The Zeppelin is a unit in Empires: Dawn of the Modern World, a dangerous weapon used by the Germans during World War I. German players have a great edge with the Zeppelin, because it can bomb enemies as well as transport infantry to anywhere on the map. Unlike planes, it does not need to return to an Airport to refuel.
Description[]
January 19, 1915 marked the first time Zeppelins dropped bombs on the British mainland (killing four civilians and injuring sixteen). For the next year and a half, the Zeppelin raids increased in frequency and effectiveness. The single deadliest raid was mounted against London on September 8, 1915; the airship L-13 destroyed a half-million pounds worth of property and killed 22 people.
In Empires, Zeppelins are very large lighter-than-air ships - are exclusively German units. They first become available in the World War I age. Zeppelins function in much the same way as Helicopter Transports: they can pick up land units and transport them over great distances. For all practical purposes, their range and flying time are unlimited - they never have to return to an air base to refuel. Zeppelins can also function as strategic bombers (deploying them tactically, over the front lines, is not recommended, as they are very vulnerable to massed ground fire).
Zeppelins never need to refuel or reload their ordnance. They can hover over any location indefinitely, dropping bombs until you decide to move them elsewhere or the enemy makes it too hot in their current location. In the transport mode, the Zeppelins can pick up land units (i.e., Tanks, Infantry, Citizens, Construction Crews, etc.) and rapidly carry them to the front in relative safety across seas, mountain ranges, or lines of fixed defenses.
In the first years of WW1, the Zeppelins pretty much had a free ride. What finally turned the tide, with dramatic swiftness, was the introduction, in September 1916, of the incendiary "tracer" bullet. Since the airships derived their "lift" from highly explosive hydrogen gas (remember those awesome newsreels of the Hindenburg disaster?), these once-terrifying behemoths could be blown from the sky (producing as they fell a truly spectacular cascade of boiling flame and melting aluminum) by a handful of red-hot rifle-caliber bullets. So many airships were shot down in the next few weeks, that the bombing offensive soon halted.
Since they derive their "lift" from extremely flammable hydrogen gas, Zeppelins are quite vulnerable to AA bursts or tracer-bullet hits from enemy fighters. All told, the German Airship Service mounted a total of 139 raids over Britain, killing 537 people and causing almost eight million dollars' in property damage.[1]
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