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Updated: June 30, 2025
According to information which had reached the British admiralty, the German coast north of the Kiel Canal is protected at intervals by the most powerful antiaircraft artillery, including 4.1-inch guns, capable of firing thirty-five pound shells to a height of 26,000 feet at the rate of ten every minute.
Both armies, and particularly the Germans, acquired experience in the use of their antiaircraft guns, and improved weapons were placed at their disposal, so that it was not long before the gunners could cause their shrapnel to burst with deadly effect some three miles in vertical height above the ground, and up to 10,000 feet their shooting compelled the admiration of the aviators of the Allies.
True it was that several riderless horses were careering about the field below. Also at another angle some men were dragging forth an antiaircraft gun, or so it looked to be by its peculiar carriage and mounting. "Sure you are all right?" called Orris as the two machines sped along side by side, all the while rising. "Didn't that fellow give you trouble?" "None to speak of.
For its protection against antiaircraft fire the new super-Zeppelins carry apparatus in each gondola, producing artificial clouds of such size and intensity as to envelop and shroud completely the entire airship, rendering it absolutely invisible from below.
Chioggra also was attacked by the same machines; but here, too, the damage was rather slight. On the same day in the afternoon an Italian air squadron of eighteen Capronis under the protection of three Nieuport antiaircraft aeroplanes attacked Trieste. Six Italian torpedo boats and two motor boats assisted them in the gulf.
A few days later the British returned the visit with five sea planes, accompanied by a cruiser and destroyers, with disastrous results. As related in a former chapter at some length, only two of the machines succeeded in escaping from the withering fire of the strong antiaircraft defense guns.
The same condition existed during the early part of January, 1917. On January 11, 1917, an Austrian air squadron dropped a considerable number of bombs in the neighborhood of Aquieleja, southwest of Monfalcone. One Austrian seaplane was brought down by Italian antiaircraft batteries.
The Germans, however, claimed that the French air raids did no damage to Metz and other points, but that five civilians were killed and seven made ill by inhaling poisonous gases from the bombs. They further claimed that twenty-two French aviators had been shot down by aerial attacks and antiaircraft fire and that eleven aeroplanes were lying behind the German lines.
A great number of Zeppelins have been destroyed either by antiaircraft guns or by storms, although the gallant feat of the late Flight Lieutenant Warneford, who blew up single-handed a Zeppelin near Ghent, has not yet been repeated by aviators of the Allies.
One of them, the L-21, appeared over the northern district about 2.15 in the morning of September 3, 1916, where she was picked up by searchlights and heavily engaged by antiaircraft guns and aeroplanes. After a few minutes the airship was seen to burst into flames and fall rapidly toward the earth.
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