Help from speakers of German requested.....

[Radish]

I bought a Bismark today, which'll be modified into a "flying" Bismark as in the sort seen attached.

The questions are,  what's German for a Flying Navy, a Flying Fleet, and what would each ship be prefaced by (as in HMS for RN stuff)

[ChernayaAkula]

Hmm, you could use a number of translations/combinations: Literally, flying navy would be Fliegende Marine or Flugmarine (as a contracted word to get around the adverb + subject combination), flying fleet would be Fliegende Flotte or Flugflotte (you know we love those very long combined words  ). How about Luftmarine (air navy  ) or Luftflotte (air fleet, as used for the large bodies of Luftwaffe units in WWII)? Personally, I like Luftflotte. It sounds "natural". Flug- or Luftmarine, however, sounds more official.

As for the preface.... No clue. I'm hardly an expert on the Third Reich Kriegsmarine, but I don't think they used a preface. If the ship is used in Imperial Germany, the Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy) preface would be SMS for Seiner Majestät Schiff (His Majesty's Ship). Maybe IMS for Ihrer Majestät Schiff for Her Majesty's Ship (since it's a whif, how about a Kaiserin (Empress)? ). In case of a flying ship, you could use SML for Seiner Majestät Luftschiff (His Majesty's Airship) or SMF for Flugschiff. Maybe Flugschiff would be best, as Luftschiff is already used when taking about zeppelins or blimps.

Hope this helps!  

[nev]

I thought WW2 the prefix DKM is used?  Don't know how official it was, but I've seen lots of modellers use it.

[philp]

Like the idea but you would think they would make these things so they could defend themselves from attacks from underneath.  Course, if you roll a battleship over, the turrets fall out so not sure how that would work on an airship.

Looking forward to the build, no matter what you call it.

[Aircav]

I thought WW2 the prefix DKM is used?  Don't know how official it was, but I've seen lots of modellers use it.

Deutsche Kriegsmarine  

Theres a bit in here about the Navy Zeppelins but it just says that they were numbered but you probably already know that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_German_Navy

[martinbayer]

ChernayaAkula gave a pretty good and exhaustive overview, the only thing I would note is that "Luftflotte" was not too long ago still in use for conventional military aircraft fleets, as in the book title "Die Luftflotten der Welt" by Nikolaus Krivinyi (the most recent edition I'm aware of is from 1990), which was a translation of "Warplanes of the World". I'd therefore recommend to not use that particular term, but instead one of the alternative formulations ChernayaAkula provided. My personal favorites would be a "Flugmarine" operating a "Flugflotte" made up of a number of "Flugschiffe", all plausible and consistent but unique and as yet (mostly, since Flugschiff was officially applied to the three built DO-X large flying boats) unused designations that would normally not be confused with airships, flying boats etc..

Martin

[ysi_maniac]

  FliegenderKriegsMarine

[martinbayer]

Actually, that would correctly be "Fliegende Kriegsmarine"...

Martin

[B777LR]

Kriegsluftmarine!

[Radish]

Thanks chaps for your extensive knowledge.....the Bismark has just "jumped the queue ahead of the steampunk OA-4M, but only by a bit.