German carriers

Fast true but she couldn't run from aircraft and her escorts wuldn't have been that fast.
The idea of using her in hit and run type operations is a valid idea but at the end of the day the RN would have nailed her in harbour if not at sea. A number of attacks were made on the Tirpitz in harbour and for obvious reasons she wouldn't be able to take the damage the Tirpitz could.

Also, out in the Atlantic with no support ships it would run out of bombs, aviation fuel etc. There was no fleet train to supply it and no friendly bases nearby

Yes but she would of been in range of British coastal aircraft and bombers and they would of attacked in force similar to the Italian/German attacks on convoys in the Med heading for Malta. If these did not cripple her (with help from carrier forces sent with the home fleet to intercept her) she would have been slowed similar to Bismark and sunk. Whatever way you look at she would of suffered the same fate as the other German capital vessels.

Agreed, you don't go up against the RN and not expect to get whalloped by everything they've got

And what about the RN subs? She would have been a sitting duck when the planes came into land or take off.

Subs go around 9 knots underwarte for very short bursts, normally around 4. Carriers operating aircraft, around 30.

Chances of being in the right place at the right time minimal at best, plus they are nearly always well escorted.

Japanese and American submarines routinely penetrated screening forces. And the German escorts would have performed poorly if at all.

In addition to penetrating the screening forces, Japanese and American carriers in the PTO were hit by torpedo's on numerous occasions while underway.

I can confirm this. Esspeccially as long as GZ stays in the waters around Norway, it will be exposed to submarines, no doubt. However, if it leaves them (allied subs patrolled the known exits of KM used Fjords) and makes high speed travel, the chances are minimal (compare the other KM units in Norway, they also have been exposed to subs but they did not suffered losses to them) to hit her. Even if hit, I would expect that the excellent TDS of the ship wouldn´t make it easy to sink her (same TDS like those of the Scharnhorst, excellent subdivision, heavy torpedo-bulkhead, but narrower system breadth), esspeccially for a ship of it´s size.
Aircraft attacks may be exposed to Luftwaffe fighter screen also (in fact in case of GZ Norway would have been enforced by another JG Gruppe in order to protect the heavy KM units), and GZ had a good AA array as well + air search Radar (little effective if it stays in the Fjords) and the ability to scramble all of it´s planes in within 20 min. by use of the steam catapults.
But I also have to underline that the ship is more sensible to bomb attacks than either Scharnhorst or Tirpitz, agreed.

Eventually, she'd just become Tallboy-bait for 617 squadron

eventually...

delcyros said:

I can confirm this. Esspeccially as long as GZ stays in the waters around Norway, it will be exposed to submarines, no doubt. However, if it leaves them (allied subs patrolled the known exits of KM used Fjords) and makes high speed travel, the chances are minimal

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What makes you sure that submarines in the high sea's wouldnt track them down and sink them?

(compare the other KM units in Norway, they also have been exposed to subs but they did not suffered losses to them) to hit her. Even if hit, I would expect that the excellent TDS of the ship wouldn´t make it easy to sink her (same TDS like those of the Scharnhorst, excellent subdivision, heavy torpedo-bulkhead, but narrower system breadth), esspeccially for a ship of it´s size.

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A torpedo hit on an aircraft carrier doesnt need to inflict major damage to stop the ship. Aircraft carriers are always floating bombs with all the av gas and bombs/torpedo's stored on board. Aircraft carriers also need to keep their speeds up to launch aircraft. Also slight listing of the flight decks could make the launch and recovery of aircraft dangerous or impossible.

Aircraft attacks may be exposed to Luftwaffe fighter screen also (in fact in case of GZ Norway would have been enforced by another JG Gruppe in order to protect the heavy KM units), and GZ had a good AA array as well + air search Radar (little effective if it stays in the Fjords) and the ability to scramble all of it´s planes in within 20 min. by use of the steam catapults.

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All ten fighters will be scrambled. Hmmm..... lots of fighters. Please note that in the carrier battles in 1942 and 1943, no matter how many IJN or USN fighters were present, and how thick the AAA was, dive bombers and torpedo planes seemed to be able to penetrate the defenses and make attacks. There is no indication that this would be different for the Germans.

Lets start with the last. If we deal with a GZ of 1941 type it does only have 4 fighters (some more on reserve) Bf-109T. Plus a few Fieseler multirole planes with very doubtful effect (maybe against torpedo bombers only). If we deal with a 42 design GZ we deal with 40 Focke Wulf 190 A4/U fighters and that´s pretty much defense if you ask me (plus Luftwaffe fighter screening, some 20-30 more Bf-109 G2/G6). In case GZ stays in a Fjord it will be sitting duck but also more heavily defended by a lot of AA (including those 2 cm Vierlingsflak), this would be a risky tour, esspeccially for bombers (torpedoattacks in Fjords can be considered as suicide). If GZ is in open waters it will have to defend from torpedo and bomber attacks (the former one dangerous), so lets shift to your next point:
You are correct to name the stability, but this factor even benfits GZ a lot: It has a lower positioned main armor deck, a good (...for a carrier...) beam - height relation and therefor is more stable than their contemporary british or even US counterparts. It´s weide TDS would allow very effective counterflooding measures and torpedo hits just have to pass the TDS first in order to make hits on munition storages, avgas depots and so on. We already discussed this in case of Bismarck, GZ has the same TDS: Only repeated hits may cause such destructions (keep in mind that GZ is not a Wasp class carrier with poor underwater protection). I do not deny that repeated hits may be possible (Prince of Wales, Scharnhorst, Yamato, Musashi all suffered repeated torpedo hits into the same compartimentation of their TDS). A damaged GZ is of little worth, since it will continue to present a thread for the allies alike Tirpitz via "fleet in beeing". And as Tirpitz tell us, the ship recovered two times from heavy damage wihtout any possibility of docking in Norway. This lead to the three TallBoy attacks, because the second one showed damage (which was believed to be repairable by the british but we know that these damages indeed reduced the seakeeping abilities of the ship to almost zero).
And what makes me think that allied submarines cannto catch GZ in the open ocean? Well, at first the difference in speed and endurance: 32 kts travel speed with 35 max. designed, it´s almost impossible to catch the ship with a boat only doing 9 kts for some 6 hours submerged (keep in mind that GZ will be a serious thread to subs also as were CVE to german submarines). Actually You would have a tiny timeframe to act and no possibility to dictate the terms of engagement. Thats the reason why the KM did not suffered losses to Uboats in the open ocean (CL Karlsruhe in 1940 was just exiting a fjord when attacked by subs). The Arctic is also a lot worser for a sub than was the pacific: long days during summer (and german planes patroulling), long nights during winter, bad visibility and enemy destroyers (unlike most of the japanese) with sea search radar...
But there is possibility to strike with subs, british and soviet submarines patroulled the Arctic waters and eventually also attacked KM ships but with very little success (all I can remember are damages like Hipper and Prinz Eugen).

mosquitoman said:

Agreed, you don't go up against the RN and not expect to get whalloped by everything they've got

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Unless they let they let there power go to there head and think they are invincible and get cocky....We all know what happened to the Hood.

and we all know what happened to the Bismark... i think we had a right to have confidence in our navy...........

Yeah but look what it took to take out the Bismarck....

it was obviously deemed nessisary to take her out, the effort had to be worth it.........

That it was my friend.

and how many other nations had so much confidence and lack of any better aircraft that their fleet air arms were still using bi-planes at the end of the war.......

I don't think that it was a matter of confidence to use biplanes at the end of the war... and in sea operations the luck factor is increased dramatically

Yes I dont think it was confidence but just not having anything else.