What bombers were there in World War I?

Bomber is a military aircraft that carries a variety of weapons and attacks ground, water or underwater targets with bombs as the main weapon. It is an important means for the air force to destroy the enemy's effective strength, destroy the enemy's technical weapons and other targets, and also destroy the enemy's war strength and fighting will. Most of the early bombers were refitted from reconnaissance planes or other planes, which were extremely simple in structure and could only carry a very small amount of bombs. It was only when the pilots threw with their bare hands that the later developed professional bombers designed special weapon cabins and bomb racks, which greatly increased the quantity and quality of the weapons they carried and made continuous progress in technology. Bombers began to be widely used and developed rapidly in World War I, but there were precedents for bombing various targets.

In the Italian-Turkish war of 19 1 1, Italy sent nine planes to participate in the war. 1 65438+1October1day, a pilot named Gavotti put four "Sippelli" grenades in the cockpit of the plane in advance. He is flying a single-wing "pigeon" reconnaissance plane. When the plane flew over the Turkish position for investigation, Gavotti threw four shells with his bare hands, which caused great panic in the Turkish army. The earliest attempt to bomb the ground in the world showed the foresight of the Italians in the bombing operation. It must be said that Italians are the main constructors of modern bombing tactics, especially strategic bombing tactics. Du Hei's "air superiority" and Italian terrorist bombing experiments in Ethiopia and Spain have taught air forces all over the world how to defeat a country from the air.

19 12 At the beginning of this year, France sent six planes to participate in the colonial war against Morocco. These planes are mainly used for aerial reconnaissance. At the same time, they also threw grenades and RS bombs at Moroccan soldiers without any air defense force, bombed them and strafed them with machine guns. This also shows that one of the main tasks of future bombers must be to support front-line bombing.

19 12 to 19 13 During the Balkan War, the warring parties learned Italian and French, bought planes, hired pilots, set up their own flying teams, and investigated and bombed enemy positions. About 40 planes took part in the war. At the same time, the United States, Britain, Germany and other countries have also begun bombing experiments to explore the law of dropping bombs on the ground.

Although these early bombing activities were small in scale and had extremely limited operational effects, they were, after all, an attempt at a new form of war, which attracted the attention of the French, Italian, Russian and German military forces and began to manufacture planes and other planes specially used for bombing operations. The aircraft models developed successively include Italian caproni, French Wazan and Russian Ilya Muromets. Because of the secret weapon Led Zeppelin, the Germans didn't make or build planes for bombing operations. Only the rigid British gentleman, known as the "fortress of the Straits", dismissed this, so by the time of the outbreak of World War I, there were only 26 9-kilogram bombs in the whole British Isles, and no aircraft was specially developed for bombing operations.

After the outbreak of World War I, early planes and airships dedicated to bombing operations began to be put into use. At the beginning of the war, the German Air Force was equipped with 1 1 airships (not all Led Zeppelin, German airships belong to naval airships and army airships. Only the navy airship is equipped with some new Led Zeppelin, while the army's main equipment model is Shute-Luntz airship) and 232 aircraft (none of which is a bomber). All bombing missions in Germany were undertaken by airships two years before the war. 1965438+August 5, 2004, German airship Z-6 (German airship numbers are complicated and abnormal, with L/LZ/SL/Z respectively, where Z stands for Zeppelin, L is the initials of the airship, S is the initials of Schutter-Luntz, and LZ is the internal number of Zeppelin, but the Germans tend to use Z or the company number LZ directly. Generally speaking, after 19 16, the navy's L and the army's LZ are all Zeppelin series airships, and the airships after L-30 are all Zeppelin new airships with a bomb load of nearly 2 tons. ) Fort Liege in Belgium was investigated and bombed for the first time. Later, the two fronts approached Paris, and the Germans bombed Paris many times with airships, causing many casualties. September 2, I wonder if it has something to do with this. The French government moved the F government to Bordeaux. Compared with the terrorist bombing of British cities, the Led Zeppelin attack targeted by the comparative method is not famous, but the existence of Led Zeppelin exposes the dead hole of Liege fortress-the lack of defense ability against air strikes. In World War II, the Germans once again solved the Liege fortress through air strikes. I wonder if the Kirov airship in the game Red Alert 2 is also a nostalgia for aligning the Beling airship many years later.

19 15 the front line is relatively stable (there is also a huge role of aircraft, and the victory of the Marne River operation is largely due to the victory of British and French aerial reconnaissance). In order to prevent the British Air Force from being transferred to France, German airships began to fly to Britain for bombing. With the development of the war, the weaknesses of airship, such as large size, slow movement and vulnerability to weather, are exposed one by one, and fighters participate in interception, which makes the bombing task of airship more and more difficult to perform and the loss is increasing day by day. According to statistics, by 19 17, only 9 of the 89 airships equipped by the German army were left, of which 80 were shot down by enemy fighters or destroyed by storms. Interestingly, the first airship LZ-9 lost by Germany was destroyed by the British "pill" biplane in the bombing operation, and this attack will be described in detail later.

The "Zeppelin Disaster" eventually became a catastrophe in Britain and Germany. Since then, the Germans have also begun to develop their own special long-range bombers to replace the increasingly lost airships. Germany's first professional bomber was the "Gotha" GII aircraft. After many modifications and flight tests, it was successfully tested in March 19 16 and put into use in the Balkan battlefield in the autumn of that year. The following year, Gotha GV came out to equip the troops. On May 25th, the German army began to form a large formation of 10 to 20 Gotha gv with the third bomber company, and began to bomb southeast cities and ports such as London, England, with great operational effect. Through intermittent but year-long bombing, Britain suffered huge losses, especially a large number of casualties, cities suffered great damage and industrial production was greatly reduced. The British call it the "Gotha" disaster. 19 18, another four-engine heavy bomber named Kibelin Schentariv came out. The aircraft has a bomb load of 2,000 kilograms, four times that of Gotha GV, and participated in the bombing of Britain and France at the end of the war.

During World War I, the British army suffered many disasters in the air, such as Fokker disaster, Kipling disaster, Gotha disaster, bloody week and so on. Especially the air raid on the British Isles made the Anglo-Saxons who had not been slaughtered by the enemy since the Norman Conquest feel the long-lost terror. However, the British are psychologically prepared and have trained the most tenacious and courageous citizens. This tenacity and courage gave the British great courage to dance with helmets under XTL bombs in World War II. It was the German attack on British cities in World War I that inspired keen Italians, and Du Hei's theory of terrorist explosion eventually caused great harm to peaceful citizens of all countries in World War II. Let's talk about another anecdote. Gotha, named after the bomber, is a principality family of the German Empire, claiming to be an "export expert" of the European royal family. Tracing back to the source, the British royal family at that time could also be regarded as a "Gotha family", which forced the British royal family to "forget their ancestors" and draw a clear line.

In the late World War I, Germany also developed two kinds of small bombers, the earliest ground support attack aircraft, to fight against battlefield positions. One is CL-3 developed by Hanover Aircraft Company/KOOC-0/9/KOOC-0/7, and the other is CL-/KOOC-0/8. They are all equipped with assembled machine guns, can carry cluster grenades or throw small bombs by hand, and can fly at low altitude to attack artillery positions and suppress infantry operations. These two kinds of aircraft have a single wing with open arms, and the wings are relatively thick. At that time, there were few corrugated metal skins, and the cockpit was protected by armor of about 5 mm. It was the earliest all-metal practical aircraft in the world.

It must be said that the deviation of the development of the German Air Force in World War II is not only from the fatuity of Goering and other high-level officials. As an ace pilot and excellent joint commander in World War I, Goering's idea of bomber troops is based on facts. We can find that German bombers in World War I tend to be light and support the ground. The performance of "Gotha" GV in carrying out terrorist bombing with low bomb load also gives the Germans the confidence to use tactical bombers to carry out strategic bombing missions.

At the beginning of World War I, Britain sent an expeditionary force to France. As mentioned earlier, the British gentleman's disdain for bombing made his family search the house without a bomber. However, the British are very good at learning war in war, and the Germans taught the British bombing operations with airships. In order to attack German airships, the British army sent reconnaissance planes carrying a small amount of bombs to raid German airships and airships, and achieved good results. 1965438+On September 22nd, 2004, four planes of British naval air force bombed the airship hangars in Cologne and Dü sseldorf, Germany, and one of them hit the target accurately. Why did you say it was broken? Because the British flew too low, the bomb fuse did not explode because of insufficient kinetic energy. On June 6th of the same year, 10, two Sopwise "pill" biplanes flew to Dü sseldorf again, dropping several 9 kg bombs. This time, the British finally won the prize. An LZ-9 airship and its hangar exploded, with 28,320 cubic meters of hydrogen. 165438+1October 2 1 day, three "Africa" 504s attacked the Friedrich port airship factory on the German-Swiss border, dropping four bombs each, which was considered as the loss of the factory. This operation has a journey of more than 400 kilometers and is considered as a long-range air strike in history. Later, due to the continuous strengthening of German air defense firepower, the British army stopped bombing Germany. Later, in order to cope with the air strikes by German airships on the British mainland, Britain resumed air strikes against German airships while strengthening its air force. 1965438+On June 7th, 2005, two "Sorni AI" monoplanes bombed and destroyed LZ-37 and LZ-38 airships and their hangars. In the war against Germany, the British army changed the attitude of dismissing bombers in the past and began to pay attention to the development of bombers.

The first professional bomber developed in Britain was Handley Peggy 0/ 100, also known as the initial bomber. 19111After it was put into use in 10, the first action was that several 0/ 100 bombers set off from the ambush base in Nancy, France, and went deep into Germany. 19 17 Britain formed a 4 1 bomber wing, mainly equipped with 0/ 100 bombers. It has repeatedly attacked Frankfurt, koblenz, Cologne, Stuttgart and other German cities and armies for too long. 1965438+In June 2008, the British Strategic Air Force was established, mainly equipped with 0/400 (medium-range) bombers improved on the basis of 0/ 100. In the months before the end of World War I, it bombed some military warehouses, transportation hubs and important cities in Germany, dropping more than 500 tons of bombs. The practice of the war made the British people further realize the important role of bombers, which not only caused huge material losses to Germany, but also hit its arrogance and accelerated the process of the failure of the Second Reich. Towards the end of the war, Handley Page Company developed the V/ 1500 four-engine heavy bomber. To this end, 19 18 In September, the British Air Force formed a new bomber wing, namely the 27th wing, but in fact, the war ended before it was used. Compared with 0/400, V/ 1500 mainly improved the wingspan, almost doubled the total weight, and the bomb load flew from 8 13 kg to 3402 kg. However, the impression is that Americans have hung 4 tons or 5 tons of bombs. Although the engine of V/ 1500 has four seats, it does adopt the mode of two engines in parallel, which is considered as the predecessor of the parallel four-engine He- 177 in World War II.

However, Handley Page V/ 1500 has not been idle all his life. By the way, the United States Air Force. Unlike the aviation trend that led the world in the 1930s, Americans were purely primary school students in the sky during World War I, just like the famous "Lafayette" squadron. The founders of the US Air Force flew to the French battlefield to practice their hands with the Germans on bought British and French planes, and the bombers were also bought by Handley Page. However, the innovative spirit of Americans is not idle. When they were still content to throw two or three hundred kilograms of bombs in Europe, Americans were thinking about that big guy. After World War I, the United States used V/ 1500 to conduct a bomb experiment weighing about 4,000 pounds. The huge crater was called "the giant's paw print". Mitchell, also from the United States, and Handley Paige conducted the famous horizontal bombing anti-ship experiment together. Sinked a German warship with a 2000-pound bomb.

There are two kinds of light bombers that Britain put into use in World War I, namely "1 1/2 Pillar" of Sofus Company and DH.4 of De haviland Company. The former is a reconnaissance plane that became a monk halfway, and adopts a single engine and two seats design. 19 100 kg began to be put into use. The latter is the development type of the former. 19 17 entered the war in the middle, and it can carry 227 kilograms of bombs, with a speed of 230 kilometers per hour and a ceiling of 6,700 meters. It was the fastest light bomber at that time. It not only participated in the low-altitude attack on German positions to suppress the other ground troops, but also participated in the bombing of German mainland. DH.4 has achieved a high survival rate with its high speed, which gives the air forces of various countries the impression that the ground attack aircraft only needs high speed and does not need heavy armor. As a result, all the high-speed attack planes suffered huge losses in World War II.

Not as bad as the British, French bombers were also used to contain Germany's "Kippelin Sky Fleet", but the French were more farsighted and began to study professional bombers before World War I, and the famous "Wazan" type was the product of this foresight. 19 14 On August14, France sent a "Wazan" bomber to bomb the German airship hangar near Metz. It is reported that this was the first time that bombers bombed enemy targets in World War I, and later planes bombed German positions and other military facilities on the east bank of the Rhine. 1965438+On June 13, 2005, the "Wazan" wing began to bomb cities and transportation hubs in Germany and its occupied areas, targeting from Karlsruhe to Munich, an important city in southeastern Germany, which dealt a heavy blow to the Germans. There is a passage here. There seems to be a similar description in the movie "Hero in the Air". The famous "Galeries Lafayette" squadron has a "Wazan" escort mission, but the film uses the style of Handel Page.

French ground forces also received active cooperation and strong support from their own aviation units in the face-to-face battle in Germany. In ground operations, a considerable number of bombers often cooperate to carry out air strikes on enemy positions, barracks, transportation hubs and ferries. Records show that more than 700 planes are dispatched every day and dozens of tons of bombs are dropped. This intensive support strongly supports the military operations of our own ground forces.

The "Wazan" bomber has developed a variety of improvements, the main models are "Wazan" 3/5/8, etc., all of which use single propulsion engines. Other popular French models in the store are Breguet family Br. 14, which only uses pull-in single-engine aircraft. Encouraged by the success of Handley Page, the French developed the "Gaudelon" R. 19 18, and participated in the bombing of Germany in the last stage of the First World War.

As mentioned earlier, the Italians were the pioneers of early bombing. 19 13, the Italian caproni Aeronautical Engineering Company successfully developed the Ca30 bomber with three belts. 19 15 May 10, Italy turned its gun and declared war on its former ally, Austria-Hungary. On August 20th, Italian bomber units used Ca30 to fly over the Alps to bomb Austria-Hungary. At the end of the same year, Italian ar bombed the flight detachment, and then attacked enemy ports along the Adriatic Sea. 1965438+February 2006 18 AR unit bombed Ljubljana, and then attacked the headquarters of the Austrian army behind the position of the Austro-Hungarian Empire; 19 17 August to 10 June, a series of air strikes were carried out on the Bola naval base of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (it was under the impression that it was ceded to Italy after World War I, and Italy named a cruiser after it). On the day of June alone, 148 caproni and 165438 were dispatched. 19181kloc-0/On October 22nd, 56 caproni, 1 1 airship and 13 1 other aircraft carried out a naval base imported at the end of World War I. Incidentally, the Italian airship used to attack ground targets should be the so-called world's largest semi-rigid airship-Franny airship, with Insota Franny V5 engine. It is equipped with another single-engine M airship, and I have only done limited reconnaissance in Trentino. After the success of Ca30, caproni Company developed Ca32/40/46 bombers, thus forming a series of bombers with a total output of about 700. Caproni series bombers all adopted the layout form of multi-engines, two or three layers of memory, double tail beams and multiple vertical tails, especially the Italians adopted the rare front three-point landing gear at that time. Of course, this is not to lead the trend, but to consider the layout of the body's center of gravity. All models of caproni have similar performance. Generally speaking, it can carry 453 ~1450kg bombs, with a range of 500 ~ 800km and a flying speed of116 ~152km per hour. During World War I, caproni wrote many articles to participate in long-range bombing operations. France and the United States also produced a small number of imitations of this series after the war, which shows that the level of Italian bombers was ahead of the world during this period.

During World War I, the Russian aviation industry was relatively backward, only a little more advanced than the United States. It was not until the 1960s and 1970s that Russian/Soviet aviation technology became the second in the world after the United States. The large aircraft used by Russia in World War I were purchased from France or designed and produced by introducing French technology, but Aeroflot took the lead in one field in the world, that is, the design of large bombers. Later, Sicorschi, who lived in the United States, designed four large bombers for Russia-"Ilya Muromets". With the support of Tsar Nicholas II and the War Department, Russia produced and equipped four "Ilya Muromets" in 19 14, and established the world's earliest heavy bomber force "Spacecraft Brigade" in 12 and 10. 19 15 1, the "Spacecraft Brigade" entered the Jabulan airport about 40 kilometers away from the front line, and then began to investigate and bomb German fortifications, railways and arsenals. By 19 17, Russia had withdrawn from the war because of the October Revolution, and "Ilya Muromets" had dispatched 422 sorties and dropped more than 2,000 bombs. This model was shot down in the war because of its low speed and the need for fighter escort. "Ilya Muromets" is a "Russian warrior" developed from Sifa. Equipped with four water-cooled engines, 150 horsepower, wingspan of 29.8 meters, maximum speed of 12 1 km/h, weapons and equipment of 3~5 machine guns, capable of carrying 522 kilograms of bombs. 19 17 There was an improved "Ilya Muromets" E, which not only increased its wingspan to 38 meters, but also equipped with a more powerful engine, and its flying speed dropped to 105 km/h, with a bomb load of 800 kg and a battery life of 5 hours. "Ilya Muromets" has built about 70 planes, which is the only Russian bomber model in World War I ... It always feels that the Russians didn't figure out how to design a large plane before Figure -4, and the Russian mainframe seems to be just a simple amplification of a medium-sized machine. Of course, the aerodynamic shape can be referenced, but the backwardness of internal structure leads to the low bomb load and survivability of Russian-made main engines, which is also caused by Russia's backward aviation technology level.