3D sonar images and P.Wales research

[Dili]

Here is an image of Graf Zeppelin in the bottom made by Polish Navy. Now imagine a Google Maps of Ocean bottom...



Source: Bob Henneman

http://www.bobhenneman.info/forum/viewt ... f6c8f81344

Also in same forum:

HMS Prince of Wales wreck gives up a long held secret!
http://www.bobhenneman.info/forum/viewt ... f6c8f81344

[rjopel]

WOW
 
That's a really cool image.

[Shark7]

Graf Zeppelin is in surprisingly good shape considering the circumstances leading to its demise and the amount of time its been down there.

[Apollo11]

Hi all,

Thanks! [:)]


Leo "Apollo11"

[hvymtl13]

Graf zeppilin was a German Carrier? I have never known of a German Carrier before..

[Nikademus]

never completed. Thats why she's not well known

[Q-Ball]

95% completed though, and easily could have been commissioned were it not for changing German priorities, and rivalry between the Kreigsmarine and Luftwaffe.

She was a big ship, heavier and longer than a Yorktown, and fast. As Germany's first attempt at CV aviation, though, one wonders how effective she would have been, especially with the second-hand aircraft that Goering wanted to foist on her and the total lack of any CV air doctrine. Putting everything into U-Boats was probably the right call for the Kreigsmarine. Pretty fun what-if though.

She also had a sister laid down, but broken up on the stocks. The Germans were also working on a CVL conversion of a light cruiser, but that also went nowhere.

The design was weird in that she was meant to be a stand-alone raider, so came equipped with a relatively large gun armament, 16 x 6in, including 4 turrets. Probably one reason she had such a low projected A/C complement (50 or so), on such a high displacement (over 32,000 tons). The Germans didn't envision a Task-Force-type deployment like the USN.

She had massive engines, over 200,000 shp delivering 35 kts projected speed, bigger than anything afloat save for the New Jerseys.

[Nikademus]

By the time she would have commissioned, about as effective as Tirpitz was.

[Q-Ball]

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

By the time she would have commissioned, about as effective as Tirpitz was.

Yep, probably doomed to die in some Fjord. Still an audacious project though.

Tirpitz did do one thing: Just her presence tied down a ton of British ships. Once she was confirmed sunk, THEN the RN transferred units to the Pacific wholesale. But not before then.

[Nikademus]

Yes, but personally i've never been impressed with the Fleet-in-being/Tie down ships angle. Tirpitz in particular was too big and expensive a ship to be utilized as a floating, motionless potential threat...and in the end the Allies had the warships to do the duty just like they did in WWI. A carrier would be even less of a threat in this regard.

[Terminus]

Given the constant propulsion problems the Germans experienced with nearly all their surface warships, I'm very far from convinced that the GZ would have made 35 knots.

[Q-Ball]

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

Yes, but personally i've never been impressed with the Fleet-in-being/Tie down ships angle. Tirpitz in particular was too big and expensive a ship to be utilized as a floating, motionless potential threat...and in the end the Allies had the warships to do the duty just like they did in WWI. A carrier would be even less of a threat in this regard.

Sure, the RN was probably too paranoid about Tirpitz, in fact she hadn't been operational for months at the time of her sinking. Whether it was smart or not, she DID tie down the RN. As a fleet in being she was effective, though that may say more about RN thinking than it does about the Tirpitz.

I bet GZ would have attracted RN attention, and probably beyond her capabilities. I highly doubt it would have been an effective unit (and T is likely right about the engines, but still an audacious design). I can't imagine a CV could run effective flight ops in the Arctic, especially by a bunch of CV amateurs.

Still and interesting ship, though.

[Terminus]

Certainly unusual... It's easy to mock the between-two-chairs design (the GZ had too many SP guns and too few aircraft), but plenty of people were looking into that sort of thing when she was designed.

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball


[Sure, the RN was probably too paranoid about Tirpitz, in fact she hadn't been operational for months at the time of her sinking. Whether it was smart or not, she DID tie down the RN. As a fleet in being she was effective, though that may say more about RN thinking than it does about the Tirpitz.

LoL....to me, "Fleet in Being" and "effective" are misnomers if included in the same sentence.

I bet GZ would have attracted RN attention, and probably beyond her capabilities. I highly doubt it would have been an effective unit (and T is likely right about the engines, but still an audacious design). I can't imagine a CV could run effective flight ops in the Arctic, especially by a bunch of CV amateurs.

Still and interesting ship, though.

Ineffective mainly due to the time period of commissioning (by 42 the German "window" for her surface navy had largely closed) but more so her airgroup which in addition to being green would have had to mainly rely on a handful of converted Stukas for strike power (The torp bomber was not a success). The larger 109 group might have been able to provide some rudimentary CAP but in the tricky weather of the North Sea and Atlantic i'd not expect much. In the end GZ would have sat in port and been highly vulnerable to bomber attack

[/quote]

[Dili]

They had also catapult issues that were not fixed. It is said they sent them to Italian Aquila, another ill fated CV tough if Italy could resist one more year it might have got operational.

[mikemike]

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

The design was weird in that she was meant to be a stand-alone raider, so came equipped with a relatively large gun armament, 16 x 6in, including 4 turrets. Probably one reason she had such a low projected A/C complement (50 or so), on such a high displacement (over 32,000 tons). The Germans didn't envision a Task-Force-type deployment like the USN.

Graf Zeppelin was never intended to operate as a raider on its own, but Carrier operations doctrine was never developed by the Kriegsmarine, everybody was just guessing, and so the people writing the specifications thought it possible that the ship would have to defend itself against marauding destroyers during a naval action, therefore they specified something akin to the secondary armament that was used on battleships for just this purpose. Originally the ship was to have been equipped with eight 150 mm guns in WWI-style casemates, but the designer proposed twin mounts to save space and weight. Unfortunately, instead of replacing 8x1 mounts with 4x2 mounts, it was decided to go to 8x2 mounts. I think these were the only twin 6in mounts worldwide to be used in casemates. AFAIK the ship had neither the crews nor the ammo hoist capacity to work that many guns.

The Germans were also working on a CVL conversion of a light cruiser, but that also went nowhere.

Actually, this was the almost-finished CA Seydlitz, a sister of the Lützow which was sold half-finished to the Soviets, and very similar to Prinz Eugen. I don't think the conversion went much beyond the disarming and razing of the superstructure. Seydlitz' turrets ended up as coastal defence installations on the French Atlantic coast.

[mikemike]

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

(The torp bomber was not a success).

The Fieseler Fi 167 would probably have been at least as effective as the Swordfish, but it remained an orphan when Graf Zeppelin's completion was postponed, all further development and production being terminated beyond the 12 preproduction aircraft. This bird had even better low-speed and short-field characteristics than the Fieseler Storch and would have been perfectly suitable for CVE's.

[Tiornu]

The design was weird in that she was meant to be a stand-alone raider, so came equipped with a relatively large gun armament, 16 x 6in

We don't know what Graf Zeppelin was intended to be. German warsip design had fallen into confusion at that point. Just before the war, the head of the Fleet Dept wrote a memo noting he couldn't find any mission specified for his latest heavy cruisers and battleships.
GZ's gun armament was unique--twin casemate mounts. She was initially to carry eight guns in single mounts, but someone suggested saving weight and space by adopting twin mounts. Great idea, I suppose, but it got mixed up somehow and they simply doubled the number of guns. Not much weight-savings there. But the good news is that they forgot to provide ammunition for the new guns or berthing for the added crewmen.

Given the constant propulsion problems the Germans experienced with nearly all their surface warships, I'm very far from convinced that the GZ would have made 35 knots.

GZ combined Brown-Boveri turbines with La Mont boilers, just like Prinz Eugen. What could go wrong?

They had also catapult issues that were not fixed. It is said they sent them to Italian Aquila, another ill fated CV tough if Italy could resist one more year it might have got operational.

The Germans seem to have been happy with their flight deck gear. The stuff they sent to Italy had been for GZ's sistership.
The catapult system was a horror, and since ALL launches were meant to be by catapult, there was a serious problem in the offing. They were so committed to catapults that they didn't bother to set them flush with the flight deck. Why they did this is truly a mystery. They certainly knew how to set them even with the deck; in fact, Bismarck's catapult was not above deck level, as I recall. Can you imagine attempting a rolling take-off when you have two mounds, maybe a foot high, spaced more closely than the wingtips of your 109, at the front edge of the flight deck? If you're in a Fi-167, no problem, the plane could take off from a postage stamp. But the fighters and Stukas...yikes. I don't think it would be long before the Germans either reset the catapults at deck level or yanked them off completely. I could go on about the catapult trolley system, but I'll spare you. As for the landing equipment, the Americans inspected it and declared it inefficient and unsafe.

[tocaff]

Were the Ju-87s and Me-109s beefed up structurally in any way to handle the rigors of carrier landings?  One would expect that the landing gear & structure would call for mods.

[herwin]

ORIGINAL: tocaff

Were the Ju-87s and Me-109s beefed up structurally in any way to handle the rigors of carrier landings?  One would expect that the landing gear & structure would call for mods.

Yes, and they served in land-based air groups.