The second incomplete carrier of the group, to be called Peter Strasser ("Flugzeugtrager B"), was scrapped in 1949.© Graf Zeppelin marked the only serious aircraft carrier project undertaken by the Germans in World War 2. Her remains were discovered by a Polish oil industry crew in July of 2006. The victorious Soviets eventually claimed her and were able to raise the ship where she lay - only to expend her in weapons testing on August 16th, 1947. Graf Zeppelin was restricted to Baltic waters for its part in the war and, with the German surrender an eventuality in 1945, the hull was scuttled by her caretakers near Stettin in March of 1945. While she was eventually launched, she was not completed nor commissioned for service as the German Navy decided a larger U-boat (submarine) fleet was of better value as the war drew on. The country's commitment to the war was such that priorities were often forced to be shifted much to the detriment of projects such as Graf Zeppelin and her sister. The invasion of Poland by Germany on September 1st, 1939 marked the official start of the Grand Conflict and immediately strained German naval resources to the extreme. However, Graf Zeppelin, named after Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin (1938-1917) of World War 1 fame, was only 3/4 complete by the time World War arrived in Europe again. This thinking gave rise to the need for aircraft carriers to compete with British and American designs of the time. With this in mind, German military power could be projected well beyond the confines of the German coastline and its available seas. Like other ocean-going powers of the world in the 1930s, a rearming Germany sought to have a fleet capable of multiple mission types so this required a broad balance of surface warships and undersea assets tied together by logistically-minded types.
She was launched on December 8th, 1938 with World War 2 set to begin in September of the following year. Deutsche Werke was selected as the primary builder and the keel of Graf Zeppelin ("Flugzeugtrager A") was laid down on December 28th, 1936. Twocarriers of the Graf Zeppelin-class were planned by Germany prior to the war in the 1930s. Changing priorities during World War 2 derailed any hopes that Nazi Germany would ever field a viable aircraft carrier in combat.
0 kommentar(er)
