Need Zeppelin Data

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Tinman

Against WWI machineguns the Zeppelins are basically diffuse.

The crew in the gondola might not think that. The engines will catch fire and die when sprayed with machinegun fire just liek the engines of any other air vehicle. The engines have fuel tanks too.

There's a lot more to Zeppelins than just balloonets and skin.

[Say, it isn't that bad!]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

The crew in the gondola might not think that. The engines will catch fire and die when sprayed with machinegun fire just liek the engines of any other air vehicle. The engines have fuel tanks too.

There's a lot more to Zeppelins than just balloonets and skin.

That's just a hit location with regular, rather than diffuse, injury multipliers.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Say, it isn't that bad!

That's just a hit location with regular, rather than diffuse, injury multipliers.

Nope, some of them are Vitals. :)

The point is that they are Hit Locations Zeppelins possess and they are not Diffuse so any claim that Zeppelins are Diffuse is mistaken. There are alot of ways to destroy Zeppelins with WWI fighters. It's just that a single burst to the main structure probably won't do it.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Nope, some of them are Vitals. :)

The point is that they are Hit Locations Zeppelins possess and they are not Diffuse so any claim that Zeppelins are Diffuse is mistaken. There are alot of ways to destroy Zeppelins with WWI fighters. It's just that a single burst to the main structure probably won't do it.

... unless the fighter pilot rolls a critical success, and the captain of the zeppelin (or whomever is rolling for the vessel in combat) rolls a critical failure. That combination does nasty things in nearly any match-up, it's just very, very improbable.

[Say, it isn't that bad!]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Nope, some of them are Vitals. :)

The point is that they are Hit Locations Zeppelins possess and they are not Diffuse so any claim that Zeppelins are Diffuse is mistaken. There are alot of ways to destroy Zeppelins with WWI fighters. It's just that a single burst to the main structure probably won't do it.

Some of a zeppelins' hit locations are diffuse versus human-scale fire-arms, I think the point is.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

The crew in the gondola might not think that. The engines will catch fire and die when sprayed with machinegun fire just liek the engines of any other air vehicle. The engines have fuel tanks too.

With non-incendiary bullets, igniting fuel tanks is hardly a likely outcome. And damaged engines can catch fire but it's not reliable - and less so if the zeppelin crew has the capability to shut down a damaged engine rather than run it to catastrophe.

Which is much more feasible for them than for air vehicles with fewer engines, more dependency on thrust to stay airborn, or less ability to access the engines in flight...

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Nope, some of them are Vitals. :)

The point is that they are Hit Locations Zeppelins possess and they are not Diffuse so any claim that Zeppelins are Diffuse is mistaken. There are alot of ways to destroy Zeppelins with WWI fighters. It's just that a single burst to the main structure probably won't do it.

It's not just that. It's also that machinegunning a zeppelin from a biplane isn't a situation that lends itself to surgical precision. Zeppelins are big, but the bits of them that are significantly vulnerable to such gunfire are not so much.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

... unless the fighter pilot rolls a critical success, and the captain of the zeppelin (or whomever is rolling for the vessel in combat) rolls a critical failure. That combination does nasty things in nearly any match-up, it's just very, very improbable.

That's not what it takes. Zeppelins are huge, so aiming for specific locations isn't to hard - in daylight (the gondolas, etc. ate about as big as a fighter of the period and are far less able to manoeuvre). However, most of the attempts to shoot down Zeppelins occurred at night (because it was rapidly obvious to everyone that airships don't survive encounters with fighters in daylight), and even finding the Zeppelins was hard, and aiming for more than (that patch of blocked out ground/sky) wasn't really on the cards.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Rupert

Unless you need exact details, I'd just look up size, payload, speed, range, etc. on the net. Wikipedia has details of a fair number of models, for example.

Note that they are actually quite hard to set on fire with guns unless you have incendiary bullets, so in the event someone decides to shoot one up you'll probably want to ignore damage to the gas envelopes until after the fight, at which point it can be a plot point - "You drove off the warlord's fighters, but it's become apparent that they've put enough holes in the gas envelopes that you are now losing altitude and will hit the ground in a few hours if something isn't done."

Incendiary bullets are useless if the Zeppelin is lifted by helium rather then hydrogen. And that is assuming that gas is what keeps the Zeppelin aloft rather then an antigravity substance. Though if Aerial Dreadnoughts, Ornithopter, Wireless aeronefs, and the like are around the Zeppelin would have anotehr name: Target. :-)

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by maximara

Incendiary bullets are useless if the Zeppelin is lifted by helium rather then hydrogen.

This isn't true at all. Most vehicles can catch fire without being mostly flammable gas by volume. A zeppelin, as has been pointed out, has fuel tanks and engines. It may also have flammable structural or skin materials.

While there seems to be evidence that the Hindenburg incendiary paint hypothesis doesn't hold up, that doesn't mean that fire isn't dangerous to non-hydrogen-filled aircraft, lighter-than-air or otherwise.

It would be bound to make them significantly less threatening. But not useless.

Originally Posted by maximara

And that is assuming that gas is what keeps the Zeppelin aloft rather then an antigravity substance. Though if Aerial Dreadnoughts, Ornithopter, Wireless aeronefs, and the like are around the Zeppelin would have anotehr name: Target. :-)

If you've got lifting magic that is compact enough to allow armored flying ships, rifle-caliber machine guns will be basically useless against them. Probably your best hopes for attacking them with a conventional airplane would be anachronistic dive bombers or anachronistic heavy rockets - basically WW2-era weapons that were used against naval targets (minus torpedoes, obviously).

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

While there seems to be evidence that the Hindenburg incendiary paint hypothesis doesn't hold up,y).

I've never seen that evidence. What I have seen is two recreations of the skin where it burned quickly and at high temperature.

Actually, the newsreel footage is all you need. You can see the skeletal structure of the Hindenburg after its's skin has burnt off in about 30 seconds.

The role of the hydrogen-air mix that had leaked out over the voyage may have been more of an accelerant than the main fuel but if it had been replaced by helium that would have served as a dilutant instead of an accelerant.

Then after the gasbags have burs the hydrogen rises rapidly and even though it's mostly burning above the Hindenburg rather than inside it there is a large quantity of air being sucked in to replace the rising gas. Helium would have risen rapidly as well but it wouldn't have been self-heating so the process would have been slower.