Zeppelins

Can move 4 but ONLY strategic bomb and only take 1 hit to take down.

Need to know a bit more about how aerial combat works. More interested in having bombers.
Zeps would have a much longer range, 8 or 10 even.

Zeppelins caused a total damage 1.5 million pounds. Killed 600 people. Not really on the scale of real bombers. I don’t know that there is any need for them. Although if bombers were a unit in the game, this would be a awesome sculpt

Trenchard:

Bombing causes 20 times the morale to the physical damage. Factories emptied, populations rioted, governments were forced to spend big on their own bombers to retaliate.

@Croesus:

this would be a awesome sculpt

…an awesome sculpt, not a, keep your grammar correct

I say yea to being two hit to take down if only using the 2006 movie Flyboys as a reference where they said “It may take a thousand rounds to down a Zepplin”…but also isnt it just more fun that way? Movement 3 can stay in sea zones and bomb at a 1-3 all sound reasonable, maybe make it a tech so we get the chance at some Austrian or American airships which would be neat.

Good movie  :-)

But yeah Zepplins didn’t take all that much to bring down, hell if the wind was unkind they would die. But yeah, the bombers that were used in this war, we would get some epic looking sculpts.

Hmmm, I really like the idea.

I think German, Austrio-Hungarian, and American airships should be the only ones represented in the game.

I think they should be able to ‘submerge’ like submarines because they could often simply fly higher to avoid the primitive airplanes at the time.

I would like to see them work as anti ground units, like bombers pretty much, but with worse strategic bombing.

Zeppelins: Attack at 3, Defend at 2, Move 8, Cost 15
    Zeppelins are only produced by Germany. They have a movement of 8 which, like a fighter, must be used to move to and back from the target.  Zeppelins, like other aircraft, may also respond to adjacent enemy attacks.   
    Zeppelins can bomb enemy factories. There are two types of bombing: low altitude and high altitude.  Low altitude bombing has a greater chance to inflict damage, but is subject to aerial combat. After one round of aerial combat, each Zeppelin rolls one D6. The number rolled is the amount of economic damage to the enemy factory.  High altitude bombing is less accurate and only does damage equal to D6 (minus two).  However, at this height no enemy planes may intercept.  Note: that the total damage to the factory cannot exceed the value of the territory. 
    Zeppelins have the ability to absorb damage.  They can sustain up to three damage points before being destroyed. Damage points remain on a Zeppelin following a battle until they are repaired during phase 6 by moving to any controlled area in Germany for one turn. The owner removes all damage, but may not move the piece on the turn it is repaired.

@Imperious:

Zeppelins: Attack at 3, Defend at 2, Move 8, Cost 15
     Zeppelins are only produced by Germany. They have a movement of 8 which, like a fighter, must be used to move to and back from the target.  Zeppelins, like other aircraft, may also respond to adjacent enemy attacks.     
     Zeppelins can bomb enemy factories. There are two types of bombing: low altitude and high altitude.  Low altitude bombing has a greater chance to inflict damage, but is subject to aerial combat. After one round of aerial combat, each Zeppelin rolls one D6. The number rolled is the amount of economic damage to the enemy factory.  High altitude bombing is less accurate and only does damage equal to D6 (minus two).  However, at this height no enemy planes may intercept.  Note: that the total damage to the factory cannot exceed the value of the territory.   
     Zeppelins have the ability to absorb damage.  They can sustain up to three damage points before being destroyed. Damage points remain on a Zeppelin following a battle until they are repaired during phase 6 by moving to any controlled area in Germany for one turn. The owner removes all damage, but may not move the piece on the turn it is repaired.

That’s incredibly overpowered, especially with only Germany getting them. This basically makes zeppelins the battleships of the air, except more powerful. There’s really no way to combat one of those, especially with the damage absorption.

15 IPC is 1/2 of Germany’s income and repair puts it out of action for a turn.

A movement of 8 seems a bit much. Even the WW2 bombers could only move 6.

@Shakespeare:

I like the idea of high and low altitude bombing, were Zeppelins able to actually avoid fighters by flying higher? And were not Zeppelins as fast as fighters? I recall reading somewhere that fighters had trouble keeping up with them

People interested in WWI Zeppelin operations may want to have a look at the 1930 movie Hell’s Angels, directed by Howard Hughes.  It includes a lengthy and atmospheric sequence about a Zeppelin night-time raid on London, which ends with the airship being intercepted by British fighters.  I don’t know how accurate it is historically (the German crew members are heavily stereotyped, and at one point are shown obeying orders to jump overboard – without parachutes – to lighten the ship), but I was surprised to learn that the “spy basket” shown actually existed.  The sequence is blue-tinted, perhaps in reference to the nickname the British gave to Zeppelins: “monsters of the purple twilight.”

If anything they should have a longer range; they could stay up in the air for ages.

A preemptive strike against Washington by Zeppelins is not as crazy as it sounds.

The material effects of bombing were minimal, the morale much greater. Also, the RFC had to withdraw fighters from the front to defend London from bombing raids.

However, when bombers are introduced they should be more effective than airships, certainly less vulnerable to air attack. Incendiary bullets as a tech should put paid to the gasbags.

http://historyonthenet.com/WW1/zeppelin_raids.htm

http://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=197664

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_strategic_bombing_during_World_War_I

I like the idea of high and low altitude bombing, were Zeppelins able to actually avoid fighters by flying higher?

Yes, that was the whole idea. Latter in the war it became more difficult for them to avoid planes especially when all metal aircraft frames came on the scene.

You and your all-metal aircraft.

Junkers built a couple of prototypes.

George Peppard flew one of them straight into the ground.

That was it for all-metal aircraft.

@Shakespeare:

I read about thier role and it was far more extensive than I thought.
Any additional ideas would be appreciated.

I have a vague recollection that they were used for naval reconnaissance, but I could be wrong.  The German High Seas Fleet almost never left its base, so Zeppelin reconnaissance (if it ever happened) would have been pointless most of the time.