German Army Airships
By Mike Bennighof, Ph.D.
November 2006

During the years before the First World War, Germany’s zeppelin airships became a symbol of modernity and prosperity. Both the army and the navy acquired them for reconnaissance; and though the Naval Airship Division is much better-remembered today, the German Army entered the war with a much larger lighter-than-air component.

Most of the Army ships were Schutte-Lanz machines, with plywood frames rather than the aluminum used in craft built by the Zeppelin Works. The Army started the war with six machines, including two requisitioned from civilian use. Three deployed on each front, but the ships received no mobilization orders. Several days after the war began, the Army command ordered all three of its Western Front ships into the air.

The civilian airship Sachsen, commandeered for military service.

Though the airships had been intended for scouting, the Army high command directed that they also undertake bombing attacks. A single experiment had been undertaken before the war, but the crews felt that dropping bombs from their ships would be very easy — despite the utter lack of any weapons designed for the purpose. Airship Z-VI, assigned to attack the Belgian forts at Liege, carried six- and eight-inch artillery shells for the purpose, with blankets tied to them to make them drop nose-first. The crew dropped their load over Liege, but the weight of the shells kept the craft very low and she struggled to gain altitude while Belgian infantrymen poured thousands of bullets through her gasbag.

Z-VI didn’t explode, as the Belgians had no incendiary bullets (these would not appear until 1916). But her hydrogen gas steadily leaked out of the countless holes, and she steadily dropped lower and lower as she labored back towards German territory. The wreck finally came to earth in a forest near Bonn.

Meanwhile, Z-VII and Z-VIII set out to find the French armies retreating through Alsace. Z-VII dropped several blanket-trailing artillery shells on a French encampment, then became masked in a thick cloud. When it parted, she was less than 800 meters over a French infantry regiment marching down a road. The French riddled her with bullets, just as the Belgians had done to her sister, and the airship staggered off before settling to the ground near St. Quentin, also a total wreck.

The Germans hit the trifecta when Z-VIII encountered a battalion of her own side, which shot up the gasbag and hit her with at least one artillery shell. The captain decided to press on, which was a serious mistake as she continually leaked gas and lost altitude. When they did encounter the French, the airship could not get more than a few hundred feet off the ground and once again became subject to a torrent of rifle fire. She limped away, pursued by French cavalry, and when she crashed the crew leaped out and engaged the French in a brief firefight. They scattered into a nearby forest and eventually were collected by scouts of their own side

Lt. Grameling (right) and one of the pieces that brought down LZ77.

Despite the losses, the Army ordered new, larger airships from the Zeppelin Works. The Navy emphasized height with its newer designs, to avoid enemy fighters by flying above their operational ceiling. The Army went for heavy defensive armament; the new “P” type of army airship carried eight machine guns (against one or two on a Navy ship). Three were mounted on a platform on top of the airship, one in the nose, and two each in the engine cars.

Fall Gericht, the German attack on Verdun, demanded full application of all available resources and all four operational airships on the Western Front were ordered to participate. On the opening day of the attack, three of the new-model airships (LZ77, LZ88 and LZ95) and one older Schutte-Lanz model (SL2) attempted to bomb French positions. Two more ships would follow up a few days later.

The new-model airships had made several successful raids on Paris in preceding weeks, and the crews proceeded to the French fortress city with great confidence. “Until then the risks had not been so great,” wrote Ernst Lehmann, commander of Army airship LZ90, one of the second-wave craft. “Even against the very violent and accurate fire of the artillery the chance of having one's ship blown to pieces or fired by a full hit was remote.”

LZ77 went down with no survivors. An unusual French magazine photo; as in a later war most censors forbade showing the dead lest the public lose its enthusiasm for slaughter.

But the French had different ideas. In the village of Sainte Menehoulde, Lt. Grameling commanded an anti-aircraft battery dedicated to defending against airship attack. He had a pair of motorized 75mm guns, truck-mounted searchlights, and most importantly of all, for the first time in the war the French deployed incendiary shells. At about 8:30 p.m., his spotters found the zeppelins drifting serenely past on their way to hit a railway junction.

“We saw in the sky a dark cylinder with its ends rounded like those of a cigar,” wrote Capt. Charles Delvert of the French 101st Infantry Regiment. “A zeppelin! It seems very high. It must be 2,000 meters up. . . . The airship glitters like a shining, golden fish. Five searchlights grab it and won’t let go.”

Capt. Alfred Horn turned his LZ77 and tried to escape back toward the German lines. But the sixth shot from Grameling’s battery hit amidships. Burning fiercely, the ship slowly circled downward over the village of Revigny, while the crew madly jettisoned their bomb load. One of the machine gunners fell from the top platform and died on the ground; the bodies of the other 13 crewmen were incinerated in the wreck.

As at Verdun, most zeppelin attacks came at night. The French were ready.

“Imagine then the complete surprise awaiting us when we made our initial sally against the French during the first siege of Verdun,” wrote Lehmann, who would meet his own fiery death aboard Hindenburg 21 years later. “Only a few days before — while we were still busy getting our new engines into shape — the LZ77 had been shot down a blazing, twisted wreck. She had attacked a railway junction close to our objective, which was Bar-le-Duc southwest of Verdun. We had not attached any especial significance to the accident. The surface artillery always has an excellent chance to hit an airship while it is attacking a single objective such as a railway yard because the target is so small and the range, therefore, is easily secured.”

Later the same night, Grameling’s battery claimed a second zeppelin, shooting down LZ95 on her way back from bombing the railway junction. Shaken by the twin disasters, the Army command never again assigned airships to tactical air support. On 1 August 1917 the Army finally dissolved its airship service, transferring the modern craft to the Navy, scrapping the older ships, and sending some crews to the Navy and others for re-training to man the new bombers being sent against England.

Picking through the remains of LZ77’s control car.

The zeppelin attack does not appear in our game of the Battle of Verdun, They Shall Not Pass — the designer felt it didn’t deserve to be included because it was of excessively minimal impact. That’s a proper decision, but we’re not limited by such concerns for Daily Content.

The German zeppelin is available during the Bombardment Phase. Place its counter on any French-occupied hex on the map during Good Weather turns (only). It may make both barrage and interdiction attacks; when attempting interdiction, it is successful on a die roll result of 1. Before the zeppelin attack is resolved, the French player rolls two dice for every combat factor of artillery units in or adjacent to the target hex, one die for every combat factor of other units in or adjacent to the target hex or of artillery units two hexes away from the target hex. On any result of 6, the zeppelin is destroyed.

You can download the zeppelin counter here.

And click here to order They Shall Not Pass!