2. Zeppelin is…
The Zeppelin, also known as blimp,
was an airship that was used during
the early part of the war in bombing
raids by the Germans. They carried
machine guns and bombs. However,
they were abandoned because they
were easy to shoot out of the sky
3. The form of the first Zeppelins was a long cylinder
with tapered ends and complex multi-plane fins.
During World War I, as a result of improvements
by the rival firm Schütte-Lanz Luftschiffbau, the
design was changed to the more familiar
streamlined shape and empennage of cruciform
fins used by almost all later airships. Within this
envelope, several separate "cells" or "gasbags",
contained the lighter-than-air gas. For most rigid
airships the gasbags were made of many sheets of
goldbeater's skin made from the intestines of
cows.
4. History
They were patented in Germany in 1895 and in the
United States in 1899. After the outstanding success
of the Zeppelin design, the word zeppelin came to be
commonly used to refer to all rigid airships.
5. During World War 1…
The German airships were operated by both
the Army and Navy as two entirely separate
divisions. Over the course of World War I, the
Zeppelins were mainly used in
reconnaissance missions for the Navy.
Bombing missions, especially those targeting
London, captured the public's imagination,
but, in the end, proved to have only
psychological value, and were not a military
success. These were executed by both Navy
and Army aircraft.
6. Places attacked by the
zeppelin
The first Zeppelin raid on England took place in January 1915.
From then until the end of World War I the German Navy and
Army Air Services mounted over 50 bombing raids on the United
Kingdom. These were generally referred to as "Zeppelin raids",
although both Zeppelin and Schütte-Lanz airships were used.
From the beginning the airships had the advantage of flying at a
higher altitude than could be reached by defending aircraft or
anti-aircraft fire, and could carry a significant bomb-load, but
weather conditions and night flying conditions made navigation
and therefore bombing accuracy difficult. Bombs could be
dropped miles off target (one raid on London actually bombed
Hull instead) and pin-point accuracy to hit military targets was
impossible. The civilian casualties made the Zeppelins an object
of hatred, widely dubbed “baby-killers”. The airships made 20
raids in 1915, mostly Navy, mostly Zeppelins, and dropped 37
tons of bombs, killing 181 and injuring another 455 people.
