Aircraft Carrier Use in the Battle for Europe

Would the application of aircraft carriers in the Battle for Europe been as effective as it did in the Pacific? Could naval aircraft from these carrier groups been effective as bomber escort or anti-submarine warfare or ground support during battle in occupied countries. Too inovative? Not as much as what Gen. Dolittle did during his thirty seconds over Tokyo.

 

That's a good question, but I would guess that Britain was the only "unsinkable aircraft carrier" that they needed.

If the US had extra, Im sure they could find a job for them, but they were just too needed for the larger area Pacific Theater.

If I remember correctly, I think the US used a few escort carriers for Uboat hunting and convoy escort.

 

There were a few carriers in the Atlantic / Carribean / Med that augmented the Anti Submarine efforts towards the middle and end. As far as using carrier based planes for bomber escort it really wasn't the right application and allocation. The Air Force and RAF had things pretty well taken care of as far as escort and close air support.

I think darren is spot on with the 'Unsinkable' Carrier that England afforded.

 

As I recall the USS Wasp was used to transport aircraft to Malta, and some carriers were used in the Torch landings, but Allied operations were generally restricted to the range of land based aircraft.

 

Initially the British planned to use fleet carriers (they didn't have any others) on patrol in the North Sea but after loosing HMS Curageous to an U-Boot they pulled them back. The next big commitment was the Norwegian campaign where carriers provided some air support to the fleet loosing HMS Glorious during the evaquation.
The British carriers gave the British a big advantage against the Axis fleets that never did get air sea cooperation right. But the Luftwaffe and the subs up to 1943 could have made short work of any carrier that ligered too long in it's range, for example the Pedestal convoy, despite a 3 carriers escort, plus HMS Furious that was to launch Spitfires for Malta at the same time, lost HMS Eagle and 9 merchantmen out of 14. It wasn't until mid 43 that the British got a decent carrier borne fighter. The Luftwaffe never sank a carrier, they came close with HMS Illustrious in 1941 but IMO the German specialized naval attack groups got a lot better after that and the carriers stayed out of fighter range.

 

The Italians would have benefited immensely from the presence of a couple carriers.

 

And commanders & admirals who knew how to use them, which were very rare in the Italian military.

 

The Italians did try to convert a liner or two, but had no luck.

 

I don't think we can make this determination, considering the complete lack of evidence.

 

Deleated by ULITHI

 

I too think Darren gave the perfect answer. If you look at carrier use in the pacific it was in support of operations to seize islands where aifields could be established for land based aircraft. BTW, the USS Ranger was a fleet carrier, and did spend most of her time in the European theater. The navy felt she was too small and lacking in certain areas to operate in the pacific.

Belasar is correct when he wrote:

It was the aforementioned USS Ranger and some escort carriers that supported the Torch Landings.

TiredOldSoldier wrote:

I think subs would have been the major threat to US fleet carriers, not so sure about the Luftwaffe unless they developed effective aerial torpedo planes and the associated doctrine. No US aircraft carrier was ever lost due to bomb damage, all losses were the result of torpedos. US carriers also were fitted with a formidable AA suite, carried two to three times the aircraft of the British carriers (depending upon the British carrier class) and had decent to outstanding carrier borne fighters. The Wildcat was decent but the Hellcat and Corsair were the match for any aircraft the Germans might have used.

 

Huh? Are you kidding? The RN used carriers extensively throughout the war in the ETO, from Taranto, covering the operations in Greece/Crete, hunting the Bismarck, re-supplying Malta (Pedestal), supporting the "Torch" landings, escorting convoys etc etc.

The idea of a carrier based airstrike against an enemy fleet at anchor (Taranto) was an RN innovation, far more significant innovation than a one-off PR attack on Tokyo.

Uh, no. If it was all they needed the RN wouldn't have commissioned some 40+ carriers

A few?

Both the RN & USN had dozens of escort carriers, most operating as ASW or convoy escort. (At least the British were.)

 

I think we must split the "European" into the real naval theaters to get any sensible answer,
- The Atlantic where escort carrier were very important in countering the U Boot threat.
- The North Sea where the risk of a massive Luftwaffe attack made carrier operations a very risky proposition.
- The Mediterranean were carriers made a significant contribution.
- The Far North (Norway and the Murmansk convoys) where carriers were essential to allow the Royal Navy to operate, ship losses would have been unacceptable otherwise.

The OP suggests an employment that would entail North Sea operations, IMO that would be a very bad idea, even the 1944 the Luftwaffe on it's own ground was a very different proposition from the remnants of the Japanese air forces the US carriers were facing when they finally operated close to Japan, what a Bodenplatte acompanied by a few squadrons of Fritz-x and Hs 293 stand off weapons carrying bombers could do to a carrier fleet is not nice. So my answer would be carriers were very important, possibly critical, in the "European" theater but a carrier force could not be employed effectively in the way the OP implies. This would lead to an attrition combat with both sides loosing lots of planes, but with the allied losses from highly trained carrier pilots, and the allies suffering catastrofic losses whenever the Germans got lucky and sank a carrier, not a good proposition.

IMO the US post 1943 fighters (Hellcat and Corsair) were good but not better than German first line planes configured for air combat (not weighted down by the guns required to engage heavy bombers) , and the Germans had fairly reliable stand off weapons by 1943 and would have given their development priority at the expense of the V weapons if a carrier threat materialized, the short barrelled 127/38 that armed most US ships, let alone the older 127/25 was far from the ideal weapon to counter them despite the Px fuses, the Germans could launch from outside 40mm and 20mm effective range , so the main protection from them would have to be from the fighters. To make things worse the ships would be under continuos threat from U-Boot and S-Boot, a good AA formation is far from ideal when facing those and the radar and ASW pickets would probably suffer appaling losses.

EDIT: the Germans had pretty effective torpedo bombers but against the sort of AA barrage a late war fleet could put up stand off weapons were a much better choice.

 

They used quite a lot of escort carriers in the atlantic to offer the convoys with air protection and that became a real big problem for the German U boats in the later half of 1943 since they couldnt surface often and recharge the batteries then and the atlantic became full of air planes and destroyers so by then the battle of the atlantic was almost over.

 

Don't know if I agree fully on HS-293 or Fritz devastating the Allied fleets in the North Sea, for one the Allies did figure out how to jam such weapons. Two,in the MED even what I call second line RN CV fighters were inflicting pretty good losses on Me-109 escorted bombers attacking British convoys it seems the Luftwaffe fighter pilots were having to watch their fuel guages a bit much. Now in the Pacific against the IJN those same RN CV fighters would have had their heads handed to them by escorting Zero's.

I just don't see the USN or RN being worse off in the North Sea versus the Luftwaffe then they were off of Okinawa facing the Kamikaze's. The main in the North Sea would be the weather but then again they operated in the seas leading to Murmansk. Now as to U-Boats and S-Boats well the Allied ASW was pretty good along with the fact that Allied DD's(and their would be immense amounts of them) could take care of the S-Boats along with their own MTB's could range out into the North Sea.

 

The difference between Okinawa and the North Sea is that the Germans could mount a 1000 planes "maximum effort" raid, as Bodenplatte shows, the Japanese couldn't. You need a lot of carriers to have enough fighters to deal with that.
The German missiles had very low priority, if carriers had been an issue the jamming issue would most likely have been solved, adding a "home on jam" tecnology secondary guidance is relatively easy and would make turning on the jammers a suicide, frequency hopping transmitters were also well within the German capabilities, of course this would lead to an Allied response and then a German one and so on .. but given high priority the Germans were capable of achieving a temporary advantage and they only needed to get it once to inflict horrible losses on the vulnerable carriers. IMO having to deal at the same time with massed aircraft attacks, MTBs and short ranged high speed subs like the Type XXIII is an admiral's worse nightmare and that's what a North Sea expedition would likely be facing, assuming they could perform sustained offensive ops in those conditions is stretching it a bit far, even against the bankrupted Japanese air forces most of the US CV air wings were made up of fighters by late 1944.

 

I'm pretty sure that some USN carriers were involved in strikes vs Norway as were British carriers. Organizing a 1,000 plane counter strike would have been nontrivial for the Germans if they didn't know where and when the carriers would hit. It's not like the LW could just let that many planes sit around waiting for a raid either.

 

I don't know of USN carrier aircraft hitting Norway. The RN did early in the war, but they were of a limited success. The problem that the RN suffered in the early years was poor carrier aircraft (not that it stopped the flying stringbags hitting the Bismark) When the Mosquito and Beaufighter became availiable the need for carriers to engage targets in Norway vanished.

I think that is the key to the lack of carrier action in Europe. Short distances and very good medium bombers. (that goes for both sides in the conflict)

IMHO the biggest contribution of carriers in europe was to close the gap in air cover in the north atlantic.

 

AFAIK the strikes against Tirpitz involved Hellcats and Corsairs but where from British carriers only, the British suffered one escort carrier badly damaged by a U-Boat (she made it back but was declared a constructive total loss and scrapped)..

Of course a 1000 plane strike would be hard to organize that's why I called it a "major effort" but it was within the Luftwaffe capabilities, if the carriers were perceived as a major threat it would likely happen, the point is that sunk carriers stay sunk, damaged airfields can be repaired in a few days, so carriers are a more attractive target than Bodenplatte's historical one.

The OP mentioned "bomber escort or anti-submarine warfare or ground support" , those missions cannot be performed effectively with hit and run tactics, the carriers would need to get in close and stay there, that's a lot different than launcing a surprise raid and then retreating out of range like for the Tiriptz attack or the early PTO battles. IMO there is no reason to use carriers if the mission can be performed by less resource consuming land based planes.