GUNS ON ZEPPELINS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 1438, 19 August 1915, Page 2

GUNS ON ZEPPELINS.

It has been reported by cable that the Germans are experimenting with a view to securing higher flight for their Zeppelins, and they are “augmenting the number of machine gnus on lop of their dirigibles.” This latter phase reads curiously in the light of past events. It was known before the war that Germany was experimenting will) anti-aircraft guns mounted on the lop of Zeppelins ; but it was also known that the firing of them did considerable damage to the dirigibles themselves. There always remained some doubt as to whether these initial difficulties had been overcome, and the encounters between aeroplanes and Zeppelins during th« war seemed to indicate that they had not. It will perhaps lie remembered that when some of the British hydro-aeroplanes attacked a Zeppelin while it. was returning from an Knglish raid early in May, Flight-Commander Rigsworth caught in napping, got above it, and actually decended to within iflOft. of it, in order to discharge his bombs. That incident prompted the conclusion that no machine-guns were mounted on top of the dirigible, and the fact that no such weapon was atop of the Zeppelin which Warneford destroyed also went towards showing that the problem of mounting them had not then been solved. It may have been solved just recently, but we certainly have been given no evidence of it.