Originally planned to be the first of two aircraft carriers, the Graf Zeppelin would have been able to carry around 42 aircraft at any one time. Her keel was laid down at the end of December 1936 at the Deutsche Werke shipyard in Kiel.
Named after the German general Graf (Count) Ferdinand von Zeppelin (who also invented the airship of the same name), the ship was launched in 1938 and was around 85% complete at the start of WW2.
She was 861 feet (262.5m) long, had a beam of 118.8 feet (36.2m), and a maximum draft of 27.9 feet (27.9m). If ever made operational, she would have had a maximum displacement of 33,500 long tons. Long tons are British imperial tons or around 1.12 US “short” tons.
2.
At launch, she was powered by four Brown, Boveri & Cie geared turbines with sixteen oil-fired, ultra-high- pressure LaMont boilers. This gave her around 200,00 shaft horsepower (149,140.0 kW) and a top speed of 33.8 knots (62.6 km/h; 38.9 mph).
She was originally planned to carry a complement of navalized Junkers Ju 87 “Stuka” dive bombers, Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighters, and Fieseler Fi 167 torpedo bombers. Though, some plans had been made to make an entirely new aircraft for her.
While her main offensive and defensive power would have been her aircraft, she also came with some serious onboard firepower too from her 8 number 15cm SK C/28 medium naval guns. These guns served as the secondary armament
on the German Navy’s Bismark-class and Scharnhorst-class battleships.
Her hull was also bristling with various anti-aircraft guns of various calibers. If she had ever been completed, she would have been very capable of defending herself at sea with or without air cover.
Ultimately, she was never completed. She remained moored in the Baltic for the entirety of the war spending some time as a highly expensive lumber store. Her massive naval guns were requisitioned for coastal batteries, and, at war’s end, was scuttled to prevent her capture by Soviet Forces. Incredibly, her hull was actually raised by the Soviets in 1946, before being sent to the bottom of the sea after being used for target practice.
HMS Lion would have been a very formidable battleship
Photo source: Historium
HMS Lion was to be the first of a class of six battleships for the Royal Navy that were originally designed in the late 1930s. A large, beefier version of
the highly successful King George V-class of battleships, she (and the rest of her class) would have been some of the most powerful warships of the day if ever completed.
The ships were designed to be the frontline of the Royal Navy’s next war on the sea, but that war came a little too early for these ships to ever see the light of day. The first of the so- called “post treaty” battleships for the Royal Navy, these ships were to bring the most advanced technologies of the day into the fleet.
Each vessel was designed to be armed with no less than 9 number 16 inch (406mm) main guns, located over three turrets (2 fore and 1
aft). HMS Lion and another of her class had their keels laid down in September of 1939, with a third on order by the outbreak of the Second World War.
Each of the vessels would have been powered by 8 Admiralty 3-drum boilers capable of putting out 130,000 shaft horsepower (97,000 kW). This would have been enough power to provide each ship with a top speed of 30 knots, or 56 kph.
The ships were designed to be 780 feet (237.7) meters long, with a beam of 108 feet (32.9 m), and a draught of 34 feet 10.4 m). Such ships would also be heavily armored, with their 14.7 inches (373m) thick belt armor, 6
inches (152mm) of deck armor, and 15 inches (381 mm) of thick turret front armor.
Their construction was soon suspended and some modification was made to their design during the early years of the war. By 1942, however, the two existing, partially- completed ships were scrapped.
Of the other ships of the class, none were laid down, but plans were presented to modify one of the existing hulls to a hybrid battleship- come-aircraft carrier with two 16 inches (406mm) turrets and a flight deck. Work on this design began in 1944 but was soon abandoned after the conclusion of the war.
The Report • June 2022 • Issue 100 | 65
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