"Tragerflotten - German carrier fleet in WW2" Topic

I ran across this about a month ago and after some correspondence with the author he found a copy of the data book in the archives which arrived about a week ago:

link
luft46.com/tragdata.html

Since the early days of my naval gaming, I have been fascinated with the concept of a more powerful Kriegsmarine taking on the USN for the Atlantic. If I turn my "what if" dial up to FULL and pair the scenario posed by Mr. Baxter (Germany capturing an far more advanced French carrier fleet in 1940 and then taking over the Azores) with the one told in Robert Conroy's recent book "Rising Sun" (USN trounced at Midway, losing all three carriers) this would put the USN in a rather dire situation in 1942 in both oceans, even with some other "what if" ships of their own.

For someone like me that has "Seven Seas to Victory" and "America in Flames" in their inventory, this poses a somewhat believable track to the naval battles I always wanted to game. Looks like a busy summer for me!

Per John he is working on Tragerflotten 2 and may republish the first one with this. The data book is phenomenal- drawings, background on the planes and ships, info on weapons and carrier doctrine. The actual book has some tidbits that I have found out that are incredible teasers, including a carrier raid on Norfolk.

Can't be any stranger than Iron Sky or Nazi Zombies. I am cleaning up my models of the Ranger and Wasp right now to meet the threat!

Dave G

Interesting, these ideas could enable me to write another what if scenario that could be played with the Avalon Hill Bismarck game.

Seven seas to victory… From ty bomba.

And the Royal Navy is doing what whilst all this is going on?

Hear, hear!

Might as well give the Kriegsmarine UFOs, while you're at it.
-Kle.

Well this was expected. The RN is dueling the KM and the RM I assume. IIRC the RN was a little short of active CVs by mid '42- Five sunk by then and at least one crippled. This would add a whole new dimension so who knows what it would be. It would be interesting to see how RN carriers would perform in a carrier battle.

People seem to justify having H class BBs around along with unbuilt French BBs. Why not CVs?

Anyway, not looking for agreement or argument. Just sharing something interesting that I will be incorporating into my gaming plans.

Tomorrow the world by ty bomba

What if the Germans had stolen the recipe for the PyeCrete Carriers from Britain and secretly assembled one in Norway to base Me 262s and Bombers from!

Bristling with 88mm Flak Guns, Freeze the Tirpitz into it's vast surface to give it defense against Capital Ships!

Impervious to Torpedo attack and capable of launching aerial raids against convoys trying the Murmansk run!

NAZI SUPER-SCIENCE!

What ifs aren't for everyone. Beats having the Bismarck sink the Hood on the game table for the bizillionth time in my book though but that's me.

I thought I remembered this.
link

People seem to justify having H class BBs around along with unbuilt French BBs. Why not CVs?

Other people.

Play whatever silly stuff makes you happy.
Just don't go thinking it isn't silly.
-Kle.

In my opinion "what ifs" keep wargaming fresh. To my mind a campaign is nothing but a "what if" on a grand scale. To do a "What if Germany builds (or captures) carriers?" scenario justice you'd have to contemplate British, French, and U.S.
(and possibly Italian and Soviet) responses with some care, but I can surely see the interest.

Depending on the French response and the course of the early war it could really go very badly for the RN. (Or very well, depending.) A robust French carrier arm makes the Mers-El-Kebir option much more problematic, perhaps making the survival of the MN more or less intact more likely. Had Germany built carriers England would surely have countered in some way, but would they have countered France as vigorously far enough in advance? These are interesting questions. Oh the ifs we might if.

Dave G, your plan sounds excellent – keep us informed as you make progress!

I will. I have a what if US carrier already in progress which will finally get finished. This weekend I plan to try out GQIII air rules to see how those work. My last carrier game was with Seapower III. Everything else has been surface.

The other consideration is what a base in the Azores would have done for the Amerikabomber program. Another interesting possibility.

Play whatever silly stuff makes you happy.
Just don't go thinking it isn't silly.

Mate, you play games with toy ships – good for you if it makes you happy (it does me).
Just don't go thinking it isn't silly.

Glass houses.

Perhaps we all need to be reminded..

Oh, very nice PTDockyard. Very nice!

Sounds perfectly acceptabble to me. Graf Zeppelin was more or less complete, they had a smaller carrier underway. What if the uncompleted cruiser Seydlitz had been finished as a carrier? or some of the liners that ended up interned in new York?

Capturing the French fleet in 1940; or demanding it's surrender; also plausible. The French carrier Bearn would have been handy for training.

Italy had a carrier neearing completion, too Aquila.

Well, they'd still have had to learn how to use the darned things and I doubt Japan would have shared much in the way of operational experience, so it would have been Hard Knocks U. for Germany. (Carrier operations would require study in several quite divergent areas to complete a proper degree, so no small Liberal Knocks College would do.) So much to learn: ship design, munition handling, plane handling, landing, launching, flight control, tactics, the list goes on. Doing this stuff from a ship at sea seems to bear only a superficial resemblance to doing it from an airfield. And surface combatant design experience won't help much either. So you really need Germany starting earlier and the war starting later, but this isn't beyond what-iffability.

The author did cover at length how doctrine and training was accomplished. In this timeline te Germans were already accelerating CV build before they captured French carriers. The aircraft are very well covered, with a development of the HE-100 becoming the main VF from 1941 to late 43.

The He 100 would make much more sense than the Bf 109. The wider undercarriage and longer legs would make it much more viable. Who ever thought the 109 with its narrow track delicate undercarriage would make a carrier plane was definitely smoking something on their breaks.

Fatman

Carrier ops in the North Atlantic would differ greatly from those in the Pacific. One carrier for fighter cover over Bismarck would have been useful.

It would be interesting to see how well the Swordfish and Albacores would have faired if they had serious fighter opposition.

"Carrier ops in the North Atlantic would differ greatly from those in the Pacific. One carrier for fighter cover over Bismarck would have been useful."

Yes, very different. Instead of losing 1 capital ship, the Germans would lose 2 capital ships.

The Germans were no where near to becoming a competent deep water air power (and yes, I read the author's book and don't buy any of his ideas regarding the doctrine and training). Remember, the 3 primary naval air powers (Japan, Britain, US) had had 20 YEARS to perfect the idea. You're not 'reinventing the wheel' in a short half dozen years….

Interestingly, I just read the chapter in Peter Tsouras' book "Hitler Triumphant" on the Italians building a carrier in the 1930's and using it to great advantage in the Med.

Early on, she engages the Eagle which had an air group of three (3) Sea Gladiators and eighteen Swordfish. Really? Were the RN air groups that weak in VF?

Considering the RN in 1940-41 would have:
Hermes
Eagle
Furious
Ark Royal
Illustrious
Victorious

In an large carrier battle would the British carriers be able to put up an effective CAP and escort a strike in a scenario where there would be Axis carrier fighters involved?

@PT Dockyard;

You forgot Argus! Hermes, Eagle and Argus all were more or less the size and capability of a later escort carrier. Blackburn Skuas had a hard time operating from them. So, the strengths listed above were probably about right. Since there were no other carriers about, fighter strength could be weaker and the general purpose aircraft, Swordfish; could be stronger.

Had the Axis had any effective carriers I'm sure they would have carried more fighters. The question is which ones!?

How could I forget the old flatiron!
If the choices are the Sea Gladiator or the Fulmar, the outlook is dim indeed. The Sea Hurricane and Martlet would be coming into service in 1941 I think.

I have no problems with "What-If's." After all, when you are heavily into imagi-nations as I am it's part of the old "People who live in grass houses shouldn't stow thrones."

But I haver a questions? What are the What-If's Nazi what-If's, or Japanese What If's, or what if Napoleon had gotten across the channell, or what if America had broken up in 1928 into four or five countries.

I never see a what if like "What if France and Britain had cleaned Hitler's clock after he remilitarized the Rhineland? Or What if Italy had in revenge for the Anschulss gone over to the Allies at Munich? Or What if Nelson had captured the frigate bringing Napoleon back to France after he deserted his Army in Egypt and made the little b*****d walk the plank.

Or better yet, what if the German General STaff had managed to blow the Austrian postcard painter to smithereens before the war and ended all this "final solution" stuff and developed a more rational policy in Europe. walk the plank.

Or better yet, The battle of Midway on December 5, 1941. The entire American fleet is waiting for the Japanese in surprise with six carriers, Lexington, Saratoga, Hornet, Enerprise, Yorktown, and Wasp. That's a lot more plausable- don't need to add any Essex class carriers or assume we have the Montana's to make it work!

Y' NEVER see those What-If's!

Well, the nature of what-ifs is to try to reverse historical outcomes, not accelerate existing ones! I believe there was a recent novel about an 'early' war breaking out over the Czech crisis in 1938.

Seems like the biggest obstacle to effective German carriers would be the rivalry and utter lack of cooperation between Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe.

Hi Dave,

I have a couple of Axis and Allies Graf Zeppelins for use in my 1/600 air gaming, and have the squadrons somewhere in the painting process, so I'm interested in this too.

One source of inspiration was the Admiral Furashita site (the author sadly passed away this winter, but the site is still up), which is a bunch of what-if ships and history for the War at Sea/Victory in the Pacific boardgames. Lots of alt. carriers (and other ships) for everybody!

Here's the Germans:
link

I guess my point is that if you compared the carrier force the author describes in the timeline he described it versus the actual carrier forces available say at the beginning of 1942, the Allies would have been in a pickle.

The US would at best have Wasp, Ranger and maybe Yorktown in the Atlantic. The Long Island would also be available but CVEs would be needed for escort work as well and to cover the US battle line of Texas, NY, Arkansas and maybe a New Mexico.

The RN would have Eagle, Furious,Illustrious and Victorious assuming the Hermes went to meet her sad end off India. The Formitable would be rushed to completion but new US CVs are over a year off along with CVLs. The Santee class could possibly be used in a pinch but again may be needed elsewhere.

If we gave the Italians a Bonfiglietti or some other CV design from the 1920s or 30's, it gets worse. The US and RN would not only have a hard time matching the other side but some of the carriers were weak (Wasp and Ranger) or had pitiful air capacity (Eagle).

I realize in actual history there were many constraints not the least of which was Kriegsmarine/Luftwaffe rivalry. The scenario posed in Tragerflotten, however, is well thought out and is to me totally fascinating as it turns a lot of the other What Ifs like the Z plan totally on their heads.

No they are not for everyone and this one certainly is not. But from a hobby that gave us things like "A Very British Civil War", "Dystopian Wars", "Crimson Skies", "Luftwaffe 1946"(with female pilots on both sides stealing the show all the time) and zombie SS, I think there is room for some imaginative extrapolation of naval forces.

The thoughts above all centre on the axis building a handful of carriers.

I would have thought that the allies upon seeing the large expansion of axis carrier production during the late 20's and 30's would have also gone ahead with more carriers to match/maintain the lead. Say Britain building a couple more Ark Royals, or instead of the 5 KGV ships, theres only 2 and 3 carriers to maintain the lead, I also dont think they would have been flying swordfish etc in 39/40 if Germany was messing around with trying ME109's on their carriers in 38, they would have developed better aircraft to match the 109's etc.

I also think the USA would have gotten started sooner as well if faced with carriers in the Atlantic and Pacific to try maintain a balance

cheers

'"A Very British Civil War", "Dystopian Wars", "Crimson Skies", "Luftwaffe 1946"(with female pilots on both sides stealing the show all the time) and zombie SS'

You've just listed everything about wargaming that I utterly detest, right there, On no wait, Bleedin' Pirates!

There, that's it, thank you.

John