A question for those World War II history buffs.
Japan invested into aircraft carriers, which they used to attack Pearl Harbor with.
My question why didn’t Germany under Hitler invest in the same thing? Would the Battle of Britain have turned out different if they had aircraft carriers?
Actually, if I recall correctly, Germany was working on one aircraft carrier, the Graf Zeppelin but it wasn’t finished by the war’s end.
I think the difference has a lot to do with geography. In Japan’s case, they had a whole lotta ocean they could roam around to wreck havoc. Its hard to track enemy ship movement with such a huge search area. The Germans, however, didn’t has as much ocean, and many places they went were a reasonable proximity to some Allied country/vessel.
As for the Battle of Britain, I don’t know that the Germans were handicapped by a lack of carriers, since the flight from France was hardly long-distance.
Britain also had a vastly bigger surface fleet than did Germany. Aircraft carriers aren’t much use unless they have a whole bunch of support ships. It was simply too big an investment for not much return.
Pretty much as has been said. While they were working on one, they didn’t need one, per se as they had land bases close enough to where they where attacking.
However, you can bet if the war dragged on for a few more years and the Reich was seriously eyeing the Americas for invasion, you can bet Aircraft Carriers would have been on the agenda.
Along with amphibious assault ships. Something like the US Navy’s LST would have been developed, but probably with a higher speed and greater capacity. Fast anti-submarine escorts as well. Not to mention specially designed troop ships and long range cargo planes.
I’ve actually thought about a Nazi Trans-atlantic invasion. For some reason the place I’d pick for a landing would be the Delaware coast, then a thrust towards Philadelphia and Washington D.C. I’m not sure why.
But, if Germany had an intercontinental ballistic V-3 armed with nuclear warheads, would an invasion of USA been needed?
Various cable TV shows have suggested that Germany was on their way to one or both of those objectives. Given enough time and/or resources. Never seen anything in print, though…
Yeah, but I’d rather consider the invasion scenario myself. More interesting IMO.
Well, in reality Germany was quite lagging in their Nuclear program. Hypothetically speaking, if the US didn’t develop the A-Bomb and Germany did, they would have still needed aircraft and personel en masse for an invasion. I can’t imagine Germany mfg enough of the A-bombs to break the US nor be accurate enough with their delivery with 40s technology to take out specific bases from the otherside of the Atlantic.
IMHO, the Amerika Bomber would have been deployed to drop it on specific sites… and even then it may have needed fighter escorts to complete its mission.
Get a globe and study the geography surrounding Japan and Germany and consider possible uses for aircraft carriers by each country.
Yes. But it is a fun thought exercise. Like trying to figure out the war’s turning point.
Also, wasn’t the German Navy loath to run into GB’s 2:1 superiority? Or was that a WWI thing?
One of the Panzer General games I played had this very scenario, but they decided to go ashore around the Carolinas, for some odd reason.
Well, from what I understand, the V-3(or A-9) could have hypotheically have been launched from Portagual and land on the North American Continent.
However, assuming the missle would have eventually been build, you still have two more problems.
Assuming for a second that Germany Completes a couple functional A-bombs about the same time(A pretty big assumption by itself), seeing the A-bombs the US first built, the Germans would have to design a bomb small enough to be delivered to US shores by the A-9 rocket.
The rockets of the 1940’s were a far cry from the precision missles sitting in missle silos and ballastic missles subs right now. The V2, if I recall correctly, was only being launched a couple hundred miles and most of the time would miss it’s target by miles. So you could hypotheically hit a city in England by launching from France, but it’s a craps shoot as to wheater you actually be able to hit any particular part of that city.
Now, Imagine this over thousands of miles. Launch an A-9 from Portugual, you’re going to be lucky if you hit the North American Continent. Hitting any particular city is going to be out of the question(sure, you may get very lucky, but if you aim for DC, you’d be just as likely to hit Delaware).
That was Panzer General II, which wasn’t as good as the original. Or at least not enough of an improvement.
The original Panzer General had a scenario where you marched on Washington DC along the Potomac. How they got past the Chesapeake Bay I don’t know. There were extensive coastal fortifications and several major military bases to get past.
IF you think the V-3 would have been an effective weapon, consider this; the Allies, using heavy bombers that actually flew over their targets, dropped hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of heavy bombs on Germany. Most of the time they did not come within a mile of their target. So just how accurate could we expect V-3 rockets to be, fired across the Atlantic at an enemy nation - TWO enemy nations, acually - about a hundred times bigger than Germany?
A few hundred, even a few thousand, V-3 rockets landing on the United States and Canada would have had absolutely no meaningful effect at all except to make those countries even more pissed off at Germany than they already were.
Why does everybody remember the never-built “Amerika” but never remember the B-36 Peacemaker? It wasn’t built during WWII, but development began before US entry into the war on the theory that the USA might need to take on an intercontinental war without any advance air strips. WWII ended before the Peacemaker was deployed, but the bomber was eventually deployed and formed the backbone of SAC until replaced by jet-engine aircraft (the Peacemaker was a hybrid).
Yea, I remember getting my ass kicked because the Carolinas was like all swamp and I had no air cover to speak of and the Outer Banks made landing stuff a PITA.
Wonder if it’s because there was a thing on the “Amerika” on the History Channel just yesterday? Or maybe I’m the only one that caught it.
Nitpick: IIRC the V3 was a stonkin’ great gun designed to lob shells across the Channel, and got as far as the early stages of construction at a place called Mimoyecques (spelling almost certainly reprehensible, and you can see why).
Reference the OP, Britain was well able to make her territorial waters much too hot for Reich capital ships, and carriers would have been sitting ducks. Most of the reason for the BoB was to clear the air enough to make Operation Sea Lion feasible.
Thank you for posting the info Malacandra, as I was reading the thread, I was becoming annoyed at the constant mistake regarding the V-3, especially by posters who should know better, this is a V-3. And yes you got the spelling of Mimoyecques right.
The two Panzer General games had US invasion scenario with various problems, but the reward should go to 3W with their game SS Amerika, come on, an air-droppable Herman Goering panzerdivision ?