WWII Combat Zeppelins?

[Superfluous Parentheses]

prompted by this thread

I just saw the BBC Time Watch episode on D-Day/Omaha Beach, with footage of the landings, and in some shots of the ships going for the beach you can see a lot of zeppelins (or at least they look like zeppelins, they might have been much smaller and even tethered to the ships) - not just one or two, but something like 8 to 10 in a single frame. I'm guessing those are allied air ships - mostly because they're hanging around over the allied ships but don't seem to be doing anything, like dropping bombs - , but I can't think of a good reason for them to be there - they're clearly not much use for dropping infantry, I wouldn't think you'd need so many to gather intelligence and the bombing raids seemed to be finished at that time.

So what were those air ships doing over there - what were they used for? Any general information on the use of air ships during WWII would be appreciated too.

[adirondack_mike]

The are barrage balloons, and are used as a defense against aerial attacks. No offensive uses.

[Superfluous Parentheses]

Originally Posted by adirondack_mike

The are barrage balloons, and are used as a defense against aerial attacks. No offensive uses.

Those seem to be what I saw. Thanks.

Still hoping for someone to come up with examples of WWII military airships, though - airships are cool

[Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor]

The US Navy used dirigibles over the North Atlantic to hunt submarines.

While they carried few bombs, they could hover in place, & guide bombers & escort vessels to target.

[Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor]

Link to WW2 Blimps.

http://www.centennialofflight.gov/es...WWII/LTA10.htm

The US was the only power to use them in WW2.

The United States was the only power to use airships during World War II, and the airships played a small but important role. The Navy used them for minesweeping, search and rescue, photographic reconnaissance, scouting, escorting convoys, and antisubmarine patrols. Airships accompanied many oceangoing ships, both military and civilian. Of the 89,000 ships escorted by airships during the war, not one was lost to enemy action.

[Superfluous Parentheses]

Originally Posted by Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor

The US was the only power to use them in WW2.

Wow. I was sure the Germans would have used some, since they were still in civilian use there in the late 1930s.

[whitetho]

You also might fight this unique story interesting: The Battle Between the Blimp and the Sub.

[Polycarp]

Originally Posted by Superfluous Parentheses

Wow. I was sure the Germans would have used some, since they were still in civilian use there in the late 1930s.

The Nazis were opposed to them -- most especially Hermann Goering, whose rise to power under Hitler was largely due to his early joining of the NDSAP as one of the first celebrities to support it, having won fame as a WWI combat ace (i.e., in heavier-than-air aircraft). Add to this that Hugo Eckener, CEO of Luftschiffbau Zeppelin [hope I remembered this correctly -- the "Zeppelin Airship Corp."] was himself firercely anti-Nazi.

The Nazis seized on the Hindenburg crash to ground the Graf Zeppelin, the only other rigid airship in Germany (and apart from the U.S.S. Los Angeles, no longer actively flying, the only other one in the world) and tried to delay the construction of the Graf Zeppelin II, the Hindenburg's unfinished sister ship, which was completed and flew briefly in 1939. Both Grafs and the Los Angeles were dismantled in 1940 and the debris used for war materiel by Germany and the U.S.

[Valgard]

Originally Posted by Polycarp

The Nazis were opposed to them -- most especially Hermann Goering, whose rise to power under Hitler was largely due to his early joining of the NDSAP as one of the first celebrities to support it, having won fame as a WWI combat ace (i.e., in heavier-than-air aircraft). Add to this that Hugo Eckener, CEO of Luftschiffbau Zeppelin [hope I remembered this correctly -- the "Zeppelin Airship Corp."] was himself firercely anti-Nazi.

The Nazis seized on the Hindenburg crash to ground the Graf Zeppelin, the only other rigid airship in Germany (and apart from the U.S.S. Los Angeles, no longer actively flying, the only other one in the world) and tried to delay the construction of the Graf Zeppelin II, the Hindenburg's unfinished sister ship, which was completed and flew briefly in 1939. Both Grafs and the Los Angeles were dismantled in 1940 and the debris used for war materiel by Germany and the U.S.

Didn't the US also refuse to sell helium to Germany in the 1930s (thus the Hindenburg being filled with hydrogen)? During WW1, hydrogen-filled observation balloons were picked on by fighters with incendiary bullets.

[tomndebb]

Originally Posted by Valgard

Didn't the US also refuse to sell helium to Germany in the 1930s (thus the Hindenburg being filled with hydrogen)? During WW1, hydrogen-filled observation balloons were picked on by fighters with incendiary bullets.

While it is true that the U.S. embargoed helium, that had nothing to do with the German, (not Nazi), decision to stick with the more efficient (and more easily renewable and cheaper) hydrogen that they had been employing since they pioneered practical lighter-than-air craft prior to the twentieth century. The Zeppelin company never even considered employing helium.

[tomndebb]

BTW, just in the interest of the Straight Dope, some nomenclature:

balloon: any lighter-than-air craft. It is most often used to indicate a craft without a means of propulsion or steering, either relying on a tether to keep it moored to the ground or a ship or else having a pilot that can control altitude (through changes in ballast or inflation) but relying on wind for motion and direction.

dirigible: a lighter than air craft than is directible (dirigible), using engines and control surfaces, typically with a rigid frame allowing it to carry substantial amounts of cargo, passengers, or weapons

blimp: a lighter-than-air craft with engines and control surfaces that is manufactured without a rigid frame, used to carry much lighter cargoes. Technically, such a craft is dirigible/directible, but the word dirigible is rarely used and would generally confuse the issue if applied to such craft. The origin of the name blimp has not been established.

Zeppelin, typically capitalized: a rigid frame dirigible manufactured by the Zeppelin company. By association, it is sometimes used (lower case) to indicate a dirigible, (more frequently in the 1920s and 1930s than now).

Occasionally, dirigibles are called rigid airships and blimps are called non-rigid airships.

[Polycarp]

Adding to tom's estimable terminology list:

Airship: A dirigible (which by the way is short for "dirigible balloon"). Most commonly used to refer to a rigid dirigible but can mean any variety.

Semirigid: (We could probably go on for several pages without needing this one, but in the interests of completeness) A dirigible with a keel (like a rigid) but no other frame (like a blimp). Since they had the disadvantages both blimps and rigids, and the keel did not compensate enough for the problems, they were discontinued early; I think the last ones were taken out of service or crashed in 1929.

Nonrigid: Another term for blimp, more common in Europe than America.in their heyday.

[Johnny L.A.]

[Picture of a Zeppelin and a blimp]

Type A: Rigid

Type B: Limp

[Projammer]

A quick google of 'military zeppelin' returned this link with a brief recounting of the Germans using LTA craft in bombing attacks (during WWI I believe). By WWII the skies had pretty much given over to heavier than air craft.

[Ale]

Originally Posted by tomndebb

While it is true that the U.S. embargoed helium, that had nothing to do with the German, (not Nazi), decision to stick with the more efficient (and more easily renewable and cheaper) hydrogen that they had been employing since they pioneered practical lighter-than-air craft prior to the twentieth century. The Zeppelin company never even considered employing helium.

Are you absolutely sure about that?, I had some book back at my homecountry that went through the history of German airships and I`m very certain that in one section it mentioned how the Zeppelin engineers, when they found out that they couldn`t get helium to fill their latest design, made changes so it could make use of the greater buoyancy of an hydrogen filled airship.

[tomndebb]

The closest I can come (at the moment as I leave for work) to a reference was an interview I saw with two of the engineers who worked on building the Hindenburg who claimed that they would never have considered helium for hydrogen's (critical to them) 7 1/2 - 8% greater lift and ability to be "manufactured."

In (mild) support of that is the fact that Zeppelin made no effort to find a supply of helium in the 1920s before the U.S. embargoed helium.

In opposition is the very large number of claims that the Germans "couldn't get" helium from the U.S.

[Polycarp]

Ale: Until the Hindenburg explosion, the men at Zeppelin considered hydrogen safe -- while it is combustible when mixed with oxygen, it requires a spark to ignite, and if vented, goes straight up away from the airship, (There's at least a little evidence that what happened to the Hindenburg may have been sabotage, with the flammable paint used on the fabric envelope catching fire, leading to the gasbags rupturing and their contents burning.

After that, Eckener made some efforts to get helium to fly the Graf II (with not-so-buoyant helium, the smaller Graf I's payload after being crewed and fueled was probably about equal to a Boy Scout patrol -- if the boys are mostly young and lightly built).

[Santos L Halper]

You remember correctly, Ale. The Hindenburg and her sister ship, the Graf Zeppelin II, were initially designed with the intention of using helium, and they only switched to hydrogen when they realized that they couldn't count on getting the helium. They would have been the first airships operated by Germany using it after flying over one hundred airships using hydrogen.

According to Hindenburg - an Illustrated History by Rick Archbold, the German LZ128 was being planned when the British hydrogen-filled R101 crashed, killing 48 people.

Had the R101 held inflammable helium, few, if any, lives would have been lost. Plans for the hydrogen-filled LZ128 were shelved in favor of the LZ129 [the Hindenburg], whose larger and longer design compensated for the fact that helium possessed less lifting capacity than hydrogen.

In the end, however, the giant that emerged from the new building shed at the Zeppelin Company works at Friedrichshafen on March 4, 1936, had only hydrogen inflating its sixteen gas cells. The Americans, fearing others might use helium for military purposes, refused to rescind the Helium Control Act of 1927, which prohibited the export of the lifting gas over which the United States still exercised a monopoly. And in fact the Germans never formally requested helium for use in the Hindenburg.

Because of the decision to use hydrogen, they were able to take advantage of the extra lifting capacity and added some additional passenger cabins. The original design had 25 two berth cabins, and they added nine more two berth cabins and one four berth family cabin.

[Quercus]

Originally Posted by Superfluous Parentheses

Wow. I was sure the Germans would have used some, since they were still in civilian use there in the late 1930s.

In addition to any personal/cultural animus against them, airships are vulnerable when the enemy has any kind of airplanes. Germany was never really in a situation at any place or time where they could be sure of no enemy airplanes, so airships were pretty much a non-starter for valid reasons.
The US in the north Atlantic, on the other hand, could be pretty sure of no Axis planes being around, making airships possible.

[naita]

Originally Posted by Santos L Halper

According to Hindenburg - an Illustrated History by Rick Archbold, the German LZ128 was being planned when the British hydrogen-filled R101 crashed, killing 48 people.

Where can I get my hands on some inflammable helium!

[voice="Nick Riviera"]Inflammable means flammable? What a country![/voice]

[Santos L Halper]

Originally Posted by naita

[voice="Nick Riviera"]Inflammable means flammable? What a country![/voice]

D'oh!

I double checked the book and that's how it was written. You would think an author writing about the Hindenburg would know that isn't the correct word.

I'm a reasonably decent speller and had I been writing it myself rather than copying it I would have at least double-checked how to properly say it. I guess non-flamable would be correct.

[Great Dave]

Look, we all know that the Nazis had LTA in the run up to the war for passenger service, and probably had a secret research program to develop a LTA aircraft carrier. Cite.

[Santos L Halper]

Originally Posted by Great Dave

Look, we all know that the Nazis had LTA in the run up to the war for passenger service, and probably had a secret research program to develop a LTA aircraft carrier. Cite.

Yep, Indiana and his father escape from the German zeppelin via a deployable airplane. In the real world none of the German airships had this ability (I don't know if they ever even seriously considered the idea. The US rigid airships Akron and Macon actually did carry several biplane fighters and got very good at deploying and retrieving them in flight.

Cites: one two three

[Beware of Doug]

Originally Posted by Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor

The US Navy used dirigibles over the North Atlantic to hunt submarines.

While they carried few bombs, they could hover in place, & guide bombers & escort vessels to target.

I think you'll find that Navy blimps served along the Pacific coast as well. At least one Naval Air Station, at Tillamook, OR, was devoted entirely to LTA.

I forget where I read this (somewhere online), but a Navy "Z-ship" came to rest one day on Main Street in Fremont, CA, with no sign of her crew of 2 ever found. It was suspected one man fell overboard, the other went in after him, and both drowned.

AIUI, the role of rigid ships in the 1930s Navy was chiefly scouting. On fleet maneuvers the Akron and Macon would hover out of range of "enemy" ships and send their F9C fighters out to report the fleet's position. The idea seems to have depended on the enemy not having aircraft carriers. (Japan already had a few in the early 30s.)

[Love Rhombus]

So the blimp in The Rocketeer was just for drama? Interesting; two false flying machines in one movie! Ah well, still a great film.

[Ale]

Surprise! I found my reference! bad thing, I have to trascribe the cite from the book, so pardon me for any typing errors.

Anyway.

Originally Posted by Zeppelin! The German Airship History

"Meanwhile, various proposals had been made to build a fleet of sixteen Zeppelins and to organize an ambitious multi-national service, but these came to nothing because clearance for the sale of its (non-flammable) helium was not granted by the US goverment."

Originally Posted by Zeppelin! The German Airship History

"LZ 130 was ready to take off on 14 September 1938 and, following Dr Eckener`s recommendation, was, like LZ 127 named Graf Zeppelin. The United States was at the time the only country producing helium, and it gave a special permission for LZ 130 to be inflated using this gas - thus requiring the ship to be modified. However, before the gas was sent to Germany, the US Goverment found itself under domestic pressure to reverse the decision as a protest against Germany`s National Socialist regime, and the agreement duly terminated. LZ 130 had to be converted once again to accomodate the more dangerous hydrogen."

Originally Posted by Santos L Halper

Yep, Indiana and his father escape from the German zeppelin via a deployable airplane. In the real world none of the German airships had this ability (I don't know if they ever even seriously considered the idea. The US rigid airships Akron and Macon actually did carry several biplane fighters and got very good at deploying and retrieving them in flight.

Cites: one two three

The answer is, once, for five minutes in 1936...

Originally Posted by Zeppelin! The German Airship History

"On 27 April 1936 LZ 129 (Hindemburg, Ale`s note) participated on an experiment undertaken by Ernst Udet to test an idea for speeding up airmail services. Udet had taken off at Darmstadt-Friesheim in a small FW 44 Stieglitz (D-EUTE), a large hook fitted to the center of the biplane`s upper wing. The Hindenburg, commanded by the experienced Max Pruss, approached the aircraft from its Frankfurt base at an altitude of 700m. The first attempt at a connection failed but the second approach was more successful, Udet`s Stieglitz hooking itself under the vast hull of the airship. After about five minutes the aircraft was released again and returned to Darmstadt."

It doesn`t say more about that, but apparently there where no further developments.