Conway Maritime Press - Warship 44

ABovE: This ungainly craft is C-23A, one
ofthe valuable and effective Coastal
class, which bore the brunt of.the 1917 U-
boat offensive. The envelope is the highly
successful tri-lobed Astra-Torres design;
the car is constructed from the forward
sections of two Ar.ro 5O4 fuselages. A
chain of radio-direction finding stations
was built to supportthe Coastals by
supplying accurate positions to their U-
boat reports. Coastals tested light
automatic cannon on a platform atop the
envelope, and torpedoes set to run a
shallow spiral course for use against U-
boats at periscope depth. They were
towed by and refueled from Grand Fleet
cruisers, picking up reliefcrews by
bo'sun's chair. T\vo wer€ lost to German
seaplane fighters, operating off the
Dutch coast. A uthor's collection
RIGHT: Mathy's last command, the L-31,
passes over the Ostfrieslnnd. at the start
of a scouting flight. Note streamlining,
multiple engine cars and barely visible
dorsal gun platform above the control
car. This super-Z,eppelin design sawthe
greatest production of any rigid airship,
with 39 German examples of various
mods, and three foreign copies (including
the British R-34 which crossed the
Atlantic in 1919 with 31 men and the
American ZR-l, the first rigid
inflated with helium). These ships carried
on an extensive bornbing campaign over
Britain; bombed subs; spotted mines; and
supported the High Seas Fleet with
distant strategic reconnaissance, tactical
196
scouting, and close-in screening. They
proved remarkably resistant to aircraft
bombs and machine guns and even direct
hits from high-angle artillery. Afterthe
introduction of Brock-Pomeroy-
Buckingham incendiary bullets in 1916,
however, they suffered disastrous losses
to British plane s. (Author's colleetion\
But top speeds still remain below 100
knots, and only a halfdozen super-rigids
of the 1930s such as Hind.enburg, Macon
and R-100 exceeded the largest of the
wartime ships. What makes later airships
different from those of World
War I is less their characteristics as
vehicles than what they carried. The
Macon, for example, incorporated a
hangar and five airplanes, and the ZPG-
3W carried a huge internal AEW radar.
ASW blimps of World War I carried
dipping hydrophones which were no
more effective than the ASW listering