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Gross I / II / IV
The Gross I of 1908 was superior in every way to the contemporary British Nulli Secundus, with the British airship being capable of only 13 mph and only able to stay aloft for four hours.
Conversly, the efficient Gross II made a record flight of 13 hours in September 1908, and later the larger Gross IV of 1913 was accepted for service by the navy for use in the Baltic where it performed useful work during the war. The Gross II was frequently moored out to sea anchors, demonstrating its handiness to be speedily dispatched on patrol, and was one of the few airships to successfully make an attack on a British submarine in 1915.
The earlier Gross airships, although used by the army air battalion in a ground support role with the army, were not possessed of any distinctive transferable constructional features and contributed little to the development of the airship itself.
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