I saw something on the Discovery channel one's, about zeppelin's being the military transporters of tommorow. True or false? Good idea or bad idea?

I know nothing about dirigibles or their carrying power, but the U.S. desperately needs a way to more able move their 70 ton M1A2 tanks. The only way right now outside of ships is taking the very largest transport aircraft they have and moving them one at a time.

Only need a few Abrams in most cases....hehehe

Yeah i saw something about that on a website a while ago, a british/american company were looking at making airships to carry huge amounts of cargo, there good as well as you could control it from the ground as it moves a bit slowly.

I don't think blimps of any kind will be useful for transport uses. They're just going to have to create an M-1 alternative.

Read about the ULAs
http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...rcraft/ula.htm

Wow, 750 tons? That's amazing. You could move 6-7 M1A2s at once with something like that. I wonder how fast it is, but if it is only 20 miles per hour it could reach pretty much anywhere in the world within 96 hours since it doesn't need to refuel.

I hope this technology works out since I think the biggest probelm with the U.S. military is inter-theater logistics.

Three words: large slow targets

Zepplins in war today would be insane. Transport from one safe area to another may work though.

Originally Posted by Charge_7

Three words: large slow targets

Zepplins in war today would be insane. Transport from one safe area to another may work though.

Yeah that's the idea, inter-theater operations. Obviously you wouldn't use them anywhere near a combat zone. It can be a matter of life or death to get M1A2s from Fort Knox to Saudi Arabia, but it isn't a dangerous flight.

Besides, if someone wants to shoot down a zeppelin it is going to be about as easy as shooting down a C-130 or other slow lumbering defenseless transport craft.

Not true. Zeppleins are insanely easy to shoot down.[/i]