Picard
Regular Member
- Joined
- Mar 8, 2013
- Messages
- 332
- Likes
- 757
As the Second World War neared, major naval powers had already realized that aircraft carriers will become the key component of naval warfare. Far weaker German Navy also realized this. One of main goals of the Kriegsmarine (German Navy, literally “War Marine”) was construction of a balanced fleet of oceanic warships capable of operations far beyond the Baltic and Northern Seas. For this purpose in 1935. the shipyard in Kiel received an order of first ever German aircraft carrier.
Ship was named in honor of Graf Ferdinand von Zeppelin, and was launched on 8th December 1938. Yet the ship was never finished and never saw operational use. Ship was built with full knowledge and agreement of victors of the First World War, as the Versailles agreement never even mentioned aircraft carriers. Despite that, construction of a 200 meter long ship ran into major issues.
