Axis Carriers

After Leyte they had nothing really left.  All fleet carriers destroyed, most of the major capitol ships and with their access to oil cutoff, what was left sat in Singapore or at Home for lack of oil.  

The real cause of their non-operations after the Battle of the Philippine Sea was the lack of air crews for their carriers.  Japan during the whole war never developed a replacement pilot training program like the allies had.  If they had the air crews and oil the navy would have fought right to the end and not hide out in Norway or the swamps of Poland.

After Leyte, the IJN had Kongo, Haruna, Ise, Hyuga, Nagato, and Yamato. Haruna, Ise, and Hyuga died at their moorings unable to put to sea. Kongo was torpedoed and sunk by submarine. Yamato was destroyed on her mission to Okinawa.  Prior to Leyte, the IJN battleships had not accomplished anything. They themselves were largely out of the war from the beginning, except for Kongo, Kirishima, Haruna, and Hiei. These four were very involved in escorting the carriers.

In contrast, the Kriegsmarine capital ships were used fairly aggressively at the beginning of the war. The Graf Spee is well known for her cruise, as was Admiral Scheer, Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, and Bismarck. Yes, the KM did lose ships due to its being the inferior force. After the Barents Sea episode, and after Hitler's scrapping order, Gneisenau was scrapped after being bombed extensively during her rebuild into a 15" gunned battlecruiser, Scharnhorst was lost in battle against a British capital ship and her escorts, Tirpitz was sunk while being a "fleet-in-being" while forward-deployed in Norway, Lutzow and Scheer were used against the Soviets in the Baltic.

In other words, there is a myth about the Kriegsmarine capital ships being out of the war that just simply doesn't stand scrutiny. They were aggressive from  the beginning of the war, but suffered from being too few ships being led by a landsman who did not understand how to use them. They, too, did not have air superiority, but they fought.

Bill Morrison

Never the less the Japanese Navy gave a much better showing then the Germans.  

I've got a pair of the Revell kits in my stash, for a what-if German naval aviation build.

I agree that given the way naval aviation played out, especially in the Pacific, the Germans might have been hard put to keep their carriers alive, once the war got underway.  However, I think you can argue a counterfactual, based on a couple of premises:

• they had completed the Graf Zeppelin before the outbreak of the war
• they sent her to an overseas station, prior to the outbreak, as they did with other vessels
• they used her in concert with their other capital ships, such as pairing her with the Bismarck or Tirpitz, and a heavy cruiser or two--in effect, a task force

I think her air wing would have been the equal of any single carrier the Royal Navy could throw at her.  Remember, too, that in 1939, some of the developments in naval doctrine had to be thought out, that came into application by 1940.  Even the Japanese hadn't come up with the idea for the First Mobile Striking Force till 1940 (Genda's revelation) and didn't implement it till April 1941.  There was still a lot of inertia, and inexperience, with using carriers, in navies that all still thought of the battleship as the primary offensive naval weapon.  I wonder, for example, if the Graf Zeppelin had been with the Bismarck and the Prinz Eugen, what impact she might have had.

Any scenario does have to deal with the fact, though, that in the end, the Germans did not have the resources to withstand all of the countries eventually drawn into the war against her, any more than the Japanese did.  The best they could do was fight to a draw, with her enemies' prospects of fighting their way back too costly to consider.

I've also wondered about the Stuka wingfold design--when did Leroy Grumman come up with his folding mechanism for the F4F?  Was he first, and the Germans got wind of it?  Or did they both come up with basically the same mechanism independently of one another?  After all, it's not so outlandish, just different from the more conventional method (conventional at the time) of a fold along a line perpendicular to the leading edge, and up and in towards the fuselage?

Once again showing that if it's German, people think it's awesome and will create all sorts of excuses for it.

the Baron

I've got a pair of the Revell kits in my stash, for a what-if German naval aviation build.

I agree that given the way naval aviation played out, especially in the Pacific, the Germans might have been hard put to keep their carriers alive, once the war got underway.  However, I think you can argue a counterfactual, based on a couple of premises:

• they had completed the Graf Zeppelin before the outbreak of the war
• they sent her to an overseas station, prior to the outbreak, as they did with other vessels
• they used her in concert with their other capital ships, such as pairing her with the Bismarck or Tirpitz, and a heavy cruiser or two--in effect, a task force

This from Wiki:

Said Mitscher: "The ideal composition of a fast-carrier task force is four carriers, six to eight support vessels and not less than 18 destroyers, preferably 24. More than four carriers in a task group cannot be advantageously used due to the amount of air room required. Less than four carriers requires an uneconomical use of support ships and screening vessels."^[2]

Marcus,

It depends on what you mean by "better showing".  For example, the German U-Boat campaigns had the Allies on the roles through early 1943 before technological advances and Enigma tipped the scales decisively. The IJN had the Allies on the ropes until June, 1942, when the USN won decisively at Midway. Between June and into 1943, the IJN and USN were stalemated until late 1943 when the USN gained the ascendancy.  After the late 1942 and mid-1943 period in the Solomons, the IJN was soundly defeated.

The IJN made many errors in judgment, beginning with the attack on Pearl Harbor in the first place. True, their carriers ran rampant for several months, but the USN did recover fairly quickly.  Except for the four Kongo's, the IJN battleship force largely sat idle when they could have been used. The IJN never seriously conducted a submarine war. The IJN failed to improve their fleet to effectively compete with the USN, much as the Germans failed to develop theirs, which brings us back to the Graf Zeppelin.

Could the Zeppelin have made a difference? It depends. Would she have been supported by other carriers?  The conversion of the Heavy Cruiser Seydlitz could have helped, but much depends on how that force would have been used. For example, the Japanese certainly had a large submarine force, but it made no difference to the war effort beyond sinking a few American warships. The IJN had no real strategic or tactical plan for them. The Germans had no real strategic or tactical plan for the Kriegsmarine beyond their plan of "guerre de course".  The Zeppelin was an interesting ship, but what was the plan for her use?

Bill Morrison

Tracy,

I am certainly not making excuses for the Kriegsmarine.  It certainly was not an awesome force, nor were its ships better than their counterparts in other navies. In many ways they were decidedly inferior.  My argument is that the German capital ship force did not merely sit idle. It did fight but it was overcome by superior force.

Bill Morrison

Bill,

If Reader only had five to eight more years to build the Kriegsmarine as it was in WWI.  But they would still have to overcome their nemesis "the Denmark Straits".

Marcus

Didn't do much in that war either. Every ship but one got sunk at the Falklands.

Jutland got chased back into port.

Committed suicide at Scapa Flow

Marcus,

Agreed.  And, they would have had to overcome their other nemesis, the Royal Navy. People assume that the British would have sat still while the Germans built their battle fleet. In addition to the five ships of the KGV class, which in many critical attributes were superior to the two ships of the Bismarck class, the British had the five ships of the Lion class on the planning boards, among many other types as well.  While Germany struggled to complete the Zeppelin and the Seydlitz, the British were having no difficulties completing the ships of the Illustrious class, the Ark Royal, the Colossus Class, as well as the escort carriers. The British would have had little trouble maintaining their naval superiority over the Germans even had Hitler been able to complete the "Z" Plan.

Bill

GMorrison

the Baron

I've got a pair of the Revell kits in my stash, for a what-if German naval aviation build.

I agree that given the way naval aviation played out, especially in the Pacific, the Germans might have been hard put to keep their carriers alive, once the war got underway.  However, I think you can argue a counterfactual, based on a couple of premises:

• they had completed the Graf Zeppelin before the outbreak of the war
• they sent her to an overseas station, prior to the outbreak, as they did with other vessels
• they used her in concert with their other capital ships, such as pairing her with the Bismarck or Tirpitz, and a heavy cruiser or two--in effect, a task force

This from Wiki:

Said Mitscher: "The ideal composition of a fast-carrier task force is four carriers, six to eight support vessels and not less than 18 destroyers, preferably 24. More than four carriers in a task group cannot be advantageously used due to the amount of air room required. Less than four carriers requires an uneconomical use of support ships and screening vessels."^[2]

Sure, but did he say that in 1939, or in 1944?  At the time the Germans were building the GZ, there was very little practical experience with integrating carriers into the fleets, everyone was still learning.  Kido Butai was really the first practical example of a carrier task force, along the lines that Mitscher describes and that we adopted into our doctrine.   My counterfactual has as a precondition that the level of knowledge and experience with using carriers is the same as it was historically.

Even had Graf Zeppelin made it out to sea, she would have had a completely green air group. The Germans did not have any experience in carrier aviation and how to properly spot and launch decks, much less how to best employ a single carrier.

What if any ASW capabilities did the Germans have, beyond the usual stuff for ships in harbor or within range of land based aircraft?

For instance, I've always wondered why the British didn't deploy submarines to sink the Bismark once she was at sea.

Was it just too far, too soon to get the forces assembled?

Because without destroyer screens, I can't see the Bismark, or fpr that matter the GZ, as more than the proverbial sitting duck.

The IJN knew that without air superiority, the capital ships were sitting ducks for aviation assets. This after the sinking of the British capitals right at the beginning of the war.

After Midway, the experienced air assets were basically gone, because as was stated, they did not rotate experience back to teach.

I suspect that that is why most of their battle fleet sat idle until they absolutely had to deploy to try and halt allied advances.  Then we shut off most all of the oil coming in by declaring tankers primary sub targets, and really kept them at dock side.

Most British subs were deployed in the Mediterranean, Pacific, North, Norwegian sea.  Besides at the speed she was traveling at it would have an long shot that a sub would get a chance at her.

Tracy,

Also, whereas the Germans had done little or anything to develop any suitable aircraft for carrier operations, the Americans were able to help the British by providing such aircraft for their carriers. Neither the Bf109 or the Ju87 had the structural strength necessary to operate from carriers at sea, especially in the North Atlantic.

Bill Morrison

Marcus,

American submarines sank the faster carriers Taiho and Shinano, and sank the fast battleship Kongo, as well as quite a few much faster destroyers and cruisers.  A given ship's speed is irrelevant beyond serving as another data point for a spread of torpedoes, unless the submarine is engaged in a stern chase.  However, if the target ship is zigzagging, all the submarine has to do is to anticipate the next movement and cut the distance by cutting across the maneuvering ship's zig.

Bill Morrison

Not entirely true Bill - speed means a smaller envelope where a shot is possible and much less time to plan it out. How many times was RMS Queen Mary hit while crossing the Atlantic?

Also, the nature of the campaigns being fought in the Atlantic and Pacific makes it much harder to make a direct comparison. Moving Allied submarines into the Atlantic would have made convoy protection a lot more difficult.

True....Any sub was looked at as the other sides.  Even cases of our boats leaving Pearl and getting bombed by aircraft even when escorted by DD's

Probably most of the reason the Brits and USA did not operate in the Atlantic.  That way the convoy escorts did not have to worry about a blue on blue incident.

There were no targets for them in the Atlantic once all the raiders and supply ships were discovered and destroyed by 1940-41.  All of those were sunk by surface ships.

And yet, Shinano, Taiho, and Kongo were traveling faster than the boats that sank them. Speed might mean a smaller envelope, but it is possible for a submerged and slower diesel electric submarine to sink a much faster surface ship in spite of their superior speed. It has happened time and time again. Granted, faster ships have an advantage, but so do submarines.

Bill

Sure they do that why the build both types and still do.  Its on heck of a game to play.

Marcus,

I'm not sure about the types that you are referring to.

Bill

Faster ships and submarines.

Even faster warships and convoys were caught, especially if zig-zagging.  Sub would just plot the base course and drop over the horizon and execute the end around and lie in wait.  24-25 knot zigs would be caught by 18-19 knot end arounds.  Granted it would take time.

According to most submariners, there are two types of ships.....subs and targets. Even more true today with the advance in weapons available.

One must remember it's not the top speed that matters, but the cruise speed.  That speed which maximizes range per fuel use.  Many of the Atlantic convoys were limited to 10-12 knot cruise speeds, which are significantly slowed by zig-zag*.

Hardest part for an attacking submarine is calculating the best course and speed away from detection from a given convoy, so that the submarine could then surface and use it's best speed to an intercept point.  (Even better was to have a code intercept that could simply place a submarine in the known path of a convoy, where it could wait, doggo, until the targets presented them selves.

LIners, like Queen Mary were designed to cruise at high speed--shaving a day or two off a transatlantic passage would pay for itself in passage fares.  A sub with a top speed around 18-19kt could not  maneuver enough to catch 18-22kt liners, unless they were very lucky (and the liner stayed at cruise speed only--trips to/from Blighty could be achieved without emptying the fuel bunkers at near top speeds, 25-28kts).

With more modern subs, which are faster underwater than surfaced, change the calculus.

________________________________________________________

*Zig-zags are not simple routines, even if submariners discount their utility.   The zigs & zags were planned out in advance, and published as a set of offsets from base course.  So, a plan might be to run xxx miles at nn speed at dd ±Base Course.  The next leg would be at some other angle, at a different speed, and distance, and so on.   This could be 11nm at 09kt at  BC -55º, with the next leg 21nm at 11kts at BC+20, then followed by a leg of 2nm at 10kts and BC-25º.

This makes for a certain randomness.  Even better plans allow variances too--which can be delivered in plain speech--"Mike Corpen ALFA DIST 01 COURSE NEG 02 SPEED 0" which will not mean anything unless one knows that means Zigzag plan A, change distance plus 1; angle -12º; no change in speed.

However, with a long enough observation radius and duration can be sorted out.  The three-dimensional calculus of torpedo aiming was second nature to submariners, which meant they could visualize the target course with some chart paper and a slide rule.  That the target convoys could be 20, 30, even 40 ships makes for a sizable thing to spot on the ocean, what with spacing from 3 to 5 miles between convoy ships.

I don't believe ships in convoys were 3 to 5 miles apart.  That would make darn near impossible for the escorts to protect when you have that many ships.  

So I found Fi-167's in both 1/72 and 1/285!

Funny that, the 6mm model. Must be for war games.