What If...?

toffigd · Mar 30, 2005

Or maybe the carrier was useless to Soviets because they in fact didn;t have to have one. There was no bigger sea where it could be used operational.
But the GZ were used as a test platform. Many bombs (from 50 up to 250kg if I remember well) were fitted in various place like inside the funnel or just under landing deck to check what damage will they cause. (If anyone wants to know more, i'll search for an article in one of my military magazines.)

DerAdlerIstGelandet · Mar 30, 2005

Yes and they dropped several 1000kg bombs on I believe it was 16 and she still did not sink.

toffigd · Mar 30, 2005

It looked like that:

1st phase - 1x1000kg (in funnel), 3x100kg (under the deck), 2x180mm/92kg (under the deck).

2nd phase - 1x1000kg (on the deck)

3rd phase - 1x250kg (deck), 2x180mm (upper hangar)

4th phase - 1x500kg (under the deck), 2x250kg (upper hangar deck), 1x100kg (deck C-the battery deck)

5th phase - 1x500kg and 1x100kg (deck)

6th phase - bombardment by 24 Pe-2 - out of 100 bombs (50kg) only 6 hit!

7th phase - torpedoed with two 533mm torps by torpedo boat TK-503 and destroyer Slawnyj

Finally, with damage caused by detonating 2x1000kg, 2x500kg, 3x250kg, 5x100kg bombs and 4x180mm/92kg (each) shells, hitting by 6x50kg bombs and 2x533mm torps - GZ went to the seabed.

There is also sth interesting. Probably Soviets would have renovated the GZ, but when GZ was still at Stettin and Swinemunde (Szczecin and Swinoujscie nowadays), getting ready to depart to Leningrad a commanding officer of supply troops decided, that the GZ will be used as a freighter. Many captured tanks, many locomotives were placed in hangars and on the deck. But they were placed wrong and the GZ almost turned turtle (luckily it happened in harbour not on the sea). The damages were really heavy, so Soviets decided to sink the GZ.
This story is not surely true, but I think it might be. This was the way that Soviets "behaved" often, being very quiet after every such mistake.

DerAdlerIstGelandet · Mar 30, 2005

She proved she could take a lot of punishment.

the lancaster kicks ass · Mar 30, 2005

but we could give allot of punishment............

toffigd · Mar 30, 2005

but notice, that there wasn't any detonations done nearby the vital mechanisms
so the main reason of sinking the GZ was the 2 torpedoes

the lancaster kicks ass · Mar 31, 2005

you know i reckon they had it all wrong trying to sink her, they should have just called in a tallboy raid from the RAF................

toffigd · Mar 31, 2005

always looking for the simpliest way - have sometimes some fun

the lancaster kicks ass · Mar 31, 2005

well if i was an RAF pilot it'd be fun............

DerAdlerIstGelandet · Mar 31, 2005

the lancaster kicks ass said:
well if i was an RAF pilot it'd be fun............

....And I am sure it would have been fun for the Fw-190 pilot screaming down onto the Lanc!

delcyros · Mar 31, 2005

Well, there were a lot of "vital" hits. The soviets modified the hull a bit. They storaged ammonition, fuel and explosives on different places to simulate secondary explosions (by fuel or whatever).
The ship was in no watertight condition, the main bulkheads/compartment-doors have not been closed (in order to advance the sinking). Also GZ was not torpedoed by only two torps: The two torpedoes were the two, which were credited with the sinking of GZ. I have an interesting book of a soviet fleet officer M.G. Dennisov, "my life for the fleet(or something like that, I have no russian word art here)" he writes in page 92f. (roughly translated):"....we had difficulties to get all torpedoduds of this operation from the bottom of the Baltic after the sinking of the carrier" This clearly indicates that there have been more than two shots on the ship.
And at last: There was no crew to prevent further damage, no flooding countermesures and so on...In general I would go for a Lanc with Tallboys, they would heve the best probability to sink GZ, hands down.

DerAdlerIstGelandet · Mar 31, 2005

According to new Russian sources, the Graf Zeppelin was sunk after weapons tests in August 1947:

The carrier was moved to Stettin in April 1943 where it was sunk by its own crew on 25.04.1945. Being captured by Russians, Graf Zeppelin was renamed to IA-101 (Floating Base No. 101) on 03.02.1947. On 16.08.1947 the carrier has been sunk as a target ship off Swinemünde.
Graf Zeppelin sank as she "scored" 24 (!) bombs and torpedo hits, including two 1000 kg air bombs. One of them was mounted into the funnel; as it exploded, the funnel was completely destroyed up to top deck, but superstructures of the island remained intact. Two 500 kg bombs, three 250 kg and five 100 kg bombs plus four 180 mm 92 kg shells were used on the ship. All these charges were mounted upon the flight deck and hangar deck. Six training air bombs dropped from the dive bombers and two 53,3 cm torpedoes from the torpedo boat OE-503 and destroyer Slavniy were fired on the ship. The last torpedo scored the fatal hit that finished the destruction of carrier. 23 minutes after the last hit, the Graf Zeppelin sunk.
http://www.german-navy.de/kriegsmarine/ships/carrier/grafzeppelin/history.html

toffigd · Mar 31, 2005

delcyros said:
Also GZ was not torpedoed by only two torps

Sure the Soviets fired much more torps than 2. As we can see it is not as easy as might thought to torpedo anchoraged ship! note also the 6 bomb hits out of 100 dropped bombs... these pilots&torpedo men were really poor trained!

DerAdlerIstGelandet · Mar 31, 2005

This is sort of off topic, but I believe that somewhere in this thread the Type XXI U-Boot was mentioned. Well here some pictures of the only Type XXI that survives today.

Those photos of the Wilhmlm Bauer were taken in Bremerhaven in September 2000. The Wilhlem Bauer is the only survieing Typ XXI U-boat in the world and is now anchored in the Museum Harbor near the Deutsches Schiffahrtsmuseum in Bremerhaven.

Originally launched as U2540 in January 1945, the boat was scuttled in May 1945 near Kiel. In 1957, the boat was raised and commissioned in the new German Bundesmarine in September 1960. There it served as an experimental U-boat until its final decommission in 1983. Given to the Museum, the outer appearance of the boat - which was heaviely modifed during its time in the Bundesmarine - was rebuild to the WW2 appearence while the interiour was kept in its last operating state.
http://www.german-navy.de/kriegsmarine/ships/uboats/typxxi/photos.html

toffigd · Mar 31, 2005

what a beauty!!! must visit Bremerhaven quickly, it's not that far, only about 550-600km

mosquitoman · Apr 1, 2005

Another place I've got to go to!

delcyros · Apr 1, 2005

Nice picture, Adler.

trackend · Apr 2, 2005

Subs have always given me the willies almost satanic in appearance
Great pics Adler.

DerAdlerIstGelandet · Apr 2, 2005

The XXI was quite a beauty and very deadly. She pretty much dictated the future designs of Submarines after the war.

delcyros · Apr 5, 2005

A whole generation of soviet subs: the Whiskey class- and early US-nuclear driven submarines used the hull design (Walter-8). It was not prior to the soviet nuclear driven submarines of the K- class that a new and more advanced hull design arrived.
With 17 knotes submerged it was 6,5 knotes faster than the limited speed for ASDIC-use. And with LUT -torpedoes it doesn´t even need to climb to pericope depth, it can fire from 300 ft.
The only ship to see service was U-2511, which made a succesful mock attack on a british cruiser (Schnee doesn´t want to be a war crime, since he got the order to return home, because of VE-day). U-2511 stayed for the whole sortie submerged. Deadly ship, indeed.

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