Early proposals at
Pula in 1879, this ship, acting as a
balloon carrier, launched the first naval aviation attack in 1849 against Venice In 1792,
Joseph-Michel Montgolfier suggested using balloons for bombing British forces in Toulon. In 1807, Denmark tried to build a dirigible to bomb British ships blockading Copenhagen. In 1846 a British board rejected as impractical a bombing design by
Samuel Alfred Warner. Attempts by
Henry Tracey Coxwell to interest the British government a few years later were rejected as well.
Austrian imperial forces, who were besieging Venice, attempted to deploy approximately 200 paper
hot air balloons. Each balloon was equipped with a 24-to-30-pound (11 to 14 kg) bomb, designed to be dropped over the besieged city via a
time fuse. The majority of the balloons were launched from land, but some were also dispatched from the side-wheel steamer
SMS Vulcano, which served as a balloon carrier. To determine the correct fuse settings, the Austrians utilized smaller pilot balloons. At least one bomb landed in the city. However, due to changes in wind direction after launch, most of the balloons missed their target. Some even drifted back over Austrian lines and the launching ship,
Vulcano.
World War II Operation Outward During
World War II, the British
Operation Outward launched some 99,142 balloons at Germany, 53,543 of which were carrying incendiaries, the other 45,599 carrying trailing wires to damage high voltage lines.
Fu-Go During the period of 1944-1945, in the midst of World War II, Japan initiated the launch of approximately 9,300
Fu-Go balloon bombs targeted at North America. These balloons, with a diameter of 10 meters (33 feet), were filled with hydrogen and typically transported one bomb weighing 15 kilograms (33 lbs) or alternatively, one 12-kilogram (26 lbs) bomb along with four additional bombs each weighing 5 kilograms (11 lbs). The Fu-Go balloons utilized the power of the winter jet stream, which travels at a speed of 220 miles per hour (350 km/h), to traverse a distance of 5,000 miles (8,000 km) across the Pacific Ocean in roughly three days. To maintain a specific altitude, the balloons were equipped with a barometric sensor that would jettison ballast sandbags whenever the balloon descended below 30,000 feet (9,100 m). If the sensor detected an altitude exceeding 38,000 feet (12,000 m), hydrogen would be released from the balloon. This entire mechanism was set into motion 52 minutes post-launch, allowing the balloon to attain its initial altitude. The final sandbag stations were equipped with incendiary bombs, which were dispensed by the same mechanism. Following the final release, the balloon triggered a self-destruction process and dropped an additional bomb. The balloons were launched in the winter to take advantage of the more favorable winter jet stream. However this limited their damage potential as wildfires were less likely to catch in winter. The Fu-Go balloons inflicted relatively little damage, except for one fatal incident in which a woman and five children were killed near
Bly, Oregon after they approached a balloon that had landed at the subsequently named
Mitchell Recreation Area. The deaths of six civilians were the only fatalities caused by fire balloons on American soil during World War II.
Cold War United States Following World War II, the United States developed the
E77 balloon bomb based on the Fu-Go balloon. This balloon was intended to disperse an anti-crop agent, but it was not used operationally. The 1954–1955
WS-124A Flying Cloud program tested high-altitude balloons for the delivery of
weapons of mass destruction, but they were found infeasible because of their inaccuracy. == 21st century use==