Balloons had been used in wars prior to the First World War, notably by the Americans in the civil war and the French during the siege of Paris in 1870. This technology had been advanced by the development of dirigibles - cigar shaped airships with frames, containing many gas balloons. Powered with multiple engines, these craft could be flown in specific directions rather than just follow the direction of the wind.
Germany had two dirigible manufacturers, the Schutte-Lanz Company, and the larger and better known Zeppelin Company. The latter was headed by Ferdinand von Zeppelin, the world's foremost designer of airships. To this day his name remains synonymous with dirigibles in general.
Airships of his design had already proven themselves capable of flying as far as England and back. This fact was not lost on the Allies, who from the very outset targeted the airship sheds. It was also not lost on the British public, where rumours and reported sightings of Zeppelins were frequent, though unfounded, throughout 1914.
At the outbreak of the war the German army had six operational dirigibles, and the navy had one. The army was quick to experiment with them - bombing Liege and Antwerp - despite the fact that at this stage no specially designed aerial bombs existed. But the army's initial experience was not encouraging - they lost three airships in the first months of the war to anti aircraft fire.
Despite this the navy was very enthusiastic. They saw the Zeppelin as a solution to their reconnaissance problems. If the army traditionally used the cavalry for reconnaissance, the navy traditionally used the light cruiser. Germany had very few such ships, and an airship was viewed as being cheaper and less vulnerable.
Under the command of Korvettenkapitan Peter Strasser the navy quickly acquired more airships. Throughout 1914 these were used for reconnaissance patrols over the North Sea, but the German Admiralty was pressing for permission to use them for attacks against England. The Kaiser, somewhat reluctantly, granted such permission and on the 19th of January the Germans carried out the first Zeppelin raid against Britain, killing two and injuring sixteen.
This was the first of many raids, which continued at a rate of about two per month, in parallel with the continuing reconnaissance patrols. The German Admiralty was very enthusiastic about the results, and asked for permission to bomb London. This was only granted by the Kaiser after a series of raids by French bombers on German cities. On the 31st of May 1915 the first raid was carried out against London, killing seven and injuring thirty five.
The most successful Zeppelin raid on London in the entire war was on the 8th of September 1915. This raid caused more than half a million pounds of damage, almost all of it from the one Zeppelin, the L13, which managed to bomb central London. This single raid caused more than half the material damage caused by all the raids against Britain in 1915.
On the night of 6-7 June 1915 Rex Warneford, a lieutenant in the RNAS, flying a Morane-Saulnier, was on a bombing mission against the Zeppelin sheds at Evere. When he spotted a Zeppelin returning from a bombing raid against London he decided to attack it. He tried shooting his carbine at it, his only armament, but he was driven off by the Zeppelin's defensive machine guns.
The airship began climbing, leaving the little plane behind, but Warneford, unbeknown to the Zeppelin crew, continued the pursuit, climbing slowly over two hours to an altitude of 13,000 feet. At this stage the airship began to descend in the direction of Brussels, and seizing his opportunity Warneford, now above the Zeppelin, dived towards it and from about two hundred feet above he dropped his six bombs on its roof.
The resultant explosion destroyed the Zeppelin, and almost destroyed Warneford's fragile monoplane.
He was forced to put the plane down, behind enemy lines, but he managed to make sufficient emergency repairs to take off again and return to his base. LZ 37 was the first Zeppelin brought down by an airplane.
Warneford was awarded the Victoria Cross by the British, and the Knight's Cross of the Legion d'Honneur by the French, but his triumph was short-lived. He was killed ten days later in a flying accident.
This was an isolated incident. Throughout the remainder of 1915 the Zeppelins raided London frequently, and with impunity. They flew too high for most planes, and when they were intercepted by aircraft the ammunition in use at the time had little effect. Despite this impunity the material effect of the raids, with the exception of L13's success, was relatively slight.
Navigation was very primitive, and as the war progressed the British use of blackouts made it even harder. Bomb aiming was far from accurate. It is estimated that only 10% of the bombs dropped from Zeppelins actually hit their target. The psychological impact of these raids, however, was enough to cause the British to tie up 12 squadrons on home defence.
The Germans also bombed Paris. The first raid was on 21st of March, when two Zeppelins caused 23 deaths and injured 30. Although the Zeppelins continued to raid Paris, London was actually a preferred and easier target. The nearest Zeppelin base to Paris was at Metz, which meant flying close to 320 km (200 miles) over French territory each way, giving the defending airforce and anti-aircraft guns much more time to organize.
Raids against London had to cover nearly twice the distance, but most of the approach was over friendly territory and the sea. Paris was also protected by barrage balloons, a measure only taken by the British later in the war.
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The Zeppelin attacks had a profound psychological impact on the Allies. The Germans were ordered, under the treaty of Versailles, to hand over all their airships, but their crews preferred to destroy as many of them as they could.
The need to tie up numerous squadron in home defence can be marked as the Zeppelin's greatest achievement, for as a weapon of war they proved themselves unsatisfactory. Of the 115 Zeppelins employed by the Germans, 53 were destroyed and a further 24 were too damaged to be operational. Strasser's crews suffered a 40% loss rate. The cost of constructing those 115 Zeppelins was approximately five times the cost of the damage they inflicted.
Fonte:
http://www.firstworldwar.com/airwar/bombers_zeppelins.htm
Mais:
http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/great_yarmouth_remember_air_raid_victims_1_1183124
http://docs.google.com/file/d/0BxwrrqPyqsnIeFBlRVlnUmhia0k
