LZ 16

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LZ 16 in Lunéville
LZ 16 in Lunéville

The Zeppelin LZ 16 was Count Zeppelin's sixteenth airship and the sixth airship of the German army .

history

LZ 16 made its first voyage on March 14, 1913. On April 3, 1913, LZ 16, which was given the Army Identification Z IV, started with a military inspection commission on board for the transfer from Friedrichshafen to Baden-Oos . Soon the zeppelin got into thick fog and the airship was pushed far to the west by strong east winds. Finally, LZ 16 was over France and landed on the parade ground of Lunéville . The military airship was detained there under pretexts for a day before it was given permission to take off on April 4 at noon and finally landed in Baden-Oos at 4:30 p.m.

At the beginning of the First World War in August 1914, Z IV was stationed in Koenigsberg and carried out reconnaissance trips on the Eastern Front against the Russian armed forces in August and September . Z IV was armed with machine guns to repel enemy aircraft and carried small bombs that were dropped by hand. On the night of September 24th to 25th, 1914, the airship launched a bombing raid on Warsaw , where Z IV was badly hit by enemy fire at the stern, but escaped enemy fire by ascending to an altitude of 2,800 meters. In a second bomb attack, which was carried out on the German, but Russian-occupied city of Lyck , despite 300 hits in the ship, Z IV managed to return to its own base in Allenstein .

In the course of time there were broken skeletons in the Zeppelin, so that Z IV was withdrawn from service at the front and, from February 24, 1915, was only used as a training ship.

End of LZ 16 / Z IV

The worn and outdated airship was broken up in Jüterbog in autumn 1916 .

Technical specifications

  • Carrying gas volume: 22,500 m³ hydrogen
  • Length: 158.0 m
  • Diameter: 14.90 m
  • Payload: 9.5 t
  • Drive: three Maybach engines, each with 165 hp (121 kW)
  • Speed: 21.2 m / s (76.3 km / h)

See also

literature

  • Peter Meyer: Airships - The History of the German Zeppelins , Wehr & Wissen, Koblenz / Bonn 1980.