The battle of Denmark straight

Historical what if discussions, hypothetical operations, battleship vs. battleship engagements, design your own warship, etc.
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tameraire01
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The battle of Denmark straight

Post by tameraire01 »

1935 the Anglo-German naval treaty is signed which allows for Germany to build upto 35% of the RN strength. Would building the twins as aircraft carriers help if so would one go with bismark as part of a carrier battle-group, What would the Brits do in response.
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aurora
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Re: The battle of Denmark straight

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In 1939 apart from the capital ships ie.12 battleships,3battlecruisers and 5Fleet carriers (4 Conversions) already serving- GB was in the process of building 5 KGV Class battleships and 5 new Fleet carriers-I really cannot see what more we could build-I would have preferred to see the 3battlecruisers refitted, so that they were more protected from battle ship fire- certainly the Hood BEFORE her fatal sortie.As you have captioned your post The Battle of Denmark Strait-I would have sent a Fleet carrier with the Hood Squadron in the hunt for Bismarck. In addition to this the deployment of our fleets would have to be arranged into Battle Groups generally.
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RF
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Re: The battle of Denmark straight

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tameraire01 wrote:1935 the Anglo-German naval treaty is signed which allows for Germany to build upto 35% of the RN strength. Would building the twins as aircraft carriers help if so would one go with bismark as part of a carrier battle-group,
Operation Berlin would certainly have had a different perspective even with the twins on their own. Battleship escorted convoys would have come under air attack: however just how many planes could the twins have committed? I'm not clear as to whether the escorting battleship could have been sunk or whether it would be the merchant ships that would be targeted.

Carriers on their own carry high risk, especially if a large proportion of their planes are lost or the fight deck is damaged.

I think its more realistic to look at Graf Zeppelin and Peter Strasser as possible consorts for Bismarck, with the twins as originally built. The Naval Agreement would have allowed that construction by Germany.
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aurora
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Re: The battle of Denmark straight

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On the night of 27–28 August 1942, Graf Zeppelin at Gydnia, was the target of the only Allied air attack aimed at the incomplete carrier. Nine Royal Air Force Avro Lancaster heavy bombers from 106 Squadron (CO-Guy Gibson) were dispatched against her, each one carrying a single "Capital Ship" bomb, a 5,500 lb device with a shaped charge warhead intended for armoured targets. One pilot was unable to see the carrier due to haze dropped his bomb instead on the estimated position of the German battleship Gneisenau nearby. Another believed he had scored a direct hit on Graf Zeppelin; but there is no known record of the ship suffering any damage from a bomb strike that night.

On 5 December 1942, Graf Zeppelin was towed back to Kiel and placed in a floating drydock. It seemed she might well see completion after all, but by late January 1943 Hitler had become so disenchanted with the Kriegsmarine, especially with what he perceived as the poor performance of its surface fleet, that he ordered all of its larger ships taken out of service and scrapped. :(
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aurora
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Re: The battle of Denmark straight

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The contract to build the ship was awarded to the Friedrich Krupp Germaniawerft in Kiel in 1938, with a planned launch date on 1 July 1940. Work on Flugzeugträger B began in 1938 but was halted on 19 September 1939 because, now that Germany was at war with Great Britain and France, priority had shifted to U-boat construction. The hull, completed only up to the armoured deck, sat rusting on its slipway until 28 February 1940, when Admiral Raeder ordered her broken up and scrapped.Scrapping was completed four months later.

The Kriegsmarine never named a vessel before it was launched, so it was only given the designation "B" ("A" was Graf Zeppelin '​s designation before launch). Had it been completed, the aircraft carrier could have been named Peter Strasser in honour of the World War I leader of the naval airships Peter Strasser.
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Re: The battle of Denmark straight

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Work on capital ships at the outbreak of war wasn't completely stopped - the second carrier seems to be the only victim here as Bismarck, Tirpitz, Prinz Eugen plus the other two Hipper class cruisers Lutzow and Seydlitz and of course Graf Zeppelin all continued with fitting out, albeit at slow pace.
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aurora
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Re: The battle of Denmark straight

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RF wrote:Work on capital ships at the outbreak of war wasn't completely stopped - the second carrier seems to be the only victim here as Bismarck, Tirpitz, Prinz Eugen plus the other two Hipper class cruisers Lutzow and Seydlitz and of course Graf Zeppelin all continued with fitting out, albeit at slow pace.
Agreed RF- but I was only aiming at indicating what ultimately happened to the two "would" be KM carriers
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