Battle of Jutland POD

Drop from 10,000 ft in the North Atlantic and there will be clouds interfering with line of sight, possibly no line of sight at all.

Now further consider that for a brand new weapon like this, pushing the boundaries of the state of the art, reliability will be low. Using the Hs 293 as a base of comparison, we can expect 1 out of 3 to flat out not work, and another 1 out of 3 to miss anyway, which is exceptionally generous considering far more advanced manufacturing technique and a glidebomb not having the same issues with clouds blocking line of sight. And of course, a long range naval patrol Zepplin capable of operating over the North Atlantic will not have the same bomb load as the standard German Zepplin bombers. So if absolutely everything goes right, perfect visability in the North Atlantic, weather not disrupting airship formations, the assault airships actually finding their targets, and the German High Command confident that they won't find and bomb the German fleet instead as regularly happened in WWII with high level bombers, and reliability equal to similar weapons built nearly 3 decades later, we can expect maybe a dozen hits with 6 Zepplins...assuming no losses from AA guns shooting at such massive and slow targets. This would only be a game changer only if each and every hit was an Arizona style hit straight to the magazines....of a capital ship rather than one of the escorts no less.

And the minefield thing is a big no. It's one of those things that only works in pulpy fiction. It requires too many things to go right to pull off, and laying a minefield behind one's own battleline for someone without prescience making certain that the enemy fleet will go there and one's own fleet won't be forced to go there, and mines won't simply break their lines and drift into one's own fleet, is pretty suicidal.
 
I think we should remember that this weapon is going to be used in the North Sea where visibility is usually less than than of the North Atlantic.

I would wonder if it would be better to use wire guided drones, rather than shells. A stripped down aircraft, most likely without its engine, is dropped from a zeppelin and glides to its target. Of course these guide wires are now a weakpoint which can be intercepted by aircraft.
 
Top