Comments by "doveton sturdee" (@dovetonsturdee7033) on "KMS Graf Zeppelin - Guide 194 (NB)" video.

@charliedontsurf334 Yes, but both were built in the mid 1920s. Contemporaries of the Graf Zeppelin, such as USS Hornet or HMS Illustrious, had entirely AA gun armaments.
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@Quetzalcoatl_Feathered_Serpent I doubt that anyone would want to replicate a design as flawed as the Graf Zeppelin.
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Bearn had a small air group consisting of Dewoitine D376s (designed in 1932), Levasseur PL7s (designed in 1928) and Vought V156F Vindicators (1936). The Vindicators might, just possibly, have passed muster, but the less said about the other two, the better!
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@mattbowden4996 Furious was an earlier conversion, commissioning in 1925. Hermes & Eagle were earlier, in 1924. At the time that the Germans were designing Graf Zeppelin, the evidence before them was that older carriers did indeed have LA armament, but the more modern ones had AA guns. Perhaps they should have determined what they envisaged the role of Graf Zeppelin was before committing themselves to the design.
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In many ways, isn't it a pity that Graf Zeppelin, with her Stukas & Bf109s, wasn't completed and put to sea. If she had, there would have been none of the interminable 'would have' posts which tend to appear about these things which never happened. Such as what the Luftwaffe/U-Boats/mines/coastal batteries 'would have' done to the Royal Navy should Sealion have been attempted. Here, we have what the Graf Zeppelin 'would have' done had she sailed. Destroying convoys, sinking their escorts with her wonderful low angle main guns, and stretching the poor old Royal Navy beyond breaking point, for starters. Quite an achievement for a carrier of outmoded design, built by a nation with absolutely no knowledge about, or understanding of, naval aviation, and armed with unsuitable guns and aircraft hastily cobbled together from land based types. I'm sure the US Navy, upon seeing her, 'would have' cancelled construction of the Essexs, which 'would have been' totally outmatched! Good heavens, I really enjoyed that!!
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@mbryson2899 Yes it did, but it was designed as a carrier fighter from the start. The Seafire was never a satisfactory naval aircraft, unlike the Sea Hurricane, but it was still more robust than the Bf109T was likely to have been.
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They only began conversion work on Seydlitz/Wesser in mid 1942. Her air group was to have been 10 Bf109s and 10 Ju87s. The old battleships were far too decrepit, and only capable of 18 knots when new, and there were no suitable cruisers. Escort carriers were quicker to build because the US already had knowledge of naval aviation, and could take advantage of Kaiser's techniques, neither of which were available to the Germans.
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@jmantime Hessen was used as a target ship from 1935, and briefly used as an icebreaker during WW2. Zahringen had been stripped down and used as a target ship since pre-nazi days. She had also had her engines replaced with two triple expansion (not turbine) engines, which reduced her speed to 13 knots. Neither ship was remotely suitable for conversion into a carrier, and, consequently, this was never attempted. Ausonia was considered for conversion into a carrier in 1918, but little or no work was carried out. The British & Americans had been building & operating aircraft carriers for many years. The Germans had made a few sketches on a few pieces of paper. That is the difference.
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How would you propose getting it to the Mediterranean?
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@ΓΕΡΑΣΙΜΟΣΔΡΑΚΑΤΟΣ-π9θ Except that, until early 1941, there was no German presence at all in North Africa, and before June 1940, there was no guarantee that Italy would be anything other than a friendly neutral towards Germany.
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@mattbowden4996 You are comparing Graf Zeppelin with carriers commissioned at least ten years earlier. For more valid comparisons, look at Hornet, Shokaku, or Illustrious
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Charles McCarron Why? The UK had the support of the Commonwealth & Empire, had a navy which rendered it safe from invasion, and was already, in 1940, outproducing Germany in military equipment. If the UK would have had to accept the 'easy' peace terms (and do you actually know what these easy terms were?) why didn't the Germans simply invade in 1940, when the UK failed to co-operate?
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@mattbowden4996 Indeed, the Germans only needed to look at what was already at sea. For example, the two Courageous battlecruiser conversions, with 16 x 4.7 inch AA guns each as their armament. There was also USS Ranger, commissioned in 1934, with 8 x 5 inch AA guns as main armament. They really did not need to look back ten years for inspiration. All they needed to do was visit Portsmouth on a day trip!
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