AUTHOR: SANJYSAN

Recently, I rewatched the second half of the Iron Blood Empire, and one thing came to mind, which was the airship problem of the floating unit.

Since there are giant airships with a load of up to 8 tons, then it is possible to carry planes on them and become flying carriers.

For example, the strong cloud class, with a load of 5 tons and a endurance of 1600km, can make it hang about 5 reconnaissance/fighter planes in the way of hanging and loading, and carry the fuel and ammunition required for 2~3 sorties. These fighters can be recovered in the air by installing two sets of hooks above the upper wing bracket and a pylon under the airship.

The above works in such a way that the main structure of the airship is not changed.

If the redesign is permitted, two airships could be built in a two-in-one way, with two airbags in one, about 10 meters apart, and connected by a triangular steel frame, with a rectangular cabin in the middle (or lower part of the centerline) to create an all-access deck with front and rear openings, allowing aircraft to take off and land in it. Several interception nets could be set up in the rear half of the flight deck, but they were generally rarely used because of the speed of the airship itself and the fact that biplane fighters could fly at low speeds at that time.

If two strong cloud-class airships are used to form the above-mentioned air carrier, it should be able to have a flight deck of 30~40 meters and carry about 10 combat reconnaissance aircraft. If it is composed of two Chiyun-class airships, it may form a flight deck with a length of 80~100 meters (maybe 15~20 meters wide), a load of 24 tons, and 24 fighters to carry out escort missions.

Of course, these carrier-based aircraft will have reconnaissance / air combat as their main purpose. If you want to load bombs, the number of planes will be reduced, freeing up the load to load bombs. However, the situation of air replenishment missions can also be considered at this time. In other words, the supply airship is used to carry fuel bombs and delivered to the aircraft carrier by air suspension and transportation, similar to the rapid supply ship transportation method of the Navy's aircraft task force.

The above method is actually to withdraw the mission of the airship from the first line and move it to the second line, and the first line of mission is handed over to the carrier-based aircraft.

Of course, at a time when the enemy does not have a strong air force, this approach is not necessary or urgent. However, when the enemy army is also equipped with airships or fighters, the airship will become very vulnerable, because hydrogen airships are very flammable and explosive, and their survivability is even lower than that of small fighters. And helium, although safe, could not be produced in large quantities in those days. If the air carrier can be used, the airship can be parked at a safe place about 100 km behind the front line, or in the case of ground bombing, at an altitude beyond the reach of ground artillery fire, and fighters can be sent to the front line or at low altitude to carry out bombing or engage the enemy. At this time, it can not only allow the airship to give full play to its advantages of long range and carrying capacity, but also avoid throwing it directly into the war, which can improve its survivability and flyover, and at the same time seriously reduce the combat power of the air force.

And if the fighter engages the airship, the fighter zhan has a great advantage. The airship can be loaded with a large number of machine guns, but it is not very useful, first of all, because the airship is large and flammable and explosive, so it is very easy to be destroyed by hits. Second, the airship's large airbags will severely obscure its machine-gun range, in other words, if the fighter plane dives from its top, the lower part of the airship will be equipped with machine guns, because its range will be obscured by the airbags. At the last of all, airships cannot fight in close teams, because stray bullets can easily hit friendly airbags, and a single bullet is enough to turn the entire airship into a huge fireball in the air. Therefore, there is no comparison between airships and heavy bombers like the B-17. The latter tactic cannot be carried over to the former.

Of course, in the case of operating carrier-based aircraft, small aircraft may not be able to carry large bombs. Therefore, the heavy bombing mission of dropping heavy bombs on solid targets still had to be carried out by airships. However, these airships need to be escorted by the aforementioned carrier-based aircraft

To put it simply, the carrier is a man's roman and a royal road in the sky, so hurry up and give birth to him

In fact, it is mainly a matter of survival. The key is hydrogen.

If you don't consider survivability, the load and range of an airship are much stronger than that of an airplane. However, when tracer bombs were invented, the aircraft achieved absolute lethality against airships, and here are some information for reference:

http://www.sspanzer.net/Phantom/zeppelin.htm

From January 19, 1915 to August 5, 1918, Germany dispatched 208 airships and 435 aircraft to carry out air raids on Britain, including 52 aircraft air raids and 5l airship air raids, dropping about 300 tons of bombs, killing about 1,300 people and wounding 3,000 people. About 80 airships were destroyed by Allied artillery fire and storms.

To put it simply, in the 51 missions of the airship, a total of 208 sorties, the loss of 80 ships and the casualty rate of 38.5 percent were unbearable, and finally the airship units completely withdrew from the front-line and daytime combat missions.

To put it simply, the relationship between airships and airplanes in WW1 is a bit like the relationship between warships and aircraft carriers in WW2. In terms of attack power, the battleship is, of course, much higher than the air carrier. For example, in WW2, a warship with 9 16-inch guns can fire 500 16-inch shells in 1hr, which is equivalent to 600 tons of bombs/1200 sorties of dive bomber attacks/24 large aircraft carriers.

In WW1, due to the factor of engine technology, whether it is a fighter, reconnaissance aircraft or bomber, the range and load are very low. For example, the Red Baron Fokker-DR.I triplane, which terrified the Allies, had a range of only 200 km.

By the way, the Fokker DR.I has an empty weight of 405kg, a full weight of 584kg, a speed of 100kt, a maximum altitude of 23,000 feet, and more interestingly, it has a fuel capacity of 16.5gal (62.45lt), which is less than 50kg

The SopwithF1Camel, which the UK uses to fight, is equipped with more fuel, with a total weight/empty weight of 658kg/421kg respectively, and a range of only 455km.

However, in terms of range and bomb load, the airship has an absolute advantage. For example, the German L-30 airship in WW1 has a cargo carrying capacity of 61,600 lb (28 tons) and a range of 4,600 miles (7,500 km). This is incomparable to airplanes, and aircraft with the same level of capabilities will not even appear until 40 years later (the B-52 intercontinental bomber, the capacity and range of the airship of the First World War can be compared to the "super-large jet bomber" that appeared only 40 years later, which is amazing, but it is a fact).

German L-30 airship:

http://www.zeppelin-museum.dk/UK/airships/l-30.html

Another key point is that airships can fly at night in WW1, while airplanes cannot. Airships can sail at night for two reasons, one is that the larger payload is enough to support additional navigators and a better navigation system. Second, the strong ability to stay in the air makes it maintain a floating state at night and wait until dawn before landing, and the aircraft is in the air for 1~2 hours at that time, and landing at night is easy to cause great casualties. As a result, in WW1, Germany repeatedly sent airships to bomb British targets at night. Of course, this will seriously reduce the accuracy, but the problem is that the airship cannot survive under the fighter plane using tracer bullets during the day, so the only option is to choose the night mission when the fighter cannot take off for battle.

However, if you can combine the fighter and the airship, you can make up for each other's weaknesses, avoid their own shortcomings, and give full play to their respective advantages. For example, an airship can carry a bomber to a place where it cannot reach it on its own. Or on the other hand, if a bomber with a range of 400km (combat radius of 150~200km) is carried by an airship to a distance of 50~100km from the target, then because the target is closer, it can be loaded with less fuel and more bombs, or if the sortie mission is doubled in the same time, the total bomb volume will naturally be doubled. It can also be used to attack at dawn after flying all night to increase the surprise attack, or to attack at dusk to retreat and make it impossible for the enemy to pursue.

And if you want to set up an air carrier, it is still the same suggestion, with two airships in parallel left and right, and a flight deck and hangar in the middle (in fact, it is similar to the cave base, the one in comic base 88). Then the aircraft carrying capacity can be simply calculated as an integer, for example, 1 ton of load can operate 1 fighter/light bomber to make 10 sorties, 2 tons of load can operate a medium bomber to make 5 sorties, and so on. Then the tonnage of the airship is used to calculate the amount of carrier-based aircraft carried.

For example, the performance of the German L-30 airship mentioned above is an example, and the air carrier composed of two L-30s should have a carrying capacity of 56 tons. Taking into account the necessary weights such as the armament of the crew on the hangar deck, it can be assumed that there is a usable load of 40 tons. It can carry and operate 40 fighters/light bombers, or 20 fighters and 10 medium bombers, or 10 fighters and 15 medium bombers.

Also, regarding the airship performance data in your novel, it may need to be slightly corrected. For example, the L-30, Germany's main airship, uses only six 240hp engines, with a total of 1440hp, and has a speed of 62.2mph (100km/hr) and a range of 28 tons and 7500km. Even the Zeppelin L4, which has a payload of 9 tons, only uses three 210hp engines. It is recommended to refer to the various airship performance in the above webpage for modification.

In addition, the load of an airship has less to do with the horsepower of the engines, only to its volume (the buoyancy provided). The engine used doesn't need much as long as it provides forward momentum. In fact, it can't be too big, and the development of the air engine output is about like this:

100~200hp in the late 10s

300~400hp in the mid-20s

400~500hp in the late 20s

600hp in the early 30s

Mid 30s 700hp

For example, the WW2 German main fighter Bf-109 was manufactured in 1935, using a 685hp engine and a total weight of 1960kg.

However, the craftsmanship of the WW1 era could not create high-horsepower engines, and the general environment of bombers or airships that required high-horsepower used multiple engines to obtain sufficient total thrust.

As for the endurance of the airship, the relationship between the engines is also relatively small. The main thing is to see how much load to be freed up to load oil. These aspects are much worse than airplanes. In fact, this is where the biggest advantage of the "lighter-than-air" floating unit lies

The air replenishment of airships can be carried out by air connection, steel cable hanging transportation (first shoot the rope past, pull the steel cable behind, tie it up and then lift and transport, for replenishment during the voyage of the surface ship), or use the aircraft transfer method between the air carriers.

In terms of reliability, as long as it is not directly put into the line of fire to face tracer bullets, the reliability of the airship is not bad. In addition, the take-off and landing performance of the air carrier is much higher than that of the air carrier on the water, because the relative speed of the airship and the aircraft is much smaller than that of the air carrier and the aircraft, so it can take off and land safely on the air carrier.

As for the cost-effectiveness ratio, an air carrier with a bomber attack will be less effective than using an airship to bomb on its own. The actual amount of bombs (weight or quantity) may be halved. However, if you use a light carrier-based bomber to dive bombing, the accuracy will be much higher than that of an airship's high-altitude horizontal throw, which can increase the destructive power from this point and compensate for the reduced bomb load. However, for strong targets such as fortresses, small bombs are still less effective than large bombs.

Instead, what the air carrier gains is survivability, and the air carrier is difficult to lose because it stays in the rear, and even if the enemy aircraft wants to attack, it has to pass through a 100km fighter air defense circle. If you simply send an airship to bomb, the bomb load can be doubled, but according to the previous data, an airship will be shot down on average after only three missions, and the casualty rate may increase rapidly.

So on the whole, using an airship is quite cost-effective. This is especially true for the use of air carriers at sea. Because the hit rate of airships attacking surface fleets is very low, and the hit rate of using aircraft for dive bombing is much higher.

And in your novels, it is advisable to use a step-by-step approach. That is to say, at the beginning, the traditional airship bombing tactics were still implemented, but the loss rate was greatly increased by encountering fighter planes or ground artillery tracer shells, so in order to solve this problem, aircraft escort tactics began to be considered, and then the fighters boarded the boat, and finally even the bombers also went on the boat to become flying carriers

Front view of the air carrier:

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It consists of two airships on the left and right, with an all-access flight deck/hangar in the middle. The lower middle protrusion is the command compartment of the airship. This command module must be located at the bottom and not at the top, which is the pursuit of ground visibility during landing.

View from the top of the carrier:

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The bottom floor of the flight deck should be longer than the top ceiling. If the floor is 80 meters long, the ceiling may be only 60 meters long. There should be 10 meters of open-air space at the front and rear ends. This is in order to:

1. It is convenient for fighters to take off and land.

2. When you need to move forward at high speed, you can use a folding inclined door plate (or an iron roller door or the like) to cover the front and back to reduce air resistance.

At the end, when the door plate is closed, the shape of the compartment between the left and right airbags can provide some degree of lift at high speeds.

There can be some problems with the setting of the air carrier

2 ships side by side, about 10m apart and laying the width of the flight runway from them, may be too narrow. Referring to the size of the aircraft carrier, there are often planes and elevators on the flight deck, not counting the landing aiming error of the pilot who flew back on the air carrier, the width of 10M is too narrow.

It is recommended to change the setting to 4 unions, 6 unions, or even 8 unions......

In this way, the straight-through flight deck can grow to a width of about 20~30M at once, as well as the length of xx (this xx is directly proportional to the number of airships in the complex). After the flight deck is widened and lengthened, both the fuel capacity and the number of planes will increase a lot, and more importantly, this kind of thing can form an effective deterrent to the opponent, and it can be completely replenished with ammunition and fuel through the fuel transportation of small airships, making it a small air base that will never be far away from the deterrent target and supply the city, and this psychological deterrence against the enemy is believed to be very effective, especially when this kind of thing that looks like an air fortress has not been shot down and will not be shot down. However, it is speculated that such a large-scale configuration will not be used in the coastal cities where the best effects are used, because the weather will not allow it, especially the storm invasion will be very damaging to such a large facility. Therefore, it is recommended to use a combination of 6 or 8 ships for land use, and 4 more ships for use at sea.

In addition, for the convenience of use, the carrier can be connected indiscriminately like the International Space Station, so as to facilitate the effective disassembly and installation of the carrier according to the mission and actual needs. Every interval according to the principle of article loss is required to be regularly replaced and checked, especially the corrosion of the relevant connecting parts by oil pollution and rain in the high altitude may be very problematic, and the airship with more serious damage will be replaced directly, and another one will be replaced to replace the original vacant space. In view of this problem, it is recommended that the flight runway be connected to the outer airship by means of a slide. In addition, once a certain airship suffers a heavy damage, possible replacement measures can also be carried out so that the entire air carrier system will not be completely destroyed at once, which is somewhat similar to the design of independent cabins on sea ships.

The flight runway does not use aluminum structure, but directly uses oak or red pine or other wood of better material to ensure the strength of the entire runway in the event of an aircraft landing failure. Reserve about 1T of load in the air to prepare parts for renewal and repair (high-quality wood on the flight deck is a heavier thing, as well as aircraft parts) to repair airships and even damaged aircraft that need urgent treatment. The weight of this load reserve can be modified according to different periods, or according to different needs.

In addition to this, measures can be taken to effectively load the entire empty master system. Because it will not be attacked and is less likely to be attacked, it is entirely possible to add something like a high-altitude detection balloon on both sides of the airship to increase the buoyancy of the airship. The advantage of this is that it will not increase the volume of the airship as a result, and directly use the upper space of the entire air carrier system. If an enemy plane breaks through a safe distance, it would be nice to release these balloons directly to reduce the size of the target and make a natural forced landing, although it may not really have much effect. In fact, the more critical purpose of this is to add several layers of space to the airship to store the aircraft. The upper runway is mainly used to recover aircraft, while the lower space can also be used to drop bombs in addition to storing aircraft. For example, fixing the bracket allows the aircraft to first keep the engine spinning normally, and when everything is ready, the aircraft glides down for a distance to gain sufficient speed before committing to normal combat.

Well, I'll take out a little bit of my previous settings first and see if it works.

In fact, I think it is a very good choice to use airships for logistics on a large scale, as long as the climate is not too outrageous, the cost-effectiveness of airships will surprise many people. In short, airships are indeed a good thing.