Here is something I wrote on another forum:
My reasoning is this - it is 1939 and because the KM has cancelled the Scharnhorst and Gniesenau, we have six diesel carriers with three panzerschiffe accompanied by three tankers on the high seas. They have left port escorted by the destroyers available before the outbreak of war. 1000 nm out, the heavy ships refuel from the tankers - watched by the British, who are following from a not-so-discreet distance - and then the destroyers and tankers turn back towards port. The nine ships continue, followed by the British - until nightfall, when they break up into three hunting packs, one panzerschiffe and two carriers each, and do a night sprint at high speed in three different directions.
Near the South Atlantic the raiders spring their surprise. Acting in concert, about 60 nm apart, they systematically divebomb any merchantman showing a British flag within 80-120 miles radius of their carriers. Radio silence is preserved by the use of aircraft couriers, allowing the three raiding forces to operate with stealth.
Now, the three raiding forces combine in a prearranged rendezvous, and with 144 aircraft and three panzerschiffe mounting 18 28cm guns, sweep up concentrated to escape even as the hunting groups come down spread out to hunt. The advantage of the raider in escape is now apparent: he can afford to concentrate, whereas the hunter has to spread out to search. The raider's orders are: avoid combat with superior, equal, and near-equal opponents: overwhelm weaker opponents with dive bombing and gunfire: maintain air patrols at all times in daylight and good weather so that tactical surprise cannot be achieved: try to maintain patrols as conditions permit in night and bad weather: steer to your home ports on a course that goes through the U-boat pack mid atlantic.
And the results? Well, on the side of the raiders I like these odds in 1939.
BB
This scenario pre-supposes a lot, not least of which being that there would be a fundamental change in KM thinking and theory. The KM would transform itself from being one of the least air minded navies to being one of the most, and manage to overcome all the problems associated with a new type, namely a disel powered carrier. I assume, for example that these fictional carriers are relying on the older style catapults, which as Del points out were slow in recovery and not considered satisfactory. So even though the Germans could fild superior types, the deck handling and turn around capabilities of these carriers is going to be terrible.
But assuming that all these inconvenient truths could be solved, the really big flaw in this scenario is that the British are going to sit back and just do nothing. The British in fact are going to react, and not in a limited or inneffective way. With experience of raiding dating back several hundred years, and a primary mission of trade protection, and a German navy assumed to have lept forward several generations in its thinking, one has to also assume a similar gestation in British thinking. Its all fanciful, for both sides, and a bit silly, but I felt it necessary to demonstrate why such fantasies are dangerous to understanding the problem.
Just using the extrapolation method, the British are going to realize pre-war that the germans are building a carrier force for raiding. The first thing they are going to realize is that they need carriers as well, lots of them. So they are not going to build battleships when the Germans are building carriers, and they are going to progress their carrier designs to the 2nd or 3rd generation like the germans. That means that they will have available to them the super carriers of the Audacious class, and the Light Fleet Colossus and Majestic classes. They will also pour a lot more into aircraft development, with a number of possible outcomes, Most optimistically they will have a dedicated carrier fighter the most likely candidate in my book might be the F5/34 prototype, which appears to me to be something very similar to a zero. With proper deck handling, long range, good performance, this spells trouble for your German effort. Allied to that would be the development of high performance strike aircraft, something equivalent to the Firefly and Barracuda.
Now with approximately 3.5 times the funds for new construction, new designs and new aircraft, and a proven ability to anticipate the effects of surface raiders, your six German carriers are not going to be met by six hokey British carriers, they are going to be met by siomething like 15-20. Being conservative, I roughly estimate that the British would retain their 6 existing carriers, and add to that 12 or so Colossus class, and 1 or 2 Audacious classes.
In addition to that with the German carriers being diesel, the British are going to develop thair at sea refuelling capabilities. So when your carriers attemtp to sneak into the south atlantic theirr positions are going to be immedialtely known, and tracked. Within two days of war being declared, I would predict their demise at the hands of the British carrier fleet.
The problem with all these fantasy scenarios is that they fail to consider any quid pro quos. If the germans change their build policies, why on earth would the British just sit their and let it happen. They never displayed such disregard for any threat previously, and with vastly greater resources at their disposal, no amount of german "cleverness" is ever going to solve that. The British are going to anticipate their every move, and simply out build them in the appropriate category of ship, as they did historically....