ZEPPELIN AIRSHIP AT COLOGNE,
showing at the rear large vertical rudder, and two pairs of vertical rudders for horizontal steering, the horizontal planes at the sides for vertical steering, two of the four propellers at side of airship, car beneath airship.
CHAPTER IV
THE GERMAN AIRSHIP FLEET
Many reports have been current concerning the exact dimensions of the airship fleet that Germany can put into action. It has been said that she has been extremely active since the beginning of the present war in adding fresh units to the forces she had available when the war broke out. It has also been rumoured that she is making a new type of Zeppelin—one much smaller, and which will have greater speed than the larger type.
German Airships in the Spring of 1913.
| Type. | Volume m. | Motive power. | |||
| No. | Type. | h.p. per Motor. | Max. Speed. m/s | ||
| Zeppelin | 17,700 | 3 | Maybach | 150 | 21 |
| Zeppelin | 18,700 | 3 | — | 150 | 21.1 |
| Zeppelin | 18,700 | 3 | — | 150 | 22 |
| Zeppelin | 18,700 | 3 | — | 150 | 22 |
| Zeppelin | 22,000 | 3 | — | 150 | — |
| Zeppelin | 20,000 | 3 | — | 170 | — |
| Zeppelin | 18,700 | 3 | — | 170 | — |
| Zeppelin | — | — | — | — | — |
| Parsifal | 4,000 | 1 | Daimler | 85 | 14 |
| Parsifal | 7,500 | 2 | N.A.G. | 110 | 15 |
| Parsifal | 8,000 | 2 | Maybach | 180 | 18.8 |
| Parsifal | 10,000 | 2 | Koerting | 200 | 18.5 |
| Parsifal | 8,000 | 2 | N.A.G. | 110 | 16 |
| Parsifal | 10,000 | 4 | Maybach | 180 | — |
| Siemens-Schückert | 15,000 | 4 | Daimler | 125 | 19.8 |
| Schutte-Lanz | 19,500 | 2 | Daimler | 270 | 20 |
| (1) Gross-Basenach | 5,200 | 2 | Koerting | 75 | 12.5 |
| (2) — | 5,200 | — | — | 75 | 12.5 |
(1) and (2) as in 1911; since then they have been renovated, and no doubt their speed and volume are much greater.
We must accept with some reserve the reports that are current in this respect, and it may be pointed out that in accounts of the doings of Zeppelin airships in the papers it can be reasonably doubted whether all the Zeppelins mentioned are in reality Zeppelins. Probably some are the smaller types, such as the Gross or Parsifal. The word Zeppelin seems to have become synonymous with a German airship, and the wounded soldiers or prisoners who are responsible for many of the stories told would not be likely to have complete knowledge of the distinctions between classes of airships.
Though what Germany is exactly doing in way of new manufacture must remain in much fog, still we can form some opinion as to her preparedness with aircraft on the lighter-than-air principle from our knowledge of what she possessed last year.
The table on the opposite page will show that her fleet of airships, including those under construction, was then by no means negligible.