Jump to content
Free downloads from TNA ×
The Great War (1914-1918) Forum

Remembered Today:

Zeppelin: Aerial Torpedo?


Adrian Roberts

Recommended Posts

I've just got round to reading the booklet "Zeppelins over Bury" which forum member Captain Pikey kindly sent me.

The author (a local historian rather than an aviation writer I believe) says that some of the damage by L16 on 31/3/16 occured a mile away from the Zeppelin's presumed path and was caused by an "aerial torpedo". What might he have meant by this? Surely the Germans didn't have missiles or even glider bombs at the time. Could it have been something akin to the WW2 butterfly bomb or the modern cluster bomb, with fins that caused it to tumble? Or a parachute-retarded device which drifted? Or is the answer that the author was mistaken about the path of the airship? Any ideas, anyone???

I've heard elderly people who survived the WW2 bombing also talk of aerial torpedoes, and agian I'm not sure what they meant. The Germans had devices such as the Henschel 293 radio-controlled glider bomb, but I believe these were not introduced till 1943 and were mainly for anti-shipping warfare. Without wishing to sound patronising, the elderly people I'm talking about wouldn't have been expert on the technology involved. Of course, what they were expert on was the human suffering caused, and I try and remember that this is the most important aspect. The booklet also highlights the human angle, e.g. with an account of a mother, Mrs Durball and her two children killed in the raid.

Adrian

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Good question. I spotted the same thing myself.

I am not sure, in the context of WW2, if an aerial torpedo - for use with aeroplanes - existed during the Great War.

I believe the bombs referred to were standard bombs (which look like a torpedo); remember the Zeppelins also dropped incendiaries (which looked like lanterns) and a bomb which looked like a large canon ball.

The 'standard' bombs were from 12.5Kg to 300kg in size; the 100+Kg looking very much like the size of a submarine torpedo.

It might be a question that Dolphin & Co can answer properly....??

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Adrian

I've seen the term 'aerial torpedo' used in quite a few accounts of 1914-1919 bombings from the air. I think that, in this context, the writers were referring to what we now call bombs.

Some terms have changed their meaning since the period we study. For example, during the War 'bomb' was the word often used to describe what is now called a 'grenade'.

Regards

Gareth

Link to comment
Share on other sites

RT and Gareth

So, as is often the case, a simple answer. Probably the reason some apparently landed away from the airships path was that the supposed path was deduced many years later and was mistaken.

Thanks

Adrian

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Aerial Torpedo?

Possibly an early generic term applied to a then (say 1915) yet to be defined device that was soon to be classified a bomb. As Teapots points out they were soon to be standardised by weight (albeit very roughly converted by the Brits into pounds or hundredweights) . It is my understanding that the airship bombs were approximately pear shaped and suspended by an eyebolt (proximating with the stalk[pear]) within in the bomb bay until released. In a combat/air malfunction emergency, they could be released in order to rapidly ascend.

Later (say 1916/17) German aeroplane bombs were torpedo like streamlined and weight ranged similarly to the airship versions.

It is possible that given the success of the naval torpedo's destruction by stealth the term was conveniently applied to any early Great War aerial released bomb that cased destruction without warning. I believe that airship bombs made very little noise as they descended. I for one would like to know the origin of the term.

For interest, the term 'Doddlebug' is attributed to a WW2 RAF Flight Lieutenant talking on a public wireless/radio station.

David

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi found this on the Net.

The 'Aerial Target' and 'Aerial Torpedo' in Britain

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Aerial Torpedo.

http://www.geocities.com/jjnevins/pulpsa.html

The Aerial Torpedo was introduced in the 1909 film The Airship Destroyer. An unknown country arms their zeppelins with bombs and launches an air raid on England. After a bombing raid British aircraft engage the zeppelins but are shot down. The bombing raid continues until finally a patriotic British inventor creates an "aerial torpedo," controlled by "wireless electricity," which he uses to bring down the enemy air fleet.

Airship Destroyer, The (Silent, England, 1909)

http://spot.colorado.edu/~dziadeck/airship/htmls/films.htm

A quickie about a zeppelin raid. The model work was very obvious. To quote from a movie list:"Inspired by Wells, this is one of the first real science fiction films to be made in England. The story concerns an attack on London by a fleet of airships from an unknown country. Through the extensive use of models, buildings were wrecked, prototype tanks destroyed, and railroads blown up. However, the films young hero, an inventor, launches radio controlled aerial torpedoes at the airships, and saves the day." The film was a great success, and was directed by Walter Booth, produced by Charles Urban.

Terry B

West Aust

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The term "torpedo" was in use in the 19th century for what were effectively sea mines, and ships were sunk by them in the USCW. I suspect that, by 1914, the usage of the term had not been standardized to the marine missile we know today. The American, Robert Fulton, experimented with a naval mine in Napoleonic times and called it a torpedo after a fish that emits an electric charge to incapacitate its enemy. :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've seen the term 'aerial torpedo' used in quite a few accounts of 1914-1919 bombings from the air. I think that, in this context, the writers were referring to what we now call bombs.

Further support for this hypothesis comes from the use of the term 'aerial torpedoes' on the ground (well, fired from ground-to-ground at least). The French trench mortar bomb called an aerial torpedo was a finned projectile that looked somewhat like a modern bomb.

There is also reference to aerial torpedoes being fired from aircraft. The 'avions-torpilleurs' were fitted to French fighters for downing drachen - the German captive balloons. Air-to-air missiles.

Robert

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Early bombs really looked like torpedoes. I have always thought that this is where the "aerial torpedo" name came from.

They had tube-shaped sections of various lengths depending on the amount of explosive material, and they had fins at one end and even a propeller. (not for propulsion, of course.) Here is a picture of a small one. There is a bigger one, looking even more like a marine torpedo, outside Roger de Smul's museum at Hooge.

Tom

post-25-1104497541.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

Extract from a letter written at Ypres and published in the Holmfirth Express 1915.

“Ariel torpedoes that rushed forward, then suddenly dived to earth, hand grenades, shrapnel, high explosive, all were playing on us unceasingly to the accompaniment of endless rifle shot coming at us from east and north and south.”

Unfortunately the writer gives no further description of these ariel torpedoes.

Tony.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

found yhis pic of german zeppelin bombs

The complete photograph (see below) shows the full range of aircraft bombs developed by the Prüfanstalt und Werft der Fliegertruppe (P.u.W.) or Test Establishment and Workshop for the Aviation Troops. The man in the middle is holding a 12.5 kg bomb, and the others range in size from left to right: 50kg, 100kg, 300kg and 1000kg.

The torpedo-shaped P.u.W. bombs set the pattern for aerial bombs used ever since. The 1000kg bombs are most commonly associated with the 'Giant' aeroplanes, such as the Zeppelin-Staaken R-types.

See The German Giants by Haddow and Grosz; ISBN 370 00037 4.

Gareth

post-25-1106169425.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If we are concluding that "aerial torpedo" was a WW1 term for "bomb" then I presume that the observation that :

Ariel torpedoes that rushed forward, then suddenly dived to earth

is simply due to the fact that a bomb being carried horizontally will continue forward when dropped, describing a parabola down to the vertical. These days we are used to seeing this (fortunately for most of us, on film rather than for real), but is must have looked strange to the first people to be on the receiving end (not that they would have felt like analysing it scientifically when trying to stay alive).

On Dolphin's picture, note that the tail fins are angled - presumably to impart a spin and stabilise the device. I believe that on modern bombs the fins are also angled, but less noticeably due to the higher speeds.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think that it was possibly that the terminology had not stabilised.

I have photographs of zeppelins and airships and bomb damage (one of which I posted under a similar thread to this).

Sometimes they say that zeppelins were armed with bombs, sometimes shells and sometimes aerial torpedoes. I would guess that they were all the same thing; bombs.

Trouble was that earlier a 'bomb' was a type of exploding shell - in the days of solid shot (what we would today call a large mortar or even a howitzer shell). The term 'bomb' was, by extension applied to the ships equipped with these large mortars.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No-one yet mentioned the Kettering Aerial Torpedo, also called the Doodlebug, a small biplane cruise missile. The forerunner of the V-1! By the way, the name "doodlebug" was also applied to a 1930's US "Safety Airplane" contestant, by McDonnell, I think.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 year later...

I was doing a search on "Zeppelin" and found your message below from late 2004. You talk about "a bomb which looked like a large canon ball." I have what I think is a bomb cradle for such a bomb. I purchased it years ago and it came with a brass plaque saying that it came from the wreckage of LZ. 85 at Salonika. You can see photos of it at my site http://www.aeroconservancy.com

Do you have any photos opf such bombs or of a bomb cradle like mine inside a Zepplein?

Charley

Good question. I spotted the same thing myself.

I am not sure, in the context of WW2, if an aerial torpedo - for use with aeroplanes - existed during the Great War.

I believe the bombs referred to were standard bombs (which look like a torpedo); remember the Zeppelins also dropped incendiaries (which looked like lanterns) and a bomb which looked like a large canon ball.

The 'standard' bombs were from 12.5Kg to 300kg in size; the 100+Kg looking very much like the size of a submarine torpedo.

It might be a question that Dolphin & Co can answer properly....??

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hello,

Pic enclosed large pattern spherical bomb in use by Zeppelins.

Regards,

Cnock

post-7723-1138528642.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi guys,

Did you mean something like this with an aerial torpedo, here the one made by Siemens ?

Best from Johan

post-7634-1138657169.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi guys,

Did you mean something like this with an aerial torpedo, here the one made by Siemens ?

Best from Johan

Hi Johan!

That's indeed the torpedo glider bomb...however never used really into warfare!

Not teleguided either...

Th germans had problems with it as it did malfunction...

Or the carrier plane construction didn't open to release the torpedo or the torpedo exploded by times when hitting the sea!

Pity I can't scan anymore, but in America was a named Russell who invented an earial torpedo , teleguided by wireless trasmitter...must have been about 1915-1916...meanth to be used against planes and zeppelins!

One point however was unclear to me what the propulsion system was...it could be launched from planes or from land or sea...and was teleguided by a wireless station on the ground!

But seems never someone was interested in it!

Years I searched to find something more about the inventor , but all I found once many years ago was a letter published on internet about a woman who described that years after her husband (the inventor) passed away somewhere 1939 (I think it was) saw her house invaded by American secret agents and they did take into "Getapo style" , all papers and drawings related to that invention of the aerial torpedo from her husband with them...without any further explanatiion...

Just as it lookslike her late husband was a criminel....

I remember she told, if the government had just asked for these she should have cooperated from free will!

But I never found that link again later , and pity I didn't print it out that evening!

But I have it here on photo...(published into L' évènement Illustré -Brussels about 1915-1917...)

It shows a cilindric (cupper?) fuselage tube like high-wing (parasol-plane construction, wing was on support above fuselage).... taildirection rudder and elevator rudders , etc....

What I was missing, was in fact which propulsion system it used, if it had one??? (Steam?)

Somewhere I guess the propulsion system was the problem! What flightrange it had? No idea

If launched from a plane without a propulsion system, it had to be braught above the zeppelin and than teleguided to it???

But it's one of those mystery photo's I had at hand, on which I never found the solution!

There was a text with it explaining the teleguided system en use, but nothing how it was propulsed!

I saw no propeller on the front either! (There was a detonator on top!)

It was also mentioned : that they had by means "ondes herziènnes" (= wireless transmitter) controll over speed ,altitude and flight direction!

VBR

Jempie

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The term "aerial torpedo" was used before the war. From R.P. Hearne, Aerial Warfare (London and New York: John Lane, 1909), 115-6:

Aerial torpedoes have already been designed, I believe, but not for discharge from the decks of airships. There are no serious difficulties in the way of making an efficient projectile of this kind; and used from the airship it would be a fearful menace to any force on land or sea. The aerial torpedo would be some form of miniature airship loaded with high explosives and perhaps in the perfected state steerable by wireless electric means from the airship itself. Such an instrument of destruction could be directed towards a fleet, a naval harbour, or a fort from a very considerable distance, and though the aerial sea is very changeable, the direction and striking-point of the torpedo could be controlled to a remarkable degree by experts. With the discharge of a series of these from a distance at which an airship would be almost invisible, incalculable damage might be done in a naval harbour or a military station. The little torpedoes will sail through the sky without attracting any notice until close to their objective, and it would be practically impossible to check or alter their course. With airships operating from two quarters the effect would be very puzzling and disastrous for those against whom the torpedoes were aimed. The high-explosive shells which could be used against airships within range would be impracticable against the small and swift-running torpedoes, which would bear down on a fleet of warships from several quarters.

So in modern terms, these are stand-off air-to-surface guided missiles! As a previous poster noted, the terminology was very fluid, so these aerial torpedoes might not necessarily be what we are talking about here. (And also note that Hearne uses "airship" to refer to both aeroplanes and what we now call airships. So when he says they were miniature airships, he could mean aeroplanes or airships.)

I don't think such weapons were actually used in WWI (I've never heard of such) but perhaps some people back then thought they were, and the modern writer picked up on that?

PS Somebody else referred to the 1909 film The Airship Destroyer - I've seen this, it's an interesting little film (only 9 minutes long in the version I saw). The "aerial torpedo" (my notes don't indicate what it was called) in this is ground-launched, looks something like a giant dragonfly, and is propeller-driven. It brings down the airship bombing a nearby city (London presumably) where the cannon-armed Wright-style flyer (firing broadsides!) failed ...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Brian Britten
I've just got round to reading the booklet "Zeppelins over Bury" which forum member Captain Pikey kindly sent me.

The author (a local historian rather than an aviation writer I believe) says that some of the damage by L16 on 31/3/16 occured a mile away from the Zeppelin's presumed path and was caused by an "aerial torpedo". What might he have meant by this? Surely the Germans didn't have missiles or even glider bombs at the time. Could it have been something akin to the WW2 butterfly bomb or the modern cluster bomb, with fins that caused it to tumble? Or a parachute-retarded device which drifted? Or is the answer that the author was mistaken about the path of the airship? Any ideas, anyone???

I've heard elderly people who survived the WW2 bombing also talk of aerial torpedoes, and agian I'm not sure what they meant. The Germans had devices such as the Henschel 293 radio-controlled glider bomb, but I believe these were not introduced till 1943 and were mainly for anti-shipping warfare. Without wishing to sound patronising, the elderly people I'm talking about wouldn't have been expert on the technology involved. Of course, what they were expert on was the human suffering caused, and I try and remember that this is the most important aspect. The booklet also highlights the human angle, e.g. with an account of a mother, Mrs Durball and her two children killed in the raid.

Adrian

On July 28th 1914 the first aerial torpedo was launched from a Royal Navy Short seaplane by Lt. A.M. Longmore. The U.S. Navy first experimented with aerial torpedoes in late 1917, when a 400lb dummy torpedo was dropped from a seaplane and bounced back into the air, al;mopst hitting the plane.

The RFC experimental works engaged Professor (2nd Lt.) Low to begin secret work in a Chiswick garage designing and developing remotely controlled pilot-less aircraft. I remember, as a small boy. his fictional book on this subject - no doubt in order to avoid the offical secrets act??

Marconi was also carrying work out on similar projects at nearby Hendon aerodrome, under the auspices of Claude Grahame-White.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...