From all research on the web - The ship was ready in 39 to launch about 30 aircraft, however with help from the Japaneese they started testing steam catapults and this was completed in early 40 and the new carrier aircraft that used the catapults were available in may 40. My point is - the carrier was ready in 39 it just was not launched with rolling aircraft. They waited for the catapults then they waited for this and this etc..... Politics/Egos delayed the carrier and thus without the air support of this carrier their Navy was ultimately destroyed. They also had a second carrier in production it was slated to be complete in summer 40 as well. So the question is what box to put the carriers in. I propose to start one in the 3 box and one in the 2 box to simulate the addition of the catapults. Comments
Ken
The thing is tough - that each carrier unit is like 2-4 carriers. Each carrier plane unit has got to represent at least 100 aircraft or so to make the scales reasonable. So, if you want to start a German carrier on the production chart, I would start it in the last build box if at all.
Ken,
If you want to be historical, I think the best place for a German CV to start would be where it starts now – not on the map.
The first point to consider is Mark’s comment. Each CV represents several ships, not just one. Otherwise, the US would need to begin with 7 CV’s. Germany only started construction of two CV’s, the Graf Zeppelin, which was launched in 1938, and Hull B (Germany did not name a ship until it was launched - conjecture is that Hull B would have been named Peter Strasser), which never progressed beyond the laying of the keel and was scrapped in 1940. The GZ was never more than 80% completed, and if Germany had ever decided to complete it some of the completed work would have needed to be torn out and redone. I won’t get into that issue here – the list is far too long – but the ship was much further than 20% from being operational.
In addition, it was discovered from experimentation that the Ju-87s that were to be used as attack planes would be barely adequate to the task, even after modifications (though it could be argued they would be no worse than the Swordfish used by the British), and the Messerschmitt 109s slated to be the fighter group were totally unsuited to the roughness of carrier operations. Several modification schemes were considered to be able to utilize the 109s (including the fitting of fixed landing gear) but it was realized by most that what was really needed was a completely new design specifically created for carrier operations.
To play devil’s advocate, let me ask you this – if you are going to let Germany start with a CV on the construction track to represent the Graf Zeppelin, what do you plan to do about France? France began the war with an operational CV (though not a very good one). Are you going to add a CV to the map for France to account for this? If you do, then France would have half the CV strength of the US, and so you’d need to add CVs to the US, which means you then have to also add them to Japan, and now your ratio of CVs to other ships is wrong…
I really think the navies in the game are pretty close to correct respective to each other now as it is. You start adding ships and you’re either going to unbalance things or you’re going to have to adjust everyone else’s navies.
The Graf Zeppelin is an interesting “what if” of history, but it was just a single ship, and would have been obsolete upon commissioning if it had been completed. If you’re going to stick to a historical take I can’t see that there’s any justification to add a CV to Germany.
