House rule this.

@CWO:

I think that this Zeppelin Carrier should be given a substantial amount of armour plating, and that its defensive rating should be increased accordingly.  In fact, if it’s given enough armour, it will become completely invulnerable to the enemy’s fighter defenses because it won’t be able to take off and thus will never reach enemy territory.  By sitting on the ground at home in this manner, it would, however, be vulnerable to enemy SBRs, so to deal with this threat it should be given a significant built-in AAA capability.

wait- so much armor plating that it could remain submerged under water for long periods without surfacing?? Unterseezepplin!

A0
D2
M1
C20
3-hit

Carry 2 planes when not Sumberged
AAA Roll when not submerged
Surprise Strike when submerged (Strength 0)
Boosts enemy subs to A4D4 on a 1:1 basis

@vodot:

wait- so much armor plating that it could remain submerged under water for long periods without surfacing?? Unterseezepplin!

That’s actually a brilliant concept: using the heavy weight of the armour plating of the Zeppelin to counteract its buoyancy to the point where it would have neutral buoyancy underwater, and thus would function well as a submarine.  And better still, the cigar shape of the Zeppelin would be very efficient hydrodynamically (modern nuclear subs have a similar teardrop shape), so this would justify boosting the unit’s movement number.  This hypothetical A&A unit is becoming more and more formidable with every post.

I crackeded a joke and now you have flying aircraft carriers going underwater.  I guess I had better keep my mouth shut.  :?

With Tech development, it might gain magnetohydrodynamics propulsion and be super-fast under water or be faster in high atmospheric travel.

As you guys hinted, not only should it be an Aircraft-carrying submersible rigid airship, but also designed for the ultimate sacrifice–it is also a semi-guided missile, The Fritz Z.

Once it breaches the surface, and all of the aircraft are dried out and deployed, then it should impact St. Pauls shortly afterwards,  the crew safely jumping free right before, per the album cover.

@Imperious:

So what we have now is an airship that doubles as an aircraft carrier, Flying battleship, triple duty as a submarine, and lastly makes the worlds largest German cigar.

Basically a Churchill tank.

Dread Zeppelin.

Nope

Led Zeppelin

@SS:

From what I read it was launched dec of 38 in Stettin but never was used. Sat there until 45 Germans sunk it. Russians raised it. Then desttoyed in 47 for target practice.

Said it could hold 42 planes. Range 9200 miles at 21 mph could go 38
Miles per hour top speed.
If its the same one in pic ?

A0 D1 M3 C12

@SS:

Like I said I may not have found the right info. It did say zeppelin carrier.

Well the original photograph of a “carrier zeppelin” is a very, Very, VERY badly photoshopped dirigible that never existed… the stats you mentioned are of the traditional sea-going aircraft carrier “Graf Zeppelin”, which was a ship, not a dirigible (and at 38knots, not 38mph).

The photograph in the OP is neat in a steampunk fantasy setting, but nothing even remotely close to it existed… in fact, to my knowledge, the only serious attempt to turn a rigid dirigible into an aircraft carrier was conducted by the Americans, the USS Akron and USS Macon could carry fighters, but they latched-on underneath to underside arrestor-gear, there was no flight deck.

@SS:

Nope

Led Zeppelin

BAHAHAHAHA  :lol: :lol:

@Nowhere:

The photograph in the OP is neat in a steampunk fantasy setting, but nothing even remotely close to it existed… in fact, to my knowledge, the only serious attempt to turn a rigid dirigible into an aircraft carrier was conducted by the Americans, the USS Akron and USS Macon could carry fighters, but they latched-on underneath to underside arrestor-gear, there was no flight deck.

Somewhat along the same lines, the USAF fooled around in the late 1940s with the concept of parasite fighters, meaning a tiny fighter plane that could be carried and launched by a long-range bomber as a form of built-in fighter defense.  The McDonnell XF-85 Goblin was such an aircraft; it was less than fifteen feet long (about the size of a subcompact car), and it was intended to be carried by the Convair B-36 bomber.  A couple of prototypes were tested, but the concept proved impractical.  The Luftwaffe experimented similarly with the Messerschmitt Me 328 during WWII.

@Nowhere:

@SS:

From what I read it was launched dec of 38 in Stettin but never was used. Sat there until 45 Germans sunk it. Russians raised it. Then desttoyed in 47 for target practice.

Said it could hold 42 planes. Range 9200 miles at 21 mph could go 38
Miles per hour top speed.
If its the same one in pic ?

A0 D1 M3 C12

@SS:

Like I said I may not have found the right info. It did say zeppelin carrier.

Well the original photograph of a “carrier zeppelin” is a very, Very, VERY badly photoshopped dirigible that never existed… the stats you mentioned are of the traditional sea-going aircraft carrier “Graf Zeppelin”, which was a ship, not a dirigible (and at 38knots, not 38mph).

The photograph in the OP is neat in a steampunk fantasy setting, but nothing even remotely close to it existed… in fact, to my knowledge, the only serious attempt to turn a rigid dirigible into an aircraft carrier was conducted by the Americans, the USS Akron and USS Macon could carry fighters, but they latched-on underneath to underside arrestor-gear, there was no flight deck.

I still got 38.9 mph

@SS:

I still got 38.9 mph

My bad, the ship is 33 knots, which is like 38 mph… thing is, I’m just not used to seeing anyone rate ship speeds in mph, hence my confusion. My main point was the difference between the actual German naval ship, vs whatever this photoshopped dirigible was supposed to be… :?

The picture does look cool in a steampunk universe, but the Germans never pursued anything remotely close to this.

No problem. Ya I agree. I love the awesome pic.  :-D

Sweet !

@Imperious:

I found info on this!!!

http://www.airwar1946.nl/whif/L46-lz134.htm

A fun site for imaginary WWII air units.  A naval equivalent can be found here:

http://www.combinedfleet.com/furashita/furamain.htm

@Imperious:

Unit on both sites are drawing board, partially developed, or fully developed naval and air units. The LZ-135 was never built, only drafted on paper and in this sense it was real.

A fair point, though it should be remembered that some on-the-drawing-board concepts are less real than others.  Germany’s proposed H-Class battleships began as realistic designs in 1938 or 1939, and one or two of them were actually laid down.  When the construction work was suspended, however, drawing-board work continued on-and-off until 1944.  The design kept getting upgraded, and kept getting more and more unrealistic; from about 1941 onward, these designs can be regarded as purely paper studies, with zero chance of being built and thus little need to keep practicalities into account.  But at least they were being designed by competent naval architects, in contrast with Hitler’s propensity for sketching battleship designs on the back of envelopes.  (This fondness was an odd one, in view of his land-warfare orientation, but wasn’t entirely out of character: he believed that he knew more about warfare than his professionally-trained generals, and he similarly felt that he could come up with better battleship designs than professional naval architects.)  Hitler once proposed building a battleship armed with 800mm guns of the Gustav / Dora railway artillery type; in a rare example of common sense winning over Hitler’s fondness for gigantism (as illustrated by the 188-tonne Maus tank), an admiral managed to talk him out of the idea by pointing out that no existing German harbour was large enough to accommodate a ship big enough to carry guns of that size.