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U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon

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Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon

#121

Post by credit_guy »

luckylion wrote: post #90
chitowneats wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was easy to down one balloon during peace-time. You're right. Please see my comment further below for why that might not work in aggregate during a real military conflict. Edit: I'll paste it here in case it gets buried: I really do wonder if this is them testing that they can reliably and cheaply get high-altitude balloons to the U.S. mainland. In the event of a military conflict, I can imagine them swarming us w…

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't you just need a single plane with a machine gun on board to take down hundreds of these if you cared to take them down? And you can spot them far, far away and take them down far away from the coast, can't you? I mean, they can't really do evasive maneuvers, they're not fast, they don't fight back, they're not armored, you wouldn't need super modern missiles.

It appears this particular balloon was traveling at 60000 feet altitude. The flight ceiling of an F-22 is 50000 (according to the internet, although the actual number is very likely classified). If that's correct, then shooting a balloon from 10000 feet below with a machine gun is not easy. Even if you put some holes in it, such a balloon is not going to simply pop like a party balloon. It very likely does not have a pressure differential between the inside and the outside, so the holes will simply allow the air to mix slowly (very slowly) with the lifting gas inside (hydrogen or helium). It will probably take days or weeks before the balloon goes down.

Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon

#122

Post by iancmceachern »

yeuxardents wrote: post #108
ozarker wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you collect it?

Trying to remember what it was called but there was a 60/70s era program that was declassified that claimed to capture returning satellites from orbit using massive nets/parachutes carried behind large aircraft for example a c47 that would snap them right out of the air as they are falling.

Corona. They caught film canisters from spy satellites with nets hanging from planes

Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon

#123

Post by luxuryballs »

amelius wrote: post #114

So they waited until the balloon was over sea. This raises the question: why didn't the military see it coming and destroy it before it crossed the border?

they claimed they started tracking it over the Pacific even, my guess is we just don’t have the full story, perhaps they didn’t want to fail at shooting it down quickly, succeed at responding the “real” way and give something away, or spring some other “trap card”, or it’s all a lie and was our own thing that got away or just a distraction and everything after that was reactionary and opportunistic, we may never know

Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon

#124

Post by aquova »

7174n6 wrote: post #14

[flagged]

What would you have them do? I know many people wanted it shot down over Montana, but even the most rural places have more people than you'd think. If they had shot it down and it had hit someone/something, or even come close to it, it would be a complete disaster.

Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon

#125

Post by [deleted] »

thevagrant wrote: post #39
ironyman wrote: post #4

I actually think it might just be a stray weather balloon. If they considered it a security threat they would've downed it before it reached continental US. Overall it's a fair resolution. It's a good political move to raise public awareness of tensions with the PRC (you'd be surprised how many people don't know). Downing it is mostly symbollic and completes the safety narrative.

Why is everything a narrative these days? That word comes up with ridiculous frequency. Do we believe we are part of some kind of Truman show experiment? As for it being a weather balloon, it seems they must be floating a lot of these balloons lately to check the 'weather'.

[deleted]

Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon

#126

Post by tcmart14 »

rtourn wrote: post #35
neuralRiot wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not in the defense industry neither know how the Chinese spy agency works but I guess there are more covert ways to spy than sending a 20ft ballon half way around the world.

I expected this to be some dude’s project that got blown out of proportion.

Thats why I am waiting in more info to come out and not jumping on the "evil Chinese spies" band wagon. It could be "evil chinese spies," but I also know there are communities like Ham Radio that people around the world have balloons they deploy.

And yea, the DoD said it may be. But I think the DoD is still looking for WMDs in Iraq.

Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon

#127

Post by boomboomsubban »

thevagrant wrote: post #39
ironyman wrote: post #4

I actually think it might just be a stray weather balloon. If they considered it a security threat they would've downed it before it reached continental US. Overall it's a fair resolution. It's a good political move to raise public awareness of tensions with the PRC (you'd be surprised how many people don't know). Downing it is mostly symbollic and completes the safety narrative.

Why is everything a narrative these days? That word comes up with ridiculous frequency. Do we believe we are part of some kind of Truman show experiment? As for it being a weather balloon, it seems they must be floating a lot of these balloons lately to check the 'weather'.

>As for it being a weather balloon, it seems they must be floating a lot of these balloons lately to check the 'weather'

I have no idea what this balloon is, but know that thousands of weather balloons are released every day worldwide. That means China is likely releasing several hundred a day.

Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon

#128

Post by blamazon »

FpUser wrote: post #115
blamazon wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US state apparatus did not make a big deal of this. The media and the public did, and the US state apparatus answered to the media and the public, as is their duty.

>"The US state apparatus did not make a big deal of this." Cancelling / postponing (whatever it will be) Blinken's visit to China does seem like a big deal.

Via NPR transcript of a segment today: [1]

> SIMON: This trip was supposed to happen this weekend, right?

> KELEMEN: Yeah. I mean, we were planning to fly out last night. We had our visas in hand and our bags sort of packed. So this was very last minute. Though Blinken had been raising concerns with the Chinese about this balloon since Wednesday, when pictures started appearing on social media of this thing way far up in the sky over Montana.

My interpretation is that this move was likely forced by the public furor, which I posit was organic and driven primarily by the media and the public, rather than driven by the US government as the comment I replied to suggests.

[1]: https://www.npr.org/2023/02/04/1154473950/u-s-cancels-blinke...

Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon

#129

Post by chitowneats »

luckylion wrote: post #90
chitowneats wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was easy to down one balloon during peace-time. You're right. Please see my comment further below for why that might not work in aggregate during a real military conflict. Edit: I'll paste it here in case it gets buried: I really do wonder if this is them testing that they can reliably and cheaply get high-altitude balloons to the U.S. mainland. In the event of a military conflict, I can imagine them swarming us w…

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't you just need a single plane with a machine gun on board to take down hundreds of these if you cared to take them down? And you can spot them far, far away and take them down far away from the coast, can't you? I mean, they can't really do evasive maneuvers, they're not fast, they don't fight back, they're not armored, you wouldn't need super modern missiles.

My understanding as a layman is that we cannot shoot objects at altitudes 60,000ft+ with machine guns. We need fighter jets equipped with specialized missiles, or ground-based SAMs, that are very expensive, and have some limitation on their range.

Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon

#130

Post by dsfyu404ed »

amelius wrote: post #114

So they waited until the balloon was over sea. This raises the question: why didn't the military see it coming and destroy it before it crossed the border?

Because it wasn't a political kerfuffle then and they weren't gonna be the ones to make it into one.
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