Bringing down the Zeppelins

[Compo]

Well, as suggested on a topic with great detail about Zeppelin raids, can anyone say whether the British Anti-aircraft artillery tactics were effective or not.

I have heard a great deal said about how ineffective the aa was in London. I had a grandfather who got 31 days training from civilian at the RGA anti-aircraft gunnery school at St. Johns Wood Royal Horse Artillery before being deployed as a 2Lt in the city's defense in July 1916. They pioneered the development of listening posts with radio communications and met the incoming Zeps with "box barrages".

By mid June 1917 he was being deployed to the Western front to fend off the bi-planes where he got the MC for "crashing" two.

The Zeppelins switched to night time then stopped before Gotha bi-plane bombers took over which were also largely stopped. Stopping them had to be the objective not neccessarily shooting them down.

This does not seem so ineffective to me.

Regds, Bill

[Adrian Roberts]

Bill

Certainly the majority of airships destroyed were brought down by aeroplanes, but AA (Archie they called it in WW1) had some successes.

L15 was brought down by AA near Dartford on 9/9/15; 16 crew survived.

L33 was hit by AA over West Ham on 30/8/16; one shell passed through her but failed to set her alight (my source says the shell exploded and failed to set her alight but that I take with a pinch of salt). She was then attacked by a BE2c which made some more holes but still did not set her alight. Eventually she came down near Brentwood, Essex. The Captain had ideas of stealing a boat but the crew were less than keen and surrendered to a policeman on a bicycle. The wreck was copied in the design of the British rigids R33 and R34.

The French and Russian AAA brought down several, especially in the early days of the war when they flew in the daytime. At least two were brought down by naval gunfire, such as LZ85 which we've been discussing in another thread.

Adrian

[Adrian Roberts]

Just realised there was a thread on L15 a couple of weeks ago giving details of its demise. The date of its loss was the night of 31/3 - 1/4/16. The date I quote above is the date it first flew - sorry, looked in wrong column in my source!

[brindlerp]

A period poster.

Regards

Richard

[Guest Pete Wood]

You have to remember that the aviation industry was still fairly new. So finding methods to stop raiding airships and aeroplanes was nearly all experimental.

You also had a fair amount of political interference, with the War Office and Admiralty bickering about who was to be in control of Home Defence.

Some of the methods to bring down aeroplanes were indeed laughable, by today's standards - fiery grapnels, explosive darts, dropping bombs on top of airships (this did actually work).

Anti-aircraft fire wasn't a real threat until late 1916. For a start, Britain didn't even have a gun which was capable of firing a shell almost vertically into the sky. We had to beg for a French 75mm from our allies.

Then there was the problem of identification and communication. The RFC and RNAS was actually using any aeroplanes it owned, including pre-war German craft. So the AA fired at pretty much anything......

Lessons needed to be learned, including a decent communication system which required spotters on the coast (and also included crew onboard ships and lightships) informing a central command of the direction of the enemy force. Until 1918, there were no radio/telephone communications to guide British pilots. So a crude system of ground signals was developed - which wasn't much use at night. No one had flown aircraft at night, so the War Office only allowed (at first) 'stable aircraft' to fly these first hazardous, and experimental, sorties. Now stable means slow so, until some brave crew disregarded orders to fly a Camel after dusk, Britain didn't have an effective night fighter for most of the war.

As you say, the Zeppelins did switch to night time flying - because, as a bigger craft, an airship was more likely to be hit by anti-aircraft fire.

The airships were capable, however, of often flying higher than a shell could be fired. Until the end of the war, the Zeppelins, Gothas and Giants were also faster than the defending fighters.

So Britain had to develop its own shells for the French 75mm (and its own derivatives). It was also found that the French shell had a high failure rate (duds) - and what goes up, must come down. So shells meant to bring down the hun, also managed to damage buildings (and their occupants) in early 20th century friendly-fire incidents.

Barrage balloons were an Italian idea, and it took a while for us to understand how to use/control them - and where to site them.

The Zeppelin crews DID worry about AA fire. The Gotha and Giant crews were not so worried about AA fire - nor, until the last 12 months of the bombing campaign, were they too bothered about our fighters.

But the AA did, eventually, prove to be a deterrent - and, probably most important of all, maintained morale for a civilian population having its first taste of 'terror from the skies.'

[Compo]

Thanks for the reply Teapots,

Pretty much in line with what I was thinking, deterring a zep from dropping it's bombs in an intended area by throwing up an impressive ( to the zep crew) barrage is just as much a victory as shooting it down. AA fire could not be scored solely on shoot downs, just as ground artillery should not be scored solely on direct hits where near enough achieves the military objective.

I have read somewhere (Cannot remember where on the web) that the aa weapon may have started off with French 75s because of it's rapid fire and ability to point high but changed quickly to (adapted for high angle) Royal Horse Artillery's otherwise standard 18 pounders which is why the RGA anti-aircraft course was offered at the RHA St Johns Wood.

British gunners were deemed inferior because their ratio of shells to hits was about 1000 where that of French gunners was around 600. I do not believe English gunners were any worse. They were using walls of barrages to veer off attackers or force them to heights where bombing accuracy was compromised. French gunners were luring zeps returning to the continent into AA traps by intercepting and sending false navigation radio signals, an altogether different use of the artillery weapon.

Damage by AA shells returning to earth has always been a problem and continues even now in Iraq. It must have been a special problem in 1916 they had not yet invented the proximity nor the self destruct fuse yet. This must have contributed to the bad press for the gunners from the civilian population. "They can't hit anything except us etc."

The most outstanding thing must have been, as you mentioned, the learning curve that they had to rise through and starting from poor the standard must have risen rapidly with experience until they reached a more effective level of protection.

Regards, Bill

[Adrian Roberts]

(adapted for high angle) Royal Horse Artillery's otherwise standard 18 pounders which is why the RGA anti-aircraft course was offered at the RHA St Johns Wood.

I thought the RHA used the 12-pounder and the RA the 18-pounder. Or perhaps that was a generalisation?

Adrian

[Compo]

I got that from a book I will have to check.

Bill

[Compo]

(adapted for high angle) Royal Horse Artillery's otherwise standard 18 pounders which is why the RGA anti-aircraft course was offered at the RHA St Johns Wood.

Adrian,

You are correct. The standard RHA gun was 3.0" 12.5 pounds which also was the gun adapted to anti-aircraft use.

The 3.3" 18.5 pounds (18 punder) was the Field Artillery's standard.

Cheers, Bill

[healdav]

I have a photo from 1914 which is captioned 2German anti-aircraft gun and crew"

Certainly the gun is very high angle.

[Compo]

Photo of WW1 aa gun on lorry.

Located at IWM Duxford in Hangar 4. Juntion 10 on the M11.

If any one goes there, I would love to know what it says on the exhibit notes.

4,000 miles is too far for me!

Rgds, Bill

[182 CEF]

The Book " Fire over England" by H. G. Castle tells the story of air raids over England. At the back of the book he lists all raids by Date, aircraft used, areas, bombs dropped and Casualties. I picked it up for $1 at a book sale last week!!

It was printed in 1982 and gives a lot of info that I was not awear of. It's worth checking out.

Dean Owen

Whitby Ontario

[Lee Smart]

An old post...but thought I'd add in some extra detail regarding an early French AAA success against Zeppelins:

Zeppelin LZ35 was brought down on the night of 12/13 April 1915 after a bombing raid against Ballieul Camp (as recorded briefly in the 2nd Seaforth Highlanders' War Diary) by French AAA fire with hits inflicted as the zeppelin came over the lines in the evening and as she returned in the darkness after midnight. ..details to follow.

LZ35 was originally commissioned as Z-XIII (signifying this airship as the 13th Zeppelin commissioned for the German Army) but the Captain refused to sign for the airship with such an unlucky Bort Number so the airship was renumbered as LZ35 (35th Zeppelin launched, including Navy and Civilian types) !...ironic then that LZ35 was shot down on her 13th mission, with a crew of 13 and on the night of 12/13th April!....sometimes you just can't evade fate 

Edited 19 May , 2023 by Lee Smart