Question: Airship alternative history

[Tavior]

I been following HoI 4 for awhile now. I was wondering will Paradox try to model Airship in-game in any form whatever?

I am asking because during siege of London they had some Airship doing bomb run on London and if airplane development had gone a different way after Hindenburg disaster.

Furthermore Britain was using airship as a listening platform. Although I suppose that could been abstracted into state's radar installation.

I understand that airship were not very effective but you never know it might actually work against some minor.

 

[Xoerpond]

Mods

 

[panzerzombie]

Crimson skies, a Boardgame ( later PC game ) had a alternate world of Zeppelins and Warplanes.

Was fun, could be used for a mod.

 

[Produx]

Mods.

 

[Tavior]

Mods.

That was very productive post! /End Sarcasm

 

[Warhammer]

That was very productive post! /End Sarcasm

Well I've honestly not heard or read of any airship raids on London during WW2. Problem is with airships is that they can be easily countered by just one fighter, anything from 1930s easily. Even against a minor, all you need is one intercept and poof, airship down. The cost of making an airship to fighters is disproportionately in favour of fighters. Even Italy just used normal bombers against the Ethiopians who had basicly no air force.

If for example some country actually used hundreds of them offensively in ww2 then yes Paradox should include them but as history shows, they were only used for observation and anti submarine patrols, that's it.

 

[Tavior]

Which is why I said if airplane development went down a very different path. Air warfare would have looked differently. Suppose if the Hindenburg disaster didn't happened? Would we have seen even more zeppelin/airship usage?

Heck even today airship are having a small "resurgence" right now.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/10/tech/airlander-10-biggest-aircraft/

Nevermind other usages for airships such as the project which focus on connecting the World Wide Websites to some of the most remote area that is ongoing.

 

[LordOfWar16]

Which is why I said if airplane development went down a very different path. Air warfare would have looked differently. Suppose if the Hindenburg disaster didn't happened? Would we have seen even more zeppelin/airship usage?

Heck even today airship are having a small "resurgence" right now.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/10/tech/airlander-10-biggest-aircraft/

Nevermind other usages for airships such as the project which focus on connecting the WWW to some of the most remote area that is ongoing.

Germany didnt get any helium from the USA, which resulted in airships being giant explosive targets, to prevent them from weaponizing them. Even later during WW1 zeppelins soon showed that they were obsolete, which is why germany didnt develop them further, regardless of the Hindenburg Disaster, which basicly gave them the rest. Paradox may allow alternate history stuff to happen, but the weapons and vehicles still are being kept realistic. It simply isnt logical in any circumstance that germany could have developed them further as a weapon, unless the USA for whatever reason decided to trade helium to the enemy to make it possible for them.

The reason why zeppelins were so effective during ww1 initially was because there basicly wasnt any anti-air defense and of course no fighters to reach such altitutes in the beginning. As soon as that changed, zeppelins became extremely vurnable and easy targets, which is why germany stopped the attacks after they lost one zeppelin after another to the british.

 

[HamHamJ]

We should totally have these though:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...e0nAn0jMuyVSzvaRQ&sig2=BYkZxulk356vtSJSax9WWw

 

[JRiemer]

Germany didnt get any helium from the USA, which resulted in airships being giant explosive targets, to prevent them from weaponizing them. Even later during WW1 zeppelins soon showed that they were obsolete, which is why germany didnt develop them further, regardless of the Hindenburg Disaster, which basicly gave them the rest. Paradox may allow alternate history stuff to happen, but the weapons and vehicles still are being kept realistic. It simply isnt logical in any circumstance that germany could have developed them further as a weapon, unless the USA for whatever reason decided to trade helium to the enemy to make it possible for them.

The reason why zeppelins were so effective during ww1 initially was because there basicly wasnt any anti-air defense and of course no fighters to reach such altitutes in the beginning. As soon as that changed, zeppelins became extremely vurnable and easy targets, which is why germany stopped the attacks after they lost one zeppelin after another to the british.

All this. Even taking away the threat of fighters for the sake of discussion, the anti-air in WW2 alone would be able to down most airships easily, as bombers' main defense against concentrated flak barrages from German flak positions was changing direction and altitude quickly in order to force the anti-air gunners to adjust their fuses and recalculate their leads.

Zeppelins are big, fat, and slow.

And they're flying above wonderful stuff like this 128mm gun that they put on dual mounts on the flak towers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12.8_cm_FlaK_40, with allied equivelants being just as deadly.

 

[Tavior]

Germany didnt get any helium from the USA, which resulted in airships being giant explosive targets, to prevent them from weaponizing them. Even later during WW1 zeppelins soon showed that they were obsolete, which is why germany didnt develop them further, regardless of the Hindenburg Disaster, which basicly gave them the rest. Paradox may allow alternate history stuff to happen, but the weapons and vehicles still are being kept realistic. It simply isnt logical in any circumstance that germany could have developed them further as a weapon, unless the USA for whatever reason decided to trade helium to the enemy to make it possible for them.

The reason why zeppelins were so effective during ww1 initially was because there basicly wasnt any anti-air defense and of course no fighters to reach such altitutes in the beginning. As soon as that changed, zeppelins became extremely vurnable and easy targets, which is why germany stopped the attacks after they lost one zeppelin after another to the british.

Hindenburg was flying at the time with embargo on Helium already in place. Furthermore it was filled with Hydrogen which didn't quite match design specs. Starting point of fire was the coating not the gas.

Otherwise I do get what you are saying.

The point I am making about an alternative history outcome can be also applied to jet airplane showing up on the scene early as 1940 as more usage of airships.

If I wanted a "realism" WW 2 combat simulator, I would NOT buy Heart of Iron 4 considering the Hungary aggressive WWW play-through. "Hey Germany how about I spam you to death with Infantry doomstack?!" Comes to mind.

 

[Tavior]

Somewhat related a bit.

I liked the "Hindenburg caught leak event" flavor event in the recent French WWW. I think that was a nice touche. Perhaps could have done a little more but that can be done via mods.

 

[Ostheim]

We will have Airships/Zeppelins in WW1 & Interwar mod

Spoiler

 

[Dr. Frog]

which was slightly less flammable

Try burning helium. Good luck. Now try burning hydrogen. It reallllly burns. Hydrogen has more lifting power, but it's extraordinarily flammable.

Which brings me to something I don't think a lot of people realize: airships were effective in WWI up until the introduction of the incendiary bullet. Before then, even if fighters took the time to rise to that altitude, the most they could do was basically poke tiny holes in them (there's a well known story about a British pilot dropping a bomb onto a Zeppelin, but other than that they were pretty safe). AA didn't work very well either, as they flew higher than could be accurately fired at.

Anyway, the Hindenburg Disaster is modeled in game (1937), and indeed, in a recent WWW, we saw that the Hindenburg didn't catch on fire. Regardless, even if airships hadn't largely fallen out of use after the Hindenburg, I doubt they would have been at all popular as weapons platforms during the Second World War, as much as I love them.
I like the alternate history of Crimson Sky, all that being said

 

[Tavior]

Hmm I could swore hydrogen was not as flammable as helium. Oh well no matter. I edited my post.

Even if they did not see much combat action themselves in WW2. There are other ahistorical roles they could fill out. Observation platform, Radar (which did happened in WW2 irl), and other.

 

[blaha]

I'm desperate to represent something like the 1930s USS Macon/Akron flying aircraft carriers. Maybe I'll get into modding eventually, as I keep thinking about it. Seems like I read somewhere that helium airships were surprisingly resistant to leaking from bullet holes. Also seems like even if they're very vulnerable to fighters, such airships could have turned out useful for doing something like submarine patrol in the wide expanses of the Pacific. Airship has great loiter time to spot subs, and torpedo bombers get to start way up high for an attack run. It could have worked if they didn't lose both of the prototypes in storms.

 

[Dalwin]

If you want to mess around with airships without going to some sort of bizzaro world, my suggestion is to stick to WWI mods.

 

[billcorr]

Airships may have a role in a HoI4 game.

Airships were successfully used in WW2 as part of the convoy escort team. Airships also carried out anti-submarine duties, too, in WW2, IIRC.

I believe that Sleight of Hand's mod has airships.

 

[Opanashc]

Air balloons were widely used same was as barbed wire stakes in ww2. They would hold up metal cables to make airplane approach more difficult.

 

[Tempestra]

Air balloons were widely used same was as barbed wire stakes in ww2. They would hold up metal cables to make airplane approach more difficult.

Should there be a "barbed wire stake" unit?