Could artillery shoot down observation balloons ?

[Simon Cains]

Good morning.  Just reading Michael Palin's book Great-Uncle Harry based on his diary. On page 240 it says "The Germans bombarded an observation balloon" on 1st June 1916, somewhere on the Western Front.  The observers jumped out but the balloon drifted away over German lines.  It would be a much safer way to bring down balloons using guns, rather than aircraft coming close to the protecting AA.  Are there well-documented accounts of guns bringing down balloons ?  Obviously if the balloons were a few miles back from the front line, then artillery could not reach them.   

As early as 1898 on Salisbury plain during an exercise, the umpires decided that guns could have brought down a balloon, although an observer said that he had seen practices with live ammunition which found it was not possible.  Thanks very much.

[ianjonesncl]

Simon

I believe it would be possible to bring down an Observation Balloon with artillery fire. 

The principle that could be used would be to calculate a 'False Range' where the actual target in the air lies along the shell trajectory. To hit that target a fuze setting on the shell would need to detonate at the point the shell reaches the target along the trajectory.  I have used this principle when firing modern illuminating rounds (Star Shells) so I believe it would be possible to with a Shrapnel Shell. To do so would require the detonation of the shell to be observed and the fuze setting on the shell, or the elevation on the guns adjusted to for the shell to explode at the required height.

 

How practical it would be to hit a pin point target in the air, or observe the shells detonating, I would question, as it seems the observer did in 1898.   However, given the prodigious amounts of ammunition that were used in the First World War and the fact that an Observation Balloon could be regarded as a high value target it may have been a methodology that was used. I think it would be a case of not bringing a observation  balloon down, but hoping to neutralise it by either causing casualties to the observers, or causing them to cease observation.

This Blog Entry Albert Leaning Virgin Shoot - Northumbrian Gunner meanderings - The Great War (1914-1918) Forum (greatwarforum.org) details a shoot where the principle of false range was applied, though it is a near ground target. Whilst it is a British Gunner officer applying that principle, I see no reason why a German artillery man would of have had the same thoughts.

When I read the account in Michael Palins book I did wonder about the balloon drifting over German lines. To do so I would think require the tethering rope to be severed, which I would think be an extremely lucky shot if the balloon it's self was being targeted. I did wonder if it was the ground station that was targeted. A lot easier to engage and if the infrastructure that enables observation is destroyed / damaged, the desired effect is achieved. 

A few thoughts.

Ian

 

 

 

[AOK4]

The German anti-air artillery started as "Ballon-Abwehr-Kanonen", so I guess it was possible and it was quite common. I'll do some digging in some books to check.

Jan

[AOK4]

My suspicion was confirmed. The German army trained already before the war to shoot down balloons with artillery.

[Open Bolt]

"The history of air defence dates back as far as 1794 when the first hydrogen observation balloon was shot down during the Napoleonic Wars..."

Anti-Aircraft, Ian v Hogg

Edited 9 January by Open Bolt

[pierssc]

Wouldn't it be easier to shoot at whatever the balloon was tethered to on the ground?

Cut the cable and the balloon's off east!

 

[KizmeRD]

WW1 AA (and anti-balloon) shells were high explosive rounds requiring a timer fuse in order to detonate at the desired spot (proximity fuses not having been invented yet).

MB

[James A Pratt III]

I believe i have read where in 1918 the Germans did report losing balloons do to Allied artillery

[MikeMeech]

10 hours ago, Simon Cains said:

Good morning.  Just reading Michael Palin's book Great-Uncle Harry based on his diary. On page 240 it says "The Germans bombarded an observation balloon" on 1st June 1916, somewhere on the Western Front.  The observers jumped out but the balloon drifted away over German lines.  It would be a much safer way to bring down balloons using guns, rather than aircraft coming close to the protecting AA.  Are there well-documented accounts of guns bringing down balloons ?  Obviously if the balloons were a few miles back from the front line, then artillery could not reach them.   

As early as 1898 on Salisbury plain during an exercise, the umpires decided that guns could have brought down a balloon, although an observer said that he had seen practices with live ammunition which found it was not possible.  Thanks very much.

Hi

Observation Balloons tended to attract artillery fire, not necessarily to shoot them down but to force the enemy to winch the balloon down therefore stopping observation.

There is an interesting document in VI Corps War Diary WO 95/767/5 pages 037-038, 'Operations against German Observation Balloons and Anti-Aircraft Guns on September 10th 1915' signed by Major A G Board, commanding No. 5 Squadron RFC.  Basically aircraft and artillery co-operated:

"Certain batteries to open fire on all known Anti-aircraft gun positions on the 5th and 6th Corps front, at the same time machines with bombs and incendiary darts to attack the Balloons.  If the Balloons are found to be in the air the aeroplanes were to drive them down, and when on the ground heavy batteries were to be ranged on them by wireless."

It goes into greater detail and was considered a success, including that at least one balloon had been damaged by either shell fire or bombs and the AA guns had also to move out of their locations, it also mentions that:

"The Balloon in the vicinity of BECELAERE moved its position several times on being fired at, and was reported later as having been removed altogether."

Mike

[PRC]

Page 126 of “Memoirs of an Old Balloonatic” by Goderic Hodges has this following a successful shoot in 1917 :-

“I went down, sent Yorkshire up for the rest of the evening and sat down to a welcome cup of tea. Higman turned up and we sat side by side, drinking tea. Like everyone else, he was pleased that this battery had been blotted out. I had noticed, as I got out of the basket, how pleased the balloon-crew were. Suddenly there was an almighty crash. We dashed out across the field, down the road to the winch — that crash could mean only one thing. The balloon was being shelled. Up to now we had always been attacked by fighter aircraft. This direct attack by gun-fire was something new. The winch was just beyond the range of their guns and the balloon about 5000 feet higher, even more so. They had removed 9-inch guns from naval vessels they were no longer using and had manufactured shrapnel for them. Normal 3-inch shrapnel is not pleasant; this 9-inch shrapnel was the very devil. They had selected Nos.2 and 32 for the experiment.”

No.2 was still ascending, and soon riddled and rapidly deflating, the whole thing being overseen by a German airplane that was spotting for the guns. https://archive.org/details/memoirsofoldball0000hodg/page/126/mode/2up?q=Under+shell+fire

The contents of the next few pages require the book to be borrowed if anyone wants to read more.

Cheers,
Peter

[Simon Cains]

16 hours ago, pierssc said:

Wouldn't it be easier to shoot at whatever the balloon was tethered to on the ground?

Cut the cable and the balloon's off east!

 

That would be a very small target, compared to the enormous "sausage".

7 hours ago, PRC said:

Page 126 of “Memoirs of an Old Balloonatic” by Goderic Hodges has this following a successful shoot in 1917 :-

“I went down, sent Yorkshire up for the rest of the evening and sat down to a welcome cup of tea. Higman turned up and we sat side by side, drinking tea. Like everyone else, he was pleased that this battery had been blotted out. I had noticed, as I got out of the basket, how pleased the balloon-crew were. Suddenly there was an almighty crash. We dashed out across the field, down the road to the winch — that crash could mean only one thing. The balloon was being shelled. Up to now we had always been attacked by fighter aircraft. This direct attack by gun-fire was something new. The winch was just beyond the range of their guns and the balloon about 5000 feet higher, even more so. They had removed 9-inch guns from naval vessels they were no longer using and had manufactured shrapnel for them. Normal 3-inch shrapnel is not pleasant; this 9-inch shrapnel was the very devil. They had selected Nos.2 and 32 for the experiment.”

 

No.2 was still ascending, and soon riddled and rapidly deflating, the whole thing being overseen by a German airplane that was spotting for the guns. https://archive.org/details/memoirsofoldball0000hodg/page/126/mode/2up?q=Under+shell+fire

 

The contents of the next few pages require the book to be borrowed if anyone wants to read more.

 

Cheers,
Peter

 

Thanks, that is a good eye-witness account of a real example.

[KizmeRD]

Plenty of examples of balloon ground crew being targeted and killed by enemy artillery.

Given the limitations of WW1 artillery fusing, hitting an observation balloon in the air was somewhat of a rarity. It was far easier to direct fire at the spot on the ground where the observation balloon was tethered.

MB

Edited 9 January by KizmeRD

[pierssc]

27 minutes ago, Simon Cains said:

That would be a very small target, compared to the enormous "sausage".

Smaller than, say, a crossroads?  I believe they were often targeted.

But I note that in the instance quoted by Peter at least, care had been taken to position the winch and balloon beyond what was thought to be normal artillery range - implying that had they been within normal artillery range, either or both might have received unwelcome attention more frequently.

Edited 9 January by pierssc

[Simon Cains]

1 hour ago, pierssc said:

Smaller than, say, a crossroads?  I believe they were often targeted.

But I note that in the instance quoted by Peter at least, care had been taken to position the winch and balloon beyond what was thought to be normal artillery range - implying that had they been within normal artillery range, either or both might have received unwelcome attention more frequently.

Presumably balloons could be launched from different spots each day, harder to target than a fixed crossroads marked on the maps.

[pierssc]

Fair point

[MikeMeech]

4 hours ago, pierssc said:

Smaller than, say, a crossroads?  I believe they were often targeted.

But I note that in the instance quoted by Peter at least, care had been taken to position the winch and balloon beyond what was thought to be normal artillery range - implying that had they been within normal artillery range, either or both might have received unwelcome attention more frequently.

Hi

It could depend on what type of artillery piece is shooting at the balloon site.  On 7th June, 1916 a letter from no.1 Kite Balloon Squadron to III Corps HQ (WO 95/690/1 page 15) gavethe duties of a Corps Balloon as:

Counter-Battery Work.

Observation for Long-range guns.

Observation for the heavier Howitzers.

Reception and transmission of lamp, heliograph and panel signal messages received from Brigade HQs and Artillery OPs.

This last case is important as they could read a lamp by day from 4,000 yards and by night 19,000 yards.  A Heliograph could be read from 8,000 yards.  Much further away and they could not do their job, so they may well have to be in range of at least some enemy guns.  Advancing troops could also signal back to balloons and later in the war for instance the Cavalry Corps were still using lamps, in this case Aldis, to signal back to balloons in an advance.  During the 100 days the balloon sections also had to advance to keep in contact with the troops and be usable for artillery spotting.  You could not just move the balloons too far back out of range on all occasions if you wanted to use them effectively.

Mike

[MikeMeech]

Hi

Another example of artillery shelling balloon positions can be found in VI Corps CHA WD, WO 95/987/6 pages 82-83.  In the 'Operation and Intelligence Summary for 24 hours ending 3.0 pm13th April 1918', it mentions that:

"3 Balloons were engaged and forced to descend."

The British balloon shoots in this period appear to spot for a number of rounds then descend,   The document gives 12 rounds for one shoot (3.18-3.42 pm & at 4.55 pm), followed by 2 rounds (4.20-4.35 pm) and 10 rounds (6.0-7.10 pm). All for 8 S.B.

Mike

[James A Pratt III]

I beleive i read many years ago during the fighting on Bataan in early 1942 the Japanese sent up an observation balloon. US artillerymen with the aid of a number of compass bearings and maps determined it may be just in range. So they moved some 155mm GPFs as close as they could and one day when the Japanese were taking the balloon down the 155mms open fire. Results were unknown but a observation balloon did appear a few days later much farther back.

[KizmeRD]

It would have been a far easier thing to do in WW2 than it would have been during WW1, such were the technical advances in shell fuses.

MB

[Jasta72s]

Allied guns shot down 75 German tethered balloons in WWI, aviators downed 471 and 109 fell to "force majeure" (lightning etc.).

Another 505 balloons were hit or damaged and became unuseable. Many of them were victims of gun fire too. 

Source: Neumann: Die deutschen Luftstreitkräfte im Weltkriege, p. 580.    

[Simon Cains]

3 hours ago, Jasta72s said:

Allied guns shot down 75 German tethered balloons in WWI, aviators downed 471 and 109 fell to "force majeure" (lightning etc.).

Another 505 balloons were hit or damaged and became unuseable. Many of them were victims of gun fire too. 

Source: Neumann: Die deutschen Luftstreitkräfte im Weltkriege, p. 580.    

Thank you, very helpful.  I see it is available in English.  https://www.amazon.co.uk/German-Air-Force-Great-War/dp/184342911X

[Jasta72s]

You are welcome! The English version is shorter. I hope you can find it in the statistical section. 

Reports of German balloon observer often mention enemy artillery fire as threat. 

Hannes 

 

[stevenbecker]

What did the Germans say about bring down Allied Ballons?

I take it these German Balloons were all types or mainly the Parseval-Siegsfeld and or Drachen-type type balloon .

What about British and French types? (the Caquot or other types)

I did notice this about the Yanks

In total, there were 35 American balloon companies in France during World War I; they ascended 5,866 times, adding up to 6,832 hours in the air. Their balloons were attacked 89 times; 35 burned, 12 were shot down by enemy fire and one floated into enemy lines. Of all 116 parachute jumps from balloons, the parachutes – made of silk – never failed to open

[healdav]

3 hours ago, stevenbecker said:

What did the Germans say about bring down Allied Ballons?

I take it these German Balloons were all types or mainly the Parseval-Siegsfeld and or Drachen-type type balloon .

What about British and French types? (the Caquot or other types)

I did notice this about the Yanks

In total, there were 35 American balloon companies in France during World War I; they ascended 5,866 times, adding up to 6,832 hours in the air. Their balloons were attacked 89 times; 35 burned, 12 were shot down by enemy fire and one floated into enemy lines. Of all 116 parachute jumps from balloons, the parachutes – made of silk – never failed to open

I think you will find that the AA shells were shrapnel and it was a near miss that could take them donw, not a direct hit.

 

[Chris Henschke]

There is a specific reference to shelling balloons in one of the training leaflets issued by the Inspector General, Training in October 1918.

Attached is the extract from Training Leaflet No. 9, Artillery Notes for Pilots and Observers, R.A.F.