WI German carrier aircraft

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A carrier with Bismarck?

It's interesting to think how the GZ would have been handled when the Bismarck and the Prinz Eugen had to engage Hood and Walles. It would have to keep away, not being built for a large caliber gunfight, but since the group was being shadowed by RN Cruisers, that would put it in a position were it could be singled out by the Cruisers and attacked.
The nature of the Bismarck mission precluded destroyer cover and the KM lacked cruisers to form a proper battle group.
The breakout phase of KM operations into the Atlantic is very critical for carriers, and one of the reasons the GZ design is so "strange" (extreme speed, cruiser guns, etc)
 

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Cook said:
Wasn't it just that the KM lacked any to spare?
Click to expand...


No. There was a range issue. Even if they had DD avaiable, the Bismarck was expected to go on a long commerce raiding cruise, suported by prepositioned tankers. Destroyers don't fit into that kind of mission. (German destroyers had 1/4 of the Bismarck range)
The Z plan caled for long range purpose designed large DD for that job.
http://www.german-navy.de/kriegsmarine/ships/destroyer/spahkreuzer/index.html

spahkreuzer.gif
 

sendô

Any German carrier = fodder for the RN.

Much like with the Bismarck, they would make it priority no.1 to sink it asap, and they had the resources to ensure it happened at least as soon as Germany committed it in anger.
 

Matt Wiser

You'd need destroyers not only for ASW, but for plane guard duties. Carrier pilots are not expendable assets: even the IJN had destroyers assigned to plane guard duty.
 

TxCoatl1970

My sloppy reply

Were German carrier aircraft possible?
Sure.
We've discussed ad nauseam what the resources poured into the pocket-battleships would've gotten into Zuiho or GZ-class CVL's with 40-plane airgroups.
Assuming Theo Osterkamp gets the blessing and support of Hitler and Goering to build a German FAA you could probably get some a/c built and a pipeline for aricrew and pilot training put together to annoy the UK a tad more.

Did it make financial or logistical sense for Germany to make a blue-water navy to challenge the RN, MN, and possible USN? NO!
Blitzkrieg is war on the cheap. Navies aren't cheap to build or run.

For the Germans to have a credible carrier force, they'd have to plow 80% of their military budget into it and it'd be blindingly obvious what they were up to from 1936-1945, dramatically increase yard space, have several revolutions in modular construction, maritiime engineering, and naval and aerial combat doctrine for carriers to be more than Nazi Blind alley #313 between the Maus tank and V-2.

The Brits would've countered any German fleet increases by a factor of three and while their FAA wasn't anything to brag about IOTL until 1942, ITTL, they'd be in a Whale Has Wings territory with more emphasis against the German naval threat.
Net result: Germans pwned in Battle of Jutland part II with carriers.
 
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