WI German carrier aircraft

Pangur

Pangur

Donor
I am curious as to peoples views on how ww2 German aircraft would have worked out if they had been modified to operate of carriers. My guess is that the Stuka would have been picked however fighters would seem to be a far harder pick, least ways up to 1942. The reasoning behind that statement being that the Me109 had a very narrow space between its wheels which I am guessing would make it hard to land safely where as the FW190 may have been a very different proposition. Was there a fighter design that the German navy would have picked in place of the ME109?
 

bsmart

HE100 or a derivitive - Good performance, wider track landing gear. But the BF109T was the one chosen IOTL
 

Matt Wiser

The Me-109T (a navalized E) was to be the carrier fighter, with the Ju-87C the dive bomber (some flew strikes against Poland in the September '39 campaign), and the Fi-167 was to be the torpedo bomber/recon aircraft. Air Group for the Graf Zeppelin and her sister ship: 42 aircraft (three 12-plane squadrons and three spares of each). The carrier group had actually been formed in early '39: TrGr. 186, and a dummy flight deck had been built so that pilots could practice launch and recovery.

No thanks to the Fat Man (Goering), the carrier pilots and aircrew were to be Luftwaffe, much to the Navy's disgust.
 
Pangur

Pangur

Donor
Matt Wiser said:
The Me-109T (a navalized E) was to be the carrier fighter, with the Ju-87C the dive bomber (some flew strikes against Poland in the September '39 campaign), and the Fi-167 was to be the torpedo bomber/recon aircraft. Air Group for the Graf Zeppelin and her sister ship: 42 aircraft (three 12-plane squadrons and three spares of each). The carrier group had actually been formed in early '39: TrGr. 186, and a dummy flight deck had been built so that pilots could practice launch and recovery.

No thanks to the Fat Man (Goering), the carrier pilots and aircrew were to be Luftwaffe, much to the Navy's disgust.
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If they had come up against a British carrier how well would they have done?
 

hairysamarian

Pangur said:
If they had come up against a British carrier how well would they have done?
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If they were flying off the Graf Zepellin class, then probably not well. The proposed air wings for those were pretty small, so they'd always be outnumbered. Especially since the Germans couldn't have built more than a few carriers (at best) without scrapping their other build programs.
 

Matt Wiser

British carrier air groups were just as large as the Germans' proposed groups.

Plan Z envisaged four carriers, btw.

Any Stuka or Fi-187 strike is going to have Me-109Ts as escorts. And the 109s can make mincemeat of the Skua or Sea Gladiator.

There were Germans in Japan in 1938-39 learning carrier proceedures, since no one else was available to teach them....some got back prior to Barbarossa, some, though, were stuck in Japan for the duration. There was a discussion on one of the axis history forums, where German pilots and naval personnel were observing flight ops on a IJN carrier in mid '43, as the IJN is rebuilding its carrier groups after they got mauled flying from land bases in the Solomons campaign.
 
Cook

Cook

Banned
Pangur said:
The reasoning behind that statement being that the Me109 had a very narrow space between its wheels which I am guessing would make it hard to land safely...
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The BF-109’s wheel track is no narrower than that of the British Spitfire, which did operate as a carrier aircraft.
 

sharlin

Banned
The Seafire was more of a stopgap i'd say, and whilst the German planes might be good the Graf Zepplin herself was a verrrrrrrrrrrrry bad design, for her size she has a small air group and because of her design she was unstable, listing naturally which had to be corrected with bulges to stop her heeling over. That and she's got the same powerplant as a Hipper class cruiser so thats a maintenance hog.
 

sharlin

Banned
Perhaps but at least the Bearn was a better sea boat although i'd say the Zepp was an attempt to copy the Ark or at least its capabilities (high speed etc)
 
Cook

Cook

Banned
Matt Wiser said:
No thanks to the Fat Man (Goering), the carrier pilots and aircrew were to be Luftwaffe, much to the Navy's disgust.
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Prior to 1937 the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm was controlled by the RAF rather than the RN, so this isn’t a particularly unusual arrangement. Given that the Luftwaffe also controlled Germany’s anti-aircraft defences and paratroops, it’s not at all surprising. Not particularly useful, but not surprising.
 

Matt Wiser

That's a reverse of what the Kreigsmarine intended: when GZ was laid down, and planning for a naval air arm begun in 1936, all naval aviators (ship or shore based) were to be Naval officers. The carrier air group formed in late '38 was formed out of naval aviators who wore Kreigsmarine uniforms. Only in Mid '39 were they transferred to the Luftwaffe-though all were given the option of transferring to other arms of the Kreigsmarine. LCDR Reinhard Hardegen (U-123), who was probably the most successful U-Boat skipper for Operation DRUMBEAT on two patrols, was one of these ex-naval aviators. The only naval aviators who went to sea wearing KM uniforms were those attached to the armed merchant raiders (Atlantis, Orion, Pinguin, etc.).
 

eltf177

The Me-109T was always going to have problems with the narrow wheel-base. The FW-190A with additional wing area would have been my choice.

Several Ju-87D's were modified to carry a torpedo (I don't think they ever did operationally though). I would think a navalized version (which I dubbed Ju-87E) would be useful and you could get rid of the Fi-167's but I think the Ju-87's chance of surviving by this time was shrinking.

There was at least one biplane fighter prototype (the Arado Ar-98 IIRC) built around 1939 but it doesn't seem to have been seriously considered.

I agree the He-100 would be an interesting choice but was it robust and reliable enough for carrier service?
 

Matt Wiser

In 1938, when the air group was being drawn up, the Fw-190 wasn't on Kurt Tank's drawing board. The KM/LW had to go with what they had at the time. Though had the ship been finished, it's possible a navalized 190 would have been tested.
 
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