German East Africa

Designated LZ-104 by Zeppelin and L-59 by the German navy, this airship had one of weirdest missions of WW1.

Dubbed Das Afrikaschiff, it’s mission, dubbed the China Show, was to fly 4500 miles, one way, and deliver food, ammunition, machine guns and medical supplies. It apparently also carried a supply of Iron Crosses. The crew was then supposed to join Lettow-Vorbeck’s forces. The airship itself was to be cannibalized. The cloth exterior wasn’t doped (essentially varnished) so it could be reused as tents. The gas bags were to be cut up and used as bandages and the airframe repurposed as a radio tower.

The story of L-59 is an epic story unto itself. But essentially, the airship left Bulgaria, traveled over Crete then down through British held Sudan and got over half way to East Africa without being detected by the British Royal Flying Corps even though they knew her mission and destination.

After getting more than halfway to East Africa, the airship was recalled. The crew was in favor of continuing the mission but the captain was insistent. It reportedly took two hours to convince the crew to turn around. By the time they returned to Bulgaria, they’re been in continuous flight for over 95 hours. This was a world record that wasn’t broken by any aircraft until 1957 when a US Navy blimp upped the record to 264 hours. Fixed wing aircraft wouldn’t break L-59’s record until 2015.

The message to recall the airship is shrouded in mystery. The recall message was originally claimed to have been issued by the British as a deception operation but this version has largely been debunked. Another version is that Lettow-Vorbeck issued the recall because he wasn’t able to hold the landing site and had to retreat to more mountainous terrain where the airship couldn’t land. However even this story has issues as his army was two days away from the last radio station still in operation and it was damaged and unable to transmit messages, but could still receive them. This story requires more research.

While a 28mm scale airship would be epic, it would also be in excess of 10 feet long. I have however found a 3D printed version in a more reasonable size of about 1 foot long.

I’m working on scenarios but don’t have firm plans yet. Maybe something like securing the LZ or unloading the airship in a certain amount of time.