WW1 German cargo zeppelins

inspired by https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=222868

so, before the great war, Zeppelin Corp. demonstrates a trans-atlantic Airship. How would WW1 have been affected by Germany deploying fleets of cargo airships able to fly over the British blockade, trading for critical war materials for Germany........


Not much at first. The Zeps could only carry very modest amounts, and in any case Germany couldn't have spared the money to import on a grand scale.

The Zeps' most useful function would be as mail carriers. Flying over the heads of Allied blockade ships, they could deliver messages with little risk of interception. The Zimmermann Note is one obvious possibility.

Incidentally, Allied interception of the mails was a cause of much annoyance in America. Might there be any chance of the US building such a vessel?
 
This was done when a Zeppelin tried to run supplies to the forces in German East Africa. IIRC the Zeppelin never made it and disappeared, never to be seen again.

And of course LZ-51 was used in a commando-style rain in the 1971 movie ZEPPELIN with Michael York...
 
Not much at first. The Zeps could only carry very modest amounts, and in any case Germany couldn't have spared the money to import on a grand scale.

The Zeps' most useful function would be as mail carriers. Flying over the heads of Allied blockade ships, they could deliver messages with little risk of interception. The Zimmermann Note is one obvious possibility.

Incidentally, Allied interception of the mails was a cause of much annoyance in America. Might there be any chance of the US building such a vessel?

I don't think so. the rigid airship pioneers where mostly in Germany.....
 
This was done when a Zeppelin tried to run supplies to the forces in German East Africa. IIRC the Zeppelin never made it and disappeared, never to be seen again.

And of course LZ-51 was used in a commando-style rain in the 1971 movie ZEPPELIN with Michael York...

http://www.avalanchepress.com/L59.php

Never made it, but didn't disappear.

That's the only real mission where zeppelins would be useful - something where their range would outweigh their cargo space (which is immense compared to their other flying counterparts and as stated by Mike, not by comparison to cargo ships).
 
Problems? Just a few...

1. In OTL trans-Atltantic capable airships did not come round until post-war. Can't see the need or capability to push this back to pre-war.
2. The quickest route to the US takes you directly over France (giving the frogs some nice target practise). Other alternate routes put you in the firing line of other allies (Britian, Italy).
3. General limited lift capcity of early Zeps (even if you make it to the US and back you're not going to be carrying a worthwhile cargo).
 
This was done when a Zeppelin tried to run supplies to the forces in German East Africa. IIRC the Zeppelin never made it and disappeared, never to be seen again.

And of course LZ-51 was used in a commando-style rain in the 1971 movie ZEPPELIN with Michael York...

You do not recall correctly.

LZ104 actually flew double the distance it was intended to fly, running the gauntlet of Allied forces in the Mediterranean twice. We do not know what would have happened if the false radio message had never been received or recognized as a fraud, and the rendezvous, landing--and break-up of the airship--had been attempted; conceivably British East African forces would detect and intercept. But the much greater forces in the Med failed to do so, twice!

This ship did meet a final and flaming end in the Med, on a subsequent mission, shot down. It hardly "disappeared!"

The "Afrikaschiff" actually seems to vindicate the concept, as far as it goes.

Actually the air conditions of a trip to Africa and across the North Atlantic are quite different; in some seasons the ocean crossing would be easier and certainly shorter than LZ104's accomplished air-miles. In others--no one in the era of the big rigids ever attempted a winter crossing. Much later, in the late 1950s, the US Navy's LTA program, using blimps that had much more advanced tech but were much smaller, performed "Operation Whole Gale" to demonstrate that by then at least those blimps could survive and operate in those conditions; I don't know if that proves the rigids of the 1920s and '30s could.

On the other hand, certainly the payload capacity of a WWI era Zeppelin, while very impressive compared to the capabilities of even the biggest contemporary airplanes, was tiny compared to any but the smallest of surface vessels. Another thing to consider is that LZ104, as its number indicates, was the 104th hull built by Zeppelin; no rival concern in Germany or elsewhere had built even a fifth as many. The Zeppelin designs evolved quite a lot during the feverish war years. The sorts of ships they had at the beginning of the war were far less capable.

For the Germans to be sending Zeppelins across the Atlantic at the beginning of the war, they'd have had to have started earlier, and a number of advances in materials (such as Duralumin, the aluminum alloy the hull frames were made of) and engines and so on would have had to have been many years more advanced as well.

Then there is the matter of running the British gauntlet. LZ104 certainly evaded it twice in the Med, but eventually on its final mission it was shot down. The bombing raids over Britain also ran into effective defenses. Trying to go around Britain instead of attacking it, they'd probably have better luck, but seaplanes would still be looking for them; if the British were annoyed enough at German success in getting through to the USA they'd probably deploy squadrons based in Newfoundland and the Canadian Maritime provinces as well.

As demonstrations of the commercial possibilities of big rigids in postwar peacetime, these operations would be very salutary I'd think. As war-winning strategies, not so much.
 
I have wondered at the possibility of Zeppelins operating in conjunction with U-boats in the mid-Atlantic; the U-boats could resupply the Zeps, assuming they could master the art of mooring to a mast from a U-boat, and the Zeppelins could scout out targets for the submarines. Conceivably the Zeppelins could even launch radio-controlled air-to-ship missiles; I've seen pictures of such flying bombs, propelled by small engines, being developed, but none were ever tried in combat to my knowledge.

Aside from the trickiness of rendezvous, the Zeppelins would have to master the trick of staying aloft at sea for weeks at a time in variable Atlantic weather; the main strategy an airship of any design would have for surviving an ocean storm would be to run before the wind, getting out of the storm pattern at the first opportunity; such storms would scatter the aircraft perhaps at distances too great from any base to survive, and finding their submarine resupply sources after such a storm would be difficult even if they could stay in the general vicinity.

Again while I can imagine some of the better designs of late in the war, or rather alternative designs developed instead for these conditions (late war Zepps were "height-climbers" meant to fly higher than British intercept capabilities; that did not completely work as the British improved their aircraft to counter, and meanwhile such lightly built ships would be poor bets for operating near sea level as required for this scenario) might be able to do the job, perhaps, certainly the sorts of primitive ships they had in 1914 could not possibly do it. Again we'd need to assume a half-decade or more advance in the state of the art before the war started. And meanwhile enemy methods of interception would also be improved.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
inspired by https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=222868

so, before the great war, Zeppelin Corp. demonstrates a trans-atlantic Airship. How would WW1 have been affected by Germany deploying fleets of cargo airships able to fly over the British blockade, trading for critical war materials for Germany........

Supplies no. Diplomatic message, news articles to be printed in newspapers, and people to do pro-German publicity tours could be huge. For example, bring over some Poles from Russian Poland to talk about Tsarist war crimes and how wonderful the German occupation of Poland was compared to Russia or bring over a mother who daughter starved to death due to the English food blockade, etc.
 
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