Andrew.J.Greenshields@cyber.widener.edu (03/19/91)
From: Andrew.J.Greenshields@cyber.widener.edu Barrage balloons were large hydrogen filled, tethered blimps. What made them so deadly were the steel tether cables. The idea was that the cables would snag an attacking aircrafts wing and either rip the wing off or cause the aircraft to go into a spin. The RAF also used a similar idea to protect airfields. The steel cable in this case was fired into the air using a rocket. When the rocket was spent, the cable would be released and start to float back to earth using a parachute. When the cable was snagged by an aircraft, the ground end of the cable would be released with a parachute on the end of that too. The aircraft would be literally yanked out of the sky. Of course, with the rockets, you would have to fire them directly into the path of the attacking planes. When these were first used during the Battle of Britain, several people thought that the parachutes were German paratroopers and that the invasion had actually begun. Andrew J. Greenshields dxandy@cyber.widener.edu