German Catapault ships as Aircraft Carriers

[tigercat]

http://www.navypedia.org/ships/germany/ger_carriers.htm

What possibilities are there in converting the German Catapault ships into carriers at least of the Escort type.

Firstly if the Germans had been more carrier minded I can see them being built in such a way as to make conversion easy as in the 30's they were very busy disguising one thing as another

The existing ships might be a bit on the small side but if they were planned for conversion from the outset the dimensions could have been upped at the design stage.

Even if they didn't convert these ships but some of their merchant tonnage. 

Why would they need "escort" carriers I suuppose you could look at them as anti escort carriers  commerce raiding carriers. Pair one with a Heavy Cruiser or Pocket Battleship  and send them out  to sink merchant ships. It would give you some extra scouting ability to track targets and a strike force .

[pyro-manic]

Interesting - I'd never heard of these until now. My first observation is that they're all rather slow - a boost in power (also perhaps needing a hull form more suited to speed?) would be much needed. IIRC a couple of liners were supposed to be converted to carriers (though never finished), so I could certainly see the same thing being done to some merchant vessels.

[PR19_Kit]

Lufthansa used the catapult ships to operate their South Atlantic flying boat services in the late 30s.

2-3 ships would be 'parked' between Africa and Brazil and the seaplanes, Dornier Wals and later Ha139s, would land alongside, be hoisted aboard for refuelling and then catapulted off for the next stage of their flight.

There's a good site about the history of the various ships (illustrated by 1/1250 scale models!) here :- http://www.steelnavy.com/1250DLHships.htm

[raafif]

here's a 1946 one I did ....

After the bombing of Peenemünde, the High Command ordered several "air-cap" ships to be stationed in the Baltic to intercept the Allied bombers.  The concept was that the ships could re-position as needed as well as, not being fixed, evade bombing raids themselves - a fate that had befallen the many of the protective Luftwaffe airfields surrounding Germany's best experimental establishment.

This scene shows the cap-ship launching a He-162 off the angled bow catapult and one Natter aft while two others are prepared.  Two Natters are already in the air and a third, having expended its AA-rockets & fuel is about to ditch back at the ship -- a Focke-Achgelis Fa-232 helicopter is coming in to pick the pilot out of the drink & another waits on the rear-deck ready to take-off if needed.