Lack of German Aircraft Carrier

[syscom3]

Originally Posted by delcyros

I partly agree, Syscom. But the Pacific is very different to the Atlantic. If You file down carrier operations in the North Atlantic, You will see what I mean.The Avgas on GZ was only low in absolute numbers, not in relative ones. The Essex could carry fuel for up to 120 planes, GZ for only about 40. It would be better to compare her in this respect to british carriers or US escort carriers, which had a comparable airwing.

The limitation on AC was a tradeoff. Not ideal for an CV but necessary in the strategic environment. Comparable thoughts lead to a lower AC numbers for later british carriers. As I said, the Atlantic was very different.

Comparing it to the US escort carriers is interesting. A ship that costs a fration to build as compared to a fleet carrier (GZ) carries the same number of aircraft.

The KM might have been served better served by having several smaller carriers than a single large fleet carrier.

[delcyros]

Comparing it to the US escort carriers is interesting. A ship that costs a fration to build as compared to a fleet carrier (GZ) carries the same number of aircraft.

Yes it is. At least from the point of view of avaible airpower. But those CVE, we talk about were found totally unsuited for Atlantic conditions and relegated to secondary duties, mostly as attack supporting group in the Pacific, where they could wreac havoc. They are too slow to be consedered a suitable for the german side and vulnarable. The difference is about 10+ Kts more speed, more range, much better protection, Air controll systems, and short range defense.

The KM might have been served better served by having several smaller carriers than a single large fleet carrier.

Small carriers with 33+ Kts speed (necessary to disengage BB´s and most cruisers) and range for the Atlantic (at least 4000nm @ 24 Kts) could very well displace more than 20.000t. despite having an airwing as low as 24 planes. This doesn´t make them small. If they could afford a smaller speed, let´s say 20.000 SHP for ~20 Kts instead of 240.000 SHP for 35 Kts), they could safe space and weight for additional AC´s. That´s the trade the large CVE made. Unfortunately, such a trade isn´t possible in the Atlantic theatre of war, the large number of cruisers would hunt them down too easily. Such an CVE could be useful in the Baltic and maybe in Norway, too from the german perspective but not for the Atlantic theatre.

[syscom3]

Originally Posted by delcyros

Yes it is. At least from the point of view of avaible airpower. But those CVE, we talk about were found totally unsuited for Atlantic conditions and relegated to secondary duties, mostly as attack supporting group in the Pacific, where they could wreac havoc. They are too slow to be consedered a suitable for the german side and vulnarable. The difference is about 10+ Kts more speed, more range, much better protection, Air controll systems, and short range defense.


Small carriers with 33+ Kts speed (necessary to disengage BB´s and most cruisers) and range for the Atlantic (at least 4000nm @ 24 Kts) could very well displace more than 20.000t. despite having an airwing as low as 24 planes. This doesn´t make them small. If they could afford a smaller speed, let´s say 20.000 SHP for ~20 Kts instead of 240.000 SHP for 35 Kts), they could safe space and weight for additional AC´s. That´s the trade the large CVE made. Unfortunately, such a trade isn´t possible in the Atlantic theatre of war, the large number of cruisers would hunt them down too easily. Such an CVE could be useful in the Baltic and maybe in Norway, too from the german perspective but not for the Atlantic theatre.

Build several of them on a light cruiser design which would give you 25 knots speed and to carry 40 or so aircraft.

If operated in pairs, you have the equivelant airpower from a large carrier.

And it wouldnt need to worry about being slower than a BB or CA...... the attack aircraft would be sufficent to put the fear of god into them.

[delcyros]

2.) Was it logistically feasable?

The German Navy in ww1 had a competent Etappen-Dienst, which differed a bit from the service in ww2. The Etappendienst provided timely coordinated resupply of warships with food, fuel, fresch water and ammunition on remote anchorages or in quiet bays along the coastlines of west African and South America (or Greenland or even Newfoundland for that matter!) despite the huge numerical superiority of the allied forces in both wars. It is not convincable why avgas shouldn´t have been provided while fuel and ammo could.
In addition, international law regarding the refueling of belligerent warships in neutral waters made clear that warships loose in the Atlantic could have re-provisioned and obtained fuel in many places -- including, conceivably, ports on the United States eastern seaboard (until declaration of war) or ports under japanese controll on the west asian seaboard later in the war (DKM Scheer ventured in the indic ocean, also).

My answer to question 2.) is yes, a carrier could be resupplied effectively.

[delcyros]

Build several of them on a light cruiser design which would give you 25 knots speed and to carry 40 or so aircraft.

CL´s do not have the stability required for a top weighted ship like an CVE and more worrisome, they have not the internal space required.
Most CVE´s were rebuild from merchant ships, which gave low speed (14-18 Kts typically) but enough space for the hangar related structures under the flightdeck. Space, I think, is critical here.

A reasonable option would be to rebuild fast passenger ships. These are stable enough, reasonably fast and have the required space. Unfortunately, they are very large. Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Europa and Bremen come to mind for this purpose.

[syscom3]

Originally Posted by delcyros

CL´s do not have the stability required for a top weighted ship like an CVE and more worrisome, they have not the internal space required.
Most CVE´s were rebuild from merchant ships, which gave low speed (14-18 Kts typically) but enough space for the hangar related structures under the flightdeck. Space, I think, is critical here.

A reasonable option would be to rebuild fast passenger ships. These are stable enough, reasonably fast and have the required space. Unfortunately, they are very large. Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Europa and Bremen come to mind for this purpose.

The Cleveland class hulled CL's worked out fine.

There was no reason the KM couldnt come up with a similar design.

[delcyros]

There was a reason why all Independence class CL have been deployed to the Pacific. The Cleveland hull was way to top heavy and an unpleasant seaboat in it´s carrier reborne. It lacked stability.
France overtook one Independence CL in post wartimes (for about 10 year) but had to reduce the airwing and increase ballast to make her suitable for the Atlantic. Even then La Fayette was considered both, unstable and very congested. The details of unprotected ammunition and avgas storage would not for a moment have been tolerated by the Kriegsmarine, at least from a ship of identic size to their pocket battleships (11500t. standart and little over 14.000t. full load).

[delcyros]

3.) did it strategically make sense?

For discussion purposes, let us first ignore the fact that Göring would never have sanctioned an independent airwing on Graf Zeppelin!
If the true goal of the operation were solely commerce raiding with a goal of interrupting Britain's supply lines, then I would say that such a plan did NOT make sense. Sending out a Graf Zeppelin centered Task Force to roam the open ocean in search of individually-sailing merchant ships would have been futile indeed. What were the rest of the squadron supposed to do while one of their number searched and sank the occasional tramp steamer they jointly came across? Britain had a substantial advance in carriers and as we must suppose, had an experience advantage, also.
Graf Zeppelin, following german post ww1 design practice, was fast enough to disengage most surface combatants as long as GZ remained undamaged. That points to risks from above or below the waterline. While the RN had some credible submarines, this danger is of secondary nature and airplanes become the major thread. I have wondered about how swordfishs will do against GZ. The suprisingly poor performance of the Bismark's FLAK is probably at least in part attributable to an incorrect setup caused by having two different 105mm gun mounts with different characteristics that were not accounted for in her setup. The Bismark carried both the Dop. L. C/31: Dop. L. C/37 mounts. The earlier mount was actually an upgunned 88mm turret while the latter was purposely designed for the larger high velocity 105mm gun. They were both relatively sophisticated, triaxially stabilized units (compensating fully for the motion of the ship). The Bismark had Dop. L. C/31 on the front four pairs of FLAK and the 25% faster traversing Dop. L. C/37 mounts on the rear. Tirtpitz & GZ had only Dop L. C/37 all round. From what is known about Tirpitz, she defended herselve quite well in 1942 during the Victorious air attack in the open ocean, downing two planes, GZ should be estimated to do not worser with more FLAK than Tirpitz. The same instance showed that Tirpitz headed with 30 Kts into the wind and the Albacore (successors of the Swordfishs) had a long time to catch her. GZ with it´s 35 Kts speed could elongate the approaching time even more, against slow Swordfishs up to the point when it becomes hopeless (depending on windfactor, but an approaching speed of 20-40 mp/h at best will make good target´s out of You for the light & medium AAA).

But in 1941/42, ww2 had long since seen the introduction of convois and the only reasonable purpose to sortie that many capital ships as a group would be to overwhelm a heavily defended convoy guarded by heavy ships. A task force centered around Graf Zeppelin should include the twins preferably then (they are fast, too.). But still, this doesn´t make much sense to me. A Task Force is an attractive target and the RN repeatedly showed it´s ability to trap forces.

A unified squadron made up of BC´s, CA´s and Graf Zeppelin would have been forced to spend the majority of their time between regularly scheduled meetings with supply ships to keep their bunkers full rather than aggressively running down every ship on the ocean to send to the bottom. When it comes to destroying merchant ships there was nothing that a carrier could do out on the wide Atlantic that a couple of light cruisers on the loose couldn't have done equally well, except that Graf Zeppelin projects a larger effective fighting zone into the Atlantic with air ops.

Other situation if the reason was to send out GZ onto the broad Atlantic sea lanes in order to disperse the Home Fleet, then it doesn´t need to be covered by big ships but instead could operate independently on a sole base. Realistically spoken, the German Naval Command had to reckon with the eventual loss of the ships sent out on such mission.

A single German carrier located somewhere between Cape Cod and Liverpool would have been enough to paralyze shipping between North America and Europe and force the Royal Navy to send out massive search forces. Synergetical effects might be estimated on a timely planned breakout of Tirpitz and / or the Twins or Prinz Eugen on independent raids in the Atlantic.
Let us hypothetically assume that the Germans in late 1941 decided to use Graf Zeppelin in such a capacity. Her appearence on the Atlantic would have forced the RN to send out large forces to search her. By this time, Renown & KGV were the only remaining fast ships of the RN, which could tackle GZ (both beeing slower by 5-6 Kts). Other ships, which could compete with her speed were hopelessly underarmed & underprotected to tackle GZ(32000t 35 Kts, 40 planes).
The Royal Navy had the following CV´ s at it´s disposal:

1.) HMS Argus (14.000t. 20 Kts, 20 planes)
2.) HMS Eagle (22.000t. 24 Kts, 21 planes)
3.) HMS Victorious (23000t 31 Kts, 33 planes)

4.) HMS Audacity (11.000t. 15 Kts, 6 planes) -CVE-
5.) HMS Archer (16000t. 17,5 Kts, 16 planes) -CVE-

Other non avaiable:

1.) HMS Furious (22.000t 30 Kts, 36 planes) under refit (drydocked) in the US
2.) HMS Hermes (11.000t 25 Kts, 15 planes) in transfer, sheduled for drydocking in the UK
3.) HMS Formidable (23000t 31 Kts, 33 planes) under repair (drydocked) in the US.
4.) HMS Illustrious (23000t 31 Kts, 33 planes) under refit (drydocked) in the US.
5.) HMS Indomitable (23000t. 30.5 Kts, 45 planes) sea trials, working up

The avaiable RN carriers are a very inconsistent group by late 41. Their speed ranges from 15-31 Kts, all having individually less endurance, less protection, less speed and a SMALLER airwing than the larger german carrier Graf Zeppelin.
Even the RN newest CV, HMS Indomitable, has a comparably sized airwing and comparable avgas storage (not considered a problem here) but for expanse in protection, endurance and speed. Graf Zeppelin does not compare unfavourably. To cover the most lucrative areas for German naval and / or carrier interdiction ( West Indies, Western Approaches, and mid-Atlantic narrows) would thus have required at least 6 fleet carriers -- approximately twice the number of ships that the British had aviable. Mathematically and strategically from a raiders perspective, it was wiser to send ONE ship than it was to send four!!!

[syscom3]

Good analysis Delc.

[MP-Willow]

The GZ needed a few more years to realy get going, but realy the program was doomed. I would have to say she had to meny guns on the decks that appear to be more for surface actions then AA. A fleet carrier that had the speed like GZ would have been very good in the open ocean with the u-boats and large surface ships.

[delcyros]

The GZ needed a few more years to realy get going, but realy the program was doomed.

GZ certainly would have been a historic carrier if S&G were not massively damaged off Norway by torpedoes (and thus requiring GZ´s dockyard capacity). How many years she need to get operational is speculation. I remmeber that equal concerns were expressed on the early ww2 escort carriers (how the hell could anyone attempt to land on such unstable platforms? It would require years to train this!), esspeccially on HMS Archer. But such obstacles were overcome. GZ was a comfortable seaboat, very stable (for a carrier) and not overly cramped. Plus it had the largest flightdeck of all european carriers (795 x 120 ft. compared to 760 x 95ft on HMS Implacable), so I cannot agree that it was doomed from begin.

I would have to say she had to meny guns on the decks that appear to be more for surface actions then AA.

The 4.1"/65 DP on deck are true DP guns with emphasize on AAA. The surface action 5.91"/55 QF are casematte mounted below the flight deck level and do not interfere with flight deck ops. They are wasteful in terms of weight, agreed, but such guns could be removed during refits and it is unconvincable why US and japanese carrier would remove such guns following experiences while the DKM would not remove them...

All I wanted to stress is that the powers found solutions, which probably fit best their purposes. British CV´s do have an airwing as small or smaller than GZ, a comparable avgas sorage and good protection. They have less endurance and speed, primarely a consequence of the generally smaller size compared to Graf Zeppelin. The european carriers (except the italian and french example) tended to emphasize stability and steadiness and protection, mainly because of the raw nature of the North Atlantic as the prime area of deployment.

The US and japanese carriers are more efficiant, lightly build and they have larger airwings. They tended to be more "extreme" designs, which are suited best for the conditions of the Pacific.

Below attached a well known picture showing german aviators with japanese ones. The IJN trained several german pilots and technician in the details of carrier flight operations in 1935-38.

[Watanbe]

fascinating read guys, top effort with you replies Delcyros. Syscom3 your replies were also good.

Personally I think Germany didn't really need it. It would only have been sunk anyway losing pilots and planes. The U-Boats arguably could have done the same job anyway, if not for the dominance of the Navy by the Allies, which would have hampered any German carrier operations anyway.

Delcyros you present a really good scenario and one which is very believable, if used in this role, it would have definitely been sunk yet could of proven quite a nuisance/distraction for the Allies.