Comments on: Floating Mooring Mast Proposed as Way Station for Airships

By: Hotspur O'Toole

Hotspur O'Toole — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 23:49:47 +0000

“The Battle of Jutland might have went differently if the Germans had used their land based airships to assess the British strength and location.”

In fact, they DID use airships during the battle of Jutland. About midday during the first day of battle LZ 24 overflew the Grand Fleet and attempted to radio back ship positions for Beatty’s squadron. The total misread of intentions of Beatty and company by the 24 contributed to Scheer getting a flawed battlespace picture, and making a somewhat disasterous course change that would bring him into contact with Jellicoe sooner rather than later.

Sources: http://150.theage.com.au/view_.....;intid=688
also Beatty’s battle report, which is online somewhere.

By: K

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 23:18:01 +0000

This is, or was, much more sensible than many ideas of the era. It actually could work with the technology available. Some drawbacks are tolerable to win battles.

Of course this idea resides in the dustbin of history. The improvements of scout planes made the airship unneeded.

The Battle of Jutland might have went differently if the Germans had used their land based airships to assess the British strength and location.

By: Stannous

Stannous — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 22:46:35 +0000

Brett-
Thanks for fixing the link, neat site, thanks.

By: matt

matt — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 15:16:56 +0000

Bitchinest way to travel:
http://www.marriedtothesea.com.....hinest.gif

By: Brett

Brett — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 14:41:58 +0000

Colour me stupid, Hotspur! You are quite right! The direct link to the pic doesn’t work, but they can be accessed from here:

http://www.hazegray.org/navhis.....sc.htm#ao9

Awesome.

By: Don

Don — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 14:26:35 +0000

Forbidden
You don’t have permission to access /navhist/carriers/images/usa/ao9.jpg on this server.

By: Hotspur O'Toole

Hotspur O'Toole — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 14:02:08 +0000

Actually the US Navy had not one, but two ships, JUST LIKE THIS.

Check out the USS Patoka, which was a converted freighter turned into airship tender.

http://www.hazegray.org/navhis.....sa/ao9.jpg

Reality, fantasy.. you be the judge!

By: Brett

Brett — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 12:02:19 +0000

Cool pic, but not very practical, IMHO. Airships were vulnerable enough to high winds on land — what happens when a sudden squall or worse comes along? Scratch one airship! What might have worked would be a giant floating hangar. The airship could be pulled down into it while being refueled and rearmed, relatively safe from the elements.

I also love the way the ‘aeronautic experts’ who come up with these ideas are never named From the markings, however, if they did exist they were probably British.