LZ 12 Sachsen

LZ 12, also known as Z III in German Army service, was a rigid Zeppelin built in 1912 under the supervision of Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin. It measured 140 metres in length and 14 metres in width, with a gas volume of 17,800 cubic metres. It made its first flight on 25 April 1912. It was decommissioned on 1 August 1914 and was then destroyed on the ground at the Metz-Frescaty airfield on 14 August 1914, when French aviators flying from Nancy and Verdun bombed the hangars there; the resulting fire destroyed both Ersatz Z II and Z III, in one of the first aerial bombings of the First World War. The article stresses that it should not be confused with LZ 3, which served as Z I.