AHC: Viable war-baloons

ByzantineMan

I've seen many threads here about how a Napoleonic balloon invasion has a snowflake's chance in hell of working out.

That being said, what technological PODs exist that would make air baloons a viable option not only for a Napoleonic invasion of Britain, but for wars in general?
 

Dathi THorfinnsson

ByzantineMan said:
I've seen many threads here about how a Napoleonic balloon invasion has a snowflake's chance in hell of working out.

That being said, what technological PODs exist that would make air baloons a viable option not only for a Napoleonic invasion of Britain, but for wars in general?
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Change the laws of physics?

Seriously. It's not reasonable for any country to attempt an air-borne invasion of another country even today, with massive transport planes, large parachute forces, etc., unless the first country is MASSIVELY more powerful than the second.

France can invade Chad, say. But the US needed sealift for supply to invade Iraq (or rather to push Iraq out of Kuwait).


If you can get structures and engines that will support large dirigibles, you can, more easily, build fighter planes to fly rings around them and shoot them down.

So, no, I don't think there probably IS any set of plausible innovations that both allows such a dirigible fleet, and prohibits any viable counter.
 

SinghKing

Banned
Dathi THorfinnsson said:
Change the laws of physics?

Seriously. It's not reasonable for any country to attempt an air-borne invasion of another country even today, with massive transport planes, large parachute forces, etc., unless the first country is MASSIVELY more powerful than the second.

France can invade Chad, say. But the US needed sealift for supply to invade Iraq (or rather to push Iraq out of Kuwait).


If you can get structures and engines that will support large dirigibles, you can, more easily, build fighter planes to fly rings around them and shoot them down.

So, no, I don't think there probably IS any set of plausible innovations that both allows such a dirigible fleet, and prohibits any viable counter.
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What about air-to-air (and air-to-ground) missile launch systems, light enough to be carried by those dirigibles? Could that be a plausible innovation that both allows for dirigible fleets to become viable weapons of war, and prohibits viable counter-measures from being developed (at least, prior to 1900 anyway)?
 

telynk

Ok, this is probably a really silly answer, but what about a future history where pollution has doubled or tripled the density of the atmosphere (I don't really know enough chemistry to know if that's possible without killing off human life in the process)?? Then, lighter-than-air flight may be more feasible??

Ok, really, you shouldn't take this suggestion too serious, just trying to think outside the box here.
 

telynk

Or a future history in which fossil fuels have run out so that all aircraft need to be solar powered. Then, the extra surface area of a dirigble has a benefit in the amount of available power (that heavier-than-air fighters would lack due to lack of surface area).
 

Tanc49

Are we talking hot air balloon or dirigibles?

In the second case, I had a thread about that and I do believe that it could have been used during the colonisation.

I mean, against a modern/industrialised country, you can build a big gun or a massive ballista. Roman ballistas had a range of 500m, I bet XIXth century people could build bigger stuff, so you'd have a surprise factor but in a few months all you'd have are big floating targets.

Now, if you fight people who have no mean of building such weapons, well you got yourself an artillery battery/land control platform where no one can attack it. Of course, it can't really happen before the 1870's for technological reason (if you keep the technological progress IOTL)
 

Tripwire

Because of the typo I read that as "viable war baboons" and well I'll just go off to find the "thread misreadings" thread now.
 
Maeglin

Maeglin

Sucrose said:
Because of the typo I read that as "viable war baboons" and well I'll just go off to find the "thread misreadings" thread now.
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Clearly it's mega-bonus points to anyone who can construct viable war balloons with war baboons on board.
 
Thesaurus Rex

Thesaurus Rex

You could attach hang-gliders with specific payloads to the hot air balloons, and drop them from those heights.

Only problem is figuring out a safe (non-hostile) place to land.

And how to build a hang glider.




Also, somebody made a post a long time ago on a decent application for war balloons:
oshron said:
hot air balloons could provide strategic advantages, but only under certain conditions. suppose an arab army is laying siege to a european outpost in the middle east. the wind is blowing right over the european stronghold, which is so well-fortified that the arabs have no chance of breaking in with their current sustaining supplies. so, in the night, they launch a few hot air balloons and send them out from a good distance. now high above the enemy fortress, they begin dropping makeshift explosives on the europeans, burning their fortifications to the ground and killing most of them
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Dathi THorfinnsson

If you are talking balloons, and not dirigibles, then you have very, very little control of where they end up. If the wind changes direction, you end up not where you want to be. E.g. your hypothetical Arab bombers. The wind shifts just a bit, they totally miss the fortress, rendering the expedition useless.

Whether they succeed at bombing or not, they are on a course that takes them deep behind enemy lines, or out to sea, depending on where said fortress is. They have to land at some point, and the chances of them surviving is minimal. This means essentially a suicide mission.

The other problem is these balloons are BLOODY expensive, and you're not going to get them back, even if you got your balloonists back, somehow.

Very high cost guaranteed, for a not very great chance at a return.
 

zoomar

Balloons? Other than as unmanned bombs such as those as used by Japan against North America in WW2 to minimal effect, none. If you mean dirigibles, they were viable as warcraft in the first half of the 20th century, the last US naval ASW and AEW blimps being retired in the early 1960's. If you mean some sort of dirigibles before the development of internal combustion engines and light alloys, they are about as unlikely as manned war balloons.
 

Fabius Maximus

Not sure if this would be "big" enough for the OP, but balloons were used IOTL for sighting enemy formations, directing artillery, and so forth.
 

Crimea

I remember one thread which discussed their potential for medieval sieges, as one method of attacking or 'bombing' surrounded cities. They could also be useful for medieval armies to spot enemy troop movements, assuming an earlier development of optics.
 

Simreeve

SinghKing said:
What about air-to-air (and air-to-ground) missile launch systems, light enough to be carried by those dirigibles? Could that be a plausible innovation that both allows for dirigible fleets to become viable weapons of war, and prohibits viable counter-measures from being developed (at least, prior to 1900 anyway)?
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Not if those systems are light enough to be carried by heavier-than-air craft as well...

Sucrose said:
Because of the typo I read that as "viable war baboons"
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So did I... and wasn't something along those lines a Draka innovation?
 
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