The Manawatu Herald. Saturday, May 20, 1916. GERMAN AIRSHIPS-HOW MANY LEFT?

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 1553, 20 May 1916, Page 2

The Manawatu Herald. Saturday, May 20, 1916. GERMAN AIRSHIPS-HOW MANY LEFT?

HOW many airships has Germany now ? This question comes up almost as often as the question of her losses aad resources in men, and there is even less to go upon in answering it. However one might as well make the most id' what indications (here are, for then l will not he any certainty until after the war. The editor of the Aeroplane, Mr C. 0. Grey, makes tin l unpleas-ant-sounding calculation that Germany is now building a new Zeppelin every week. He reckons (hat. apart from losses, she would have had on the date of his calculations, March Ist or 2nd, about (it) Zeppelins, as. well as about 80 smaller type airships. Estimates of this kind are not Ihe simplest matters in the world, for several qualifications have to he made before the ‘‘rigislered number" of a German airship can be taken as giving any indication of the number actually in existence, for instance, when the war broke out, although Germany had only about a dozen Zeppelins, the latest of them was numbered LZ2S. At that time it is said to have been possible to build at the Potsdam and Friedriehshafen works one Zeppelin every three weeks. According to Mr Grey, the Sehultehauz works have now been devoted also to the building of the •Zeppelin type, and he supposes (hat each of Ihe three works can now build three airships at once, and that between (hem they can, owing to practice and standardisation, reach the output mentioned, of one per week. He reaches bis estimated lotgl of about (id by deducting from 77, (lie number of the Zeppelin shot down near Verdun not long ago, (he thirteen which were not in existence when war broke out. It is true that an airship numbered L 95 has also been shot down lately, but Mr Grey makes the point that since this number refers to airships generally, and not specifically to Zeppelins (it was “L,” not “HZ"), it includes also about thirty airships of smaller types. From his total of (JO he deducts a dozen to represent absolute losses, and as many more for damages and wornouts, leaving a net total of, say, 40, in existence two months ago.