Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because they fly a bit higher?
Yes. Sovereign airspace versus not.
Also Kessler syndrome.
US jet shoots down unknown object flying off Alaska coast
661–670 of 864 posts
Re: US jet shoots down unknown object flying off Alaska coast
#662Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can confirm this and that it happen in both Bosnia and the Serbia campaigns. I had family members who were involved [0]. The deception methods that were applied were truly remarkable, they used decoy tanks and sent people out to imprint fake tank tracks into fields. They also understood IR and would shield real troops while leaving coal to burn in empty pillboxes and bunkers There was also the shoot down of the F-117…
I heard the downing of the f-117 was due in large part to them flying the same patterns at the same time every night. Was this true? Or was there more involved in the AA hit?
IIRC it involved sacrificing one AA tank and using another to kill the plane.
Re: US jet shoots down unknown object flying off Alaska coast
#663Earlier quoted context omitted.
So the US flew all those U2 spy planes over the Soviet Union for fun, and the Soviet Union shot one down in 1960 just to prove that they could? I agree that a ballon over Alaska is unlikely to gain much intelligence, but with the right equipment at the right place you can get a lot of useful insights into your enemy's capabilities even at peacetime.
I'd say the Soviets absolutely shot down that U2 in large part to prove that they could, and that to some degree at least, the US was flying those planes over to prove that they could. There's a school of thought that says the US won the cold war by convincing the Soviets to bankrupt themselves trying to keep up with the arms race. Now I don't necessarily think that fully explains things, but I do think there's a lot…
It’s interesting because there’s no real evidence that the US was intentionally using that strategy.
Re: US jet shoots down unknown object flying off Alaska coast
#664Earlier quoted context omitted.
How much does a weather baloon cost? ...compared to a F22 flight, a missle + all the logistics? If it's cheap enough, there will probably be youtubers and tiktokers buying them en-masse just "for the lulz".
> How much does a weather baloon cost? ...compared to a F22 flight, a missle + all the logistics? If this is an actual spy object you also need to factor in the cost of the surveillance. How much money does the military lose due to the sensitive information being lost. Or how much does the military need to spend to regain strategic advantage? That probably costs more than a F22 flight and a missile. Obviously this de…
As low as $30 and as high as $3000.
Re: US jet shoots down unknown object flying off Alaska coast
#665Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think it would be a stretch to say that we're in a cold war with China. Many modern battlefields aren't on the ground and fought with bullets. They are economic, political, and proxies. In cold wars you often have technological and economic races too (see cold war with Russia). Militaries believe that if you don't want a hot war to break out you wave the biggest {st,d}ick. It would be naive to believe that mi…
I’d hesitate to call this psychological warfare, but it now seems like the American people are paranoid about spy balloons and having their airspace violated. America is the one who brazenly flies and spies over other countries, that doesn’t happen to us . So now our leaders are trigger happy about shooting down any potential new balloons in order to try and save face while looking tough. Meanwhile, I’m sure plenty o…
> it now seems like the American people are paranoid about spy balloons and having their airspace violated
Only naive people would think so. 9/11 was 21 years ago. Where have you been?
> America is the one who brazenly flies and spies over other countries, that doesn’t happen to us.
Satellites have been used by all major powers since pretty much forever. As for other means, do you have insights of those brazen efforts by the US?
> So now our leaders are trigger happy about shooting down any potential new balloons in order to try and save face while looking tough
Lazy thinking. You don’t know if this latest incident was in response to the event last week or there was something specific that prompted them to shoot it down. They didn’t even say it was Chinese. Strange unknown flying objects are not new of course. They following article discussed something happened in 2019, and was disclosed a year ago:
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/video-of-mysterious-dr...
Re: US jet shoots down unknown object flying off Alaska coast
#666Re: US jet shoots down unknown object flying off Alaska coast
#667I feel sorry for the pool soul who decided to send up their DIY weather balloon with gopro to get that space shot. Who knows he might even have a video of a F-22 sending a missile over.
I think anyone sending stuff into the sky with a go-pro has to be reconciled that the chance of loss is pretty high. And if they got footage of the F-22, it's probably worth a lot more than their go-pro.
The footage would be cool, but isn't one of the selling points of the F-22 that it can fire missiles from very far away?
Re: US jet shoots down unknown object flying off Alaska coast
#668Re: US jet shoots down unknown object flying off Alaska coast
#669Earlier quoted context omitted.
For better picture, Olympic-sized swimming pool is 50 meters long.
Thanks. It's also half as wide as it is long and 2 meters deep. That still is not a useful comparison if the audience has never seen one. It's a comparison without a useful reference. I always thought it funny and nearly worthless for an author or announcer to describe the volume of something in terms of Olympic swimming pools as if everyone listening or reading had a useful frame of reference in that comparison.
People who’ve never seen one still understand that an Olympic-sized swimming pool is “quite big”. Which is the general impression people are trying to get across when they use that phrase.
People in the Olympics are the best athletes in the world. And I bet world class athletes need a big pool to compete in.
That gives you a pretty decent sense of the scale of an Olympic sized swimming pool without ever having seen one.
Re: US jet shoots down unknown object flying off Alaska coast
#670I dread to think of all the state-funded technology companies with backdoor-ed firmware/software coming out of China
I don't see much difference between Chinese routers having back-doors and what Cisco has peddled to its customers all these years either willfully or just incompetence.
The difference is huawei routers in the west are gathering intelligence on and setting up network to disable, western infrastructure.
But Cisco in China is gathering intelligence on and setting up network to disable, chinese infrastructure.
I live in the west and happen to like our infrastructure. So while I don't think Cisco should be doing what its doing, I would completely ban Chinese gear from the infrastructure be it backbone or consumer level.