Why The Nazis Never Built An Aircraft Carrier?
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You’ve heard of the word Zeppelin and first thing that pops to your mind are large airships, most notably the famous Hindenburg, but this Zeppelin was a bit different.
Named after Count, or in German Graf Ferdinand fone Zeppelin, the inventor of airships bearing his name in the honor, this ship was to be the first German aircraft carrier of the WW2 and
Hitler hoped that it will be one of the crucial factors in beating the Royal Navy and dominating the seas.
German navy was never as strong as the British one and it was clear to Hitler in 1934 that if he wishes to compete with the British in a potential conflict in the future, Kriegsmarine should be strengthened and new types of ships needed to be developed.
Plan Z was the name of the German plan to strengthen Kriegsmarine’s presence in the Atlantic ocean and even the odds against the Royal navy.
Among other stuff, it listed aircraft carriers as one of the priorities and 4 Graf Zeppelin class carriers were planned in total.
And having the new german airforce limited by land airbases wouldn’t do at all. Hence an aircraft carrier would be the perfect cornerstone of the Germany navy.
But, Rather than classic aircraft carrier, the idea was to incorporate heavy guns into the design so the ship can defend itself against the potential enemies. the main weaponry of the ship, apart from the aircraft obviously, would’ve been 16 150mm guns, the same ones used as secondary armament on Bismarck and Scharnhorst battleships. Further 12 heavy anti air 105mm guns would accompany a number of smaller 37 and 20mm AA guns.
This was much heavier firepower compared to some of the comparable aircraft carriers of the WW2, for example Essex class or the Japanese Akagi, even the USS Lexington or the Shinano which were the largest of the war.
And now that we mentioned Akagi, it’s interesting to note that the Germans actually obtained drawings and technical data from it and used it in the development of their own carrier.
It was to be truly massive, 262m in length, had 31.5m beam, and if you are wondering what that is, well basically fancy naval name for widest points of the ship and its draft was 7.6m, where draft is the distance from the waterline to the bottom of the keel or in simple English, the hull of the ship.
Displacement of the ship was 33.500t and maximum speed was projected at 35 knots.
Ironically, this huge aircraft carrier to take on the british could only exist… BECAUSE of the british.
In an attempt to appease and improve relations, Germany and Britian had agreed to increase the displacement limit of 38.500t for aircraft craffiers, greater than the limit of the Treaty of Versailles.
This massive ship would require a crew of around 2000, with 300 of them being the aircrew and the rest - sailors and officers. In terms of aircraft on board, we will get to a minute, so hang on.
With the green light confirmed, the keel was laid in 1936 and we move forward 3 years towards the start of the war - 1939.
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Everybody knows the reason ...
is Not What You Think!
Ye.
And it's not what you think
The pinned comment was not what/who I thought
Cause the American bankers didn't have more money to lend😁😁😁😁
Not What you Think .nice to see you guys here 👍
They were too busy building a base on the moon
More a Basis in the antartic
lol
I love those movies
Don't forget building a base in Planet Venus
hehe iron sky
Many years back I had a board game called "War at Sea" - it was a WWII naval battle game. One curiosity in it was an extra ship piece for the Graf Zeppelin that let you play a "what if" scenario if the carrier had been used in the war.
Never thought I would hear someone else say that name outside of the game. Barely anyone knows about it.
@I don't think so
Only the board game battleship is popular
@@Yes_im.a-lordpeacock we need more naval warfare board games tbh, would be neat to see one in the style of that one star wars table top game with the large ship moc's
There was also a civil war board game called Battle Cry and the WWI aerial combat games called Dogfight product by I believe Parker Brothers in the late 1960s.
Love that Game. I found a a complete copy a few year ago. we would set up War at Sea & Victory in the Pacific and play them both simultaneously...
There about six Carriers listed for the Germans, btw. The first two were Graf Zeppelin-class, but the next pair would be a different class. There was also two Light Carriers. These two were conversions. Named Weser for one being converted from a Merchantman and Seydlitz, a Heavy Cruiser converted to a Carrier, but like Graf Zeppelin, abandoned and sunk later on.
Part of the problem the Germans had, was that Fat Goeing didn't want a rival Air Force. He wanted absolute control over all Military Aircraft. Even as he was creating a ground force out of Luftwaffe personnel who promptly got kicked around every time, they actually had to fight someone.
Many nations lack independent Naval Air Forces for the reason that the Air Force doesn't want one. In some cases, in some other nations it is the Army doesn't want the Navy to have a Naval Air Force. Whatever the reasoning, most of the time, they are basis and more a power grab by higher ups or some people not wanting to spend the extra money.
Then you have the royal navy which had an independent fleet air arm then merged it with the royal Air force and just before ww2 recreated an independent fleet air army.
@poil8351 Very true, and it was realized that RAF leadership was prioritizing their own needs over the RN's needs.
Which is why the FAA was so behind and needed to acquire American Aircraft to rebuild their capabilities up to par. Something that didn't always work out either due to the differences caused by the decision to place all FAA assets under RAF authority.
Ironically, the RAF Rank Structure is actually based on the RNAS the forerunner of the FAA.
The Italians were also close to build their own aircraft carrier, almost close to completion.
The ship was called RN Aquila.
What about impero?
Aquila had crusier engines and would have been very underpowered
@@albertsuseintsus7355 hahaha so many people play azure lane here 😉
@@loveofmangos001 I don't think so the 4 boiler/turbine groups would have developed around 150000 hp all together, enough to push her to 30 knots, also the power each of the 4 groups could provide was restricted from 50000 to 37500 hp
@@dantheman3022
The Switch game for Azur Lane is pretty cool too
Another interesting carrier that could have been was the Weser. She was originally built as to be the 5th of 6 Admiral Hipper class heavy cruisers under the name Seydlitz, but later planned to switch the eight 8-inch guns to twelve 6-inch light cruiser guns. However, after seeing the success of Royal Navy carriers (especially of HMS Ark Royal during the Hunt for the Bismarck) they decided to begin conversion to a carrier. She was about 70% complete when the Soviets began closing in, and so she too was scuttled.
Given its small size, the _Weser_ likely would have been useful as a light aircraft carrier supporting the larger _Graf Zeppelin_ in the Atlantic Theater. This would have been similar in practice to what the U.S. Navy and Royal Navy did with their fleet carriers and light aircraft carriers in the Pacific Theater.
Yea it was more of a concept at the time for the Nazis
@@christopherwang4392 the German Navy at that time really needed fighter cover. But their ideas on how to use aircraft carriers would be nice in the early days 30s with that gun battery.
Actually, Seydlitz, and Lützow were originally designed with 12 150mm guns on the same hull. But they were later re-ordered as normal Admiral Hipper class CAs. Seydlitz was nearly complete when the order to convert her into a CV was given...
@@cjmpaja as for Lützow, she was sold to the Soviets before the two became hostiles, renamed Tallinn
I love learning about all these interesting one off creations. Keep them coming. Would be very interested to hear about all the different kinds of airships that have been around. Also the American b58 hustler
Unfortunately Hermann Goering ran the German airforce and jealously refused to let the navy run or operate any of it's own aircraft. So if the Graff Zeppelin had been finished and commissioned into service would the pilots have their own chain of command ? If the captain of the carrier sailed them close to a target would the pilots refuse to fly because somewhere back in Berlin some airforce general couldn't find the famously drug addicted Goering to OK the mission?
An air force being responsible for everything to do with air ops from naval ships traced back to a bad proposal made by General Smuts at the request of the British government. That, in turn, was a part of a good proposal creating the stand alone RAF. The result was that the Fleet Air Arm was an unwanted, undernourished, semi orphan of the RAF during the Great Depression whose main function, Swordfish TBs excepted, seemed to be awarding contracts keeping the makers of poorly designed heavier than air machines from closing shop. Once the FAA escaped back to the RN in WW2, courtesy of Winston Churchill, it did tend to favour the "better products" available from American firms closely tied to the USN for obvious reasons. When the FAA managed to get the plentiful, scary, "widow maker Corsair" into fighting trim for carrier operations along with minimal casualties, everyone sat up and took notice.
Believe it or not!. The Italians did the same thing!. Only in the 80's did the Italian Navy get control of the air assist?
I'd hope for the sake of their own lives the German Brass on the ship would get along no matter what was happening in Berlin, once the ship was at sea they (the Ships Captain and the Wing Commander) were the Highest ranking, end of.
But Germany's entire Gov was much like we see today with people in places because of who they know not what they know, and rivalries between adolescents with too much power and not enough pride leak all over the place through their vassals. it can't work if you can't cooperate, the Japanese Navy and Army found that out at the cost of many Japanese "peasants" lives.
Rather than engaging in naval battles against enemy fleet carriers, the _Graf Zeppelin_ class aircraft carriers would have been more useful as commerce raiders against Allied merchant shipping.
Right? If nothing else, the diversion in resources to skink or contain it would have helped Germany, especially if it could have gotten out to Brest or some other French Atlantic harbor.
Agreed!
Except these things were horribly designed, even by Kriegsmarine standards.
Horrible waste of resources Germany didn't have to spare for literally no gain. This ship would have been cannon fodder like the rest of the German surface force, especially the big capitol ships. Germany gained nothing from deploying a single one, nothing.
invest on long range bombers and u-boat is better for convey raiding than Graf Zeppelin
The problem of a German aircraft carrier would have been resupply. The Kriegsmarine simply didn't have enough colliers to support the extended missions this vessel was planned for, not to mention the lack of other support vessels needed.
The Kriegsmarine ran on coal? I thought they were using diesel. But I don't think they had tankers, either. For aviation and diesel fuel.
Hey . . . anyone knows why there's black smoke when its catapult sending an aircraft to the air?
@@JohnSmith-mh1mp Indeed the majority of the German Navy by WW2 ran on oil fired steam turbines with diesel used for the u-boats, s-boats, the pocket battle ships such as Graf Spey and the planned H-class battle ships. Diesel is much more efficient (over 30% more) but the engines bulkier and these ships a little slower. The choice of diesel was because of the lack of refueling opportunities. Some of the German ships did run of superheated steam which made them less reliable initially.
@@JohnKickboxing Either the pilots are gunning their engines, or perhaps the German Navy planned to use black powder charges to power catapults to launch aircraft. From the video it appears some type of catapult system might have been set up, but I cannot confirm this theory.
@@markh.6687 👌
From a few sources Graf Zeppelin had some Components that were based on the Japanese Carrier Akagi, which was originally supposed to be an Amagi-Class Battle Cruisers, Akagi would only be the one to undergo the conversion with Amagi being scrapped from the Kanto Earthquake of 1923 and the Washington Naval Treaty and her two other sister ships Takao and Atago would never see the light of day, as their names would be reused for the first two ships of Heavy Cruisers of the same name
One of the biggest reasons Germany's surface fleet wasn't ready for WWII is that Hitler promised Erich Raeder, head of the Kriegsmarine that he wouldn't start WWII until 1947, so the fleet that they were hoping for was still being built. When Hitler declared war in 1939, Raeder made the comment "All we can do is die gallantly". Those early defeats were why Raeder was replaced in 1943 with Karl Donitz, with the emphasis on U-boats, which is what Hitler wanted all along. Hitler had already considered following the loss of the Bismarck scrapping the entire surface fleet completely. It was why the Tirpitz was never used to its potential and why Scharnhorst & Gneisenau never received their upgrade in main armament. They were designed in mind with the ability that once the war began and the Washington Treaty no longer mattered, the nine 11-inch guns in three triple turrets would be replaced with six 15-inch guns in three dual gun turrets, very similar to the look of the HMS Repulse & Renown.
wow! i never knew that. thanks
Scharnhorst and Gniesau almost got tripple 13 inch or 12 inch guns. The 12 inch guns were actually built and used as shore guns. Hitler preferred these ships with 11 inch guns because he wanted to ease the Anglo-German Naval Treaty through. The 11 inch caliber was easier to make technically but the main reason was political.
It's generally accepted that to keep one WW2 carrier at sea, you needed at least three to allow for one being overhauled, repaired or up-dated with another working-up in preparation for ops., so completing one carrier without a task force of escorts would have have been futile (at least Hitler got that right). Apart from anything else, they had no decent naval aircraft: in trials the Stuka's undercarriage proved too fragile to cope with deck-landings, and the Bf 109T, which had a larger wing to cope with low approach speeds, had an even more fragile undercarriage and airframe, and limited range. A week's operation in North Atlantic conditions and they wouldn't have had a plane fit to fly.
that was not true in ww2. Don't base modern Navy ops on ww2 era tempo. US carriers fighting in the Pacific spent much greater periods under operation and generally only returned for port for longer than a few days if they were damaged. And in some cases even when they were damaged they spent only a few days in port. But we were able to keep all our Flat tops in combat unless they took Torpedo hits.
But we really can't compare US Navy doctrine to any potential Doctrine from Germany's navy since it was never a true sea control navy and was only valuable in terms of producing trouble for British shipping.
The real issue was Germany spent way to much of its resources on building Battleships which had not utility for Germany's limited resources. and poor cooperation between the German Navy and Airforce. Germany had plenty of R&D potential to navalize their normal Land Based Aircraft But they put way to much focus on building up their Battlefleet- 2 Battleships and 2 Battle Cruisers would have been much better spent on Aircraft Carriers- and i don't even mean as true "capitol ships" but carriers are superior in the Raiding missions which from the Start was going to be the only possible value of the German Navy going into WW2.
Probably Germany would have been best served by building Carriers on the Scharnhorst Class hull with potentially others on the smaller Cruiser Hulls of the Hipper Class similar to how the US had the Independence class CVLs
Given German Capitol Ship output in ww2 they could probably produced up to 5 fleet Carriers and possibly 4 or more light carriers.
This of course could only remotely be possible if the German Navy had began its re-armament programs with a intent to build Carriers from the beginning. While the German Army was forward looking the Germany Navy was not- under Admiral Raeder at least.
I do think that Germany could have built up a robust Aircraft Carrier force had they committed Earlier to its development starting in the Early 30s when the Nazi's started their re-armament programs.
They had ideas to use the FW190. That actually can carry a torpedo! Sturdy plane and mixing A-variant strike aircraft and D-variant interceptors could have worked
@@MrChickennugget360 Consider that the US and UK had several carriers serving as training vessels, including paddle wheel flat tops on the Great Lakes, the fleet carriers enjoyed a steady supply of replacement pilots without disrupting their operational tempo. These same carriers had the luxury to experiment with new equipment and doctrine which then got passed along the pipeline to the fleet carriers. The sole carrier in an entire navy is not equal to the capability of a single carrier of a navy with multiple carriers.
@@MalfosRanger true but those training carriers were not in service until war broke out. prior to that pilots were trained on front line CVs
She would have been swarmed and attacked the second she put to sea. She never would have lasted a week for the planes to be broke in let alone worn out. The Royal Navy would have pounced on her so fast she wouldn't be able to do anything but try to run.
Considering what happened to pretty much ever large German capital ship, they'd be lucky get out of dry dock before the RAF reduced them to smoldering wrecks
yes or it would last 6 months once it went in to service .
Not to mention the royal navy. I don't see this thing going anywhere without the royal navy hot on its heels
@@arry5432 Pro American rubbish rewriting history
@@timphillips9954 No, not really. Truth is that the German Navy was just too damn small to fight off the US and Royal Navy, who had the largest fleets. Once word about any potential German carrier got out, they would be essential targets. Chances are the Kreigsmarine would probably chance steaming them to a secure port and stay there moored up for the duration of the war, like Tirpitz.
@@commandingjudgedredd1841 The German navy was defeated before the Americans even entered the war. The RN / RAF sunk all the German, Italian and most of the French
capital ships before the Americans even decided which side they were on! The Americans played on a junior role in the final stages of the battle of the Atlantic and even less in the med and Indian ocean, middle East around the cape and West African coast!
The Graf Zeppelin actually helped the Allies win the war by taking money, raw resources like steel that could and would have built more tanks, or submarines. The Allies actually figured out fairly early on in the war that it would be a mistake to bomb the ship because it was still a German dream that they could maybe complete it and use it.
That would have also been a money and time/resource suck as they had no experience with operating aircraft carriers.
back then it took countries about 15 to 20 years to develop just the basic understanding and operational procedures to use aircraft carrier doctrine.
Italy was in a similar state with an almost completed aircraft carrier and a second one being worked on.
Andrea Doria sank in 1956 and by 2004 there wasn’t much left but the outer hull and a splayed debris field where the superstructure once was. The Zeppelin is in roughly the same depth (80m or 240 feet) So I’m guessing the Polish research vessel picked up a hull and that’s about it. Sadly marine archeology is at the relentless mercy of the hydrography 24/7/365.
The Germans did not have the industrial capacity or the resources to build a Navy, equal powerful as their Army and their Airforce. So they opted to focus in building a submarine fleet. A logical decision, actual one of the few ones that they took during WW II.
I agree, Had a man like Bismarck been Chancellor the Germans would have never fought a three front war. He would allied with the Poles because of his distrust of Communism or should I say socialism and split the French from the English, something like that. He defiantly would have never taking Germany to war before the military was ready to fight a war. There would have not been a genocide committed eighter. Bismarck's favorite banker was Jewish and helped the Empire with the three wars to untied Germany in 1871.
As a nation with primarily land borders, Germany needed a very strong army, which needed support from an air force. The navy was an afterthought.
For Britain, the navy was the premiere service, followed by the RAF and then the Army was an afterthought (literally, as Chamberlain's government periodically froze the expansion of the army in favor of growth in the RN and RAF to prepare Britain for war. Previous governments did much the same.
Add to that Britain had greater shipbuilding capacity. How to catch up with that?
When Bismarck was laid down (followed by Tirpitz and Graf Zeppelin months later), Germany had no battleships, and just two battlecruisers under construction.
Britain had 12 (admittedly old) battleships, 3 battecruisers, 5 aircraft carriers and a sixth under construction.
In response to Germany commencing Bismarck, Tirpitz and Graf Zeppelin, the Royal Navy began construction of 5 fast battleships and 4 more aircraft carriers.
They couldn't hope to match Britain. Adding France and it gets worse. (and if the Stresa Front had been held together, that might have been Britain, France and Italy against Germany.
@@ulrichschnell2331 I can't remember who coined the phrase that Germany lost because they were run by Nazis. Decisions made from their ideology instead of reality. The waste, corruption and dysfunction inherent in their system.
So many things would have changed if the Nazis never came to power.
But they got started on the submarine construction too late. They had a fairly free reign in 1939 and early 1940 with their radio coordinated wolf pack tactics that defeated the convoy system that was so effective in WW I, leaving the Royal Navy scrambling to learn all over again how to defeat the u-boats.
Taking advantage of that time with a large u-boat force, they might have cut Britain off from supplies. I cringe at the thought of Hastings replacing Chamberlain instead of Churchill.
The British and Americans put a fortune into developing technologies to fight the u-boats. The Germans had the technological edge in designing/building u-boats, but it was no match for the UK/USA advantage in technology to hunt submarines (culminating with radars so sensitive they could detect the snorkel of a submerged submarine. By 1943, the Battle of the Atlantic had been won by the Western Allies.
@@iansneddon2956 You are right of course. The statement was describing a scenario in which the Bismarck might had survived another day. If Graff Zeppelin had been built in time for this battle, Great Britian would had suffered greater losses.
I think the "best case scenario" for Nazi Germany was a stalemate, and that's stretching things. In the event of a stalemate, the US would have used nuclear weapons in original German territory.
Probably, but the Atlantic was very different from the Pacific. Against Imperial Japan, they island hopped until they were in reach for an amphibian invasion.
The Atlantic only had one island close enough to the enemy coasts to allow preparations for an assault: Great Britain. Had Nazi Germany successfully invaded it, the US would have no place to concentrate the troops needed. Maybe Russia, but that's if they defeated Japan first, and even then it was a long trip over enemy waters.
As for the nuclear card, they would have no aerial base close enough to send heavy bombers to any significant target.
I don't know what the end result would be, but what is sure is that the war would've continued many years more.
@@moteroargentino7944 What about Iceland?
@@TheAKgunner You're right, I missed Iceland. It's still too far to be used as a platform for an invasion, but a B-29 could easily reach Berlin or any other German city from there. The question still remains if they could make it through an occupied Europe, but it's technically possible.
Probably not.
Depends. If they had take down Russia, the West would have likely sued for peace
It had a tiny air group for 1942 and had no ships that would have been effective as escorts. Had it sailed it would have been the tomb of 2000 men. See Drachinifel's video 'KMS Graf Zeppelin - Guide 194 (NB)' for good info on the ship.
Had it been used as additional defense in the Fjords with Tirpitz, and air support for Scharnhorst's convoy raid they may have been able to pose a greater threat.
@@jamesknight3070 I don't think so. Aircraft Carriers of the time (and now, except for VTOL) need to be moving at speed to launch their aircraft, the confined waters of a Fjord would not allow that even if it could get enough steam to be able to move. As for the Scharnhorst's convoy raid... have you seen what the weather was like on that day? If the Germans had a carrier available for the raid, the allies would have had a carrier with Duke of York and escort carrier (or possibly a MAC) to assist in the convoy's defence, but on the day neither side would have been able to launch any planes.
The 2nd Graf Zeppelin-Class carrier was to be called Peter Strasser.
Germany also had planned to convert 2 ocean liner ships (forgot their names) to be carriers but the plans was cancelled too. They was to be the Jade-Class light carriers Jade and Elbe .
The reason Germany couldn't get their aircraft carriers up and running was because they didn't use Squarespace? That's a hell of a choice for an ad transition.
I really enjoy your writing.
The fact is that Germany didn't really need a carrier. Most of their surface operations were in the Baltic and North Seas, within range of land based airpower. While airplanes could be of some help for raiders, that would have required a lot more resources (that Germany couldn't afford) than submarines and regular surface raiders needed.
One need only look at a map of Germany and see that the pathway to the sea is easily blocked Britain and France (or Holland, Belgium, Denmark if they are so inclined) to realize that Capital Ships were almost useless except in the situation that Germany controlled France etc. The fall of France was almost unexpected and prior to the battle of France priority had to be given to the Germany Army, Tactical Aircraft for the Luftwaffe. No point having long range strategic bombers, Battleships and aircraft carriers if France and Poland are over running Germany (and Both could have done so easily prior to 1937)
need after 💩-church ⛪hilltop declared war and made Europe a show 😉 and im 🇬🇧 but leaving a navy without landing on uk shore's was a big mistake and letting the usa 🇺🇸 back uk 🇬🇧 ended with the 3-rike losing the war from 1942 ish onwards as diplomats failed to keep church ⛪in check
I would have to say ..a couple aircraft carriers along with the Wolf pack in the Atlantic could have been bad bad news for Britain. Seriously would have stopped a bunch of freedom ships bringing Britain needed munitions .
The reality is that Germany did send some very valuable ships wayyyy out of friendly aircraft range. They tried to do Commerce Raiding with surface ships.
Graf Spee was caught out in the Atlantic, fought the Battle of the River Plate in 1939 against the British. She ran for neutral Uruguay but couldn't stay there long. The British being real sly, fooled the Germans into thinking that a superior force of Royal Navy ships were on the way to pounce on Graf Spee after she leaves the neutral port and waters, when there really wasn't. The captain seeing no good way out for his men with no viable military action, elected to scuttle his ship and turn the crew over to Uruguay, who transferred them over to Argentinia for internment. The captain committed suicide.
The Kriegsmarine did Operation Berlin in January - March 1941 with both Scharnhorst-class Battleships. They got into the Atlantic and did quite a bit of damage out there. VAdm Lutjens was in command. The operation was successful and they made the Royal Navy look bad.
However, the Germans wanted to repeat Operation Berlin with Lutjens again in command of the mission, Operation Rheinubung. Lutjens wanted to do this with both the Scharnhorst-class and both Bismarck-class Battleships. However, the Scharnhorsts had suffered damage and would take a while to return to service. Tirpitz was brand spanking new and the crew had not been trained. Lutjens wanted to delay Rheinubung but GAdm Raeder would have none of it. So Bismarck was sortied only with Cruiser Prinz Eugen in May 1941 and we all know how that turned out.
After Bismarck was lost was when the Kriegsmarine stopped their surface ship sorties past friendly aircraft range.
@@killhacker5776 The Germans were not just going to easily have a bunch of Carriers. There were a lot of obstacles for it.
Their resources and shipbuilding weren't up to it. The fact is the Kriegsmarine was quite weak, the Italian Navy was far stronger than they were, and even then the Royal Navy handled both navies very well even before the European Axis powers declared war on the USA. I know there was a plan for Germany to magically build a new Battle Fleet to rival the Royal Navy, which I laughed at because it was nothing more than wishful thinking.
The Kriegsmarine, like the French Navy, had a major problem. Germany like France, was a continental European power, meaning they shared borders with rivals. Both countries have a long historical tradition of maintaining very powerful armies. For Germany this was demanded, as almost all compass directions had the country share borders with nations that they had been recently at war with.
The French Navy, just like the Kriegsmarine, wanted to do and build more, but the army was more important and both nations had way more finite resources.
And now for the Kriegsmarine, outside the Army / Heer having higher priorities, during the 1930s they faced a major hurdle for naval aviation: The Luftwaffe. Hermann Goring had a massive hatred of the Kriegsmarine. Germany is also one of those countries where the Air Force controlled all military aviation, and these air forces tend to hate the naval services that they competed with. The Luftwaffe often c-blocked the Kriegsmarine in trying to get new aircraft designs for carrier use. The Luftwaffe even went further in trying as much as possible to deny the Kriegsmarine pilots for their efforts towards a carrier and carrier air group.
You can kind of understand why the Luftwaffe acted the way it did, because they had tons of responsibilities already, and the war would eventually show the Luftwaffe was not large enough to do what was asked of it.
There simply was no way Germany was going to get a bunch of fancy new capital ships, especially Carriers. They had far more pressing priorities on land, and the Kriegsmarine as a service was treated like red headed step children. Prussia / Germany have long had a big affair with the army, the Luftwaffe had the powerful Goring to champion its cause. And this left the Kriegsmarine being a starved afterthought.
A Bv155 video would be awesome. The twists and turns that project took are something else, to the point where even though one still exists (in Smithsonian storage), for a long time nobody was sure exactly what airframe it WAS (V2 vs V3).
That, and it's just a beautiful airplane. In an awkward, gangley sort of way.
What is the gameplay footage played around the squarespace advert?
Good video!
I believe that the limited resources that Germany had would have been better focused on turning out even more and more advanced submarines. You can build a lot of subs for the materials in carriers and battleships. Not as glamorous but very likely more efficient.
You are correct Bigfoot. I once read that for the price of 1 battleship, you can built 38 submarines. Submarines would needed far less crew: 42-46 officers and men per U boat (46 crew x 38 U boats = 1748 total), versus 2065 officers and men on a Bismarck battleship.
Submarines were much harder to locate and destroy then a single battleship or aircraft carrier. Because submarines are smaller and can crash dive.
Hitler just didn’t understand naval warfare or listen much to those who did.
Amateurs discuss Tactics, Professionals discuss Logistics.
@@JeffMathias Hitler didn't understand most warfare and his generals never really stood up to him.
They did. The E-boats at the end of the war were literally the first true submarines. All subs that came before are better classified as submersibles
That self-defending carrier concept is very similar to what the Soviet Union did years later. When you know you don't have enogh warships to protect the carrier this tends to be the obvious option.
Considering most Soviet ships can barely move without tugboats, sure 😂
The best defence for an aircraft carrier is an additional aircraft carrier. Soviets like(d) Nazi Kanonenkitsch
and support(ed) George Lukas because of this preference (Russia Hoax)
@@mulletoutdooradventures6286 And don´t forget those pesky,sudden storms in the black sea
In practice, it was a very bad idea. Adding large guns to a carrier reduced the space and resources available for the air group. More, odds were that if a carrier did get intercepted on the surface, a few 8 inch guns wouldn't particularly help. The Americans figured this out with the Lexington-class carriers (which originally had large guns), while the British and Japanese never even tried it.
@@Cailus3542 Yes, but keep in mind that those carriers were intended for short range and limited operations.
According to some of the designs, it looks like the air carrier, would've been more of a cross breed, between a top surface air carrier landing and a side/adjacent battle ship weapon arms. Combo fleet ship.
Funnily enough, I only started to know the Graf Zeppelin Aircraft Carrier B from a certain game. But due to the ship never being given a name, it was name as *KMS Peter Strasser* the second aircraft carrier of the Graf Zeppelin class
My guess is Azur Lane, it has more aircraft carriers from the KMS then what the real KMS theoretically have
@@ppppzone832 it's amazing how Azur Lane actually tells part of their history in their ships whether it's subtle or not
@@CommanderSlayers agreed. Though some of them are very depressing. Especially the ones with PTSD.
World of Warships recently had a update that includes most of the planned German Aircraft Carriers not just the Graf Zepplin! And not only rare German designs, but ship designs from many other nations that were never made it to the shipyard. You should check it out!
Been a couple months since they were added to PC and Legends (console), but were also added to Blitz (mobile) today. You can actually get into and win fun gunfight duels against other carriers lol, at least on Legends
Ah, the glory days before the captain skills rework when you could run a secondary build Graf Zeppelin and cackle maniacally as any DD that got within torp range would get nuked.
@@ljessecusterl German carriers have more or less retained lethal secondaries
This comment is brought to you by World of Warships. Sign up today to get this limited deal!
In retrospect, that would have been a better sponsor for this video instead of Squarespace
Not sure if they have Parseval but Azur Lane Have
Hitler had many concepts, from a big plane to a big tank, I love watching your videos and learning about all of them!
Holter, besides the war side. He had good ideas that could of changed the world
Good thing Hitler was injecting tons of narcotics. I have good ideas on meth and heroin too
Wait until you hear the H-Class BB project
@@AlexReiter1988 His plans were bad enough for the Germans, I dread what his plans could have been for the world
@@AlexReiter1988
Hitler was a madman and an idiot who lead a nation of petty, narrow minded sadistic fools! The lil corporal was no military strategist, either!
Can I ask how you do these animations? They are so very well done, I'm just curious how you do it!
Amazing channel! What software do you use to create your animations?
I think the German carrier would’ve been a failure. The design of the deck was pretty bad. Having the catapults on top of the deck instead of recessed into it like on modern carriers meant you couldn’t use the entire deck as a landing surface, and you couldn’t launch your planes in large waves like they used to back then. An angled deck would’ve made more sense, but we wouldn’t see those until the jet era.
Another problem I found with the German’s plan was their refusal to use planes built specifically for carrier use. Other countries did that for a reason. If you take a regular fighter plane, put a tail hook on it, and try to land it on a carrier, you’ll probably crash when your landing gear fails. Landing on a carrier is a controlled crash. You’re literally slamming down on the deck. That’s why planes designed for carrier use have beefier landing gear designed to withstand the stress of landings. Carrier planes also have other changes, such as folding wings so they take up less room and can be stored more easily.
Of course, you also have to consider that the German surface fleet wasn’t the greatest. They chose to build it around two gigantic battleships that only managed to make themselves into large targets. One carrier wouldn’t have made a difference. Even if they’d been able to organize a carrier strike force, they were outnumbered by the British and American Navies. The only thing that would’ve changed would’ve been the presence of British and American carriers in the European theater to hunt down the German carrier. It’s wartime career would’ve been very short.
The other problem of adding a tail hook to a land plane besides landing gear strength is the stopping force is applied to the tail and several land plane conversions had the tail pulled off
@@jeffbybee5207 Yeah, I thought about that too. Regardless, landing a regular plane on a carrier is a bad idea.
To be honest, a carrier would have been far better than any battleship in WWII in terms of actual strategic value (the fact every major power save the USSR decided to put new battleships in service in WWII turned out to be a mistake for everyone involved, since they either did nothing or, for the Americans and British, were mostly limited to supporting roles that were already covered much more cost-effectively in other ways, making the new battleships pointless anyways).
However, Graf Zeppelin was so badly designed that she’d still basically be useless, especially compared to the better-designed British carriers she’d be facing.
The core of the Kreigsmarine's carrier problem was that they had absolutely no experience in carrier design, training or doctrine. As far as carrier fleets go, they would have been dead last among the major powers. They would have been feeling their way half-blind in the early years of the war as they would be basically training on the job, which is no way to fight a war. Contrast that with the top-notch carrier fleets of the US, Britain and Japan, all of which had been training intensely for years. It would have been over very quickly, I think, for the Graf Zeppelin and her would-be sister ships.
But the concept of "Navy aircraft" was a long trial and error project, and history have not been fair with those unsung heroes, the Naval Test Pilots. I knew one of them from the Vietnam era.
My boy pronounced Scharnhorst like he is the lead singer of Rammstein 👍🤣
the kriegsmarine had a carrier. it was compledted because of the conflict between dönitz and göring. also it was actually deployed to attack some coaster thingy with its defensive armaments.
Really enjoy your cheerful mangling of both English snd German😄 Thanks for the fascinating videos.
Honestly, the Nazis couldn't compete with the British in surface combat. They were right to give up on that, focus on uboat attrition and air raids
Germans have a strong army. Brits have a strong navy. Pretty much dictated by geography.
@@generalripper7528 Exactly, as a nation with mostly land borders in the center of Europe, Germany needed a strong army supported by a strong air force. The navy was an afterthought.
As an island nation with an overseas empire, Britain needed a strong navy, a modern air force, and.... the army was the afterthought.
It was a stalemate. Germany couldn't even defeat the RAF, much less hope to defeat the Royal Navy. So Germany could not realistically invade Britain while the British lacked a strong enough army to invade Nazi occupied Europe alone.
Graf Zepplin: *scuttled *
Russians: *Raise it *
Graf Zepplin: YAY IM GONNA BE FINISHED!
Russians: *You are gonna make a great target ship*
Graf Zepplin: *;-;*
Lol
Wow russian bias
typical Russian attitude.
Russians got themselves an aircraft carrier but used it for target practice instead of as a template for future aircraft carriers unlike that of the cursed ridden Kutzenov.
thats pretty short sighted.
It actually might serve the Russian Navy quite well, and not just as a target vessel. It probably wouldn't be much worse than the floating wreck the Russian Navy operates now. You know, the mighty Admiral Kuznetsov with it's high tech smokescreen and formidable tugboat escorts.
@@classicgalactica5879 yeah im pretty sure the russians would had screwed up with their drunken sailors even the graf Zeppelin
Very interesting channel this is! Love it! And just imagine that they succeeded operating with the Horten 229 on the Graf Zeppelin.
Don't know if someone noticed but when it was talking about the displacement limit. It is the washington and london naval treaties not the versaille treaty.
Great content man! A very interesting topic for sure. Would have been cool to see some potential carrier battles in the Atlantic.
Hey you could still do a animation of it
The Germans would have likely lost to American carriers in short order. Our shipboard fighters like the Wildcat (and later Hellcat which ran rings around Zeros), would have done so to the modified German fighters, while American dive-bombers and torpedo planes would have advantages the Germans didn't have then, including not having a real torpedo plane to begin with. The Ju-88 was already a sitting duck against fighters by 1940; our TBD Devastator was the same, but had the advantage of a level-flight torpedo drop, and having fighter escort from our larger carriers. Plus we had more operational experience with our carriers than the Germans would ever gotten by 1941-1942 (Battle of Midway alone was more US carriers, aircraft and ships than Germany could ever hope to have or deal with).
They did build one, the Graf Zeppelin and it was 85% completed. Sadly, Goering stole the defensive guns twice and refused to focus on building carrier based aircraft. Egoes killed the idea.
Did he have any regrets after the war?
The inter-service rivalry between the Luftwaffe and the Kreigsmarine ultimately killed the carrier project.
@@BHuang92 and two destroyers. Operation Wikinger, Luftwaffe actually bombed and sunk a destroyer, and led to another hitting a mine
Maybe watch before commenting….
is it sad though?
Resupply would've been virtually impossible, they lacked planes that could be launched from it, and the Royal Navy could've easily targeted the carrier at dock while under construction.
Obviously they would've needed aircraft carriers eventually, but they weren't in a place to build any the entire time. A lot harder to hide building an aircraft carrier than to hide building your tanks.
USA actually building aircraft carrier bcoz it was an isolated county from the beginning and for connecting to the old world and other super power countries they must need strong navy !bcoz there is no land corridor between American and Euroasia!mostly Europe countries does not care about aircraft carrier even they can build alot if they want too!specially soviet union France Germany etc
I _do_ wonder what kind of difference the _Graf Zeppelin_ would have made if it had been included in, say, the _Bismark's_ task force. Having actual air cover way out at sea might have made the German surface fleet much more dangerous during the Battle of the Atlantic. I don't think it would have changed the outcome of the war, but wiping out a few more convoys might have prolonged it by a few more months.
>>but wiping out a few more convoys might have prolonged it by a few more months.
@@alexmuenster2102 Huh! Yeah I guess that would have been a distinct possibility.
Bismarck did not get to a single convoy.
@@JohnSmith-mh1mp You'll notice I never claimed they did. However, with actual air cover in the Atlantic, it might have had a chance to do actual damage to Allied shipping.
@@autofox1744 I never ascribed any claim to you. It is that the UK was so keyed in on watching the BM that it would have never succeeded. Hitler should have built more and faster, better versions of the Graf Spee for raiding. Thought would have become useless later in the war with the Allies having escort carries and radar on planes.
I think that the FW-190 with it radial engine would have been better suited as a aircraft carrier plane.
It honestly looks like a slimmed down Hellcat or a Helldiver.
Hi !
You mention Bismark in you video, but let me add Musashi and Yamato. Musachi was sunk at her first mission, and Yamato was then transformed into coastal battery in Okinawa. Such costly ship for such use... For me, British would have set up dedicated missions to sink all the Graf Zepellin carriers (Bombing, Intelligence, Commando, ...) . So definitively, they would had no impact on the war.
Thx for your video !!
The Graf Zepplin is rarely mentioned anywhere, so Bravo. What limited knowledge I have, I wasn't there; all I can go on is what I've read, and hundreds of documentaries, this video is fairly accurate to everything I have read or heard, So Bravo again. Now as for the Germans and capital ships like the Bismarck, Tirpitz and I think the one that was scuttled in south America was the Graf Spree, they were not deploying ships in traditional "Fleets" they really didnt have enough capital ships to form fleets so for the most part they were raiding with single vessels, a pocket battle ship vs a supply convoy is some pretty easy pickings, but had they deployed 10 of they're best capital ships in one single or first fleet the Graf Zepplin would have made sense. but that was not what they were doing they were raiding with U-Boats and had they not wasted the resources on those pocket battleships and the two unfinished aircraft- carriers that would have been that many more U-boats, enough to win the war, probably not, but who knows, the Germans had way bigger problems on the eastern front and the delays caused by Hitler in the me 262 program, and countless other self inflicted and enemy inflicted wounds, America entering the war and Hitler foolishly declaring war on the united states, the writing had been on the wall for awhile, alot of vets of ww2 that I have spoken to in the past often will say we didn't win the war Hitler lost the war, he had gone mad. anyways great video and I will subscribe
Your content are getting better.love the water dynamics and your team did in a short amount of time.
Now if he can get his narration up to snuff...
Never knew I could wait for a premiere of a video until today, and it was totally worth it!! A way more complex set of reasons than what we usually take for granted!
Really interesting topic and top quality visuals and research! as usual!
What app do you use to film and animate?
You see that clip shown at 7:34 a LOT in WWII videos. That ship with the big, black fountain of black smoke? That is the USS Arizona. It is also a video of 1177 men dying. :(
I've seen a couple of reports on the Graff Zeppelin aircraft carrier on YT. This is the most comprehensive, with some good graphics. One can'f help but wonder what a coordinated battle group consisting of the Graff Zeppelin, with a full compliment of aircraft, Bismarck, Scharnhorst and Admiral Hipper back up by a compliment of destroyers and U Boats, might have been able to do. It would have been a much bigger headache that the individual ships were by themselves.
Thanks for your kind words!
If the whole battle group was ready before the war…
@@FoundAndExplained How about a video on why the Germans never had a proper 4 engine strategic bomber?
The alt-history clips were from “The man in the high castle” which is set in a 1960s German and Japanese Co-occupied USA. A world where the Riech reached it’s full potential and the world fell to it and its allies. A very good show 10/10 recommended
My man's. Your right, the man in the high castle is a 10/10. Amazing take on hoe the old would look like of Germany won the war
The navy wasn’t even ready in 1939 mostly due to production and oil supply. There plan was to match the Royal Navy by 1944, the submarine HQ was in a shed in 1939.
bro that was the smoothest transition to an ad Ive ever seen.. bravo
The German's real problem would have been the lack of experienced pilots and crews. The Japanese didn't lose all their carriers at Midway but they did lose their best trained seamen. From that point on, all of their carrier operations were with the JV team and the result was the "Marianas Turkey Shoot". If the Germans tried to deploy an aircraft carrier straight into combat without at least a decade of training and experience it would have been briefly annoyed the British and Americans before they put it on the bottom of the ocean.
Worse, even their doctrine to use carrier is very questionable, at best.
Other major navy had spend 25 years to really convince that carrier is actually not suck, at best. And only during the war that convince carrier could do so much more than just "not suck", often the most hardest way.
And here we are, the whole "What if: German Carrier Edition" discussion is filled with survivor bias
Edit : grammar
theres a design of a battlecarrier called the Atlantikflugzeugkreuzer C. it is quite interesting and the C in the name pointed how serious the designers were about this carrier.
What a mouthful of a name
@@rmsteutonic3686 Atlantic aircraft carrier C, just stuck together.
Can you post a link to your source page in the description?
One of the earliest proposals for aircraft on board was the Avia B-534 which were acquired in sufficient numbers after the "annexation" of Czechoslovakia. As a biplane fighter with an enclosed cockpit and decent performance it would have required little modification for carrier duty.
I think that you have it right, when you said it would have become a priority target and hunted down until it was sunk.
Actually, the airship wasn't the invetion of Zeppelin himself. It was invented by Schwarz Dávid, a hungarian inventor, whose wife sold the licence to Ferdinand von Zeppelin after his husbad's death. The reason why we call it a zeppelin, is because it was during Zeppelins ownership of the licence, when the vehicle became really iconic, and widely used. Don't take this as objection though, it's just something worth keeping in mind. Great video, nicely done, I love it.
Hungarian inventor? LOLAYF
@@damirsirotic052 uh, in fact, lol at your face right back, ignorant :D
von Neumann and his computer architecture, the invention of the basic principle of computer design ?
Rubik and his famous cube?
Peter Carl Goldmark, inventor of color TV and LP vinyl records?
The first succesful incandescent light bulb, with tungsten filament? (Imre Bródy, working for Tungsram)
The list is long...
@@damirsirotic052 Yes, Hungarian inventor. What is the problam exactly?
Several people independently had the idea of building a rigid airship. Count Zeppelin probably thought of it earlier than David Schwarz.
In 1873, a man named Heinrich von Stephan, who was the German postmaster general, wrote an article about delivering mail by dirigible. This inspired Zeppelin, who wrote down the basic idea for his airship in 1874. At that time, he couldn't build his ship, because the engines he needed didn't exist yet.
Schwarz apparently became interested in airships no earlier than 1880.
Also, Zeppelin did not buy any license from Schwarz. Zeppelin's design was his own, and very different from Schwarz's.
From Wikipedia:
"By 1874, several people had conceived of a rigid dirigible (in contrast to non-rigid powered airships which had been flying since 1852). The Frenchman Joseph Spiess had patented a rigid airship design in 1873 but failed to get funding.[3] Another such individual was the German Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, who had outlined his thoughts of a rigid airship in diary entries from 25 March 1874 through to 1890 when he resigned from the military.[4] David Schwarz had thought about building an airship in the 1880s and had probably started design work in 1891: by 1892, he had started construction.[5]
However, Schwarz's all-aluminium airship would not perform any test flights until after his death in 1897. Schwarz had secured help in its construction from the industrialist Carl Berg and the Prussian Airship Battalion; there was an exclusive contract in place between Schwarz and Berg, thus Count Zeppelin was obliged to reach a legal agreement with Schwarz's heirs to obtain aluminium from Carl Berg, although the two men's designs were different and independent from each other: the Schwarz design lacked the separate internal gasbags that characterise rigid airships.[6] Using Berg's aluminium, von Zeppelin was able to start building his first airship, the LZ 1, in 1899.[7] "
"Some sources[3] state that Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin purchased Schwarz's patent from his widow in 1898, while others claim that the count used the design. However, Hugo Eckener, who worked with Count Zeppelin, dismissed these claims:
"Count Zeppelin negotiated with Herr Berg's firm for the purchase of the aluminium for his own ship. The firm, however, was under contract to supply aluminium for airships exclusively to the Schwarz undertaking. It had to obtain release from this contract by an arrangement with Schwarz' heirs before it could deliver aluminium to Count Zeppelin. That is the origin of the legend.""
I'm sorry if this hurts your national pride, but the facts are what they are.
@@SocratesAth Detailed research, I'll give you that, well done, I learned a lot of new facts in your comment.
One way or another, Schwarz was a pioneer in the development of this mighty vehicle. Although his airship (whish was 38 m long and had a diameter of 12 m) didn't boast a great performance, it still did fly, and was the first rigid airship to be built. And what do we expect from a first of it's kind? What's true for a fact, is that there is probably not a single invention which only came up in the mind of a single person. Many clever people made attempts to create several, nowadays widely used inventions throughout history, there just always had to be someone quicker or luckier than the others.
8:51, you nailed it somehow. Good job
Amazing video and great explanation 👌👍
Please make a similar video about Surface Effect Ship (SES) i.e. hovercraft + catamaran = SES , world famous example Skjold Class Corvette of the Norwegian Navy , that holds the world record for the Fastest Warship!!
Nice video. Your channel has come a long way. Factual info that's historically accurate. I know, because I've researched this content before. From several sources. I did 24 years in the Air Force and have constantly studied the history of aircraft. And still do. Bravo.
Your pronounciation of those german words very much on point! Congrats
if I remember right the graf zeplin was never completely finished due to steel shortages and putting more in to subs. There was a lot of back and forth due to various officers fighting over who was closer to Hitler and he encouraged it. The aircraft carrier was almost finished but put on hold and then worked on again and put on hold again.
I think due to manufacturing they would have lost no matter what they developed but you can't help but to think if they would have done more development and defensive strategy before they went on the offensive campaign, would they have been harder to defeat? Would the war have lasted longer? Great video!
The problem with Graf Zeppelin Bf-109Ts is that during the Late War the Royal Navy🇬🇧 uses the same Planes as US Navy in the Pacific War F4U Corsair F6F Hellcat which outclassed its Bf-109Ts. Unless a Naval Bf-109G Bf-109K can used for Graf Zeppelin. In the Atlantic Ocean and North Sea Graf Zeppelin vs HMS Illustrious Class carrier. Unless Mussolini's fascist Italy builds the Roma therefore the European front of World War II would be defined as Germany and Italy aircraft carriers Graf Zeppelin and Roma versus the UK Illustrious Class carrier.
I dont believe a bf109 of any variant would have made a difference, the 109 wasn't an easy plane to land on a normal airstrip, which would mean the fast and hard landings carrier operation require would be near impossible. Moreover the 109 wasn't built to handle the stress that carrier landings put on airframes, I believe the germans would have had to design entirely new fighters, like the me155 mentioned in the video
11:25 it wouldn’t. The Allies had many more carriers then the Germans and without escorts it would be easy prey for submarines or surface ship or even aircraft. The idea it would Pearl Harbor the US Atlantic fleet is absurd for several reasons. 1) The modern US fleet at that time would not have been taken by surprise especially with the amount of aircraft over the Atlantic. 2) just like Bismarck spies and scout aircraft would see it the second it left port. 3)the planes, the torpedo bombers in specific, where either her very old or not mad for carrier operations and inferior to allied carrier aircraft.
The outcome would have been a somewhat large naval battle off the Grand Banks, resulting in the Graf Zeppelin sinking. With only one carrier and nearly no surface fleet to protect it, it would have been easy prey for the Royal Navy and the USN.
Very cool - it's interesting hearing these "side stories" of the war
11:56
Sorry to disappoint, but I don't think it would have made any difference.
If Germany got the carrier operational early on, it could have been useful in trade interdiction missions against the Royal Navy, and likely could have wrecked a lot of merchant ships. It also could have been useful in escorting the Bismarck to the Atlantic.
However, once the United States inevitably enters the war, the Graf Zeppelin will be only one more carrier for the axis powers (Making 9 total once counting the 8 of Imperial Japan) against the whopping 32 of the US Navy. The odds are simply stacked so overwhelmingly against the Axis Powers that 1 more carrier won't make any difference. Even if it allows the Nazis to keep the fight going for another few months, all that will accomplish is getting the US to drop the first atomic bomb on Berlin instead of Hiroshima.
So long story short, even if Germany had all 4 Graf Zeppelins, or even 10 for that matter, it's not going to allow Hitler to bring "Man in the High Castle" or "Wolfenstein" to life.
Tbf at the start of the war the US only has the Lexingtons and the first two Yorktowns really in service and worked up as mainline carriers. But they still have the wasp and ranger to use, and the Langley if they got really desperate. Unfortunately the essex swarm would have to wait a few years.
@@guiltyofbias8818 Good Point, but I don't think there is really anything Germany could have done to stop the US before its Navy reached full strength.
@@jonwoodhouse1444 Only issue with that is when the US entered the war it was severly lacking behind in naval and carrier tachnology compared to the Japanese. It took almost two years for the US to build up an effective naval force and by then the majority of it was completely focused on the Pacific. We were mainly relying on the Royal Navy to get around Europe and the Atlantic by the time we entered the war.
That said the British had the same problem. While they had their carriers their aircraft were severly outdated and had to be replace with the same planes the US Navy was using. The only reason they were able to sink the Bismarck was because they got lucky. The thing is Germany didn't need to build up its navy just yet. By 1940 they had conquered most of Europe. They had air superiority by the time the Battle of Britain. If they had utilized the Luftwaffe the same way they utilized their U-Boats they could have been a real threat to the Royal Navy.
Remember, the Japanese original targets at Pearl Harbor were the carriers, not the battlships, because they _knew_ how much of a threat they were. The Japanese actually did the smart thing by going directly after the US Navy. Didn't work for them in the end by they had the right idea. If they had sunken the carriers as originally planned it would taken a lot longer for America to rebuild its naval force and the Japanese would have sealed their hold in the Pacific.
Germany, in my opinion, should have done the same thing. I know Pearl Harbor happened much later but even if Germany had succeeded in invading the British Isles they still would have had the Royal Navy to deal with. Remember, Britain became a superpower because of its navy. It's vital to their survival. Without it they pose no threat. So instead to of attacking the British Isles have the U-Boats and the Luftwaffe work together and go after the Royal Navy itself. Sink every ship you can find. Use the U-Boats to force them to sail closer to the coast so the Luftwaffe can reach them. Then attack them with a pincer manuever. Attack from bellow with the U-Boats while having the Luftwaffe attack from the air at the same time. Completely overwhelm them.
If you can destroy the Royal Navy you will have crippled Great Britian. Without their mighty navy to protect them they are now vulnerable, open to invasion. Therefore Germany could invade or at the very least agree to a ceasefire. Now that they don't have to Royal Navy anymore they can build the navy they want while also turning their focus on Russia. Britain won't be able to do anything to stop them by then. Then, once Germany has its naval force, they can deal with the US should they declare war.
At least, that's my take on the whole thing.
@@infinitlycool My point was, even if Germany succeeded in dominating the Atlantic and the British, they were still in no position to threaten the US mainland. The United States, being on a separate continent, was well outside the range of the Luftwaffe. I just don't see any way Germany could have stopped the US from constructing the two ocean navy, which, by 1945, was more than capable of out gunning both the IJN and Kriegsmarine at the height of their power, combined. The reason why most of it stayed in the Pacific in the late war was because Germany's naval capabilities had been mostly crushed by that point.
Granted, if the Germans somehow successfully invaded the UK, that would effectively rule out D-Day. However, I seriously doubt that the German carriers would have been enough to do this. Starve Britain and force an armistice, maybe. Although, that would probably rule out D-Day as well. You have a point there.
@@jonwoodhouse1444 I have to disagree. You're looking at it as though it's already 1945. I'm looking from 1940-41, before the US was even involved. If Japan had succeeded in destroying America's Pacific fleet entirely and if Germany had been able to build its naval force do you think they would have allowed the US to rebuild its navy? Highly unlikely.
An invasion would have been out of the question because it would have been too costly and they wouldn't had been ableto hold on to it. A more effective strategy would have been to use carrier based airstrikes and attack America's coastlines, targeting being the dockyards and the factories. Like Great Britain who relied on its navy, America's greatest weapon is its industry and mass production. If you can do enough damage to America's industry, you essentially remove whatever threat they could pose and force America to sign a peace treaty that acknowledges both Japan and Germany as the new superpowers of the world. From there. Japan has complete control over the Pacific while Germany has complete control of Europe and the Atlantic.
The only way I would see this plan getting disrupted is Operation Barbarossa still going badly for the Germans. Then again, Pearl Harbor wouldn't happen for another year and a half so there was plenty of time before having to deal with the US.
One aircraft carrier with untrained inexperienced crew untested tactics and equipment would have stood no chance of making the slightest difference in the war for Germany. In fact it would have drained much needed resources.
Have to agree there. Whilst the german capital ships (Bismarck etc) were superior to most british capital ships training and experience count. However the *Bismarck had a design flaw in the rudder system and emergency "propeller" steering if needed wasn't going to work. This was found out at the sea trials, but never rectified and led to her eventual sinking due only to "steering" in circles when rudders damaged basically. I don't know if that flaw was rectified on Tirpitz. *(Hachette model "Build the Bismarck" history).
funny, i don't remember this being mentioned in friedrichsafen's *zeppelin* museum. There was a 1/1 replica of the hindenburg's different pods (cockpit, habitats, engines, part of the fuselage) though.
Why was Sabaton not given credit for this part, this is from their music video for their song “Bismarck” 1:44
Lesson learned:
Don't commit to a project that you have no idea how to utilize it.
A better carrier design would be a light carrier that carries small planes, but could be made in numbers.
Like the US did with their escort carriers !
As mentioned in some comments, there was a light carrier that is based on the hull of the admiral hipper but it too was captured by the soviets
@@ruskiwaffle1991 Certainly , but you would not have been able to build that one in numbers! That admiral hipper hull is way more complicatet to make as well as more resorce and labor intensiv ! And more expensiv not to mention ! At least in comarision to an convertet freighter/tanker!
Whats the name of the tuen playing at the end of the video? Its sounded really... I cant put it to words
If I remember correctly the Graf Zeppelin was planned with much more powerful 8 inch naval cannons on the admiral hipper class cruisers. However the design with the 20cm guns was not used due to issues with the weight and space of the weapons that would further decrease the number of aircraft that the Graf Zeppelin design historically was able to carry with the 15cm weapons and the above average armor plating that reduced aircraft carrying capacity.
Horten flying wing bombers on a carrier like the Graf Zeppelin would have possibly been able to attack the east coast of the USA so long as the carrier could avoid British and American surface ships and submarines. After the Imperial Japanese Navy was so successful with its attack on Pearl Harbor, carriers became prime targets. It's likely that any degree of German success with carriers would have prolonged the war in Europe, as would have a successful invasion of England. The truth is that the Germans were fighting on too many fronts to ever win the war.
Truth is that the Germans never came close to the preconditions for a successful invasion of Britain. They were never close to winning the Battle of Britain (over the course of the Battle the RAF was growing in size while the Luftwaffe fighter squadrons were reduced to about 2/3 strength for shortages of replacement pilots, replacement plains, spare parts,...
And they never had a reasonable plan for maintaining reinforcement/resupply lines across the Channel against the might of the Royal Navy.
Germany was used to defeating the British (Norway, France, Greece) with superior numbers. Landing up to 100,000 German soldiers in the south of England wouldn't have worked so well against over 400,000 British soldiers defending Britain.
Here's a fairly authoritative American analysis from the era on German plans to invade England. www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/GERMAN%20PLANS%20FOR%20INVASION%20OF%20ENGLAND%2C%201940_0001.pdf
There was never any possibility of the Graf Zeppelin being a serious aircraft carrier. Germany did not have the aircraft types to fly off it. Goering had no intention of allowing the despised Kriegsmarine any control over naval aircraft development. What German naval construction there was was purely a political sop to keep the navy content with the Nazi regime. Germany had no particular use for a surface fleet of any kind, and after May 1941 it was almost entirely useless and confined to the Norwegian Sea. And that mattered not at all because the Kriegsmarine by 1942 was utterly crippled by unsolvable problems of lack of fuel supply.
As designed, the Graf Zeppelin was spectacularly useless as a carrier. Carriers have no business carrying guns intended for surface actions. All this did was shrink the possible size of the aircraft numbers carried on board. An aircraft carrier's business is to operate an air group, not to fire surface guns at surface targets. So quite rightly, rather than waste effort and resources completing it, Raeder and the Kriegsmarine turned it into a furniture warehouse.
Depends on job of aircraft carrier... if you don't have the aircraft, fuel logistics for those aircraft, escort ships, etc to play battle group, then an aircraft carrier that can go solo and raid commerce with a few aircraft to spot and hit easy targets and help you run from everyone else might be the best you can do. Germany wasn't US or Japan trying to dominate an ocean, they were just trying to hit and run away from commerce to starve UK.
@@multilis2 It was a wasted effort entirely. It was a mere political sop to keep the Kriegsmarine in line with the Nazi socialist political agenda. It had no aircraft, and Goering refused to provide any support for a naval arm. The Kriegsmarine was crippled for lack of fuel after 1941 anyway so surface warship sorties were not going to happen anyway.
Rather than building a useless aircraft carrier incapable of filling its intended mission, Germany would have done better to turn the metal into tanks and aircraft which it could use. Essentially Hitler understood this very well. Zeppelin spent the war as a furniture warehouse, and the Kriegsmarine as a whole achieved nothing whatsoever of any significance.
@@colinhunt4057 never said it was feasible in our world just more feasible than a conventional aircraft carrier.... In alternative universe where Germany did a bunch of things better and had a few planes that worked and enough resources maybe it could have worked to help choke UK off and make UK surrender
Eg no failed battle over Britain, no codebreaker by UK+us, allowed to retreat then counter attack in USSR and better prep for winter there, some aircraft that would work with carrier, Germany taking Malta immediately in 1940
Given some better choices by Germany they would have had much more resources and starving UK to surrender may have worked, and a single aircraft carrier doing hit and runs while assisted by Germany aircraft bases in France may have been viable...
big guns on aircraft carriers were fairly common in the interwar period. The Lexingtons for example carried 4x 8" and 12x 5"
I wrote a short story sometime ago about the Graf Zeppelin being deployed. A couple of friends loved it.
1:41
sabaton
Hitler while approving projects be like:
Haha, signature go **aggresive pencil noises followed by sniffing the table innocently**
Ha, ha, ha!
Thinks its pretty clear, Hitler had no interest in forward aircraft carrier warfare.All his targets were on Continental Europe and they were in the center, or North Africa, which carriers would be fairly useless in a desert tank campaign hundreds of miles inland beyond the range of ship based planes.
Only reason for the U-boats was to stop resupply by the enemy.
Really it all comes down to the fact that United States mass production by the factories is what won the war. Some experts call WW2 the battle of the factory. Regardless what the Germans built the U.S.could out number. As pointed out in this video Hitler was forced to make trade-offs, such as take off the guns from carrier B to defend a port, or don't make a new carrier type plane, and relay on a different model. The oil, material, even food shortages were catching up with the German and Japan war powers. The U.S. factory out put was no where close to topping out. The bottom line, no matter what direction they took in production the only change in the war would be "the Date" the war would end.
I find myself wondering how the Bismark's raid would have fared if the Graf Zeppelin was ready to escort her. And what would have happened if the carrier could have helped an air raid on America, similar to the Dolittle Raid, possible.
The swordfishes would have no chance against messerschmitt fighters, well even against stukas🤣
@@fedomandez You're 100 percent right. The Swordfishes were tough, but no match for the Bf 109. Swordfishes tried hitting German warships during the surprise "Channel Dash" from French to German ports, and they were cut to pieces.
Not so well she would have been outnumbered by the British carriers four to one!
@@timphillips9954 True. But those carriers would have to find her and launch their planes. The Royal Navy's carriers were scattered and lucky to launch any attacks on the Bismark. If the Graf Zepplin was there to intercept those Swordfish, Bismark might have escaped to France.
@@TheKulu42 Interesting fact the Swordfish was the most successful career based plane in WW2 on the Allied or Axis side!
i feel bad For the alternate reality pilots that had to land a Ho229 on an aircraft carrier.
Alternate history is really very interesting sometimes. I like your Nazi Concordes best at the end at 12:06 min... I've never seen anything like that. You should make a whole video about it.
Great video, though you should have mentioned the intense rivalry between the Kriegsmarine (German Navy) & the Luftwaffe (air corp). Hermann Göring actively campaign against any aviation that was not part of his beloved Luftwaffe. "Anything that flies belongs to us" was Göring view.
Aircraft carriers are at their most effective with space around them. My first thought is that it would have been a nightmare trying to get it out into the Atlantic intact. My second thought is that it would be a bitch to resupply that far from Axis bases. My third thought is, what would you use it for? The US started putting escort carriers in the Atlantic to deal with U-boats (and the British had a couple as well) so attacking allied shipping in the face of other carriers would be a very risky proposition for a lone aircraft carrier with few screening ships.
Germany always had a military philosophy of a "fast and free war", quick knockout and a profitable negotiated peace, and the only time they got that in 200 years was in the 1870 Franco Prussian War. No matter, they kept on trying, a triumph of dogma over experience. (A bit like Russia today). Carriers are a tool of World spanning Empires, or those intending to be one. Prussia's (and Nazi) Germany never worked out why they failed at this. (You have to have a certain minimum empathy with your conquered)..
If you look at the north of germany, you can see that half of its shore line is in the Baltic sea (east / top right), and the other half (west / top left) is in the North Sea. Even today, the only significant maritime infrastructure in Germany is in Hamburg, 90 km in the land upstream in the Elbe. Hambourg is basically a port. Like Port Harcourt
I Hope you're next video will be about B-21 Raider,I would definitely watch it
Imagine an alternate timeline where Nazi Germany did not invade the Soviet Union and instead focused on fighting the British Empire (and possibly the United States due to the Battle of the Atlantic). In a hypothetical scenario, the Kriegsmarine organizes an aircraft carrier task force to conduct commerce raiding against Allied merchant shipping in coordination with U-Boats and Fw 200s / Ju 290s. This task force would consist of:
CV _Graf Zeppelin_
CV Flugzeugträger B
CV Flugzeugträger C
CV Flugzeugträger D
BB _Bismarck_
BB _Tirpitz_
BB _Scharnhorst_
BB _Gneisenau_
The us would just replace the ussr without invasion, German industry can’t compete and reach the us
Also they will invade the soviet anyway because of ideology
gonna need more cruisers than that or you’ll be torpedo food
I take it Hitler has magic in this alternate timeline in order to get all those carriers built.
Without the proper support fleet built up around it, which the Germans didn't have, this ship would have been lucky to enter the Atlantic once and most likely never would have returned to port the first time it deployed.
There were several aircraft carrier designs in the German Z-plan but it wasn't suppose to be completed until 1944-45 so none were ready before the war but the Graf Zeppelin had been launched.
0:42 ... Why is there a Stuka returning with a full bomb load? You'd think those would be dropped during a mission, but even worse, imagine what happens when the landing on a carrier goes wrong. Yeah, Viking funeral.
It's a simple detail and it shouldn't take your artist 5 minutes to remove the bombs.