A Steel-Clad Airship.

New York Times 100 years ago today, June 30, 1913:
Germany Negotiating for His Armored Machine, Says Unger.
Special Cable to The New York Times.
    BERLIN, June 29.— Gustav Unger, a Hanoverian engineer, says the German Government is negotiating for the acquisition of his steel-clad airship, which is stated to be so strong that if it came into collision with a church tower the latter would give way first.
    Outwardly the vessel looks like a Zeppelin, but inside it shows a complete difference, the framework being a series of steel tubes carried from stern to bow, the lowest forming a keel of cabin tubes brought together parabolically at the stern and bow, with the ends in nickel sheet steel caps.
    Each gas balloonet is contained in a series of circular rings of sheet steel, connected with each other by a network of steel cables, supported by steel tubing, running fore and aft, and fastened also by sheet steel bands running around the whole body of the ship.
    The Unger airship is stated to be able to withstand a wind blowing at forty-eight meters a second, and by an arrangement of its six screws can turn practically on its own axis.
    Two five-centimeter quick-firers, machine guns, placed fore and aft, comprise the armament. The net lifting power of the airship is 11,000 pounds, its length is 460 feet, and its cost of construction about $100,000.