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Tell that to the RAF. When Zeppelins came to bomb London in WWI the RAF went up to meet them. Other than the fact that it's a daunting prospect to take a single
by InclinedPlane 9y ago
Tell that to the RAF. When Zeppelins came to bomb London in WWI the RAF went up to meet them. Other than the fact that it's a daunting prospect to take a single little biplane up against a hulking sky mountain armed with maybe a dozen individually manned machine guns the biggest problem is that shooting a dirigible basically does very little.
When you shoot a Hydrogen filled Zeppelin nothing happens. The Hydrogen slowly leaks out, decreasing lift, but that can be compensated for with dropping ballast. Remember that fire requires those three key ingredients: fuel, oxygen, and an ignition source. An ordinary bullet does not provide an ignition source, and it only just barely helps fuel and oxygen mix.
The RAF developed incendiary rounds and, far more importantly, explosive rounds to take down Zeppelins. Having a round explode on the surface of the gas envelope opens up a large hole, causes prompt mixing of hydrogen and oxygen, and provides an ignition source. Most folks aren't going to have such weapons, it would be just as easy for them to acquire an RPG or MANPAD which could take down any aircraft, so the threat isn't exactly increased.
More importantly, Africa is a huge place, and at any given time most of it does not experience ongoing warfare.
- alonmower 9y agoI feel like the one thing that probably does make it much easier to hit than an airplane is it's larger size and slower speed (though I'll admit I have no idea what altitudes dirigibles are able to fly at)
- InclinedPlane 9y agoDirigibles can fly at many thousands of feet. At even a thousand feet it's a lot more difficult to hit something in the air with small arms than across an equivalent distance over land (due to bullet drop) unless you have specialized anti-aircraft guns.
- Merad 9y agoAt 1000 feet, the drop of a rifle bullet is pretty trivial (a few yards) compared with the size of an airship. Considering how slow they move, I don't think a moderately competent rifleman would have much trouble hitting them.
- madengr 9y agoThe higher the angle you shoot, the more energy loss due to gravity. Shooting at 60 degrees is considerably different than 0 degrees, for the same range. That's why AA guns need to be so big, just to get that bullet up there with enough energy left to do some damage.
- johan_larson 9y agoThe PBS NOVA series had a very nice episode a few years back about the WWI airship raids on London. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzW4258oIyg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzW4258oIyg It turns out the airship gasbags were made of cow-guts. Lots and lots of cow-guts.
- InclinedPlane 9y agoYup. It took a truly incredible amount of manual labor to sew them all together.