What if Germany had built 7 Carriers before the war?

Knowing that WW2 showed that carriers were the new way navel battles would be fought, What if Germany had somehow built 7 modern carriers. How could this have changed things if at all?

 

What about planes to launch from them?

 

I don't think "big gunned" ships would've helped. If the time frame of this what-if is before the Bismarck is sunk,then they'd have it and the Eugen.
What would the goal be,having 7 carriers? Just to knock out the RN?

 

More coffins curtsy(sp?) of B-17's and Il-2s

Why I think this? Because there is so much land around Germany.. land based bombers could easily fly over. Just stick to Tanks mr. Germany. One Carrier, wouldn't brind much attention and would probably cause much damage if it paired up with the Bismark and Graff.

 

Absolutely, as in the Zed-Plan.
At the start of the century German industry shocked the world at how many and how fast it could build major warships, even more efficiently than America.
You don't say when to start building these carriers, but it was definately possible. Because Hitler wasn't confident of his support, even after the Fall of France, he kept demobilizing his industries, he didn't even go to full mobilization against either Poland nor France. But if he had, or if they started on a naval program Adm Raeder had been pushing for since the 20s after seeing British and visiting Japanese carriers, definately.
As for planes, they could have developed if they had the Will. There were options made for Me109s, or better yet the He100 or even 112, the Fw190(even with torpedo), Ju87 and He/Bv155. Even some Italian planes were considered. The Germans were not as close to the Japanese as one might think, but if they were and got their help in the 30s working on a carrier fleet, that would be interesting. Not only ships but plane licenses?

Even if at full mobilization, it means less Uboats than could be produced. Whether a surface fleet or submerged fleet is more likely to bring Britain to her knees is interesting.
The British, though inventors and with the largest number at war start, had terrible cooperation between RN and RAF, that's why such disparity between Army and Carrier plane types.

7 Graf Zeppelins even half Seydlitz's or converted Europa's(passenger liners) in 1939? England and France would be in serious trouble.

 

And what,pray tell,is a ground-attack plane like the IL2 going to do to a carrier?

 

Carriers in the Pacific worked better since the ocean was in general calmer for operations and there was alot of area to get lost in.

In the Atlantic carriers were mostly used to ferry aircraft to Europe and for anti-sub patrol by the allies. If the Germans used them in the Med. Sea they would be too close to land based aircraft and subs. If the German carriers operated off the French coast then they could make raids on the English channel shipping and to the south perhaps Gibrator however in the winter it would not be much fun trying to land and take off from the decks.

Anouther factor would be who would be in charge of the German carriers ? The German Navy or the German Air Force ? They did not get along well during the war at all.

 

drop big fat bombs on it?

 

This is one means that the Germans (had they had infinitely more foresight than they did and were not burdened with hide-bound admirals) could have changed the balance of naval power at the beginning of WW 2. The introduction of a carrier centered fleet would have had the same effect that introducing Dreadnought type battleships did just before WW 1. That is, these weapons systems produced a revolution in naval warfare technology that essentially set the 'score sheet' back to zero leveling the playing field.
Had the Germans produced say, 4 or 5 regular fleet carriers and another 4 or 5 fast merchant conversions similar to the Japanese Junyos they could have dominated the Atlantic or at least given the RN a run for its money.
The Germans had fast underway replenishment ships already available. Adding destroyers and cruisers that were capable of long range steaming and a few fast battleships like the Scharnhorsts would have given them a viable fleet to challenge the British effectively.
Had the German Navy taken this course they could have done what they did in WW 1 with regards to aircraft. Then, and in this scenario, they simply adopted manufacturers that had capacity that the Luftwaffe was not seriously using. In this case, they could have had Henkel building their fighters, Henschel their dive bomber / attack aircraft, and Fiesler their torpedo aircraft or some combination thereof. Without direct serious competition for resources by the Navy, the Luftwaffe would have been content to let them have their "little" airforce. In fact, Göring would have likely been more than pleased with being relieved of the burden of supporting the Navy in any way.

 

Fact is Germany did build or attempted to build 3 aircraft carriers the K.M Graf Zeppelin, K.M Peter Stresser and the K.M Paul von Hindenburg, according to Janes the K.M Graf Zeppelin was complete and according to various sources Reichsmarschall Herman Goering refused to divert aircraft to the ship.

I have read also that the K.M Peter Stresser was in advance state of construction about 40% and the K.M Paul von Hindenburg had her keel laid but later the two ships were broken up and the steel was diverted to U-Boat construction.

But be that as it may even if Germany had at least these three ships they would never have been used as Hitler would have protected them, they in the end would be expensive white elephants.

 

The Graf Zeppelin never completed. The ship was about 70 - 80% finished when work was halted. Aircraft for the carrier had already been produced (the Me 109t, Fi 187, and Ju 87t). These were pressed into service in various other roles after the carrier was not going to be completed. The Straßer was not that far along and was broken up when the KM stopped its construction.
As for their actual use in service, who knows? A single carrier was really not of great value. Several could have made a big difference if used properly. But, then again, the Germans never were a really successful seapower.

 

Remember arms race before WWI. I don't think that British would just watch the Germans build so many carriers and do nothing. I think they would try bo build more and better carriers then Germans.

 

double decker carriers?

 

And the British did build carriers , to be ready to face this potnetial German threat. For example the French carrier Arromanches was in fact built by Vickers Armstrong in 1942 and rent to the French in 1946 who eventually bought it. The carrier later served in the colonies and participated in the Indochina war.

 

The only area I can see where the carriers would be advantagous to Germany would be stationing them in the middle of the North Atlantic to harrass the convoys. Question is would the Germans have radar? Without it, then they were as good as the Italian navy. As someone has already mentioned it, Europe was a great aircraft carrier with bombers able to harrass any shipping so they would have been at risk by RAF bombers if they were to support any operations against Britain.

Besides, Hitler was a land animal and was afraid of sea operations hence the lack of 'full' support of any naval weaponry.

 

Not to mention the huge cost of carriers, the time to build them, the aircrafts it would take and last but not least vulnerability to allied bombings.

 

The British would have been constrained by the Washington Naval Treaty just as they originally were. From the RN point of view they had 7 carriers on their allowed tonnage just before the war started with several more in the works to replace some of the older units like Hermes and Eagle.
I really doubt that the RN given its monitary troubles would have made alot had the Germans built say, 3 or 4 carriers prior to 1939. The British top brass and politicians would have simply pointed to their greater numbers (albeit many of those carriers were of questionable value) and left it at that.

Carriers of the day also are cheaper than battleships, construct faster (18 to 24 months versus 24 to 36 for a battleship using European yard times), and consume less resources to build. The air wing is an added expense but, given the high rate of loss of aircraft operationally during this period (most had less than 100 hours flying time before being written off) this is not unduely high compared to land based aircraft.

In the Atlantic a German based carrier task group operating with just 2 carriers, a battlecruiser or two, several cruisers, and a dozen or so DD along with replenishment ships could have swept a 300 mile wide, 1000 mile long swath of ocean clean of shipping in a matter of weeks. The USN literally in the first 90 days of 1944 sank everything bigger than a canoe the Japanese had in the mid-Pacific in the way of shipping using their fast carriers. In just those 90 days the carriers matched the previous two years of submarine sinkings in terms of tonnage.

The RN would have been in a position where they had parity or were inferior in capacity in the face of such an operation. Their preponderance in battleships and cruisers would buy them little. Their carrier forces could counter the Germans but given the smaller air wings and far inferior aircraft they were using in the early days of the war the Germans would likely have shot their airwings to pieces for little return. The vaulted swordfish might have been a wonder against nothing more than antiaircraft fire, but faced with Me 109s or He 112s they would have looked more like Torpedo 8 at Midway.

This is one of those few 'what-if's' that really does give the Germans a means to change the outcome of the war dramatically. Thankfully for the Allies, the top German naval brass were the most hide-bound, traditional, behind the times bunch you could hope for.

 

An intersting what if indeed. I would love to consider that scenario. Me109s in the midlde of the Atlantic. Scary thought .