Naval History Forums

he wanted four carrier battle groups to operate in and around the UK.

The problem of pushing the argument for carriers for relatively close by European operations is that they are within range of land based air forces. A land based air field is an unsinkable aircraft carrier. I think that Germany would have been best served by a coastal naval air force (but under the control of the Kreigsmarine) rather than German aircraft carriers. A copy of the USN or the Royal Navy is not what could best serve a nation like Germany.

Another factor in German planning pre-war was that the Navy was planning more for possible short term naval confrontations with France, rather than waging a long term naval war against Britain or its (then) present and former colonies.

Japan could have been an "unsinkable aircraft carrier", but it did them no good.........by the time the US Navy got to Japanese waters in force, they pretty much could go anywhere they wanted.

Given how poor RAF bombing was , I doubt the Germans would have had much to fear from 'Aircraft Carrier UK' for years. I gather Admiral Carls aim was to eventually expand these 'sea control missions' into convoy escort missions overseas.

Naval planning was very schizophrenic in nature throughout the Nazi years. Hitler initially didn't want any navy except for coastal defense since he wanted a deal with the Britsh Empire. Then Raeder, who never really lost sight of the UK, argued that at least a modest anti French fleet would be valuable in any war against France. This allowed a modest anti French surface fleet to be built. The Z plan was more of a political document aimed at Hitler to redress nearly a decade of neglect of the navys primary mission against the UK.

Anyway I would not argue against converting the bulk of LW seaplane construction for the navy, into a solid line of long range 'pirate bombers' to support a wide range of commerce warfare campaigns.

Obviously a pre-cursor of the Z Plan.

It would have been interesting if he had swapped places with Yammamoto and see how he would have tackled PH and Midway......

RF wrote:Obviously a pre-cursor of the Z Plan.

It would have been interesting if he had swapped places with Yammamoto and see how he would have tackled PH and Midway......

Which admiral are you proposing to switch? If you are proposing switching with Admiral Carls it would be VERY INTERESTING to contemplate!

Admiral Carls is also IMHO the German Admiral with the best strategic sense of the whole lot of them. In addition to the storch landing on Scheer, he advocated that Emden should have been used operationally instead of as a training ship due to her reliability, seafaring capability and longer range than any other of German's light cruisers.

Imagine Admiral Carls as US CNO instead of King in December 1941. I do not think there would have been the slaughter of American merchant ships along the US coast under his command. I think he would have heeded the lessons the Royal Navy had learned so far in the war.

Yes, I was thinking of a straight swap, Carls for Yammamoto. Or perhaps have Carls as a leader of a joint Axis command of the German, Italian and Japanese surface fleets, where Hitler is persuaded to postpone Barbarossa until both Britain and the United States are dealt with.....