Zeppelins Utility

[Driftless]

I think the long-endurance specialized recon role could be useful. With the advent of extremely long-ranged radios, they could scout for the fleet and stay in the air for days or even weeks at a time. As late as WWII, the Germans could use them to search for cargo ships in the middle of the Atlantic and direct the u-boat packs. Of course the airships would be vulnerable, but if they were specially built for long-range patrol, they could conceiveably go the long way--down over Italy, accross the Med, to North Africa, and then out past Spain to the middle of the Atlantic. Once they were in the air gap, they could operate for as long as their supplies lasted in general safety. I don't know if it would be worth the effort required to build it, but it's one of the applications for which I think an airship might have a real advantage.

The functional flip-side of that idea was the US Navy's extensive use of blimps for coastal convoy protection. Basically, long duration uboat-spotters. If I remember correctly, no convoy ships were lost with a blimp overhead.

Nowdays though, it wouldn't take much for a longer-range SAM to shoot down an in-theater airship.

What about their use in some form of (fairly) quick disaster relief support role - long duration observation, temporary communications support, etc. I'm thinking of situations like Typhoon Haiyan, where so much of the local infrastructure was destroyed, including extensive damage to the airport.

 

[Delta Force]

It should be mentioned that helium is the second most common element in the universe, and outweighs all the runner-ups combined several times. Now, if only there was a way to mine stars...

A quite distant second (either in mass or number of atoms, possibly both). I think we're also set to run out of helium deposits within the next few years. If I remember correctly, the United States government has a monopoly or subsidizes its sale. If helium were sold at the market rate, a balloon would cost something like $100 (or $10, in any case a huge increase relative to now). That might sound extreme, but when we run out of helium deposits we will forced to extract it from the atmosphere at significantly higher cost than that. In the meantime, we are expending a rare and irreplaceable gas filling party balloons.

 

[Maniakes]

Hydrogen is the most common element on Earth, and isn't terribly difficult to synthesise. Helium can't be synthesized, and is only found as a by-product of natural gas fields. Once released into the atmosphere, it's lost forever.

Geological PoDs are outside the scope of this forum.

Specifically, hydrogen gas and helium gas are both light enough that when they get into the air, they tend to escape into the upper atmosphere and get blown out into space by solar winds. The key difference is that hydrogen is highly reactive, so it readily forms into compounds that are much better at sticking around (water, hydrocarbons, etc), while helium is chemically inert and only exists in quantity as helium gas. As a result, most of the Earth's original supply of hydrogen is still here and only needs to be extracted from various compounds, while most of the Earth's original supply of helium has long since escaped into space except for relatively small pockets of gas that have gotten physically trapped in rock formations.

 

[Fairdowner]

Given the lift to weight ratio of zeppelin wouldn't there be plenty of space available for all sorts of weapons, sensors and anti missile devices. it would be able to float at an altitude and not necessarily be as vulnerable as some have suggested.

 

[Incognito]

It´s a pitty that the CargoLifter project didn´t came to the end

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CargoLifter

http://www.aerospace-technology.com/projects/cargolifter/

Don't worry, Russia has it covered.

Some prototypes so far:

 

[BlondieBC]

I think Zeppelins are cool a lot of us do apparently, but the general consensus is that they quickly become irrelevant as weapons of war and became outclassed by winged aircraft in transportation. Is there a way that Zeppelins could be more useful in war or peacetime than they turned out to be?

Yes, it has limits. At best, it will still be eclipsed by fixed wing aircraft for most roles, but it can have more utility. Since the Germans were the biggest boosters, users of Zeppelins, the best way to get more usage is for the Germans to win.

The Helium issue is solvable, there is helium in Posen, yet another reason a German win helps. It is not the USA has the only Helium supply, it is we just have the most economical. Think the difference between the Saudi prime oil fields and smaller oil fields in Europe.

Zeppelins have benefits even into the 1950's, especially if you take away Helium. They have very long linger times, and can stay up for days. They are volume unlimited. They have more max lift capacity than a single plane. They did well in WW1 in Baltic, very well. They did ok in North Sea. The use in land combat was very limited. So what can we see, in the right time frame if someone chose to invest.

1) Naval recon ships. They can carry big radars. They can stay up for days. They can carry small airplanes. With Helium, they are robust compared to a single airplane. They have a very long range.

2) They can be used as very fast aircraft carriers, if they don't go near major bases or real aircraft carriers.

3) They can be used over friendly held land.

4) Good against submarines. You can write a TL where the USA gets more Zeppelins as reparations, and keeps the program alive, and they are very useful in a WW2 type war against U-boats.

5) I can see them in limited luxury travel. Loiter time and speed are key here. They are much faster than a cruise ship, and big enough to sleep people. You could literally board a Zeppelin late one night in the UK, sight see over Greenland the next day, and arrive back in UK with an overnight return trip. Or go on a shorter trip up the coast of Norway. Or go from New Zealand to the Antarctic sea ice to see whales. Or just to see whales. I would bet money that a Zeppelin at a few thousand feet would not bother the whales and have a fantastic view. Or a day trip over Yellowstone park would be great.


Note: We have thread on this, complete with a nuclear power Zeppelin someone wrote up in brief TL.

 

[Reader347]

Nowdays though, it wouldn't take much for a longer-range SAM to shoot down an in-theater airship.
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Or any aircraft. And the airship would fall slower.

 

[Delta Force]

Or any aircraft. And the airship would fall slower.

Aircraft are usually equipped with ejection seats. It doesn't matter if you are crashing at hundreds of miles per hour if you can escape at the pull of a lever. Airships would have to use the bail out method, which not ideal for something going near combat. Alternatively, the gondola itself could be an escape capsule of some kind, but that would require massive parachutes or a rocket landing system.

 

[Tallil2long]

I think Zeppelins are cool a lot of us do apparently, but the general consensus is that they quickly become irrelevant as weapons of war and became outclassed by winged aircraft in transportation. Is there a way that Zeppelins could be more useful in war or peacetime than they turned out to be?

I thought about this sometime back.

What if greater and earlier effort had gone into the development of flash- or monotube boilers? Could workable dirigibles be based upon such powerplants? Certainly heavier-than-air craft could not.

It seems to me that fairly simple, lightweight, powerful steam engines could have satisfied demand for several years, delaying development of internal combustion engines (and hence delaying the winged aircraft that depend upon them). Even IOTL, steam autos gave gasoline driven ones a fair run for their money for a few years.

The early demand for air transportation was pretty limited; steam engine powered airships could have satisfied it, I believe.

So -- maybe ten years during which airships reign unchallenged? Only a brief window of opportunity, of course, but the best I can come up with.

 

[zoomar]

As this board's most consistent zeppelinacholic, I've tried to imagine several realistic and not so realistic ways to prolong the utility of rigid airships. Before going father, a distinction must be made between rigid airships and blimps. Since the word "zeppelin" is used in by the OP, I presume he is talking only about large rigid airships. For some of my speculations, see:

https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=118973

https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=122855

https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=118506

I've expanded on both of these as standalone e-books.

There are a few PoDs that might allow for the longer survival of rigid airships, most of which would involve retarding the development of heavier-than-aircraft somewhat, avoiding WW2, or avoiding some of the disasters that lead to the (not unreasonable) belief in the late 1930's that airships were just too unreliable to spend millions on (billions in today's dollars). I can imagine a few military/naval missions (ASW, air early warning, electronic surveillance, heavy lift) where large rigid airships would be at least as effective as current fixed-wing airplanes and rotorcraft. However, if you are talking about a true zeppelin (800+ feet long, crewed by upwards of 60 people, and commanded as a ship), electronic systems have progressed too far for that. Any future airship would be flown like a giant airplane (or a modern Zeppelin NT), which looses much of the "skyship" romance.

Unfortunately, there are also some drawbacks that will always put airships at a disadvantage, especially as military/naval craft:

1. Reliability/vulnerability to weather. By their basic design, large rigid airships will always be low-altitude fair-weather craft. They are slow (80kts max) and operate at much lower ceilings than modern airplanes, so they can't avoid bad weather. Their operations will always be hindered by bad weather - especially heavy winds. This makes them less reliable than modern jets or surface ships.

2. Vulnerability to enemy action. Actually, given one-shot-kill modern weaponry, a large airship is realy no more vulnerable to hits than airplanes, helicopters, submarines, or most surface ships. However, unlike these other weapons systems, a large airship is completely unable to dodge or intercept, an incoming missle or shell. Fire a missile at one and you will hit it.

3. They are big and visible. Forget radar. An 1000-foot long airship operating at less than 2000 meters above the sea can be seen (visually) from a long way away, and with radar, they cannot hide.

 

[Reader347]

Aircraft are usually equipped with ejection seats. It doesn't matter if you are crashing at hundreds of miles per hour if you can escape at the pull of a lever. Airships would have to use the bail out method, which not ideal for something going near combat. Alternatively, the gondola itself could be an escape capsule of some kind, but that would require massive parachutes or a rocket landing system.

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Some high speed aircraft use ejection seats. Other aircraft use bail out and have used bail out since ww1. Escape capsules have been rarely used due to their complexity, as you noted.

 

[mcdo]

Aircraft are usually equipped with ejection seats. It doesn't matter if you are crashing at hundreds of miles per hour if you can escape at the pull of a lever. Airships would have to use the bail out method, which not ideal for something going near combat. Alternatively, the gondola itself could be an escape capsule of some kind, but that would require massive parachutes or a rocket landing system.

I'm just thinking out loud here, but if it were a lightened "height climber", maybe you could actually eject down? It'd be the same as bailing out, of course, but it might be a bit quicker if you did only have seconds to spare... and you wouldn't really need rockets, just a system of explosive bolts attacheted to the panel that keeps the chair and parachute assembly in the cabin. Otherwise, might it be possible to have an ejection mechanism that ejects the pilot forward or to the side, to get him clear?

 

[Reader347]

I'm just thinking out loud here, but if it were a lightened "height climber", maybe you could actually eject down? It'd be the same as bailing out, of course, but it might be a bit quicker if you did only have seconds to spare... and you wouldn't really need rockets, just a system of explosive bolts attacheted to the panel that keeps the chair and parachute assembly in the cabin. Otherwise, might it be possible to have an ejection mechanism that ejects the pilot forward or to the side, to get him clear?

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Ejecting down has been used but didn't work well close to the ground. Ejecting different directions has been tried with helicopters and didn't work well.

 

[mcdo]

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Ejecting down has been used but didn't work well close to the ground. Ejecting different directions has been tried with helicopters and didn't work well.

Of course ejecting down doens't work close to the ground. That's why I specified that it should be used on "height climbers". I'll take your word for ejecting different directions--it was just idle thought on my part--but would you mind asking me why not? I'm curious.

 

[oshron]

I suppose as a niche kind of transport for passengers they could work, basically they were cruise ships, not passenger planes so perhaps as luxury trips they could work in that regard.

i actually thought of exactly this for my ASB ATL and decided that they largely end up in more civilian sectors until some technologies which would improve their applications elsewhere come up. they'd still do well for aerial bombardment against nations that can't fight back against them (at least not as well)

 

[b0ned0me]

Airships of various types are being looked into for carrying heavy and/or oversized cargo to locations where rail, water, or conventional air transport are unavailable.

In addition to zoomar's excellent post, the only thing I can add is that they have been 'looking into' airships for three quarters of a century now. With no result other than the potential of them entering niche applications in time for the centenary of the R101 crash, which I think of as the practical end of the airship era.

If, on the other hand, the Imperial Airship Scheme turned out to be a goer (both ships a bit better than OTL R100) then maybe they would hang on in enough numbers to be used in WW2, but they will still inevitably be superseded by heavier-than-air, for safety reasons if nothing else. Hydrogen wasn't the real problem, it was the problems with pressure height, altitude control and wind vulnerability that killed them - USS Macon & Akron being the poster children for this.

 

[Glenn239]

I always had a Sealion variant wher Nazi Germany builds a huge fleet of Zeppelins instead of any navy ship bigger than the pocket battleships.

The one 'Sealion' I got Alison Brooks to accept as workable, if still a flight of fancy, was based on them: a fleet of a couple hundred stripped down Hindenbergs, each carrying 100 tons of material could drop 5 infantry and 1 armored division across the channel in 30 minutes or so. Use the whole Luftwaffe to protect the fleet for the trip to Dover, repeat a couple times a day.

I don't think Zeppelins were easily mass produced. For example, the gas bags of WW1 types were made out of cow intestines - I think it took something like 250,000 cows to make one Zeppelin. The later Hindenburg, with a better gas bag, was still absolutely huge - I can't see many under construction at once.