German WW1 and WW2 carrier projects

Well...

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List, June 10th, 1918

Report about reconnaissance activity of Naval Air Station List on 10. June 1918

… 5.30 airplanes start with course to 061 alpha…
… 7.25 … smoke ahead port, a strikingly large ship within, later recognized as airplane mothership and four English destroyers. Position 051 alpha… Bombing run, strong defensive fire of the enemy ships, bomb hits lateral to the ship. The mothership turns to south west to turn into the wind. Three land airplanes start off the forecastle. Additional five airplanes stood on the forecastle in succession…

… The aerial battle lasted in eastern direction until position 143 alpha, where an English armored cruiser and three destroyers were sighted…

… airplanes landed in List with last remaining fuel.

Appearance of the airplane mothership.
The mothership was over 300m long with a large runway at the bow and stern, tripod mast with spotting top, bridge within the forward quarter of the ship. 2 guns at or on the bridge, one funnel behind tripod mast. No larger superstructures. F.U. in white color at the stern… 6-8 airplanes ready to start at the bow. Deck behind the bridge presumable arranged for landing. It is not impossible that the mothership was a new armored cruiser, with aircraft platform obtained by laying down wooden planks.

J.V. Wendt

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Wilhelmshaven, August 3rd, 1918

… An exact measurement of the airplane mothership was not possible, because of faulty inclination display of the camera. However, under the assumption that the escorting torpedo boats had a length of 80m, the length of the mothership could be calculated to 220-240m; these numbers match the estimations of the airplane crews. Apparently it is a new English armored cruiser of an American ship-of-the-line, which had been rebuilt according the accompanying sketch…

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Berlin, August 15th, 1918

… that the airplane mothership was a rebuilt of an American ship-of-the-line of the Pennsylvania-type seems impossible, more likely it was a rebuilt of an English ship-of-the-line of the Orion-type…

With apologies to Karle94, Hood, DarthPanda, Bombhead and K.W. Vestergaard.

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Definitely different!!!

A well executed drawing of a novel design.

It looks like the turrets have just had dismountable structures built around them to provide the flight decks fore and aft?

I love these old intelligence gaffs, they are always very instructive.

Obviously I haven't seen the quality of the photographs the German seaplanes took, but I am surprised that they thought the fore launching deck was so high! Even having 6-8 aircraft parked on the foredeck seems rather cramped too.
The aft deck with that strange kink is also weird, surely the Germans would have used a little logic that a landing deck would need to be flat to be of any use!
Interesting that they thought it was a conversion of an American battleship, not implausible perhaps at the stage of the war. The conversion of an Orion wasn't far fetched, indeed at that time Eagle was taking shape and her origins were pretty much an Orion Class hull, albeit modified for the export market.

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Hood's Worklist
English Electric Canberra FD
Interwar RN Capital Ships
Super-Darings
Never-Were British Aircraft

How can i find more info on this project and the german ship?
Since this is in Neverbuild...

Good looking drawing btw.

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Fryssian AU with Lt.Maverick 114
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=9802&p=193331#p193331
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Embarked on: HNLMS Karel Doorman A833
To do list:
-Zeven Provincien class cruiser
-Joint support ship all sides
-F124 Sachsen class frigate
-F125 Baden-Württemberg class frigate
-Clemencau class aircraft carrier
-Zeven provincien class frigate
-Poolster class AOR
-Amsterdam class AOR
-Minas Gerais aircraft carrier

Thanks everyone.

Quote:

It looks like the turrets have just had dismountable structures built around them to provide the flight decks fore and aft?

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The aft deck with that strange kink is also weird, surely the Germans would have used a little logic that a landing deck would need to be flat to be of any use!

Yes, the turrets were still in place, hence the 'kink' in the landing deck, where the barrels of the 'X'-turret were. I don't know what they were thinking, but this was still the early age of carriers. Maybe they thought the rise would serve as addition brake, as in going uphill?

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Obviously I haven't seen the quality of the photographs the German seaplanes took, but I am surprised that they thought the fore launching deck was so high! Even having 6-8 aircraft parked on the foredeck seems rather cramped too.

The pictures are not a good quality, being mediocre scans of old pictures. But you can see that the carrier (the real Furious) is quite long and slim and the proportions do not really match the Pensylvania-conversation. I don't know why they picked it in the first place; how much did the Germans know about the construction of the Courageous-class? Even the sketch of the Pennsylvania wasn't exactly matching with Karle94's version.

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How can i find more info on this project and the german ship?

Not in any book I know of. I got some original documents on the Ausonia (see previous posts) from the archives, where these reports were included.

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Any help and source material is always welcome.

Shipbucket

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