Boer War
The Boer War (1899–1902) was fought between the British and the Boers in South Africa. The British used balloons for reconnaissance.
At the outset, aerial photography was used as the basis for mapmaking. During the war the British began using local gas generators rather than sending cylinders from England to Capetown.[1]
Publishing in the Aeronautical Journal,[2] Major B. F. S. Baden-Powell and another author called attention to some of the shortcomings of the balloons and the strategy and tactics for using them. The other author ("One of the Imperial Light Horse in Ladysmith During the Siege") observed:
There seems little doubt that the rotatory motion of even a captive balloon as well as its undulating movements nullify to some extent its use for reconnoitring, as it is almost impossible to get a continued steady view with a glass. Moreover, if the enemy are not moving, it is not easy to determine their force.
He also mentioned that the Boers were able to repeatedly strike the British balloons with gunfire.
Baden-Powell wrote that he considered balloons less useful than usual in the South African terrain) (which is hilly and permits of long-distance observation to people on the ground) and in the South African weather, which is unpredictably windy.
Whereas Eric Stuart Bruce later wrote:
Undoubtedly, the best use that has been made of the captive balloon was in the Boer War. The British observation balloon equipment, which under the unceasing labors of Colonel Templer had reached a state of considerable perfection, then proved to be highly efficient. But in the light of modern aëronautical progress its doings were merely the fore shadowings of the achievements the aviators in the present war are daily carrying out.
Perhaps the most important feature of the balloons in the South African War was the material of which they were made—gold-beaters' skin. [...] By the use of gold-beaters' skin it became possible to have much smaller balloons for a given lifting power than when varnished cambric or silk was employed.[3]
And gave further description of various military uses of balloons during the war (pp. 3–10). He also mentions improved techniques for storing gas to fill balloons:
The system of filling the balloons from steel cylinders in which the hydrogen has had been compressed, so well exemplified in the Boer War, was a great improvement on the older methods of manufacturing the gas on the spot. Speed in filling balloons is a desideratum for their use in war. By the cylinder method, owing to the great pressure under which the gas escapes from the cylinder, the inflation of the observation balloons became a question of minutes instead of hours.[4]
References
- ↑ Hildebrandt, 1908, Airships Past and Present, p. 165.
- ↑ Major B. Baden Powell,"The War Balloon in South Africa"; and "Memorandum Concerning the Use of the Captive War Balloon during the Siege of Ladysmith"; Aeronautical Journal, Vol. VI, No. 21, January, 1902; pp. 14–15.
- ↑ Bruce, 1914, Aircraft in War, pp. 3–4.
- ↑ Bruce, 1914, Aircraft in War, p. 3.