"Terror Bombers! German Airship Campaign Over Great" Topic

…Britain, 1915-1918

"Perhaps no other weapon of war of its age was as fear inspiring as the dirigible airship bomber, commonly though incorrectly called Zeppelins (this generalization denoted the maker not the name of the aircraft), of the Imperial Germany Navy and Army during the Great War of 1914-1918. These behemoths of the sky were originally designed for reconnaissance as a tool for scouting infantry movements, enemy naval vessels, and for artillery ranging. The dirigible airship proved a potent if ultimately ineffective heavy bomber from January 1915-August 1918.

Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin (b.1838-1917), the progenitor of early dirigible technology and the creator of the original Zeppelin lighter-than-air ships must be mentioned for his immense influence on aeronautics technology and on the development of airship warfare. Count Zeppelin had begun to develop the rigid, lighter-than-air ship in 1898 and by 1900 the first LZ Zeppelin made its maiden voyage. By 1911, airship technology had grown rather rapidly with the first passenger airship starting operations in the same year. Throughout 1912-1913, Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz had oversight into the formation of a German naval airship division.

Early tests pitted two different manufacturer's airships against the other, Zeppelins, designed by Count Zeppelin's Luftschiffbau Zeppelin (LZ) and Schütte-Lanz (SL). There were some early difficulties however. L 1 was lost at sea in September of 1913 with twenty of the crew perishing and a month later L 2 was lost in a fiery hydrogen explosion which killed all twenty-eight on board. During the Italian campaign in Libya the dirigible airship was first used in combat beginning in the year 1912…"

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Amicalement
Armand

Read somewhere that the zep depicted in the movie "Hell's Angels"(the L-32);the real airship L-32 actually did get shot down near Dover,England.

Thanks!

Amicalement
Armand