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U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon

cnbc.com

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

#911

Post by foverzar »

adeelk93 wrote: post #488
foverzar wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We should make military decisions based on how much the target costs Yes?.. > You don't understand why that's ridiculous? No?.. Don't you understand how the cost of action is the base of military economy? This is hardly a military decision, it's purely a PR decision.

In a war of attrition, yes, but this is a one-off. It’s not purely PR, I am sure the primary motivation is actually counterintelligence, which is why they are recovering it over shallow water.

> which is why they are recovering it over shallow water.

They shot the payload with a missile over the sea. What's there to recover?

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

#912

Post by Krssst »

torpfactory wrote: post #900

The big question is why China would send a balloon. My best guess is it carried electronic warfare sensors to try and collect specific information about US radar and missile capabilities. They may have in fact wanted us to shoot it down, ideally first painting it with advanced radar (both air and ground based) and then firing an advanced missile at it. Data could be streamed out until the moment of impact and used to…

Could just using aircraft guns be easier? I am probably completely wrong, just curious.

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

#913

Post by torpfactory »

Krssst wrote: post #912
torpfactory wrote: post #900

The big question is why China would send a balloon. My best guess is it carried electronic warfare sensors to try and collect specific information about US radar and missile capabilities. They may have in fact wanted us to shoot it down, ideally first painting it with advanced radar (both air and ground based) and then firing an advanced missile at it. Data could be streamed out until the moment of impact and used to…

Could just using aircraft guns be easier? I am probably completely wrong, just curious.

There was a case in the 90s I think of a Canadian weather balloon that they tried to shoot down with (fighter plane) guns and had a pretty tough time of it. Guns at that altitude too could be an issue as you lose control authority in thin air and the gun destabilizes flight controls even more.

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

#914

Post by Khaine »

egberts1 wrote: post #910

It was probably decided early on that the decision to down the balloon in question over non-populated area due to: 1. Balloon itself is filled with water vapor full of ABC material. 2. Payload has dispersal mechanism of dubious material Nonetheless, in spite of political wrangling, I find it disturbing that we haven’t made a retrieval system capable of snatching things at 60,000 feet.

ahem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulton_surface-to-air_recovery...

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

#915

Post by seanmcdirmid »

hackerlight wrote: post #791
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #652

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shooting a balloon down over land risks having it come down on someone. Though there really isn’t a lot in Kansas/Nebraska/South Dakota, they would probably not have gotten unlucky, but if they did the Republicans would have pounced also.

Why couldn't they shoot it down before it flew over land but after if flew into airspace? What is the national security benefit of waiting for it to fly over the country first? My guess is they hoped it would pass over mostly unnoticed but then they saw people picking up on it and decided they had to get in front of the news story so as to not look incompetent. Then once the news story picked up steam their hand was…

We didn’t notice it first, Canada did. And the Canadians would definitely not let us shoot it down over BC.

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

#916

Post by kzrdude »

torpfactory wrote: post #900

The big question is why China would send a balloon. My best guess is it carried electronic warfare sensors to try and collect specific information about US radar and missile capabilities. They may have in fact wanted us to shoot it down, ideally first painting it with advanced radar (both air and ground based) and then firing an advanced missile at it. Data could be streamed out until the moment of impact and used to…

I'm not sure it's worth making such advanced guesses about the intentions until it's proven that it could even steer itself and navigate with any accuracy at all.

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

#917

Post by ascotan »

jeffbee wrote: post #340
ascotan wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't the first balloon with equipment on it that has overflown US territory (which should also put to rest the 'rogue weather balloon' theory). China has been doing this ever since Trump started levying import taxes on Chinese goods. This particular balloon was brazen enough to be loitering over military targets for some time. It makes sense to do a shoot down over the ocean so you can have a better chance to r…

Since you appear to believe this balloon had a surveillance mission, please explain what data it could conceivably have collected that isn't much easier to collect some other way. The military targets over which you suggest this aircraft intentionally loitered do not even have restricted airspaces. Anyone could get in a plane and fly right over them at whatever altitude they choose and nobody would even notice. You c…

The most likely scenario is the network surveillance. The defense dept has already confirmed the balloon was carrying surveillance equipment. I think the real point here was to probe the US response.

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

#918

Post by wkat4242 »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #127
thevagrant wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Weather balloons don't contain payloads the size is school buses. They fly up, pop and come down, the payload being around a kilogram or so.

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

#919

Post by Larrikin »

vegasea wrote: post #853
petemir wrote: post #839

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which football? Real football or American football?

What is real football? I've heard of association football (shortened to soccer by the British), rugby football, Australian rules football, American football and Canadian football but I've never heard of real football.

Had this discussion in Japanese the other day. One sport is called soccer サッカー and the other is football in both languages, and then you just have to hear about European languages calling it something similar at companies with an international basis. If you really don't care about either you just call it アメフト so nobody is happy.

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

#920

Post by [deleted] »

idlewords wrote: post #542
citboin wrote: post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LiDAR, plus it could be a dry run for more advanced balloons with offensive capabilities.

The precursor to a strategic balloon arms race that it chills the blood to contemplate. All it takes is one push of the button and, 14 days later, death comes drifting in from above.

[deleted]
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