The KGM Bismarck

That was where the British and the Germans differed. Hitler didn't understand squat about naval warfare, and only saw the navy as a means to blockade the UK, and interrupt convoys. The Bismarck, Tirpitz, Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, etc, were just sent out piecemeal to attack convoys.

The British more often than not, did not have fleets at sea. A small force here and there to protect convoys, but they had the ability to draw all the small forces together into a large fleet if the need arose.

If Hitler had done as Raeder had wished, and not invaded Poland when he did (resources and such), then Raeder might have had his dream fleet: Four Bismarck class BB, two "improved Bismarck class BB, and three Graf Zeppelin CV. No telling what the world would have done if the invasion of Poland happened in 1941 and not 1939. But that would be a fleet (coupled with the rest of the Kreigsmarine we know existed) which certainly would have given the Royal Navy fits. Geez. Especially if Hitler attacked Poland AFTER the Japanese attacked in the Pacific. Something like that might have caught a lot of British assets out of place, in the Pacific or on their way there.

 

I still dont get it with german flatops,whats hitler going to do?order them to attack scotland,
It would have been interesting to see the british try and blockade the baltic,it would have been very very different from the battle of jutland.

 

I think the point of a German carrier is that without the possibility of slowing it with an aircraft torpedo a German fast squadron would be even more difficult to catch, if you add in a working carrier with a decent air discovery radar (the carrier cannot carry enough aviation gas to keep up a standing CAP for a month long cruise) the situation for the RN changes from difficult to hard and if you add some sort of long range recon plane to the carrier's airgroup to nearly hopeless.

The German carrier only has to carry fighters as the role of the squadron is disrupting the convoy system not engaging naval forces, the threat of such a squadron at large is sufficient to limit the British to having very few, possibly as low as four, including empty returning, heavily escorted convoys at sea at the same time in the North Atlantic and this will really cripple their war effort.

The German squadron can outrun any force the RN can field, even adding a modern US squadron to the allied effort will not help much, you need a Iowa to catch Bismark or S&G and they are not available before 1943/44.

But we know now the German''s chance of having a working carrier before 1942/43 was nill, assuming the ship was commissioned in late 1940 it would need at least a year to debug the air operation procedures, a really far fetched what if would be the Germans sending an airgroup to train in Japan and comming back before Pearl Harbor with a few crates of Zero fighters but it's practically fantasy and it still means late 41 early 42 availability.

 

Something I have always thought about, is if the Germans managed to create a working and efficient aircraft carrier around 41 or 42, where would it's berth be? The UK carriers could simply dock on the other side of England, or even Scarpa Flow is far enough to be considered relatively safe or they have the entire Atlantic to hide in. The US and Japanese carriers had virtually the entire Pacific to play cat and mouse with each other. The Germans however had nothing, had they been able to get the Carrier to the west of France, they may have been able to get into the atlantic, but it would be pretty obvious as to where she would head back to. Had she not been able to leave German ports, she would be such are target for the Allies and she would be holed up, just like the Tirpitz.

 

I think you are overestimating the allied capabilities, the Taranto based Italian fleet had roughly the same problem but only lost one light cruiser (and not at Taranto) to air raids by long range bombers before the armistice, submarines patrolling the Messina straits were more of a problem but I don't think there is an equivalent chokepoint in the Atlantic. Even during Husky the Italians still had two battleships and a handful of cruisers and subs based at Taranto and no effective raids were made against them.
Before 1943 an allied (mostly British as the US is still gearing up) campaign against axis warships in port is a very iffy propositions, British early war bombers are not very survivable in daylight opposed operations to say nothing of their horrible bombing precision, marginally effective against a large area target but not good enough against a warship. An air campaign against the ships would look a lot like the air action at Dieppe and that didn't go too well for the British.

 

The Graf Zeppelin was to have a squadron of Ju-87R aircraft, which would have been very, very useful in attacking convoys or the Royal Navy. Combined with the Me-109T also scheduled to be on board, RN carriers would have had issues, because they had nothing as good.

However, a carrier has to turn into the wind for aircraft operations, and might have negated any speed the German fleet had, depending on which way they ultimately were heading. Same problem Halsey had in trying to chase down the Japanese fleet in the Philippine Sea.

 

The problem is that it can't out run a British or American carrier. Even the Ranger or an older Furious class carrier completely outclasses the Graf Zeppelin in capacity. The Ranger might be slow but it can easily launch a 30 to 40 plane strike in about 30 minutes or have a 20+ plane CAP up in under 15.
The Graf Zeppelin's biggest strike launch can be just 18 planes. This is a design limitation of the carrier itself. The Ranger also has radar both air and surface search as well as a fighter direction center aboard. The Graf Zeppelin lacks such equipment and would have lacked such equipment. This means that her CAP is limited to visual detection of a strike and limited interception just as early war Japanese carriers were.
The result is that the first Allied carrier strike will cripple or sink the German carrier.
On the reverse, a tiny 18 plane strike flying into carrier controlled fighters be they F4F or Fulmars or Sea Hurricanes or whatever, will be shredded long before it reaches the target. The few Me 109T escorts will do little to stop the attack aircraft from being decimated.
Radar and carrier control of the CAP make all the difference. Both the US and British have such systems in place.

High surface ship speed is only really good in tactical situations for disengaging from a similar enemy. It is worthless for escaping a carrier strike. It is equally worthless for closing with an enemy that wants to fight.

 

Well they managed to keep the twins layed up pretty well during that period and CVs are significantly more vulnerable to bombs.

 

Big difference I think between bombing Breast on the coast of France, and having to fly over the Netherlands and Germany to get to wherever they would have based the Graf Zeppelin. A LOT more Luftwaffe and flak to have to fight through.

 

There is a learning curve in RAF operations against warships in port from the disastrous 1939 attacks to the raids against Tirpitz in 1944, the timeframe we are talking about is something in between so it's far from sure they would be able to knock out the CV.
The Germans had roughly air parity over France in 1941/42 and hitting point targets against radar directed fighters and heavy AA defences is an expensive proposition.

CVs in port are not more vulnerable than other ships, unless preparing for a raid they are unlikely to have aircraft fuel aboard.

BTW the air wing for the CV I was immagining is not Graf Zeppelin's planned mix of Me 109T, Ju 87C-0 and Fi 167, but a mostly fighter group capable of dealing with any PBY, Sunderland or B24 attempting to shadow and probably also with any strike short a large fleet CV, a couple of dozen Me 109 are likely to prove more than a match for a squadron of Wildacats/Martlets escorting an SBD or TBD force, against Swordfish escorted by Fulmars things are even worse. I see no reason why the squadron would not have air warning radar, the Germans had the technology and even gave some sets to the Italian fleet.

 

The twins suffered from bomb damage for most of the time they were in Brest.

They can be rendered incapable of flight operations much easier than a BB can be rendered incapable of combat operations.

They might inflict more losses than they took against the attackers but the odds are they wouldn't be able to stand off the attacks. Especially early in the war. Look at the trouble both sides had in the Pacific.

 

If the GZ is in the Baltic it's not an immediate threat. If it's not in the Baltic then the Britts don't have to fly over France, Germany, or the Netherlands in most cases.

 

A raiding squadron is not going to sail unless 100% operative, any damage will delay the squadron's departure so any hit counts. IMO as the battleships keep the main gun ammo on board they are more vulnerable to secondary damage than the CV (as historically happened to Gneisenau).

Against an attack from a small carrier the result is more likely to produce something similar to what happened during the channel dash or what a handful of carrier based fighters achieved in the Med against even large axis land based attacks.
Japanese attacks had massive loses to CAP as early as 1942 with sometimes only one or two planes managing to actually launch, a big difference from the attacks on Bismark or Vittorio Veneto at sea where most planes managed to get to a firing position facing only AA fire. Loaded early war torpedo bombers are very vulnerable to fighters, dive bombers are more survivable but the RN would need to reorganize it's squadrons as the Skua had been phased out by then as bomb damage is less likely than a torpedo to slow down a battleship which was the intended role of the British carrier planes. IMO the Germans, contrary to the Japanese, are likely to have had good radars and air defence procedures so are likely to have a simlar performance to the RN in the Med where most air attacks failed despite numbers no small carrier is capable of.

 

If a BB keeps it's main gun ammo on board you don't think a CV will keep it's bombs and torpedoes? Perhaps even it's avgas? In any case lighter bombs can cause deck damage to CVs. Lighter means a bomber can carry more and increased the P(H). The BBs proved vulnerable early war at Brest I see no reason to assume CVs wouldn't as well.

But some attacks also pretty much got in free. And how big a CAP can the Germans keep in the air? And how will they deal with night time raids?

 

AFAIK the danger of ammo magazines is more fom the firing charges than from the shells, shells are designed NOT to explode during the pretty violent treatment they get at firing time and bombs are more similar to the shells than the charges, still moving them around too much is asking for trouble, avgas is comparatively much easier to pump in and out. A CV without avgas on board is no more vulnerable than another ship type, a hit is likely to do more damage to the lighter structure of a CV but also, unless fatal, easier to repair than than the complex armour of a BB, CVs sometimes were repaired in weeks BBs usually took months.

My point is not that the German squadron becomes completely invulnerable, just very much harder to catch, the presence of the fighters turns an aerial torpedo attack from a near sure thing to unlikely to succeed unless a much bigger attack group is sent and that requires a large carrier force and a new doctrine from the British, even if without immagining an all out effort like the attempt made against Tirpitz that was probably a "one shot" affair.
The usual British tactics like the attack on Bismark and the one on Vittorio and Pola at Matapan would have most likely failed with even a couple of fighters present, the Italian though that even a single Re 2000 catapult figher was likely to seriously disrupt the single squadron Swowdfish attack the RN often employed though the theory was never put to the test.
Night attacks in the middle of the Atlantic are not likely to be attempted if a daylight attack still has reasonable possibility of achieving results as the chances of something going very badly wrong (think blue on blue) with a night one are pretty high, based on historical occurrences and tactics the RN is likely to have one or more cruiser squadrons attenpting to shadow in addition to the main CV group. Assuming they do try it, the CV adds very little to night air defence as the 109T has no night capability, improvvised tactics based on moolight or searchlights could be marginallly effective against a shadower but are useless agaist a multi plane attack.

 

Ah but does it? I strongly suspect that CAP for instance would not have been able to do much to the attack that damaged Bismarck. Visibility conditions were just too bad. If the Germans did have a AA radar and were using it then the British probalby wouldn't have lost them as they would have been able to track the radar.

The British did have radar equipped attack planes by early 42 and a doctrine for using them. Not sure how likely the blue on blue would be...

 

Don't know about the actual attack but a CAP is likely to rid the Bismark of any shadowing PBY, having some air capability gives the German commander a number of additional options and IMO significantly complicates the task for the Royal Navy.

They came pretty close to hitting Sheffield during the Bismark chase and that episode is likely to make a CV commander reluctant to lanch a low visibility attack if an alternative is available.

 

Or is it? How long did PBYs shadow Bismarck? Weren't they more concerned with just locating her? Something a CAP may have little impact on. Speaking of shadowing the Japanese float plane at Midway did a prettty good job in spite of US CAP which was a lot better than the German would have been and in conditions that were nominally more favoreable (at least that's my impression) to the CAP.

At least until the first bomb or shell hits her deck. And protecting a CV also adds quite a bit of complication to the German side of things.

 

Old quote, pure silliness. Any US battleship built after about 1916 - and modernized in the 30s? - would have been dangerous to Bismarck. Bismarck was better subdivided, and faster - the better to flee? - but not better armored or armed, and didn't have better equipment.

 

All battleships are dangerous, naval combat has too many things that can go wrong to be an exact science, we are still arguing what sank Hood and on paper the British should have won Denmark Straits. But in a one om one match with any ship from the Pearl Harbor battleline (and at the time of Pearl Bismark had already been lost so later improvements are out of scope) my money is on Bismark.