The comparison distinguishes launching and recovering one aircraft at a time from keeping a carrier air group in action. A German mail ship can allow maintenance time between individual launches under peacetime conditions. A carrier may need to surge two dozen aircraft, reset the equipment, and launch another wave about half an hour later. This does not imply that systems designed for sea would avoid mud, sand, or other difficulties ashore; the comparison concerns the carrier installation under discussion. Pneumatic catapults can work at sea, but reliability still has to be judged against the platform, duty cycle, maintenance burden, and wartime conditions. One successful demonstration says little about performance at carrier sortie rates.
Notable Point · 26:12-27:20
Why a carrier catapult faces a different test
A comparison between German mail-ship catapults and carrier aviation shows why equipment that works at sea in peacetime may fail under combat sortie rates.