If Hitler had built aircraft carriers indstead of so many U-boats, would he have won WWII?

Answer 1

No. The U-Boat was the best naval strategy for Germany. Unfortunately for them and fortunately for us the Germans were unable to keep production of them ahead of their loss rate. Germany did not have the air or naval superiority to protect an aircraft carrier and Britain certainly would have made the carriers the number one priority target. Their inability to protect the Battleship Bismark and project surface naval power because of ULTRA is just further evidence that a German carrier strategy, while perfect for the U.S. in the Pacific, would have been doomed to failure in the East Atlantic and Med. Even the British lost the carrier HMS ARK ROYAL in the Med in 1941.

Answer 2

No, because he'd never have been able to get them to the open ocean without running into the Royal Navy in the North Sea. And aircraft carriers are vastly more expensive to build than submarines.
They're also a lot less effective at creating a blockade of enemy ports, and a lot more visible.
Although the plans for a aircraft carrier, which I believe was called Graf Zeppelin (could be wrong) were well advanced and it was, at that time, the most advanced design for any aircraft carrier anywhere in the world. However, Kiel shipyard was overrun by Allied troops long before it could have been completed.

Pimpy, mate, serving in the RAF does not give you a better handle on World War 2 than anyone else. A very simple and painful fact that would have given carriers a very limited lifespan is this.
To be close enough to the UK to make an appreciable difference to the Battle of Britain would have put them in range of your RAF fighters and bombers. And while attacks on the airfields and cities might have taken your defensive priorities, I think it's safe to say that a report of a big fat aircraft carrier sitting in the North Sea somewhere would have attracted an awful lot of interest from your RAF predecessors and my Navy predecessors.

Answer 3

Oh come now! The Russians are the ones who had done the greatest damage to the Nazi forces. Britain was near exhausted and bankrupt by the time of Lend-Lease (which started before the US was in the war). Without Lend-Lease, Britain would have held out, I suspect, but would not have been able to hold North Africa. Moreover, the Soviets recieved large portions of aid, over the course of the war, as well, including fighters, bombers, trucks, tanks and most importantly, food. The North Africa, Italian, French, Low Countries and Western German campaigns certainly had a strong British, British commonwealth and Free (insert country here) components, but the supplies and much of the equipment, and the bulk of the manpower was US. You're right that the US didn't defeat Hitler alone, and I would suggest that there's far too little emphasis on the Russian front. On the other hand, US support and involvement was crucial to the eventual victory and to keeping the British and Russians from suffering far worse losses and the specter of starvation at home. Moreover, please keep in mind that the Pacific war was won primarily by US forces, with only relatively small help from British, British Impirial and Commonwealth forces, and zero help from the Russians and French. The Chinese were more effective allies in the East than the British.

Answer 4

No-here's why I think that would not have not made any difference.

1. Interservice rivalry was fierce in the German military. If it flew it was Luftwaffe. So the plan was that Nazi carriers would have Luftwaffe planes and crews based on-board and the Kreigsmarine would just be their ferry boat. This would be unlikely to make for good naval aviation.

2. The German navy was not large enough to give an aircraft carrier an effective screen. Thus any German carrier would have had the whole home fleet hunting her down. We all know how that worked out for the Bismark.

3. The weather is very different in the North Atlantic as opposed to the South Pacific. So even if the Kriegsmarine had first rate carriers, the RN would have just waited until the weather was unfit for flying and then do an old school attack.

4. Hitler was a clueless naval strategist-he was afraid of the water. Hence the Tirpitz got sunk in her berth.

Answer 5

Interesting question. The real problem I think is that in general the WW2 German navy lacked a surface fleet to challenge Britain's Naval supremacy. While Aircraft carriers are an extremely effective weapons system as demonstrated by the allies and the Japanese in particular. Carries need a large fleet of support vessels; destroyers, cruisers, battleships, etc. that Germany did not have going into World War 2. This was a result of the Versailles and Locarno treaties.
Given the short time the Germans had to prepare for WW2 the U-boats gave them the best chance of isolating Britian. Even then they had far too few U-boats.

Answer 6

No.

Aircraft carriers were needed in the Pacific because of the distances between air fields. In the Atlantic, pretty much the entire North Atlantic trade route was within range of land based aircraft. A carrier would have been a sitting duck.

What he wasted time and effort on was making battleships instead of subs. Look how long the Bismark lasted. Other than the subs, the entire German Navy was a bunch of amateurs.

Germany could have easily won the European War except or all the stupid, dumb *** mistakes made by Hitler.

It invaded Poland and ends up in a war with France and England. Poland was absolutely no threat. Their army still did Calvary attacks on horses!

It defeats France in no time at all, but then fails to defeat England. The German Air Force had the RAF practically on the floor when Hitler went to bombing cities instead of air fields. That gave the RAF the breather they needed to fight back effectively.

He ends up in a stupid fight in North Africa helping his buddy Mussolini. He should have stayed out of there but I guess Germany had a shortage of sand.

Failing to defeat England, Hitler then has Germany go attack the USSR, turning it all into a two front war. That also convinced everyone that Hitler could not be trusted when he signs a treaty, which meant no one was going to allow a truce until Hitler was dead.

Now in war with England and the USSR, Hitler goes and declares war on the USA. Once the USA was in the war, it became a war of factories and the USA simply outproduced Germany.

Hitler spend a large amount of war capabilities and fuel in his "final solution." Towards the end of the war he was running out of fuel for his tanks but the trains kept on rolling.

The guy was a military idiot but was better than a secret weapon for the allies.... If someone like Rommel had been in charge the entire war may have gone differently.

Answer 7

I think he would have done better if he had entered WWII with some better PLANNING !! MORE U-Boats was what then needed !!

An Aircraft Carrier might have helped... IF they had a sufficient navy to protect a carrier !! A Carrier task force in the North Atlantic or Mediterranean would have given as dual-threat to the convoys.

Hitler's BIGGEST mistake was not using the tools he HAD properly... the ME-262 should have been produced as a fighter instead of an attack bomber. The Tirpitz & Bismark should have been sent out EARIER. They should have built more Condors and 4-engine bombers to work over England and the Convoys.

Answer 8

Hitler had more than enough aircraft he just used them in the wrong way, he ordered the destruction of the U K's cities after months of bombing the Raf into submission some historians believe it would have only taken a few more weeks till the Raf was destroyed beyond repair but when he ordered the Luftwaffe to bomb cities instead he let the Raf regain there forces and so win the battle of britian, the point of the u- boats was to starve Britain into surrender but this didn't work either so he couldn't defeat the allies anyway in my opinion unless he completely changed tactics

Answer 9

Good question. I don't think a carrier would have made much of a difference though. Germany didn't do alot of island hopping except for the attempt at England which coulda been in range of land based aircraft. The Luftwaffe coulda been better equipped with fighters that had a longer range. The 109 couldn't stay over England more than a few minutes because of this problem.

Answer 10

Nazi Germany had only one aircraft carrier, the Graf Zeppelin, built in 1938.

Britain's naval superiority and command of the air precluded the use of carriers by the Nazis. U-boats were probably, economically and in terms of military effectiveness, a better long term option for the Nazis.

Also given the nature of warfare in the European theatre, which was essentially a land and air war, aircraft carriers could be seen as redundant and a waste of scarce resources.