Amazing enhanced and colorized footage of Observation Balloons during WW-I [HD] скачать в хорошем качестве

Amazing enhanced and colorized footage of Observation Balloons during WW-I [HD]

Observation balloons were already deployed as early as during French Revolutiony Wars around 1794, the very first time being during the Battle of Fleurus. This practice was continued in subsequent French wars. Garthering intelligence was their purpose by observing and reporting enemy troup movements and to direct artilliary fire towards the enemy. Early balloons had the traditional ball shape alike the ones in the early years of ballooning at the time of its invention by the Montgolfier brothers in 1793. The British also deployed these ballons, for instance during the second Boer War in South Africa from 1899 to 1902. These early balloons were filled with hot air whereas the later observation balloons were filled with the highly flamable Hydrogen gas. We all know what happened in 1937 to the Hindenburg Zeppelin in 1937 at Lake Hurst near New York! Balloons were tethered with a long steel cable and could be winched up to high altitude from the ground. Parallel to the winch cable ran a telephone line, thus connecting the balloon observator to the command post on the ground by means of audio communication. Due to the invention of the aeroplane by the Wright brothers in 1913, World War-1 was first time when balloons could be destroyed from aeroplanes. Contrary to observation aircraft, balloons could still remain in operational in bad weather. The observation balloons were made of fabric with no metal frame unalike a Zeppelin. Intially the balloons that were deployed during WW-1 were cigar shaped: huge about 50 meters long objects that needed to be held to the ground by dozens of ropes and an equal number of soldiers. Later during WW-1 kite shaped balloons made their entry to the war initially at the initiative of the British. Due to their shape these balloons were more aerodynamic and more stable in harsh wind conditions. This kite shape has remained in use until this day. A more recent event being the Iraq war. More recently in 2023 a number of unmanned Chinese balloons appeared in US airspace which the Chinese described to be off-course weather balloons but by the intelligence community were presumed to be espionage balloons. Elderly viewers with recognise the shape being similar to the smaller barrage balloons that were deployed all over London during WW-II. The unmanned barrage balloons had a different task namely to hinder German bombers from flying low over the city, preventing them from precisely targetted bombing. Balloons were winched up to a height of 1 km or more. Raising a balloon could be done within a very short time reaching their ultimate height or respectively being winched-down within minutes. When attacked by enemy aircraft the balloon would be rapidly winched down to the ground. In emergency situations the observer could jump out of the wicker basket and parachute down to the ground. No spare parachutes were used. While not being deployed, balloons were frequently hidden between the trees. Attacking an observation balloon from the air was a highly dangerous task. Some balloon operators had small machine guns at their disposal in their basket. In addition the balloons were protected by machine guns as well as sometimes even artilliary from the ground. Occasionally balloons were also protected by allied aircraft. The balloons needed to be attacked at close range. The reason was that bullets fired from a distance would simply puncture holes in the balloon causing gas to escape and making the balloon slowly decend to the ground where the holes could easily be repaired. Incendury bullets were needed to cause the hydrogen to explode. When hit, the subsequent fire ball could destroy the enemy plane as well. In WW-1 the guns that were used to fire incendury bullets only had a very short range. The pilots of these planes were nick named "balloon busters" and were designated as the "Aces of WW-1". To earn the title "Ace" these pilots needed to have destroyed at minimum 5 balloons. Hundreds of balloons were destroyed during the war. By the way, the name "busters" returned in later years during WW-II in the context of the famous "Dam busters" RAF 617 squadron who destroyed German dams in the Ruhr area. Towards the end of World War-1 Kite balloons began to be used at sea for anti-submarine purposes. The Germans also deployed observation balloons as can be seen in this film. We end this video with a side-by-side comparison of the original poor quality WW1 footage and the output of my restoration work. For those who prefer B&W footage this comparison is followed by an abreviated B&W version of my colorized video. Please note that all footage is watermarked, so please do not re-use it without my permission. Thanks for watching and as usual I'd like to remind you to subscribe to my channel. More enhanced WW-1 and other videos to come soon! Source: National Archives (US) Music: Howard Harper Barnes, Trevor Kowalski a.o.