Takao wrote:The US Navy began testing autogyros in 1931, don't think Germany is going to be that, and found them wanting. The US Navy again tested autogyros, as well as the Royal Navy, in 1940, and again found them wanting.Paul Lakowski wrote:BTW allied use of helicopters were merely for search and rescue , trails in convoy duties match similar trials with Flettner helicopters operating in the Baltic from cruisers and tenders. Original plan for Fl-282 was to be a scout /ASW helicopter to supplement ship born A/C. This was established in 1938 when Raeder ordered contract to develop such Helicopters. Trails for these helicopters were begun in 1940. When were the allied trails begun?
A landing platform was considered impractical because of air turbulence from the superstructure. Further, when landing vertically, the pilot lost sight of the landing platform. Finally, the autogyro was not considered offensive due to it's lack of any real payload capacity.
Still, out of these discussions, came the USS Long Island, the prototype for a class of ship far more useful class of warship, the CVE.
all true but USN already had aircraft carriers....as did the RN. The KM on the other hand- not only had no aircraft carriers - but surface raiders operating oceans away would be the last ships that would get carrier air support...... Their perspectives were completely different. In 1937/38 the KM trialed STOL takeoff and landings with the Storch on a 14 x 25m deck mounted on a fleet tender. Yes the reported the same things others did [turbulence etc] but suggested follow on studies with mesh screens to brake down these vortexes into manageable amounts. The war interrupted any follow on studies.
If each raider started the war with a 20 x 40m STOL deck operating several STOL [Fi 156 or Fi 167] as scouting and CAP over the ship, that could help immensely .