What If...?

[delcyros]

Well, it is a large "what if", agreed. The first Fw-190 units got operational in mid 1941, in 1942 most fighter units in france operated with the Fw-190 A. It was not until 1943 OKL did realize that there was no possibility to bring GZ into service.

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

I think had the GZ become operational and lasted they would have adapted the 190A until they came up with an aircraft designed solely for the purpose of being used on a AC.

[the lancaster kicks ass]

i must say i'd be interested to hear your ideas about the GZ's role in the home defence role.........

[toffigd]

I must say that adapting FW190 to a carrier-based fighter would be a good idea, better than Bf 109, which had very narrow undercarriage. Nevertheless GZ would rather be useless till this time.

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

I agree she never would have even made it to the Home defense role. Even if she had what would she have done against the allies lets say on D-Day? Nothing, she would have been destroyed.

[toffigd]

Originally Posted by DerAdlerIstGelandet

she would have been destroyed.

I think better sounds: smashed and shot to pieces

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

More then likely yes.

[delcyros]

For this question I wuold like to move on for late 1944/1945. A possible role on DDay is speculation only. (the KM did not had any heavy surface vessels at France) If GZ could make it from Norway back to the Baltic Sea (like Hipper and Lutzow) it could be of importance for the home defense. Refitted with (hypothetical) Fw-190 T it could join the largest Kriegsmarine operation of the war. From early 1945 on they evacuated more than 5 million civilians and military because of the soviet advance. Succesfully shore bombardments by Prinz Eugen, Hipper and Lutzow (historical)as well as additional fighter cover/ air support by GZ (hypothetical) delayed the advance of the soviet forces operating close to the shore. The sinking of Lutzow by soviet air forces would be more difficult if it had proper air cover from GZ or not? The destruction of Hipper by Tall Boys would be more difficult, too. But I don´t doubt that GZ would become the prime target for all allied forces operating on/over tha Baltic...

[R Leonard]

GZ air group was too small to make a difference in your scenario. Further, even with an all fighter air group, it is still so small that a concerted effort by the Russians would probably overwhelm any combat air patrol by shear weight of numbers.

Regards,

Rich

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Originally Posted by R Leonard

GZ air group was too small to make a difference in your scenario. Further, even with an all fighter air group, it is still so small that a concerted effort by the Russians would probably overwhelm any combat air patrol by shear weight of numbers.

Regards,

Rich

Okay lets just take this one step further then. If this senerio had played out, then most likely the Bf-109T's would have been swapped out by Fw-109T's, right. Okay now lets say they replaced every aircraft on there with a fighter and put 42 of them on the Carrier and they could have put more in reserve lets say 50 to 100 more Fw-190T's based out of lets say Trondheim or any of the other airfields the Luftwaffe had. They could also have used the Luftwaffe units JG 5 had 4 Gruppen. I. and IV./JG 5 were stationed in Southern Norway, being equipped with the Fw 190A-2s, A-3s and A-4s. I./JG 5 had its bases on Lista, Stavanger-Sola and Forus, Kjevik, and Herdla. IV./JG 5 were distributed on bases around Trondheim also having Bf 109Fs and Fw 190As. It was left up to II. and III. Gruppe to fight the Russians on the Polar Sea Front; at this time they were solely equipped with Bf 109F-4s. Stab, 4./JG 5 and 6./JG 5 were stationed in Alakurtti, 5., 8., and 9./JG 5 were stationed at Kirkenes and 7./JG 5 was to be found at Petsamo. In this case with the amount of Bf-109's and Fw-190's which easily outmatched any Russian fighter that could be put in the air, I think that if the GZ had been placed there she could have made an impact on the homeland defense.

[R Leonard]

Ahh, the basic problem and pitfall with the "what if". If Group A takes Action X must Group B react in their historical context?

So, if the Germans do all these things that you set up for them (what if's let you be somewhat god-like, you know more than the poor little humans you're moving around), what makes you think the Russians wouldn't throw every aviation asset they had against them.

Surely, if you can stack the deck, so can the Russians. Again, there's not enough to protect the GZ and meet all other missions requirements. All the Russians have to do is make you commit one way or the other and then go to your weak side.

What are you going to do about night shipping attacks? Do you have sufficient assets in place to ward off all attacks, every night, night after night? And day attacks? Every day, day after day? In good weather, and especially in bad? And what would be the GZ's fighter direction doctrine? Not a place for makee-learnee. And if the Russians manage to put a couple of bombs through GZ's flight deck, at best, making her unable to carry on flight operations, or at worst, with only a couple of DC mistakes sinking her, what have you accomplished? From the American experience, operating carriers in the face large scale enemy land based air assets meant many carriers with a total operational capability of 1000 to 1500 aircraft. Even then, one, just one, enemy airplane gets though and the day is ruined for a carrier, witness USS Franklin (CV-13). Just a couple of bombs and she was out of the war. Don't even want to get started on suicider's. Would the Russians go to that extreme to get the GZ? Doubt it, but you never know.

So, what are you going to do? put the GZ in an operating environment where she is sure as the sun shines going to get hit. Remember also, the practice of leaving one's carrier or carriers in a place where they are in danger of 24-7 attack for days on end is just bad business. Witness the Okinawa campaign where the longer the US carriers remained on station the more likely they were to get hit. Are you going to devote all your air assets to GZ's protection and ignore all other operational requirements? For how long? Then what are you accomplishing? What are you doing for the grunts on the ground in desperate need of air cover while you're spending your assets defending a carrier that shouldn't be there in the first place. There's no target spread. There's only one target. So when you finally relent and send your fighters to protect your ground forces from enemy aircraft that have been bombing the crap out of them while you play protect the carrier, what target do you think the Russians are going to attack? Just because you can marshal German assets for your what if scenario, don't think that the Russians would go along with their historical program. Anything you can change, they would have changed to meet. They weren't stupid. More importantly, they knew the efficacy of the massed attack against any target deemed worth it and had the assets to do it.

One carrier in a very limited operating area with major and sizeable enemy land based aircraft within striking distance simply is not practical. Would it not be better to place this all fighter airgroup on an airfield somewhere, something that won't sink? I really don't see the point in employing the GZ in such a manner, is it just to say you did? Well, I'm sure the thousands of dead german sailors that would resulted from such an operational decision would have taken great comfort in that.


Rich

[delcyros]

Good post.
I think, I got your point. I do not say that GZ would turn the wheel or anything else (i did not initiate this szenario, but I participate). The outcome would be the same. But the odds were good in the Baltic in 1945. The soviets had no considerable surface units (i think the Marat only, but Kronstadt and Marat were both in no seaworthy condition at any time later than 1942) and even their subs were only mediocre (one exception: S-13, which succeed in sinking the transports Wilhelm Gustloff, Goya and Steuben). Not to name the air forces, which were uneffective (they had problems to sink minesweepers) against the Prinz Eugen, Lutzow and Hipper or even against transports (Lutzow was sunken in very late april, at a time when she did not have enough fuel to move, she was to be abandoned, anyway). The soviet air force never worked out a useful ship busting tactic (losses of Il-2 and Tu-2 against KM shipping in the Baltic were huge, even in early 1945). The KM on the other side put all into action, what they had, cruisers, destroyers, pocket battleships, transports, small ships... and they succed in the largest evacuating operation in history. GZ could make some efforts here, either as protection or -more probable- as a huge and fast transport ship. The (hypothetical)Fw-190 could do all carrier jobs, the same plane can bomb targets or provide fighter cover (so all planes were to be used in both roles, freeing some space for additional planes) there is no need for an all interceptor equipped carrier. The main problem belongs to carrier operations, as pointed out above by You. So what would the soviets do? Sub operations and low level bomber attacks (probably in a large scale). More probably: Asking the British for help. Lancaster with Tallboys could deal with the thread, however, it must be remebered that high level bombing on moving ships doesn´t work good with unguided weapons.

[delcyros]

Good post.
I think, I got your point. I do not say that GZ would turn the wheel or anything else (i did not initiate this szenario, but I participate). The outcome would be the same. But the odds were good in the Baltic in 1945. The soviets had no considerable surface units (i think the Marat only, but Kronstadt and Marat were both in no seaworthy condition at any time later than 1942) and even their subs were only mediocre (one exception: S-13, which succeed in sinking the transports Wilhelm Gustloff, Goya and Steuben). Not to name the air forces, which were uneffective (they had problems to sink minesweepers) against the Prinz Eugen, Lutzow and Hipper or even against transports (Lutzow was sunken in very late april, at a time when she did not have enough fuel to move, she was to be abandoned, anyway). The soviet air force never worked out a useful ship busting tactic (losses of Il-2 and Tu-2 against KM shipping in the Baltic were huge, even in early 1945). The KM on the other side put all into action, what they had, cruisers, destroyers, pocket battleships, transports, small ships... and they succed in the largest evacuating operation in history. GZ could make some efforts here, either as protection or -more probable- as a huge and fast transport ship. The (hypothetical)Fw-190 could do all carrier jobs, the same plane can bomb targets or provide fighter cover (so all planes were to be used in both roles, freeing some space for additional planes) there is no need for an all interceptor equipped carrier. The main problem belongs to carrier operations, as pointed out above by You. So what would the soviets do? Sub operations and low level bomber attacks (probably in a large scale). More probably: Asking the British for help. Lancaster with Tallboys could deal with the thread, however, it must be remebered that high level bombing on moving ships doesn´t work good with unguided weapons.

[toffigd]

But the question is whether Soviets would like to sink the Graf or maybe "just" damage heavily enough to get her to shipyard and then capture it. An aircraft carrier was the thing that Soviets wanted to get - and that's what happened to the GZ after war.

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Originally Posted by delcyros

Good post.
I think, I got your point. I do not say that GZ would turn the wheel or anything else (i did not initiate this szenario, but I participate). The outcome would be the same. But the odds were good in the Baltic in 1945. The soviets had no considerable surface units (i think the Marat only, but Kronstadt and Marat were both in no seaworthy condition at any time later than 1942) and even their subs were only mediocre (one exception: S-13, which succeed in sinking the transports Wilhelm Gustloff, Goya and Steuben). Not to name the air forces, which were uneffective (they had problems to sink minesweepers) against the Prinz Eugen, Lutzow and Hipper or even against transports (Lutzow was sunken in very late april, at a time when she did not have enough fuel to move, she was to be abandoned, anyway). The soviet air force never worked out a useful ship busting tactic (losses of Il-2 and Tu-2 against KM shipping in the Baltic were huge, even in early 1945). The KM on the other side put all into action, what they had, cruisers, destroyers, pocket battleships, transports, small ships... and they succed in the largest evacuating operation in history. GZ could make some efforts here, either as protection or -more probable- as a huge and fast transport ship. The (hypothetical)Fw-190 could do all carrier jobs, the same plane can bomb targets or provide fighter cover (so all planes were to be used in both roles, freeing some space for additional planes) there is no need for an all interceptor equipped carrier. The main problem belongs to carrier operations, as pointed out above by You. So what would the soviets do? Sub operations and low level bomber attacks (probably in a large scale). More probably: Asking the British for help. Lancaster with Tallboys could deal with the thread, however, it must be remebered that high level bombing on moving ships doesn´t work good with unguided weapons.

And that is basically what I am trying to say. I think she too would have been destroyed but she had a chance in this kind of a scenerio. And yes as you stated "What if" is exactly that "What if".

Originally Posted by toffigd

But the question is whether Soviets would like to sink the Graf or maybe "just" damage heavily enough to get her to shipyard and then capture it. An aircraft carrier was the thing that Soviets wanted to get - and that's what happened to the GZ after war.

I would think they would have rather had her captured but in the end I dont think they would have gotten her alive anyhow. The Germans would have scuttled her like they did the Panzerschiff Admiral Graf Spee in December 1939 and even if the Russians had raised her then like they did after the war she would have been useless to them.