heres a german carrier from way back

[Mace2004]

The reason Germany didn't build CV's isn't because of Hitler or incompetence or incorrect priorities, it's because they would have been virtually useless.  Germany's naval mission was sea-denial while the Allies' was sea-control and these are very different missions requiring very different mixes of capabilities.

The Treat of Versailles severely limited Germany's ability to build capital ships and most of the WWI BBs they did have at the end of the war were scuttled at Scapa Flow or given to the victorious Allies as war reparations.  Much of what Germany did during the interwar period was to develop capabilities that could be easily hidden and relatively quickly produced such as submarines and aircraft.  Pretty tough to hide a battleship under construction though and it took much longer to build plus they had no real strategic reason for one. Germany didn't need the sea (particularly since Hitler was focused more on Eastward expansion for materials, fuel and food) but Britain (as an island) and, to a lesser degree France (with its long coast and overseas possessions) did so denying its use was of paramount importance to the German strategy. They knew they would never be able to develop a surface fleet large enough to defeat the combined Brit and French navies but it could deny the use of the sea to others.  Yes, Germany did build some pocket battleships and battle cruisers (in small numbers) but if you look at their missions even they served as a means of sea-denial.  This is also the strategy we used immediately after Pearl Harbor.  We deployed our fleet subs well to the West to deny use of the sea to the Japanese while we built up sufficient CV and support ships to begin our sea-control mission.

Sea-denial is the purpose of the submarine, it serves no other purpose as well, while a CV is much more suited and necessary for sea-control.  Also, CV's are not independant operators, they require a fleet to support it and the Germans would never have one.  So, it's only logical that Germany build U-boats vice carriers.

[thorsim]

exactly ...

You simply don't need the large fleet carriers when your opposition is nothing but U-boats.  The slow CVEs carrying a third of the planes are just as capable in that environment, and at a lower cost of resources and manpower.

my first statement ...

ummm ...

the ETO had a few differences geographically compared to the PTO ...

how many fleet carriers did the USN base in the Atlantic ...

as far as what was a priority, how much of the resources of the atlantic shipyards were put towards building CVs destined for atlantic patrolling vs. say cargo sips or DDs.
allocation of resources is how you determine priorities, i am sure you will find that for the atlantic those resources went many other places before they went to CV building for the Atlantic Fleet ...

once again i never said they were not used, or totally useless, or any such thing, however they were not our priority in the atlantic ...

[Simba]

Excellent explanation of the two major sea-warfare strategies, Mace.

The U-boat was of course the WW2 equivalent of the USA's War of Independence privateers: if you can't seriously hurt the powerful battle-fleet of the enemy, go for his merchant ships instead. Which is why the Royal Navy placed such high priority on aircraft carriers, using them to escort the Atlantic and Mediterranean convoys so vital to the Allied war effort.

The Royal Navy misused its Fleet carriers in the first months of the war by employing them as the core of hunter-killer groups to combat submarines; HMS Courageous was consequently sunk by a U-boat just two weeks after the outbreak of war, and Ark Royal was narrowly missed. Following that debacle, the fleet carriers were mainly used for specific strikes against enemy targets - the best examples being Taranto and Bismarck - and to provide air cover for convoys, the most famous action being Operation Pedestal to relieve Malta in August 1942. Subsequently, escort carriers (CVEs) and Merchant Aircraft Carriers (MAC-ships) took over the convoy escort role (and also provided the sole air cover for the opening phase of the Allied landing at Salerno in 1943), thus freeing the fleet carriers for duty elsewhere.