Talk:List of aircraft carriers of Germany

Modern Aircraft Carrier missing

Somebody should add some information about post-WW2 plans for a German aircraft carrier. Such plans do exist, and keep resurfacing from time to time. One common proposal is to comission an aircraft carrier jointly operated by Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxemburg (possibly) to give all nations some force-projection capability. Another proposal is to opt for a much smaller helicopter carrier, and ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems have actually gone so far to design one despite there not being an official requirement. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.14.208.18 (talk) 16:11, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Seaplane tenders

Seaplane tenders are aircraft carriers, per our articles on the issue. They are specifically built to support aircraft as their main purpose (whether converted to this form or from initial planning) -- 65.94.171.206 (talk) 01:14, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

That article is using "aircraft carrier" in the general sense (meaning nothing more than the sum of its parts - which is to say, simply that it is a vessel that carries aircraft). If you read the article on aircraft carriers, the very first sentence states that "An aircraft carrier is a warship with a full-length flight deck and facilities for carrying, arming, deploying, and recovering aircraft, that serves as a seagoing airbase." (which defines the phrase as a "term of art" - which is to say that it means more than the sum of its parts and refers to a specific type of vessel that carries aircraft). This list adheres to the latter definition, since that is what most naval experts will also do.

An analogy: "battleship" does not mean any ship capable of doing battle (though plenty of laymen use it that way), it refers to a specific, clearly defined type of warship (even though there are other vessels that do similar things, like battlecruisers, much the same as how seaplane tenders do similar things to aircraft carriers). Parsecboy (talk) 12:12, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

No, an aircraft carrier is a specialized warship meant to support aircraft. As such, seaplane tenders are aircraft carriers. So are auxillary aircraft carriers, some of which are not full-deck carriers either. A seaplane carrier is in fact, a seagoing airbase. It is a marine aerodrome that is based on a ship. Generally, seaplane tenders can arm, recover, launch, service aircraft. You can think of it as an FBO afloat. -- 65.94.171.206 (talk) 04:40, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

There are plenty of dictionaries that disagree with your definition. And historians, like Norman Polmar, are not on your side either - in Aircraft Carriers: A History of Carrier Aviation and its Influence on World Events, he states that "The first ship to be accurately designated an 'aircraft carrier' was HMS Furious" (p. 26). The Encyclopedia of Naval History concurs, stating that "Furious...the world's first fully-operational aircraft carrier", and furthermore defines an aircraft carrier as "A warship with a flight deck from which aircraft take off and land." (pp. 4-5). And contemporary writers also agree, such as in the journal US Air Services, which classifies Furious as "probably the first of an entirely new class of war vessels." (p. 32) Even The Complete Idiot's Guide to Aircraft Carriers states "The first British aircraft carrier was HMS Argus." (p. 160) And more relevantly to this list, "The Germans planned to build their first aircraft carrier...a converted Italian ocean liner with a large flight deck..." (p. 163) - the authors are of course talking about I/Ausonia.

You might think of these different ship types as circles in a Venn diagram - there is some overlap, but they are distinct types. They are all warships capable of operating aircraft (and so are battleships and cruisers equipped with catapults and hangars, for instance), but that does not make them all "aircraft carriers" as the term is usually defined. Parsecboy (talk) 13:02, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

HMS Ark Royal (1914), a seaplane tender: HMS Ark Royal (1914) first ship completed as an aircraft carrier (seaplane carrier; a type of seaplane tender) ; HMS Ark Royal (1914) first purpose built aircraft carrier ; [1] this indicates that the 1914 Ark Royal is considered an aircraft carrier, though what i it is is a seaplane tender, and does not have a through-deck flattop.; HMS Ark Royal (1914) first warship built as an aircraft carrier ; as special purpose aviation support base ships are under some authorities considered aircraft carriers. And many of the auxiliary aircraft carriers of WWII did not have through-decks. So "auxiliary aircraft carrier" are not "aircraft carrier" ? -- 65.94.171.206 (talk) 05:33, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Interestingly, Polmar (the first book you cited) later states that "The year 1917 was the year of the first true aircraft carrier." (p. 23 - i.e., referring to Furious) and again, the quote I provided from his book above.

I'm a little confused about what you mean when you say "auxiliary aircraft carrier". Are you referring to escort carriers (they were classified as auxiliary aircraft carriers for about a year by the USN)? If so, then you're wrong - every single one had a full flush deck. And so did the escort carriers operated by the UK and Japan. As did the couple dozen merchant aircraft carriers converted during the war. Just about the only vessels capable of operating aircraft that didn't have a flush deck (or a deck at all, for that matter) were the CAM ships, which nobody calls aircraft carriers. Parsecboy (talk) 15:22, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

I am not referring to Escort Carriers, nor am I referring to Merchant Carriers or CAM ships. I am referring to several aircraft transports with partial decks that were called "auxiliary aircraft carriers" but not capable of combat aircraft operations -- 65.94.171.126 (talk) 05:36, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

I think you're confused; "auxiliary aircraft carrier" was the term the USN used briefly to refer to escort carriers from mid-1942 to mid-1943. I think you're talking about ships like USS Kitty Hawk (AKV-1), which were never classified as auxiliary aircraft carriers. And no, she and her sisters are not aircraft carriers (or even seaplane carriers/tenders), since they do not have the capability to operate aircraft. Parsecboy (talk) 12:35, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

Although I agree with Parsecboy about the central coverage of the article, it might helpful to readers for there to be a small section after the tables noting the existence of the seaplane carriers with, in the absence of a Seaplane carriers of Germany article, some useful links.Davidships (talk) 12:40, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

This article is of course very incomplete - the lead needs to be rewritten, and when it does, it will make mention of earlier experimental types (and link to the List of seaplane tenders of Germany when it is eventually created – much the same as List of light cruisers of Germany references the List of unprotected cruisers of Germany and the List of avisos of Germany in the introduction, both types of which led to the development of the modern light cruiser). There were of course several other seaplane tenders operated by Germany in WWI besides Stuttgart and Roon that 65.94 either forgot about or does not know about them, so the list will certainly be large enough. Parsecboy (talk) 13:02, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

WP:NOTFINISHED. When did I say I was finished adding ? Or should we have gone through a revert war while I added each ship? -- 65.94.171.206 (talk) 03:57, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Please don't get your panties in a bunch. My point was that the list would not be limited to the two ships you added here. Parsecboy (talk) 15:22, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Comment May I suggest to rename the artilce List of aircraft carriers and seaplane tenders of Germany? Since Germany never had an operational aircraft carrier, the list is rather pointless. On the other hand, Germany had several ships capable of launching and retrieving aircraft, plus plans to built proper cariers. Also, looking on List of aircraft carriers, the term is used rather liberally to include submarine aircraft carriers (e.g. U-12) and converted LSTs. Unfortunately, the term aircraft carrier has a political dimension involved, as I had the pleasure to explain to my CinC recently (with regard to the Montreux Convention of 1936), which includes vessels that are not fitted with a flight deck.. ÄDA - DÄP VA (talk) 18:39, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

Lists of unfinished projects are perfectly fine, since they're no less a well-defined topic than finished ships - documenting numerous failed attempts is just as valid a topic as numerous successful attempts. And I'm planning on eventually writing a List of seaplane tenders of Germany, since there were half a dozen or so tenders used during WWI in addition to the two cruisers mentioned above (including the Santa Elena and Answald included in the list of aircraft carriers). As for the aforementioned list, that article is in rather bad shape and should really be limited strictly to proper aircraft carriers, since there are more than enough vessels to warrant lists of seaplane tenders and of submarine carriers. Parsecboy (talk) 20:20, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

Fine by me. But looking at it from a naval aviation perspective, very few Germans had the pleasure of landing an aircraft on the deck of a ship. ÄDA - DÄP VA (talk) 18:48, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Well yes, though no Frenchmen had the pleasure of serving aboard a battlecruiser either ;) The point for me is arranging the ships in rational topics - aircraft carriers and seaplane tenders are different enough to warrant separating them (much like battleships and battlecruisers, though similar, are different enough to warrant keeping them in separate lists). For instance, aircraft carriers are capital ships and seaplane tenders aren't, which plays a role for this future topic. Parsecboy (talk) 19:31, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Carriers were not capital ships until after WWI. Capital ships carriers began with the fleet carrier, which are an interwar development. Escort carriers were not capital ships. I'm not sure that Nazi Germany considered her carriers to be capital ships at all. -- 65.94.171.126 (talk) 05:00, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

Capital ship is something of a vague term; in some navies, frigates or destroyers are capital ships. And by the time most of these projected ships were proposed, Germany's capital ship had become the U-boat (heck, by the end of 1916, the High Seas Fleet had largely become secondary to the U-boat arm), so your point as to whether the Kriegsmarine considered them to be capital ships by your definition of the term is irrelevant. Regardless, even if one accepts your definition, that does not mean seaplane tenders and aircraft carriers fall into the same category for the purposes of this list. Parsecboy (talk) 12:15, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

Tables

I have changed the headings on the tables to match the Key. Of course, it could be the other way round, but there is complete absence of any details of the ships' fixed armament (presumably primarily defensive). Also the tonnage figures are a bit of a mixture - some have what I take to be metric tonnes first, others long tons; as the sources are all Gröner I assume that he was consistent (but I do not have the book). Finally, I hope that someone can tidy up the table/column widths so that the page doesn't look so messy (I would have thought full width, like Graf Zeppelin would look best.Davidships (talk) 12:40, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing the armament/aircraft problem - the tables were copied from the other lists I've done and I forgot to change them. As for the tonnage figures, the problem is that for I/Ausonia, Germany used metric tons, but after the Washington Naval Treaty, long tons were standardized for calculating displacement. Hence, the post-1922 designs are given in long tons, and Gröner followed this convention. But I'm not quite sure what you mean about the table widths, they appear fine to me. Perhaps it's a display issue on your monitor? Parsecboy (talk) 13:07, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for explanation about the tonnages. But then the Jade and Weser class revert to showing tonnes first, then it goes back to long tons for II.

Perhaps it is my browser, I cannot tell. But what I see is only the GZ table reaching the rh margin (lining up with the photos), all the others falling short by different amounts (and similar differences with the columns). Davidships (talk) 00:25, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

I'll have a look at Gröner later. As for the tables, I don't know, I've checked in on my home PC, my work PC, and my smart phone, and it all renders normally for me. Parsecboy (talk) 13:22, 7 May 2014 (UTC)