WWI airship link ..

[Catfish]

.. as i somewhere wrote i am also interested in those early more or less maneuverable gas bubbles, and maybe one could even add one to this upcoming simulator ;). I am currently gathering information about naval airship L59, the type w "Afrika-Luftschiff", so if anyone accidentally stumbles about something ..
It is strange, how much information you can get from reading books of the time, regarding all kinds of other things that do not seem to have anything to do with the original title of the document.
This is a link to several chapters about the Heeresluftschiffe (army airships) of WWI, but i think it is also historically interesting for all things naval of the time.
http://www.luftschiffharry.de/ There is no direct linking to the further pages but you can easily navigate to those via this first link. Harry made a publicly accessible online book under this link back in 1998, which can even be downloaded in several chapters as pdfs ("Die Luftschiffwaffe des Heeres - Die Geschichte der deutschen Heeresluftschiffahrt"), only in german, but it is just great. It is still being completed and improved, if not online.

Thanks you and greetings,
Catfish

[Platapus]

Try some of these books, I have them in my library and they are pretty good

Stephenson, C., (2004) Zeppelins: German Airships 1900-40. Oxford: Osprey Publishing

Castle, I., (2008) London 1914-17: The Zeppelin Menace Oxford: Osprey Publishing

Cross, W., (2002) Zeppelins of World War I. Lincoln, NE: Backimprint.com

Robinson, D. H., (1994) The Zeppelin in Combat: A history fo the German naval Airship Division 1912-1918 Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing Ltd

Concerning the L-59, Robinson has some information on it. Cross covers it pretty well also. Castle does not address it. Stephenson has a nice drawing of the L-59/LZ104.

If you have any questions for me, please PM me as I rarely check this forum.

Good luck. Hope you find what you are looking for.

[Torvald Von Mansee]

Wow...an airship simulator would be really, really cool. I had an obsession for airships for a while when I was about 8 or 9.

How survivable were those things, though?

[Catfish]

Hello,
i know the answer comes late lol - average life expectancy was - if you can base a significant statistic on some less than a hundred airships - about three months. Which is why they did not bother on making the hull especially durable ...;)

Greetings,
Catfish

[Frying Tiger]

Wow...an airship simulator would be really, really cool. I had an obsession for airships for a while when I was about 8 or 9.

How survivable were those things, though?

I worked on the game "Dawn of Aces" back at iMagic Online, and we had a flyable Zeppelin with pretty accurate physics. You could dump water ballast and vent from the cells, had 6 (I think) defensive machine gun emplacements, and we modeled the effect of incendiary vs normal bullets. (only starting fires after the gas started to mix with air) One of the odd things you don't think of is that it takes just as long to go down from altitude as it does to go up to it in an airship! (vent too much gas on the way down and you risk not stopping at the bottom!) We had some epic battles between airships, as you had to get above and drop a bomb on him to kill him... people would blow all their ballast, rush to pressure height, then realize after dropping their bombs they had no way to get back down safely!

I loved that game.

[Deamon]

One of the odd things you don't think of is that it takes just as long to go down from altitude as it does to go up to it in an airship! (vent too much gas on the way down and you risk not stopping at the bottom!) We had some epic battles between airships, as you had to get above and drop a bomb on him to kill him... people would blow all their ballast, rush to pressure height, then realize after dropping their bombs they had no way to get back down safely!
This is why i love realistic and accurate simulations! They are so much more stimulating and holds lots of buffling surprizes for you :)

[ruferwynton]

http://images.bf-games.net/news/2004/10/1746_2.jpg

http://images.bf-games.net/news/2004/10/1746_3.jpg

http://images.bf-games.net/news/2004/12/1873_0.jpg


http://images.bf-games.net/news/2004/12/1873_4.jpg

http://images.bf-games.net/news/2004/10/1768_0.jpg

http://images.bf-games.net/news/2004/10/1768_1.jpg

You need airplanes?

We got lots of planes, two zeppelins!

[Deamon]

Ahoy ruferwynton,

actually planes and air ships would interest me. But i have nothing to offer in return i am afraid. Actually i was in the bf team once a long time ago.

[ruferwynton]

Hey, you got a pm!

http://images.bf-games.net/news/2005/04/2209_2.jpg