German carrier aircraft

[Gudestein]

A fair point.
...though, if I were to nitpick, I'd say it'd lead to unescorted strikes if relied upon. That may well be fine for whatever role it's used for, of course.

I am amazed.

Looking at the history of the Fieseler Fi167 continues to show the insanity of the German attitude toward naval aviation. They ordered the plane for the GZ, which was never completed, so they sold them to the Croats - when GZ was briefly restarted they wanted Stukas as divebombers but no TBRs.

So we have the following:

a) An aircraft carrier that has a poor design and which was never completed more than partly because of the machinations of the Fat Man.

b) A second carrier that was completed up to the armoured deck but which was then stopped and scrapped in June 1940, a month before she had been planned to be launched.

c) Carrier aircraft that are either well-suited for carrier operations (the Fieseler Fi167) or insanely poor (the Me109, with its notoriously narrow undercarriage).

d) No experienced officers or crew in carrier operations in any way shape or form.

Conclusion: a completed GZ would have had a short, nasty and fiery life.

You can't know that. Its well armored, fast and has heavy guns. Several surface raiders made it back. Depends on the use, and they'll need a lot of extra Bf109's.
And a fast learning curve that is granted.
But please consider the early posts, we are looking for a better fighter for carrier use - that would help quite a bit.

So I'm new to this thread, and I'd like to walk through it. We will take the 109, a thoroughly excellent fighter aircraft, and we're going to operate it off a carrier deck. The 109 is already known for being a bit difficult, if not unforgiving to land, requring a high approach speed, and the ability to go through a large attitude change right before landing, and a need to deal with a wing dip to the left a lot of the time when that happens. The narrow under carriage has its problems too. This is already known to be difficult to do on dry land, with large airstrips withe great version of not moving.

The 109T will need to do all of this on a moving carrier deck. If the Graf is sortieing with the Bismarck, it's pilots are doing this for the first time. Carrier landings, which are notoriously stressful, in an underway ship, for the first time, in an aircraft which could be hard to land in the best of conditions.

They are doing this for the first time on a ship that is it sea for the first time, and thus with a great many of the crew in the traditional position of sailors in a shakedown cruise on a new ship, which is clutching the railing or head while vomiting profusely. Everyone is learning on the job, is what I'm saying, in the North Sea or North Atlantic, for the merciful love of Christ. Carrier operations are complicated if your the USN or RN, who've practiced extensively. They are complicated if your the Teikoku Kaigun, with its practice policies of "do it until your fingers bleed, and then do it some more until you do it right."

The F4F was not the 109 by any stretch of the imagination - but it was an excellent airplane for getting off of and back on to the carrier in one piece, which is what a naval fixed wing aircraft is supposed to do. And they were Ensign killers themselves.

And hard is lethal. And their are ten airframes of the 109T on board. And the carrier's systems are, ahem, innovative and optimistic. Bluntly, the Graf sortieing with Bismarck means you are spending several thousand lives and tons of steal to put a single finger four of 109s over the Atlantic, assuming the pilots live that long, which is a serious question. Heck, a malfunctioning Graf coulud be more of a deadweight than the torpedo hit. Look up shake-down cruises - its when ships break spectacularly and hilariously.

Bluntly, the idea is a bad one, and unlikley, considering the nature of the Wehermacht's nuttery has a certain style.

The idea was not unlikely as it was almost carried through. Bad or not.
The 109 was in all likelihood a horrible choice for the job - one gets the feeling that Göring did it on purpose to sabotage the competition.

 

[TheYoungPretender]

You can't know that. Its well armored, fast and has heavy guns. Several surface raiders made it back. Depends on the use, and they'll need a lot of extra Bf109's.
And a fast learning curve that is granted.
But please consider the early posts, we are looking for a better fighter for carrier use - that would help quite a bit.

You're not getting a better fighter than the 109 in the requested timeframe. Finteto. There will be no naval Me-262s ready to sortie with Bismarck.

There's a fast learning curve, and there's superhuman. Fast is learning with a heavy training schedule in six months. Being ready to fight in two weeks in the North Sea in winter is only possible if being a Nazi was as good for your ability as Hitler said it was.

All of this angst and special pleading is in service of getting one Independence-class with crappy, untested systems, into harms way on its very first deployment with a green crew. This pull off no... do we use the word miracles when it comes to greater Nazi victories?

 

[Gudestein]

You're not getting a better fighter than the 109 in the requested timeframe. Finteto. There will be no naval Me-262s ready to sortie with Bismarck.

There's a fast learning curve, and there's superhuman. Fast is learning with a heavy training schedule in six months. Being ready to fight in two weeks in the North Sea in winter is only possible if being a Nazi was as good for your ability as Hitler said it was.

All of this angst and special pleading is in service of getting one Independence-class with crappy, untested systems, into harms way on its very first deployment with a green crew. This pull off no... do we use the word miracles when it comes to greater Nazi victories?

The He-112 would be an infinitely better aircraft carrier fighter and was in production in 1937 or so where it would be selected.

Greater Nazi victories has so far only been defined as getting into the Atlantic and getting back to port. It happened for a lot of other ships that were slower and didn't even have any aircraft.

 

[Shaby]

The He-112 would be an infinitely better aircraft carrier fighter and was in production in 1937 or so where it would be selected.

Greater Nazi victories has so far only been defined as getting into the Atlantic and getting back to port. It happened for a lot of other ships that were slower and didn't even have any aircraft.

And why is having aircraft on board any advantage at all, if what you have are aircraft unsuited for the intended role, the crew is probably poorly trained and lacks any combat experience whatsoever (unless we propose a wildly different timeframe)? There is a point where it makes no significant difference whether Bismarck is escorted by GZ. And there is also a point where it is clear hindrance. I think we are closer to the latter than the former point.

 

[AdA]

You're not getting a better fighter than the 109 in the requested timeframe. Finteto. There will be no naval Me-262s ready to sortie with Bismarck.

?

"Re.2001 OR Serie II
Proposed ship-borne fighter version for the carrier Aquila, 50 built. First addition of wing-mounted machine guns to development and optional cannon, able to carry a 600 kg torpedo or bomb as standard."
Wiki

There's nothing in that spec that couldn't have been developed in 1940 when the Re2001 was introduced.
Until the advent of the F6F and Seafire, the Re2001 would have been capable of dealing with any allied carrier borne aircraft as a fighter, and it could perform as a torpedo carrier and as a dive bomber with specially developed 600kg AP bombs.
There is no better Axis option.
The GZ could carry an air group of 36 Re2001 with 12 Fi167 for Recce/SAR.

 

[sharlin]

yes but getting Italian planes into German service implies two things.

1. That the Germans are willing to buy the parts to make the planes as well as get all the factory parts converted.

2. That the Germans and Italians actually worked together in a benificial way like the US and UK did rather than Italy fucking up, Germany going "OH FOR FUCKS SAKE!" and going to pull their arses out of the fire. There was no industrial work together, the Italians produced their own inferior kit and never traded any of it to the Germans.

We'll assume that the Axis is now a proper alliance rather than one of convinience and also the de-rigure Nazi clarvoyance comes out to play and whilst this amazing multi-role plane is developed, the WAllies who are a bit more experienced with this sort of thing sit around thumbing their asses and then sniffing it and plod along as per OTL.

 

[Gudestein]

That yelling the Germans just heard was the RN throwing a screaming shitfit and then realising that the Germans are planning to do something nasty. Thing is with carriers is that they are inherently offensive weapons. You can't have the Germans go "We need them to defend our Baltic shore..." Because everyone then points at land bases and goes "Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm?" whilst the Germans cough and tug at their collars, sweating nervously.

If you build a carrier, its a signal that 'I'm building a weapon that's only role is offensive warfare'. This message also has the caveat attached of 'Yes we won't be using it against the French because they are in range of our bombers. The Soviets don't have a navy and now the Scandinavian's are getting concerned.' But the biggest problem is that the RN would then just go "One two three four I declare a building war!" and probably start to rearm sooner and quicker with an emphasis on more carriers. Say another two Ark Royals and maybe a smaller carrier as well because the carriers the Germans are building are CLEARLY aimed at the UK and the RN.

You've also got the technical issue, building carriers may seem easy.

Get boat.
flatten top
put deck on.
????
Profit

But its not that easy, as was shown with the Nazi's first touch the Graff Zepplin, that was so badly designed she initially had a permanent list because she was unbalanced.

You've then got to get the training for the crews, build up the air corps, practice landings and build new planes for the ships as you can't really land normal land planes on a carrier (Seafires for example, horrid planes to land, breaking undercarrages and a bastard to see over the nose, and the 109 has an even more fragile landing gear.)

There's also another huge looming and widly useless problem looming. Herr Goering. Mr ALL THAT FLIES IS MINE! you've got to get him, in the Nazi government's environment to A. Accept that the Kriegsmarine can have some of his planes/airmen, B. To accept that it won't be under his control, presumably and C, for Hitler and friends to be far more navy minded than they were.

And all this is also gobbling resources away from the Heer and Luftwaffe, doubly so for the luftwaffe who are going ot have to give up several hundred highly trained pilots as well as aircraft when they are going to be needed for operations in 1939 - 40.

German carriers = Arms race earlier and the UK re-arming earlier. This is not a good thing.

I know its a bit late quoting this comment, but never mind. Lets assume the Germans start converting the Scharnhorst liner all the way back in 1933-34. Probably keeping it under wraps until they walk out of the Geneva conference.
Thus, IOTL, the British arguments for the anglo-german naval agreement was that the Germans were rearming anyway. They might as well do it under a treaty so the Brits have some handle on what they are doing.
Ironically, building a Scharnhorst carrier might put the Germans in a better bargaining position for the AGN negotiations and provide them carrier experience in Spain.

 

[Gudestein]

"Re.2001 OR Serie II
Proposed ship-borne fighter version for the carrier Aquila, 50 built. First addition of wing-mounted machine guns to development and optional cannon, able to carry a 600 kg torpedo or bomb as standard."
Wiki

There's nothing in that spec that couldn't have been developed in 1940 when the Re2001 was introduced.
Until the advent of the F6F and Seafire, the Re2001 would have been capable of dealing with any allied carrier borne aircraft as a fighter, and it could perform as a torpedo carrier and as a dive bomber with specially developed 600kg AP bombs.
There is no better Axis option.
The GZ could carry an air group of 36 Re2001 with 12 Fi167 for Recce/SAR.

That is the best suggestion thus far.

yes but getting Italian planes into German service implies two things.

1. That the Germans are willing to buy the parts to make the planes as well as get all the factory parts converted.

2. That the Germans and Italians actually worked together in a benificial way like the US and UK did rather than Italy fucking up, Germany going "OH FOR FUCKS SAKE!" and going to pull their arses out of the fire. There was no industrial work together, the Italians produced their own inferior kit and never traded any of it to the Germans.

We'll assume that the Axis is now a proper alliance rather than one of convinience and also the de-rigure Nazi clarvoyance comes out to play and whilst this amazing multi-role plane is developed, the WAllies who are a bit more experienced with this sort of thing sit around thumbing their asses and then sniffing it and plod along as per OTL.

Yes this is all true, but who knows, the POD that makes them want to make carrier aircraft could also make want them to cooperate with the Italian Navy.

 

[Gudestein]

And why is having aircraft on board any advantage at all, if what you have are aircraft unsuited for the intended role, the crew is probably poorly trained and lacks any combat experience whatsoever (unless we propose a wildly different timeframe)? There is a point where it makes no significant difference whether Bismarck is escorted by GZ. And there is also a point where it is clear hindrance. I think we are closer to the latter than the former point.

We are probably exaggerating when thinking all the Bf109 are gone after a week at sea, but even so. They could make torpedo strikes at their eneies.

 

[kalamona]

We are probably exaggerating when thinking all the Bf109 are gone after a week at sea, but even so. They could make torpedo strikes at their eneies.

Some video of Seafire (an aircraft vaguably compareable to the Ts) landings (among other things):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SVZlWtJ7-c

Maybe exaggeration, but still, does not look good. And with or without the "T question", the GZ need some extensive trials, after that some extensive modifications, in other words, time, so either sooner launch/comissioning or/and a later sortie. Of course, i would not rule out a desperate decision on behalf of the KM, ignoring most of the (non-critical) problems experienced on the trials and go for the sortie as it is, but that would not end too well.

 

[kalamona]

Well, thank you for giving me the benefit of both your charm and your wisdom.

Welcome to my ignore list.

You are a cute one, are you not?
And of course, you are welcome, anytime.

However, good though the Fieseler was, it was still expected to operate from possibly the worst carrier of World War Two. Can anyone think of a worse design?

Pretty much every first generation gun carrier?

 

[mescal]

But please consider the early posts, we are looking for a better fighter for carrier use - that would help quite a bit.

Apply for Lend Lease F4F

Lets assume the Germans start converting the Scharnhorst liner all the way back in 1933-34.

She was launched in december 1934.
Better to stop the construction, design the carrier and build her asa carrier from scratch.

Note however that if the design starts in 1933 and the building in 1933/34, you'll get a piss-poor carrier.

building a Scharnhorst carrier might put the Germans in a better bargaining position for the AGN negotiations and provide them carrier experience in Spain.

I don't see how it could possily put them in a better diplomatic position.
If Germany's building a carrier, there is a strong probability UK won't negociate at all. And if they bargain, it will be with a gun in hand

 

[kalamona]

a) An aircraft carrier that has a poor design and which was never completed more than partly because of the machinations of the Fat Man.

I think, in this issue - and among quite some others, but lets stay on-topic - there is too much blame put on our beloved Mr Göring. In this case, IMHO the KM leadership should be blamed - of course, they used Göring as a cheap excuse, but as far as i know, they were the ones, who halted/slowed the construction and pretty much fucked up their turf, every way they could.

(Yes, i have a very low opinion about the leadership of the KM in general.)