Rule 5 Warships – KMS Peter Strasser

Rule 5 Warships are Back! For at least as long as I can maintain a semi-coherent posting schedule, at the very least. Since so far I’ve been focusing on carriers, first with Illustrious, and then with half-sisters Souryuu and Hiyruu, it seems only fair to continue that with German Iron Blood carrier KMS Peter Strasser.

“But Aaron”, you – an offended history buff – say, “There was no KMS Peter Strasser! In fact, there was barely a German carrier at all, much less a second functional one!” And you would be 100% correct about the real world history. But in the weird alternate future anime history of Azur Lane, where warships are also anime women, that doesn’t matter. All that matters was that there was eventually, maybe going to be a KMS Peter Strasser, and that’s enough of a reason for her to exist in the game world.

In actual history, Peter Strasser would have been the second (out of an originally planned four) ship of the Graf Zeppelin class of German aircraft carriers. Based in part on Japanese carrier designs (which makes her a 2^nd cousin to Souryuu and Hiyruu, maybe?) the Graf Zeppelin class was intended to carry a heavier gun armament and be more capable of self-defense than other countries carriers. Although the first ship in the class, Graf Zeppelin was completed, she never made past the trials stage, and never embarked an air wing. The Messerschmidt Bf-109T variant which was intended for a carrier-based fighter turned out to be even less suited for carrier ops than Britain’s navalized Seafires.

The hull that would have become Peter Strasser was broken up before completion. But sometimes fantasy is more interesting than reality. Certainly prettier, in this case.