The unfinished Italian liner Ausonia offered a large modern hull that could be adapted without rebuilding its basic structure. Lieutenant zur See Jürgen Reimpell's proposal combined a full flight deck with separate hangar space for wheeled aircraft and seaplanes, allowing both types to take off and be recovered. Estimates suggest roughly ten landplanes plus thirteen fixed-wing or nineteen folding-wing floatplanes, a far larger and more flexible air group than the earlier tenders carried. Mounting the aviation spaces above the main structural deck preserved hull strength and reduced the conversion burden. These capacity figures come from specialist literature, and at least one assessment may overstate what Germany could achieve. Even with that caveat, the design shows that German wartime thinking had moved beyond hoisting reconnaissance seaplanes from merchant ships toward an integrated flight-deck carrier.
Chapter · 30:51-35:34
The Ausonia flight-deck carrier proposal
A 1918 proposal would convert the unfinished liner Ausonia into a flight-deck carrier combining wheeled aircraft and seaplanes in multiple hangars above the main structural deck.