Jettisoning the landing gear was to allow ditching at sea without the gear digging into the water and flipping the aircraft on its back.

“Germany can be critiqued on how they conducted WW2” Mainly, the fact that they conducted WW2

The Fiesler fi 167 achieved probably the last shooting down by a biplane. On 10. October 1944 one of the Croat Fieslers ,aircraft number 4808,was intercepted by five mustangs mk III from 213 sqn. RAF. The Fiesler was flown by an eight kill ace,nar. Božidar Bartulović and sat.Mate Jurković as the rear gunner. In the following combat Bartulović was hit in the head by a 0,50 cal bullet,shattering his skull and bouncing out his right eye. Severly wounded he managed to crash land the heavily damaged Fiesler. In one of the strafing passes,sat. Jurković managed to hit with his MG15 the Mustang KH554,flown by sgt. W E Mould, which was wrecked in a subsequent crash landing.

The Fi 167 should of course be compared most of all with the British equivalent, the Fairey Swordfish. If your obvious opponent is fielding a fabric-covered biplane with a metal frame, an all-metal biplane is at least a technological advance.

The difference in armour and armament doctrine between British (and potential German) compared to US and Japanese carriers is down to their likely areas of deployment. In the European theatre, most deployment (North Sea, Med.) would be within range of land-based aircraft. So better to have more guns and armour and fewer aircraft. In the pacific, most deployment was out of range of significant numbers of land-based planes. So better to have fewer guns, no deck armour, more aircraft carried.

"Today we'll be talking about poor decision-making" I feel attacked.

Fieseler is pronounced "feez-ler". Long 'e' sound, not long 'i'. And the final 's' in "Versailles" is silent.

Thanks for constantly showing me things I never have heard of befor. Really makes my day

Bro is replacing sum history channels with this one 🎉🎉🎉🎉🗣🗣🗣🗣🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

The Bristol Beaufort (mention at about 11:46 in the video) is perhaps a poor comparison, because the Beaufort was designed as a LAND-based torpedo bomber, while the Nakajima B5N and the Fieseler Fi 167 were both designed to be CARRIER-based. A better comparison for the Fi 167, especially in the early part of WW2, would perhaps have been the Fairey Swordfish, or some such.

Apart from the type 21 (folding wingtips to increase lift clearance) the Mitsubishi A6M (Zero) didn't have folding wings either. The Ju 87C also had a jetisonable landing-gear. The Bf109Ts saw service in Norway, due to their short-field performance.

Wings on the Bf109 were easily removed. That's probably why they didn't see the need to also make them fold.

This is basically the "Why? Why not?" kinda thing

3:02 i looked up swathe and swath just out of curiosity. Swath has as one of its definitions, "a space devastated as if by a scythe". One definition of swathe means "to bind, wrap, or swaddle with or as if with a bandage". So, yeah....

11:21 STOL (Short-Takeoff and Landing) exists as an acronym for that. No need to shoehorn VTOL in.

That looks like a Stuka or Ju 87 with a bodged biplane wing nailed on.

The planned Bf-109 carrier variant has "Seafire" written all over it, in terms of fragility, narrow-track undercarriage and landing accidents. The Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe both dodged a bullet there.

Dropping the landing-gear is more a matter of not cartwheeling when landing on water.

Did the German navy develop any sort of carrier doctrine, or have a use case for the things, or was this a ticking of a checkbox on a list of what a modern navy should have? Because to me, with no overseas assets and a strategy focused on commerce raiding, it seems pointless to have carriers, or super battleships either, for that matter. Nazis did like to swing their tackle though....

Penguins in the northern hemisphere ? Great video btw

On the Lottery scratch off here's and old saying. "The house always wins"

I always wonder about the possibilities the Graf could of had. Maybe 262’s as the fighter and dive bomber and FW-190’s as the torpedo bombers. The FW-190 acts as a backup fighter. There are some interesting “what-if” models online of hypothetical German carrier based aircraft and the Graf Zeppelin itself.

Hopefully at some point the correlation between bad ideologies and making bad decisions will be more widely understood.

This biplane was faster than the Swordfish of a similar design and the Albacore

Still a really cool plane.

An FYI on German pronunciation: "ie" is pronounced like the English letter 'e', i.e. 'FEE-zeh-ler', don't forget the second 'e'; "ei" sounds like the letter 'i', i.e. Heinkel. Somewhat confusing, but you sound more professional when you pronounce names correctly. Other things to look out for: 'w' = English 'v'; 'v' = English 'f'. You did get the 's' = 'z' right as it's in front of a vowel.

I have a model of the Graf Zeppelin...Brought it many years ago..never bulit it...Just wanted to own it....I have a number of models I have brought over the years and never built..mainly P-51's.

During the Battle of Britain the RAF kept their fighter squadron reserves in the north of England and Scotland. Squadrons in the south would be sent there to rest and re-equip. These areas also had Coastal and Bomber Command squadrons plus the Fleet Air Arm and would prove to be a difficult operational area for a carrier. The Graf Zeppelin was so badly damaged on her first sorte that she almost sank before reaching German waters where she hit a sea mine and lost within sight of Wilhelmshavn.

An 800 foot ocean-going vessel is not a BOAT. Nice video, thanks!

While pointless its one of my favorite aircraft haha! so thanks for giving it some attention!

If you let me proofread your scripts before you made your videos, I'd do it for free. You're so close to being a thousand times better.

British carriers were armed as cruisers and carried cruiser armour including the decks. The stuka also had undercarriage that could be dumped.

A few, or at least two carriers in the Med would have have helped protect Rommel's supply lines and he might have then taken Egypt in 1941/42! That would have had a consequence on the Russain front as German forces would have moved up from the South with other Axis forces and cause the Russians to fight on two fronts in the critical 1943/44 period!!

When y'all watch these almost made it vids, bear in mind that no one thought Hitler would start the war when he did. All the senior military staff expected the war to start in '44 or '45. To put it another way, they expected to go to war with the next gen technology, not muddle through with '30's tech without the industrial resources needed for long term r&d.

With two carriers Germany could've made Scapa Flow a British Pearl Harbour.

how does yt not demonetize ur stuff for the swastikas on the tail of the plane? i thought they were kinda crazy when it comes to that stuff

Why do you bounce back and forth between Imperial and metric measurements?

The German Navy's viewed the French Navy as the main opposition and not the Royal Navy, as Hitler did not believe Britain would go the war with Germany. So once France was defeated there was little need for carriers. The German carriers would have faced a great many difficulties in being used against Britain. For one thing they would easily be within range of British land based aircraft which would be able to use much heavier bombs than any ship based aircraft would have. This is why Royal Navy carriers had armoured decks as they knew they would be withing range of land based aircraft. Especially in the Mediterranean. So any involvement in attacks on Britain would have been very short lived. The problem the German Navy had was getting any aircraft at all as they needed the approval of Goring and as he saw the navy as a rival he was in no mood to help. Goring only begrudgingly used his Fw-200s aircraft to help with patrols used to track Allied convoys.

While it's unlikely that a couple of carriers could have had much effect on the Battle of Britain, jusst one carrier could have made all the difference with the Bismarck. Had there been a carrier based on the French west coast able to sail out to provide air cover for Bismarck's retreat, and to carry out torpedo bombing attacks on the British fleet, in which some of the heavy units were practically running on fumes, it's very likely that the German battleship would have been able to return to port, rather than being sunk with extreme prejudice as happened. Bismarck would then have been able to be refitted for a potential further commerce raiding mission. What's morre, without the loss of Bismarck, Hitler might have been less cautious with the rest of the German surface fleet as well, which of course might have led to more losses (sending German light cruisers of the period on commerce raiding sorties would have been amusing more than anything else, given how lightly built they were), but would also have meant the Royal Navy having to deploy ships differently. As it was, Hitler ordered such cauttion with the surface fleet that they were pretty much hamstrung in their operations.

The Me109 carrier version was superb its strange they didn't build them all with longer wings

Just one thing about the pronunciation of the brand name Fieseler: I recognize the fact that in Anglo-Saxon speaking territories, the FIE- is automatically seen as pronounced FY as in 'defy', but the German FIE is in fact the English FEE as in SEEN, so FEE-SAH-LER.

No matter what decision one makes as a belligerent in war it is then automatically countered by the opposite belligerent - but everybody picks on Germanys so called "mistakes" - war is not entered into because of a whim - it is forced onto nations regardless of type of govt. or political bias because of a lack of options. Still, much enjoyed the info about the storchs cousin and liked your video.

Also Bf 109T.

So, by your conclusion of the video, I'd say the Fi 167 would have been replaced by the Ju 87 sooner or later, no matter what. That one proved its versatility over the war and earned its spot of being used over the entire duration of it

Looks like a biplane Stuka.

Carrier ops in the North Sea, with your very first carrier ever, all while dodging counter attacks from RAF and the Royal Navy? It sure sounds like it could have shortened the war a bit, just because the cost of that blunder would be really high.

Yeah, I can see a 109 landing on a carrier with that gear.

I believe that all the what ifs are a moot point. I think that the axis powers were in over their heads before the war even started and that the Disparity in access to resources Doom them right from the start. If you look at it an extremely comprehensive list of what countries and territories were affiliated with the axis versus the allies It's not even competitive.

Well at least they didn't waste money improving the biplane design.

Which is worse, building carrier planes with no carrier or building carriers with no planes to put on them?

Sorry, I tried to respond but my posts keep getting deleted -=YT...

How about Carrier Graf Zeppelin!

Nowadays everyone just turns their suffering into a competition for attention 😔

Let's start at the end: Apparently it would hurt a plane`s feeling if it is eventually replaced by a newer, better plane. This is literally what has happened, happens and will happen to every single plane in every airforce in the history of mankind. In particular, only very few planes were operational both before WWII began and after it ended, and most of them in airforces at the end of a long string of losses (eg. Ju 87). Would a big surface fleet have been useful to Germany? Sure, if a Nazifairy would just let them pop into existence. In the real world, Germany was not even close to having the capacity to build a fleet to rival the RN. Even Raeder's very optimistic plan Z was meant to run into the late 40s before completion. A couple of German battleships more would probably just mean they would treat ships like they treated planes: Pull everything they had across the world to defend the homeland. Now, with carriers the situation is even worse. Operating a carrier is _hard._ At the start of the war, only the IJN (and to an extent the RN) knew what they were doing. Look at Midway: US forces used 360 planes with the single goal of sinking Japanese carriers. They made at most 10 hits, probably less. The IJN used 40 planes in their counterattack and made 7 hits. At this point, the USN had two decades of experience with carriers. Germany, on the other hand, never operated any kind of carrier, they would have to learn everything from scratch. Worse, Göring claimed everything that flew, and the Graf Zeppelin was meant to carry Luftwaffe planes, adding a lot of inter-departmental struggle to all the other problems. Sure, the Germans could ask the IJN for an experienced naval aviation officer to help them get started. Knowing what I know about the IJN however, it would be highly unlikely to be anything but a very inexperienced and/or stupid person. A request for advice on shipbuilding would also be not very useful: The IJN carriers probably were the worst of those used in the war. Next: Why would they even bother? The Luftwaffe could reach almost anything they wanted to reach, including most parts of ocean of interest. The invasion of the UK was not called off after the Kriegsmarine was sunk, but after the Luftwaffe was shot down. So, in conclusion, calling of any extension of the surface fleet was a very good call. In fact, they should have melted down the Bismarck and all the other capital ships to bult more uboats. The UK was very close to being starved to death (both in terms of war material and in actual foodstuff) a couple of times over a number of years. A serious effort in the production of uboats and their support systems could have ended the war. Graf Zeppelin could not.

Well - my opinion on this is, that - lacking air or naval superiority - German carriers would pretty soon have followed the fate of the Japanese in the "Philipine Sea Turkey Shoot"...

tbf, I reckon it's better to have carrier based aircraft designs but no carrier to use them, rather than have carriers but no aircraft, so you end up trying to force entirely unsuitable airframes into this specialised role *cough* seafire *cough*

Later....The design was correct about surface weapons, 2 British carriers were lost to gunfire. More likely in Europe's waters.

“-carrier based planes, but no carriers.” Sorta like the relationship between EVs and charging stations.

Combination of aircraft carriers and a light cruiser, not a battleship.

Love German aircraft especially this one..

With Tirpitz and Bismarck being hunted like they were and Britain being the largest navy in the area there wasn't any real chance for Germany to have a large or comparable navy. Not enough resources.

Under the economic theory of alternate cost, a stronger German navy would come at the cost of less funding for armor and artillery as well as land based aircraft. It is also doubtful that the larger navy would have been sufficient for Operation Sea Lion, the cross channel invasion.

200 mph in a 5 ton biplane? that straight six must have been screaming.

I get how the what-ifs appeal, but. we must *all* be thankful that the big h *didn't* win... right?

How would a German aircraft carrier affected WW2? Germany could have attacked convoys at sea, for one thing.

I think Germany would have had a really hard time finishing Graf Zeppelin before 1941, and then I think she'd get bombed over and over and over again by RAF bomber command like Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, and Tirpitz did, likely getting damaged, and repaired just in time to be damaged again by the next raid. It might convince the Fleet Air Arm to get its hands on some real fighters a bit earlier, but I don't see it changing much. All in all, the Graf Zeppelin class aircraft carriers were just poorly designed. Comparable in size with an Essex class, but with only 42 aircraft per air wing, with likely an abysmally slow sortie rate, they just kind of sucked. They probably would have had some impressive durability, but there's not much else nice I could say, and I don't see how Germany could have managed to build more than one, maybe two before the war ends, unless you're willing to sacrifice the battle of the Atlantic, at which point, Britain has more resources to spare. Then, factor in the United States Navy maybe tossing an extra fleet carrier into the Atlantic as Graf Zeppelin insurance, and I just don't see much changing.

The Kreigsmarine having carriers probably would have made little to no difference, simply because the German Navy was too far behind in the learning curve to operate even a modern surface squadron effectively, much less a single carrier task force. Certainly fleet operations were out of their reach until the 1950s, even without a war stopping naval development in its tracks. Putting together a IJN style Kido Butai with all the complexity that entails both technically and operationally, which really is the only meaningful way to use carriers open to Germany in 1933-1942, would have been impossible. So even had they managed to launch a few carriers, they probably wouldn't be able to mass them, or use them in any kind of operationally useful manner due to not having the experience the IJN, USN or RN had in carrier warfare due to their uninterrupted development in those navies from 1914 to the outbreak of WWII. The Germans, due to Versailles, were kneecapped from the start and could never catch up. A German carrier would have been just like the rest of the German Navy-single ships or small squadrons unable to do much more than what the Bismarck or Tirpitz accomplished.

part of the problem was germany was always land based. they had no need for carriers. in truth if they "wanted" a carrier chey likely could have made a few... in many cases countries including the UK and USA made cheep escort carriers simply slapping a flight deck on a cargo ship. But germany never really operated blue water other then their subs.

Leave it to the Germans to design and produce carrier-based aircraft for a confused aircraft carrier/heavy cruiser, Hermann Meyer would totally provide aircraft for... A carrier-based 109 sure is an interesting concept though. Nothing screams "carrier-based fighter" than an aircraft with comically narrow landing gear that is notoriously difficult to land, being put to service aboard a carrier.

As stronger Kriegsmarine would still have been savaged by the RN and would have significantly affected supplies to their other armed forces. Hence many civilian and allied lives would have been saved, a win-win it would seem. If the USN gets involved with their 250 plus flat tops in service over the course of the war (yes, two hundred and fifty plus), a couple of badly designed German carriers wouldn't have lasted an afternoon.

Get a carrier from a German port through the North Sea. Good luck.

If Germany had the industrial might it had available for the time strategic ability may have been more successful. But the problem was always command and forward thinking. Doctrine, command advancement and party affiliation was more important. Look at Loyd Austin. Just like Germany they made military people politicians. Ludendorf and hindenburg were adored and loved during ww1 and see how that went. Beautiful planes and plans but people fail . Unfortunately humans are fallible and should learn from this . Ww1 and ww2 should have ended this foolery. But we are afflicted to this day.

The bf109 would have been a terrible carrier fighter. Narrow landing gear, poor take off and landing characteristics, poor range, poor pilot visibility.

I expect that the 5.9" guns were intended to sink cargo ships, after the bombers and torpedo planes had eliminated all the escorts. No sane carrier captain would allow his ship to come within range of any surface ship that could shoot back.

Those merchant vessels didn't 'sail'. Please use a sensible word.

pronounced "Feeezler" not Feyezler"

The German Albacore...

Would the completion of one or two German carriers have made any overall impact on WWII? I doubt it. Germany lost the war in 1939/1940 due to grossly insufficient resources. Hitler’s grand plans were launched without real knowledge of logistics and the sever limitations this imposed. That his grossly inflated plans of conquest got as far as they did was more a product of unpreparedness of his opponents and their political desire to avoid another war at almost any cost in my opinion.

Germany trying to create an aircraft carrier or group of carriers sounds like a good idea but totally impractical. Either for the Battle of Britain or later in the war. The carrier itself needs other support vessels for supplies, and protection. Germany had limited resources so an aircraft carrier and other support surface vessels would better be used in building submarines. Britain had a large surface fleet and relied on supply vessel convoys across the Atlantic. Building more long range, twin engined torpedo land based attack aircraft would be a worthwhile and more economical exercise. The Ju 88A-4 Torp was already built & used for this purpose.

If Germany had a stronger Navy, what would be the effects for the other branches of Wehrmacht? The ressources needed for a stronger fleet could not be produced out of thin air but would have been allocated (back) from Heer and Luftwaffe. Big question is: Would Germany have even been able to overrun France (without this, there wouldn't have been any need for plans to invade Great Britain at all). Heck, Wehrmacht even struggled with overrunning Poland in 1939 until Soviet Union joined in. Or if they had finished Graf Zeppelin as planned in 1940 (and had it battleready in 1941), it would have been hunted down by the Royal like the Bismarck (and later Tirpitz that nearly couldn't operate at all - but I admit that it took the British plenty ressources they could not use otherwise), when trying to leave into Atlantic Ocean (inside Baltic Sea there was no need for a carrier because Luftwaffe was able to reach most of it from its bases in Germany, occupied Poland, occupied Norway and allied Finland). Another issue would have been: Kriegsmarine had no own planes and crews (the ones for the board aircrafts on battle ships and cruisers were property of Luftwaffe) and there was a serious conflict about command (Göring was stated as being in charge of all airplanes). A carrier does need its own flottilla consisting of destroyers and cruisers. Who would be in charge of them? How would a combined strike of Graf Zeppelin and surface ships would be coordinated with all the animosities?

Talking about poor german decision making in less then thousand years is a challenge

LMAO

Germany is fundamentally a continental power. It’s geo strategic position will ALWAYS put it at a disadvantage vis-a-vis the British. Just look at a map. The only reason the Germans attempted a blue water navy was Kaiser Wilhiem the second’s fixation which resulted with the pre WW1 Naval Race which Germany (of course) abjectly lost. However, this did creat a ‘blue water’ mentality within the Kriegsmarine which was not suitable for German strategic needs. Should’ve spent their resources on U Boats. A carrier was just another target for the RN to ‘burn, take or destroy’. Nazis, eh? Bloody idiots. Thank the Almighty….

Check pronunciation of names before you use them. Particularly of your MAIN TOPIC. No, it's NOT simplistic 'Fiseler'. Try Forvo. Remember it's GERMAN.

Most irritating but interesting narrator

#IHYLS Ok, I want to be supportive of what you are doing so don't take this the wrong way please. I think your conclusions are quite wide of the target here on why Germany has a carrier aircraft but no aircraft carrier. The true reason comes in 2 parts- The first one is in short just two words "Herman" and "Goring"- I'll expand on this for you. Goring , the high ranking Nazi party member and clueless fat idiot of WWII believed that if Germany had anything that "took to the air", that his national socialist Luftwaffe should be in control of it and the "Airfield" infrastructure that operated and defended it. however when it came to how to run an operate a ship and the equipment that was needed, he was about as useless as as we British say "a chocolate fireguard". Now at the best of times Goring and his Airforce, were never on good terms with the Kriegsmarine or its commander Admiral Raeder- because they were just not Nazi enough for "Fatso" Goring (it should be no surprise that it was the least Nazi-fied of all the German armed forces in WWII). So the Whilst the Navy tried to put over the sensible PoV that they should build and operate ships with the very unfunny Charlie Chaplain impersonator, and in this he (Chaplain that is) dragged his feet in making a decision ultimately backing his mate fatso Goring in 1940... So part of the truth is that the Navy just dragged its feet over building the ship to spite Fatso Goring. Secondly it was the design of the ship, which also comes in two parts . Firstly, it was a ship based on certain ideas originated in that well known hub of Carrier Aviation expertise that was the "Marine Nationale" of FRANCE. In truth French carrier aviation was a joke. Their first attempt of building a carrier was called the "Bearn", which was a converted battleship. It was barely capable of 22 knots, had a system of hangar management that was obtuse and an elevator system that was glacial in its performance. Their follow on design, the MN had been observing the RN and been taking advice them, but "Joffre" was only laid down in 1938 and was scrapped once France was defeated in 1940. Secondly, the continuing belief in 1920's/30's Germany of "perfection". Now you Identified quite accurately one factor....the huge number of irrelevant guns on the ship- You don't but Cruiser guns on your carrier , have you learnt nothing from watching Japan or the US with their carriers ...which removed as far as possible any gun larger than 5" or 127mm which does not have a primary AA defense use. Then there is the ships "Pneumatic" catapult and its 20 minute recharge time, rather than what the RN, USN and Japan did of using steam. What do I mean you ask- It has a large air storage reservoir, which did allow for rapid sortie time for about 16 aircraft, but then you had two wait 20 minutes for it to recharge. So its not good for forming up rapid strikes or defence efforts is it. So you have a flawed ship design hampered by "German Doctrines", which the German navy is desperate to not give its overall control over to, once it is completed, to a fat clueless megalomaniac - an that is the reason why the Germans had a carrier aircraft but no functional carrier