system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: why were zeppelins ever used in warzones in WW1? Weren't they really easy to shoot down, killing everyone on board?
gpt
They were easy to shoot down *if* you could get a plane up there to do it, which was not easy back then.  Keep in mind, the whole "using planes as weapons" thing was still a new idea.  At the start of the war, planes were mostly used to spot enemy troupes and didn't bother attacking each other.  When they did start fighting, they started with just leaning out of the cockpit and firing pistols at each other.  Their range was very limited, their guns weren't accurate, and they had other things to worry about than the zeppelins.

Likewise, the zeppelins were mostly used for reconnaissance, usually too far and too high to effectively shoot at from the ground.  Airplanes going to attack the balloons had to contend with all the ground fire on the way, plus any planes protecting the balloons.  That said, yes they became pretty easy targets as airplane combat became more advanced.  But they were still useful, since they could fly high and stay there for a long time.  Airplanes simply did not have the range that zeppelins had, nor the carrying capacity for bombs.

They were especially useful at night, when they would be incredibly difficult to spot.  Remember, radar had not yet been developed, so the only way to know there were aircraft nearby was to hear them.  Zeppelins aren't completely silent, but they're definitely a lot quieter than airplanes.  And they would be high enough up that spotlights would have trouble spotting them, and guns on the ground would have even more trouble hitting them.