Quote from: K_Dubb on May 22, 2018, 11:04:53 AMAnother source I found after that claims Mantsev did experimental aerostat launches in 1855, one year before the end of the war, but reiterated that they were not military in nature. At this point, so many diplomatic and strategic errors had been made, I doubt the tide could have been turned even if he had been given the go ahead for his projects.
Here are the relevant portions passed through google translate. It begins by discussing Leppich's balloon which I should have remembered since Tolstoy talks about it in War and Peace.