That entirely depends on ship type. From something the size of personal Yacht to something the size of Hindenburgh and other large zepplin craft. Those are just for rough scale comparisons. It will really depend on the generators and engine types they can get into the hull.
Who watches the watchmen?So, does WW 1 end the same way? Or do these ships change history?
"Den Sozialismus in seinem Lauf hält weder Ochs noch Esel auf" - Erich HoneckerImagine a vessel carrying an array of artillery that can rise above any ground side physical obstacle. It provides a stable firing platform and is more then a match for a wet water vessel. It can cross mountains and more easily doge storms then a wet water ship.
Imagine the fire support possibilities the siege possibilities. Hell recon alone will be incredible.
Who watches the watchmen?Not impossible but it made that no man's land gap much much larger. Infantry rushes through the open terrain were suicide. It would make mobile warfare a must. Less war of attrition and a more rapid move towards Maneuver warfare. All sides involved will have war ships and have begun work on weapons mounts for artillery to sling shells up at the ships.
Plus they will start equipping planes with anti airship weapons.
edited 9th Aug '10 12:58:48 AM by TuefelHundenIV
Who watches the watchmen?As torpedoes usually require water to work right, I don't see them happening, unless the airship is laying low above the water and pops out some torpedoes to kill a pesky surface ship. The US removed torpedoes from surface combatants above the size of destroyer, as the things have a nasty habit of mass-detonating when hit by errant shell fire and you can kiss your warship goodbye.
Depending on how fast these ships can change elevation (I'm assuming it's far esier to descend than it is to ascend - just switch the drives off!) I would think vertical axis movement would muck up the ability to assure follow-on hits. You see the guy begin to fire his shots, aiming for where you're at, you kill your ability to hold that altitude, and you plunge. Less rounds hit you. Turn the drives back on to halt your nausea-inducing descent, and by the time the gunners on the enemy ship catch on to the fact you just plummeted two thousand meters (six thousand feet), you're no longer falling, and their shots continue to miss. And you probably have to clean up some vomit, too. Add some horizontal movement to that, and you'll have lots of shots fired, with few hitting anything but air (and the ground).
The ability for ships to set down in water would be nice for managing a transoceanic voyage, that or you'll have mid-air refueling or something (although waterproofing the ventral part of the ship would present additional challenges and might not be worth the effort). Perhaps you would have rendezvous at certain points on a trasnoceanic trip, in which the airships link up with surface coliers (are these airships powered by coal-fired boilers in the beginning, just like they were in WWI?) running coal from coal-producing areas.
If they're running coal-fired boilers and relying on steam expansion engines to spin a generator, they'll have to secure a source of water for the boilers, too. They would be sucking water from any available body of water they can find. Make a good chance to ambush one, while grabbing more water and coal. You know that it's coal bunkers are low and that it could be stuck to a colier, so you can swoop in with your airships or airplanes and hit it while it's vulnerable. Attacking known refueling points would hurt the enemy also, as the ships can't stay aloft forever - they could run out of fuel and be forced to land safely or simply crash.
You could detail out a story about a cat and mouse game between two opposing airships, one running from the other, as it tries to make it back to safety before running out of boiler water, coal or something, and the struggle to avoid detection - using terrain as cover and concealment (low altitude) or clouds, cover of darkness for a high-speed sprint, or whatever.
Plus, coal-fired ships lay down smoke. You might seee a black smudge in the sky before you even see the ship. Ships did their best to reduce their smoke signature, though, but compared to modern ships, they were belching smoke.
That would urge on the adoption of fuel-oil fired boilers, closed-cycle steam plants and all other typical adavances in ships propulsiona dn powerplant technology that the surface shisp enjoyed over the decades. Or not - perhaps certain technologies proved to be too hard to adapt. Like, nuclear - no ready source of coolant water available, unless they don't mind slugging around water all over the place, but htat cuts down on mass and space they would want for other things, like armor, guns, toilet paper and food.
edited 9th Aug '10 4:04:18 PM by pvtnum11
Happiness is zero-gee with a sinus cold.Ah, yes. Plunging fire weapons, all the better to rain incendiaries to screw up the top of the ship and the exposed equipment, or cluster munitions, to screw up the deck crews, or armor-piercing rounds to screw up the innards of the ship itself.
Determining range would be much more important. The vertical component wouldn't matter so much, but the horizontal would. Contrast that with a direct-fire weapons, whereas the horizontal (distnce wise, not traverse) component would matter less than the vertical.
I can see gunners needing some menas of determinging not only range, but the altitude of the target. Some sort of analog computer thing that you input yoru own altitude, get a bearing on the target and input the apparent range to target, and an indicator spits out a derived altitude, based off of those input dials.
The gunners will need Directors, Gun Data Computers, Range Finders and Height Finders, all wrapped up into one whiz-bang gunnery computer so the chief gunnery officer can properly direct the gun crews to hit their targets.
Question: Will the WWI doctrines of Great Britain and Germany show on their airships as well? German ships had short legs, but had better armor and guns, usually. If something broke on the ship, they went back to port and had it fixed. British ships were suited for longer at-sea times. Will you feature a Bettle of Jutland type of scenario?
edited 9th Aug '10 5:03:25 PM by pvtnum11
Happiness is zero-gee with a sinus cold.When I mention Aerial Torpedoes I am referring to a variety of rockets heavy and light. For Air ship to surface ship torpedo runs it would have to be airplanes. Even a small air ship dipping down to release waterborne torpedoes would put them nicely in the target ships engagement envelope. Some Airships will have a bomb bay but not many.
With the generator the tactic of just switching off then back on is the problem of the alloy maintaining its effect from anywhere to a few seconds to a few minutes after power loss before it fully loses any charge (dependent on Engine type, design etc.) It also takes time to warm the engines back up. that tactic would Also mess up your own gunnery.
I haven't quite decided what level of tech the actual generators and their mechanical sources should be. I have been toying around with the idea of making the generators not use too much charge and the generators be Kerosene or other fuel powered. Coal and water might be interesting but would severely limit the range and usefulness of the airship. I would think they would quickly find a fuel substitute.
I have to work the kinks out of that part still.
Indeed a large bore mortar round or plunging fire would be bad thing to be caught under.
Who watches the watchmen?...which leads to your earlier post about mountain-top bases, so they have good fields of view to see incoming airships, and a laden airship coudl easily carry the supplies up there without problem, making such base construction viable, and stockpiling supplies up on top of a mountain woudl be as easy as dispatching a cargo-laden airship. I'm thinking the Maginot line only more so, a network of supportive bases, bunkers and observation platforms dug into the sides and peaks of a mountain ridge.
Airships will definitely change how warfare is carried out, that's for sure. This gets my seal of approval for Fun Thread.
There are other ways of spotting artillery fire - special cartridges that poof into little smokeballs when they hit stuff. They match the ballistic properties of the main gun they're bolted to. The problem lies in being able to see that while in the middle of combat.
Then RADAR will make most of that rather moot.
Durn ninjas... Is this mystery marvel alloy alid out inside the ship in little grids? Is it possible to lose buoyancy on one side of the ship and list over? I woudl imagine there woud be a way to use the various grids to help counter destabalizing motions caused by wind, cannon fire or the shifting of internal mass, to keep the ship at a nice even trim as much as possible. Ooo, trim parties! All the off-duty pranksters lay aft and cause the trim officer to have to compensate for a slightly heavy stern, then they run forward and repeat the process - during High Admiral Krupp's visit and tea with the ships Captain. More of an issue with a smaller ship, I'd imagine.
edited 9th Aug '10 6:23:08 PM by pvtnum11
Happiness is zero-gee with a sinus cold.The less capable anti-air weaponry would probably be on raised platforms so that their effective altitude is more or less extended - won't those airships get a nasty surprise when they find that they suddenly can't get to safety by climbing?
The more capable stuff would be concealed until the last moment to prevent them from being attacked, and also to up the shock factor.
Locking you up on radar since '09Big freaking guns buried into the mountain for the additional protection afforded by all the rock. But I like the idea of semi-mobile artillery platforms, too. Monitors that are more or less rooted to the bunker, but can float up for additional range and altitude.
Happiness is zero-gee with a sinus cold.Yes. A turn of the century Monitor, also known as a floating battery. Make an airship equivalent, and bam, you have a... flying artillery battery. Less emphasis on maneuver and even armor, as it shouldn't get into a slugfest with a for-real warship. It would rain death down on anything stupid enough to get within range. You could move it to an area you want to protect with long-ranged artillery, and move it as the front moves. Or leave it parked at your mountain fortress.
We got options, man.
Happiness is zero-gee with a sinus cold.Folks I can not thank you enough for helping me to has this out some more. I may come back later for specific ship design ideas.
Other then the initial vessels I am trying to figure out a submarine Analog.
Here we go
This could make a nice initial weapon system as well.
Found the Perfect Gun
Bingo here we go. Check out the various shell types in the diagram.
edited 12th Aug '10 8:31:01 PM by TuefelHundenIV
Who watches the watchmen?

Ah. Well, that bring up a lot of tactical possibilities. About how big can they get?
Use the metric system. Or I will be unhappy.
"Den Sozialismus in seinem Lauf hält weder Ochs noch Esel auf" - Erich Honecker