military gliders in WWI

WW1 drop could be ideal for landing gliders with fast cars etc behind enemy lines
One problem with this: the poor quality of WW1 a/c engineering, glider or no... For this mission, you'd be better advised to use paratroops & forget gliders.

That said, if you accept something like Jeeps & the Rat Patrol types, what about dropping them right behind the trenches on the Western Front to achieve a breakthrough? Germans don't have tanks to speak of...so maybe this can sub?
 
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... For this mission, you'd be better advised to use paratroops & forget gliders.

That said, if you accept something like Jeeps & the Rat Patrol types, what about dropping them right behind the trenches on the Western Front to achieve a breakthrough? Germans don't have tanks to speak of...so maybe this can sub?

It would work once.

You'd have something like Crete, twenty years early. Your elite Fallstrum brigade would be shattered for the rest of the war, and the allies would be expecting something similar in the future.

That said, a pre dawn (first light) air assault on allied command and artillery positions would disrupt the trench line enough for a "hurricane" bombardment -followed by a "big push" toward your paratroopers- would break the trench line. I donno if it would actually break the stalemate, however.

Again, to compare it to twenty years later, you would have a Bulge, or perhaps a Kursk. Armies of the time weren't fast enough to exploit a breakthrough, and the front would simply reform with a wedge shaped segment of the line. Unless there was a strategic objective within reach of a breakthrough, it wouldn't amount to much, except maybe a morale check for the allies.
 
The most likely use of an airborne operation in the first world war would happen in a very similar manner to events surrounding the Lost Battalion where units of the 77th Division were trapped behind German lines. It did inspire the tactics used by the various nations that used airborne forces in WW2.

Perhaps using modified Gotha bombers for the Germans or Handley Page O/400s for the Allies. It would also require an acceptance that any outfit involved could end up being decimated.
 
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Remember that aircraft and gliders are still in their infancy; they simply don't have the structural strength required to carry a motor vehicle and land it safely yet. (Motorcycles, on the other hand, might be possible.)

There is another possibility, though. Load troops on your zeppelins and land them behind enemy lines, far enough back that AA fire is not a factor. It would only work once or twice, of course, but if properly done could interrupt supply and communication lines in support of an offensive.

(In one of my stories I used a zeppelin-delivered commando force to seize an opposing airbase, and others to seize a vital bridge and disrupt enemy rear areas, the latter two being done at night against troops lacking AA protection. Such a thing requires surprise and absence of significant AA and fighter opposition, but is not impossible.)
 
well

the standard german machine gun of the period weighed 100 pounds... putting that on a glider, with ammo; no thanks


What if Manstein led the operation, with baby skorzeny along for uber German super power?

Doesn't Manstein render logistics irrelevent?
 
What if Manstein led the operation, with baby skorzeny along for uber German super power?

Doesn't Manstein render logistics irrelevent?

The OP is for WWI, a little early for either of them. And no, Manstein is not some superbeing immune to physical laws; his troops needed to be supplied, just like everyone else.
 
What if Manstein led the operation, with baby skorzeny along for uber German super power?

Doesn't Manstein render logistics irrelevent?

the glider (towed by what?... a gotha bomber?) would crash like a stone with Captain Manstein and his single machine gun crew... the aviation technology was just too immature

there is a difference between pushing your logistics to the limits or even going beyond them to the point of failure, and the plane not getting off the ground ;)
 
the glider (towed by what?... a gotha bomber?) would crash like a stone with Captain Manstein and his single machine gun crew... the aviation technology was just too immature

there is a difference between pushing your logistics to the limits or even going beyond them to the point of failure, and the plane not getting off the ground ;)


What kind of german are you? All questions of logistics are subordinate to the operational plan!!

:)
 
What kind of german are you? All questions of logistics are subordinate to the operational plan!!

:)

its not a logistical concern :D the plane litterally will not lift off the ground

TBF some of the logistical nightmares where at least pointed out by the generals and Hitler kind of put some obstacles in place

Guderian: Why are Kochs fellow's not thickening up the panther-wotan line so we have a safe place to retreat to
Hitler: I put some of them on harvesting duty and used the rest to supplement the einsatzgruppen because the executioners where getting overworked


Rommel: My logistics suck
Italian HQ: Recapture cyranacia and get us some forward ports
Rommel (after capturing Tobruk and Mersah Matruh) My logistics suck
Italian HQ: Well we would love to send some supplies to the forward ports but we don't really want to challenge the royal navy


Manstein: The 6th army is running out of food and ammo
Hitler: Goering says he is getting adequate supplies through
Manstein: The men are starving to death and are being overrun because they have no ammo
Hitler: Hermann is this true
Goering (snoring like a son of a bitch)

 
Could zeppelins even go fast enough to pull gliders?

I think they had a top speed of 40-50mph; I don't know what their cruising speed was, but I have a feeling that they would have a hard time trying to keep the gliders from stalling.
 
Before you all go off quite so half cocked in regards to logistics. A machine gun in the 1914-1918 time period did weigh 100 pounds. Half that was the tripod, a third being the gun itself and the rest being the weight of the water used to cool it. If you had to move the whole thing as a single unit it would have made the tactics of WW1 impossible. Unlike the earlier Gatling guns a Maxim type could be broken down a carried by a team of four including ammo.
 
The era of assault gliders was fairly limited in time, based on available technology of lightweight weapons and capable flying stock. Gliders capable of carrying a load and landing in diverse terrain didn't exist. Cabable tow-planes likewise. Small troop-carrying gliders may have been feasible, but had limited advantage over parachutes, mainly when tighter grouping was essential. Even in WWII, larger transport gliders ultimately led to the more tactically plausible assault transport, with engines, so that a better landing zone could be chosen, and the transport recovered and re-used. Launching a glider from a Zeppelin was feasible, but stealth and surprise are unlikely.
 
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