This snippet is from Airships VS Submarines.

By Richard G. Van Treuren

Excerpt from the final chapter of AIRSHIPS Vs. SUBMARINES

(less illustrations)

...Always easier to sell offense over protection, ASW leadership set aside the airship’s physical advantages, and underappreciated its defense of shipping assets. The record of no ship losses – in fact only one long-shot, unsuccessful attack when an escorting airship was seen first – was well earned, if underappreciated. The value of a cargo saved – including troops on ships - is set aside in combat studies. Ironically, the masterful job performed as escorts meant airships were being guided around known U-boats (via intelligence) along with their vessels. Innovative airshipmen seeking to demonstrate their usefulness further reduced the chances of ASW victory by constantly volunteering for additional assignments. An airship searching for a crashed airplane or recovering lucky survivors is appreciated by the lost souls, but is one less airship looking for submarines.

An unsung generation might rest easier if the official history is revised to reflect what is known as a result of this study. However, correcting history is pointless if we fail to learn from it. What lessons can be gleaned from the six or so decades where submarines and airships were adversaries?

- The highly visible airship was the cheapest form of insurance against submarine attack. The sight of an airship through a periscope shut down attacks in two World Wars and will likely do so until the end of time. Failure of leadership to commission these simple, safe and cost effective escorts revealed their ignorance and prejudice. Failure to assign buoyant escort later in the war, when readily available, can only be described as criminal negligence.

-The average ASW system never saw a potential adversary. Less than half the ammunition manufactured was even fired upon suspicion. (see footnote below) The majority of the time no submarine was in the patrol area. But unlike HTA, the ASW airship had additional abilities to rescue downed airplane pilots, drop messages to vessels with silent radios, provide a stable platform for motion pictures, recover practice torpedoes, as well as dozens of other jobs unsuited to airplanes. The taxpayer got more utility for his money, and the effect on morale provided by a rescue airship hovering to collect a helpless victim cannot be calculated.

- It was, is and will forever be physically impossible for the profoundly different heavier-than-air craft to ever be as effective in countering the true underwater vessel as its near-sibling above the surface, the airship. The energy conservation advantage of effortless buoyancy, vs. mechanical energy consumption to defy gravity, should be obvious. When fatal training crash statistics are included LTA looks even better. While HTA lost countless thousands of men and hundreds of airplanes in training and non-combat accidents, LTA’s training was rarely bloody.

- Inexpensive mines, sown carefully, all but starved nations into submission by themselves. When so assigned, the hovering airship repeatedly demonstrated its ability to spot underwater threats and could have been equipped to deal with them alone, without vulnerable surface units. Repeated failure to utilize this uniquely qualified asset (even after kudos from Allies) was and is an example of entrenched bureaucracy at its worst.        

- Competition drives innovation; lack of same leans toward lackluster performance. The American system of procurement, in the darkest hour of the U-boat war, severely failed the taxpayer as it did not exploit competing companies’ new ideas utilizing providence’s gift of helium, let alone abundant hydrogen. Likewise, once there were a few available buoyant platforms the nation’s ASW innovators rarely chose LTA for significant sensor deployment or weapons experimentation that took advantage of the unique asset.

We will be offering snippets of other books in the future. It will change, so be sure to keep checking back!