An article about the organization of air defense of tethered balloons during the First World War. The specificity of the protection of balloons is considered.
The tethered balloon, which brilliantly proved in the First World War and the Civil War, its combat significance for both the army and the navy, with all its merits, had one major drawback - vulnerability from enemy attacks from the air.
It was the presence of a highly flammable gas - hydrogen - as a propeller of the balloon that gave it increased vulnerability, which meant that it required the most careful measures to defend it.
The ease of ignition of the hydrogen contained in the envelope, the envelope itself, as well as the large size of the balloon, gave enemy aircraft an excellent opportunity to destroy the balloon, shooting it with conventional and incendiary bullets (cases of dousing with flammable liquid were also recorded). At the beginning of the World War, when the tethered balloons had not yet fully revealed their combat significance, the attempts of enemy pilots to destroy the balloon in the air were accidental and, on the whole, unsuccessful. But since the beginning of 1916, thanks to the progress of aeronautics (significantly improved tactical and technical characteristics of balloons - lift height, stability, speed of bringing into combat position, mobility), the success of aerial reconnaissance from tethered balloons has already made the enemy feel very keen. Accordingly, the enemy organized a systematic hunt for his pilots for balloons, and his pilots tried by all available means to shoot and light balloons - not only in the air, but also on the ground.
Suffice it to say that only in one German army during the war 471 balloons were killed by enemy pilots, 40 of them during 1915-1916, 116 during 1917, and 315 in ten months of 1918.
On the Eastern Front between 1916 and 1917, 57 Russian balloons died from the same cause.
It was the competent organization of the defense of the tethered balloon from enemy air attacks that made it possible to carry out intensive and very productive operation of the balloon in battle.
To protect balloons in different armies and at different times, they used various methods, which were used both by the balloonists themselves and by the military command, which was in charge of the balloon.
To solve the problems of the defense of the balloon, the aeronautical detachment, which he was a member of, was armed with machine guns concentrated on the ground and adapted for firing at air targets. In addition, groups of selected rifle and sniper rifle shooters were concentrated on the approaches to the balloon, destroying enemy aircraft. The observers in the balloon gondola were armed with automatic rifles and light machine guns.
But all these means, of course, were completely inadequate to repel the attacks of enemy pilots. The military command, for its part, had to take increased measures to protect the balloon and ensure its smooth operation, especially during the battle - when the balloon was in charge of organizing the fire of entire groups of batteries, mainly solving counter-battery tasks, which, naturally, had a serious impact on the overall course conducting combat operations. Among these measures for the defense of the balloon were the organization of fighter cover and the concentration of anti-aircraft batteries.
The best means of protecting the balloon was its protection from the side of their fighters. Of course, the allocation of permanent fighters for the defense of a balloon is an expensive means, and with a shortage of fighters, for example, in Russian squadrons, and inaccessible due to both the remoteness of the latter from the aeronautical detachments and their overload with direct combat missions assigned to them. However, in the presence of a detachment of fighters in or near a given combat area, the latter was obliged to perform the task of protecting its own balloons when flying over Russian positions in search of enemy airplanes. This task was especially actively implemented in the French and German armies.
The protection of the balloon with anti-aircraft batteries was much easier to organize and was used regularly, regardless of the presence or absence of fighter cover. For this purpose, the most suitable were, of course, special anti-aircraft guns, but in the absence of them, they were replaced by light field guns mounted on special machines. It was considered sufficient to have 2 - 3 batteries for the defense of the balloon, located 2-3 kilometers from the balloon, and at least one battery had to be on the front side, and another one - from the rear of the balloon. If there were 3 batteries, then they were located in a triangle, in the center of which was a balloon. If it was not possible to specially allocate batteries for the defense of the balloon, then it was ordered to use for this purpose the anti-aircraft batteries already available in the combat area - only changing their positions so that they could serve the balloon. Moreover, in the active sectors of the front in the locations of a group of tethered balloons in one combat area, the allocation of special batteries for their protection was mandatory. In the German army, since the fall of 1916, each aeronautical detachment was armed with two small-caliber cannons (automatic 20 or 37 mm guns).
Of course, it was impossible to achieve complete safety of tethered balloons even with the overwhelming numerical superiority of its fighters and artillery power (there was always the possibility that a group of wandering enemy fighters would stumble upon a balloon), but the presence of an appropriate organization for the protection of balloons by means of military command was still a sufficient guarantee of their survival. The experience of the First World War demonstrated that in those important combat areas where it was possible to apply proper protection of tethered balloons with the help of barrage fire from antiaircraft platoons or batteries, or by fighters, the destruction of balloons by enemy aircraft was accidental.
