KMS Graf Zeppelin - Guide 194 (NB)

[Music] the carrier graph zeppelin had a surprisingly long gestation period contrary to popular belief the german navy actually had a long interest in naval aviation going back to world war one with a large fleet of ironically enough zeppelins and flying boats whilst the kaiserlike marina might have turned into the rice marina and then later on into the creeks marina many of the high-ranking officers had served continuously through all three by the 1930s the kriegsmarine was led by grand admiral raider who had already had significant officer rank when he had served alongside admiral hipper at the battle of jutland in the late 1920s plans for a small carrier possibly based around the whole of the deutschland-class panzerschiff were tentatively drawn up but denied any funding to progress but soon after hitler came to power in 1933 a 10 000 ton design was again brought to the table with the aim of ordering a carrier of some form by 1935. with the krix marina still aiming to arm itself for a war with france any new carrier would have to be superior to the ban a converted normandy class battleship so the bar wasn't all that high to start with with the french laying down the dunkirks as a response to the deutschlands the need for a carrier was felt more intensely the newly planned scharnhorst could match the nunkirks but sailing one of those as an escort to a deutschland seemed silly whereas a small carrier would extend the spotting distance of a panzerschiff and granted an air wing in a supporting strike role if one of the fast french vessels showed up uninvited by 1934 evaluation of other nations carriers and their own design work had pushed the carrier tonnage up to 15 000 tons per hull mainly because of the fast pace of aircraft development indicated the need for longer flight decks pretty soon additionally more and heavier guns were appearing as the idea began to solidify that with a limited number of ships the carriers should themselves be capable of some direct offensive or at least a strong defensive action apart from their air groups which may not be able to operate in all weathers as the 1930s drew on more information from tours and reports from british and american carriers along with more detailed specifications of the japanese carrier akagi became available the latter thanks to a growing relationship between germany and japan the anglo-german naval treaty then allowed germany just over 38 000 tons of carrier displacement this meant that three 15 000 ton carriers were not possible and after some debate as to building a 15 000 ton ship and a considerably larger vessel it was decided instead to split the total in half and build two ships of approximately 19 000 tons standard displacement which would then in theory be capable of full atlantic operations this halfway house design which tried to cram the much larger vessel's overall capabilities into a smaller hull had immediate stability problems even on the drawing board and led to the proposal of replacing the initially preferred eight inch guns of which eight had been planned with the same number of 150 millimeter guns in casements the lower weight and lower height of the smaller case-emitted guns being substantial savings as compared to the high-mounted 8-inch guns supposedly there was a misunderstanding that led to the design having the same number of double casements for a total of 16 guns instead of the intended same number of guns i.e eight in four double casements which ended up actually leaving the carrier better armed than the craig's marina's actual light cruisers at least by barrel number the two ships were ordered in late 1935 and the as yet unnamed flutezoic thraga ah was laid down at the end of the following year the delay being largely because up until earlier that month that slipway had contained the hull of the second scharnhorst class battleship however shortages of steel and skilled workers delayed the progress of the ship as did the adoption of extremely high pressure turbines with the goal of reaching 35 knots more and more guns were also added with a mixed anti-aircraft battery that at various times was supposed to be composed of some varying balance of 105 88 37 and 20 millimeter guns between this and the addition to the design of radar air control equipment signals intelligence apparatus and other new and exciting toys the displacement of the ship began to creep up and up but the hull was launched at the end of 1938 and named graf zeppelin with all appropriate fanfare whilst work continued on fitting out the ship throughout 1939 by the end of which she was mostly complete and it was thought the ship would be ready in 1940 such was the certainty that even the luftwaffe's famous antipathy towards the kriegsmarine didn't stop several specialized naval fighter and bombers designs being built and the training of germany's first carrier pilots to likewise begin then world war ii came the ship's guns fire control equipment and much other remaining material were diverted to other more immediate uses and the norway campaign caused a sudden upsurge in the demand for dock space and dock workers to repair damaged ships and start on replacements for some of those that had been lost the luftwaffe and the craig's marina were also on increasingly bad terms and work on the naval variants of aircraft were delayed and would eventually grind to a halt with nothing in the way of surface armament and with guring having made off with the carrier squadrons for uses elsewhere radar wanted the ship completed but at the same time could also see little point in a vessel whose only offensive power would lay in ramming something they now began a series of stop start efforts in construction that almost always were heralded by some ambitious change in design or purpose but eventually the end of the war saw the still incomplete vessel scuttled in harbor a post-war it was raised by the soviets who made off with it into the baltic mists to what fate remained a mystery until fairly recently when in 2006 a mysterious carrier wreck was located it turned out that the russians rather interested in how to sink a carrier had used the ship in a live fire exercise in 1947 where the ship had actually proved to be remarkably tough surviving multiple simulated bomb hits as well as a number of torpedoes before finally slipping beneath the waves that's it for this video thanks for watching if you have a comment or suggestion for a ship to review let us know in the comments below don't forget to comment on the pinned post for dry dock questions

Channel: Drachinifel

Views: 123,465

Keywords: wows, world of warships, aircraft carrier, Kriegsmarine, Graf Zeppelin

Id: W3sPe_3Nak8

Length: 7min 30sec (450 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 29 2020