Balloon victories.

[CharlesNungesser]

I´m just wondering which way that were the safest one for the attacking pilot to shoot down a balloon, did they move in on the balloon and fire away? I´m also wondering if a victory over a balloon was as highly respected as a victory over a enemy fighter, were they?

[EdStevens]

Balloon victories were often more highly respected than those against another aircraft, particularly by those who had attempted to shoot down a balloon! In one respect it was a lot like ground strafing, in that survival depended more on luck in not getting hit than it did on skill. Understandably, most pilots preferred to have their fate in their own hands (skill) against another aeroplane than to rely on luck. The big difference with ground stafing was that you were usually the only target in a balloon attack and you had to stay a target for much longer.

I don't think there was ever a tried-and-true guaranteed method of attack. Personally, I thought crossing the lines at a reasonable altitude, then circling well behind the balloon to approach from an unexpected quarter at ground level sounded good. You still had to zoom up into a hailstorm of ground fire to make the attack, and then dive to the deck and get the hell out of there afterwards.

[Volker_Nemsch]

Balloons were extremely dangerous targets. They were secured by many AA-guns as well as machineguns, because they were immobile.

The best way to attack a balloon was in a steep dive with high speed. So the enemy only had a short time to fire upon the attacking aircraft and the additional problem of hitting an aircraft at high speed.

Some aces had no balloon victories (Manfred von Richthofen) while others were called balloon busters (Willy Coppens, Frank Luke). In any case a victory against a balloon was counted like one against aircraft.

[leo]

balloons were extremely dangerous targets, but very important to the moral of the troops in the trenches who believed the observers in balloons could cause a shell to land in their back pockets. Maybe they should have been counted as more than one victoru

I always felt that balloon victories deserved their own category. I like to use the analogy of homeruns in baseball. There are homeruns...and there are 'inside-the-park' homeruns....and even though the end result is the same, they really are two different things and I think they shouldn't be counted the same. (my baseball fan buddies dispute this with me all the time....but I still think inside-the-park homeruns deserve their own category)

Like inside-the-park homeruns, balloon-busting was extremely difficult from what I have read...and I believe it was considered to be every bit as dangerous as aerial combat against a human pilot in an airplane, maybe even more so, but it just isn't quite the same thing and (my 2-cents worth of opinion) needed it's own scoring category.

[stephen]

There was no "best way" to get balloons.

Coppens tried several different methods, Luke did it the old fashioned way (quick in, quick out, don't miss), and Vaughn tried bombing the AA while two flight members were assigned to simultaneously attack.

Despite being a big Luke fan, I honestly believe the French did the best job of consistently downing balloons and still keeping casualties somewhat acceptable (if there's such a thing). Coifard, Boyeau (sic) and a bunch of others were excellent balloon busters and never seem to get their due.

Luke would have refined the art to an entirely new level had he not got himself in trouble and taken off on a mission that he had no business whatsoever attempting.

Just to get things in perspective, can some baseball officianado explain to an Oz, what a home run is, and then explain the inside and outside the park mystery?
An Americanism in current use here is Ball Park Figure, presumably a guess based on the known capacity of the seating provisions, balanced against the visible vacant seats, but Home Run.....? Speak English, can't you?
Next question, were any balloons armed with machine guns to shoot back at attacking scouts, and did this result in a true Balloon Ace, having shot down five or more attacking fighters? (I know about the basket packed with Amatol....)

Just to get things in perspective, can some baseball officianado explain to an Oz, what a home run is, and then explain the inside and outside the park mystery?

A home run is a baseball that is hit so that it leaves the field of play within the boundaries of fair territory. The batter and any on base runners can then circle the bases at their leisure, touching them all in succession. An inside the park home run is a ball hit so that it is still in play on the field, but in a spot that allows the batter to round the bases before a defender can field the ball and throw it to a teammate to tag the batter out.

*An Americanism in current use here is Ball Park Figure, presumably a guess based on the known capacity of the seating provisions, balanced against the visible vacant seats, but Home Run.....? Speak English, can't you?

A "ball park figure" is a figure that is close but not exact, in other words, an estimate. A ball park covers a large area, and a guess that is close would be considered "in the ball park."

Next question, were any balloons armed with machine guns to shoot back at attacking scouts, and did this result in a true Balloon Ace, having shot down five or more attacking fighters? (I know about the basket packed with Amatol....)

Not to my knowledge. There were plenty of AA guns around the balloon, and the observers had parachutes, so I don't think the slim chance of shooting down an attacking fighter was worth the trouble of adding manning a machine gun to the observer's tasks.

[Rick]

Au contraire, or at least possibly au contraire. *Ltn.d.R. Anton Wöstmann a balloon observer with FLA 3 (Feld Luftschiffer Abteilung 3) was credited wth shooting down Russian Farman #637 on 11Aug16 with a musket. *(Granted, not a machine gun). *The Obs, a French Officer was taken POW and the pilot, a Russian enlisted man was WIA and taken POW. * *This incident occurred N. of Sokol, near Stockod, in the Stier area. *This is the ONLY known case of a balloon observer shooting down an enemy aircraft, ever. *Source: *The Ferko files at UTD. * *R.

[Barrett]

A few Brits were awarded kills on unmanned balloons (ballonets?) evidently deployed to protect "real" balloons but it doesn't seem to have been a frequent occurrence.
Balloon victories still were credited as late as 1939 (at least in the Finnish AF) but seldom thereafter. 109s indulged in burning British barrage balloons (let's hear it for alliteration) in '40 but apparently didn't get credit. Even USN/AAF pilots downed Japanese rice-paper "balloon bombs" over N America c. '44-45 but weren't given credit.