Comments by "doveton sturdee" (@dovetonsturdee7033) on "Why was the Carrier Graf Zeppelin built \u0026 never finished?" video.

  1. They would have needed exceptional pilots to land an aircraft with an undercarriage as delicate at the 109son a pitching carrier deck in the North Atlantic.
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  2.  @markkover8040  Landing on a marked out flight deck on a runway is not quite the same as landing on a carrier in rough seas, as any naval pilot, then or now, would confirm. The Bf109 had longer wings, but still retained an unsuitably narrow undercarriage. Just compare photos. with US or British carrier fighters. Except of course the Seafire, which was almost as unsuited for carrier operations as the Bf109.
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  3.  @markkover8040  The accident rate of Wasp's pilots, using aircraft designed for carrier operations, should tell you something. As for carrying out trials in the Norwegian sea, would that really have been possible, in an area regularly patrolled by RN submarines and surface vessels? By the way, only 7 carrier capable 109ts were built. The remainder were built without the necessary carrier modifications. Even the seven built didn't have folding wings, by the way. Incidentally, when the project was re-activated, the 109t was considered to be obsolete, and major modifications would have been required to the carrier's lifts, catapults, hangar floors, and arrestor gear to accommodate the new aircraft briefly considered.
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  4.  @markkover8040  Certainly, ore did continue to be shipped via Narvik, but in greatly reduced quantities. Rolk Karlbom, in the 'Scandinavian Economic History Review' published a whole host of statistics. For example, between 1937 & 1944, the figures were as follows. These are in thousands of tons, and are for shipments via Narvik :- 1937, 4919. 1938, 4771. 1939, 4027. 1940, 504. 1941. 725. 1942, 1140. 1943, 1936. 1944, 1106. Thus, shipments did continue, but at a much reduced level. Furthermore, in 1937, total German ore imports from Sweden, again, in thousands of tons, were 9084, of which 54.2% was via Narvik. In 1941, the total was 9260, of which 7.83% was via Narvik. Not that this is particularly relevant, by the way. Navigating small groups of ore ships through coastal waters is rather different from carrying out sea trials of a large warship. To give you a comparison, between 1940 & 1944 the British ran a regular series of convoys from Southend to Methil, and the reverse. These convoys followed closely restricted routes down the East Coast. There were 531 convoys, mainly of small colliers, involving 9097 vessels in total. They were under regular attack by the Luftwaffe and by S boats. Total losses? 31 vessels, of which 24 were in convoy and the rest stragglers. As Graf Zeppelin never carried out any trials of any sort, the activity of RN warships in the Norwegian Sea is, similarly, irrelevant. However, Alastair Mars' account of RN submarine activity in WW2 assures me that RN boats did carry out regular patrols. These increased once German naval forces had been transferred to the 'Zone of Destiny' and the probability is that the prospect of encountering a large target such as Graf Zeppelin would have resulted in augmented numbers of boats. 70 Bf109T1s were ordered from Fieseler, but only 7 completed with carrier capability. The remainder were built as T2s, without carrier capability, and sent to Norway until the end of 1941. The conclusion that they were obsolete when the project was briefly re-activated was not mine, but that of the Luftwaffe & Kriegsmarine. An alternative, the Me 155, based on the Me109G, was designed, but subsequently abandoned. A version of the Ju52 with folding wings? Really? A naval version of a three engined transport aircraft?
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  5. How, exactly?
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  6. Catapults, arrestor wires, and elevators were all in use on aircraft carriers in WW2.
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  7.  @swunt10  Of course they were. Which fleet carriers in WW2 didn't have them?
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