the main mission of the Kriegsmarine was not suited to carriers.

But more than that, any carrier force built up by the Kriegsmarine could be sunk by the USN and RN in essentially no time flat if it chose to sortie.

I will say this again, and again, and again, til I am blue in the face - militarily speaking, there was NOTHING Germany could do to stave off defeat once the US was involved in the war. Not one single thing.

In other words, Nazi carriers are about as irrelevant to the outcome of the war as the Yamato and Musashi were irrelevant to the outcome in the Pacific.
 

Markus

Banned
A last remark,

one carrier is not enough. You need at least two and they need to operate together, better three. The only way a carrier would have been useful to the KM is as the eyes of surface raiders. Search the ocean, radio the raider, attack any larger escorting warship like an R or take potshots at the merchantships to slow them down.

This would work. Once, twice, maybe three times, then the RN dusts off their 1920´s blueprints for merchant aircraft carriers.

edit: About the a/c:

Henschel 123D: larger fuel tank, supercharged 960hp BMW 123K radial, 2*20mm cowl guns and 2*7,9mm wing guns, wing racks for 2*250kilo bombs, centerline rack for a 500kilo bomb or drop tanks.
 
Last edited:

loughery111

Banned
A last remark,

one carrier is not enough. You need at least two and they need to operate together, better three. The only way a carrier would have been useful to the KM is as the eyes of surface raiders. Search the ocean, radio the raider, attack any larger escorting warship like an R or take potshots at the merchantships to slow them down.

This would work. Once, twice, maybe three times, then the RN dusts off their 1920´s blueprints for merchant aircraft carriers.

The US almost got into a shooting war in OTL over the North Atlantic, with just submarine operations and several abortive surface raids by the Germans. I could see them feeling threatened enough by a German carrier group running amok to take one of the many excuses they could have had to declare war and actually do it... Britain probably need not build merchantman-hulled escort carriers, because if the Germans actually manage to start doing damage to the RN in the North Atlantic, the US will almost certainly use or make a casus belli and squish the KM (its surface element at least, the subs will, as OTL, take longer.)
 

Markus

Banned
The US almost got into a shooting war in OTL over the North Atlantic,

Not almost but actually and with premeditation!

I could see them feeling threatened enough by a German carrier group running amok to take one of the many excuses they could have had to declare war and actually do it... Britain probably need not build merchantman-hulled escort carriers, because if the Germans actually manage to start doing damage to the RN in the North Atlantic, the US will almost certainly use or make a casus belli and squish the KM (its surface element at least, the subs will, as OTL, take longer.)

Yes to the USA getting even more paranoid but getting the surface raiders of the KM would have been hard even for them:

-there were few raiders
-they did not come out that often

And last but not least, the Brits could always strengthen their naval aviation defences by reducing the effort needed for a certain resource hog. :D
 
I agree, carriers are a bad idea for Germany... but could they have used dedicated anti-shipping aircraft? I always wondered why they never designed and built those, since one of their goals was to clear the Channel of the RN... plus, with bases from France to Norway, they could have made life harder for the RN. That wouldn't win them the war, of course...
 

Markus

Banned
I agree, carriers are a bad idea for Germany... but could they have used dedicated anti-shipping aircraft? I always wondered why they never designed and built those, since one of their goals was to clear the Channel of the RN... plus, with bases from France to Norway, they could have made life harder for the RN. That wouldn't win them the war, of course...

Ju87, Ju88, Me109(fighter-bomber), He111(torpedo) ... that was a pretty deadly bunch once the pilots got the hang of it.
 
Top