Chinese “Weather Balloon” Enters US Air Space
- Thread starter hanselthecaretaker
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I guess that's why they call them MISSiles.
In years gone by, some 40k players would call them rockets, not missiles, as using that word was cursed. Macbeth!
*sigh*
Time for a trillion dollar balloon program. And we'd *almost* saved up enough for universal healthcare
Time for a trillion dollar balloon program. And we'd *almost* saved up enough for universal healthcare
US MIC: We've done it boys! Mission Accomplished!
Seriously, me being cynical.
As much as everyone's been going on about the damn balloon for the past week, it's hard not to think the whole thing feels like a distraction from something else. IDK what else it could be right now but the whole thing feels like US government saying "LOOK! BALLOON!" and the internet looks at it and makes a bunch of memes and totally doesn't notice a couple aircraft carriers moving into the black sea or something.
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perhaps, though it's a bit silly to send a fighter jet with an AMRAAM to destroy what is probably just a weather balloon.
Yet ironically of the jet's armament, probably the safest option.
Not so much to me. China and Iran are the countries the politico-media complex tries to manufacture consent for a war with more than any other, including Russia, on slow news days/weeks. Right now it's not so much a need for distraction -- nobody really cares about unsecured classified documents or Congress taking a heaping shit on the First Amendment outside the bog-standard partisan nonsense -- as it is there's just nothing really new happening (and that includes the ongoing Tyre Nichols/Cop City protests).
If this balloon manages to prompt a paranoid US to waste billions of dollars on yet another program of no discernible benefit, it will have wildly outperformed the Chinese government's expectations.
Apparently during Trump's term, these "weather" balloons flew over the US at least 3 times. I'm guessing this shit happens all the time, with the tacit agreement if civilians see one, it gets shot down. Like how many of our spy satellites have flown over China since that balloon was shot down? Big Governments have real-time visual feeds to just about everywhere in the world, at all times.
This is essentially my thinking too. The national news attention on it made the government's response politically necessary even if it's not militarily so. They waited for it to float over the ocean to ensure no accidents occurred when downing it and make direct recovery easier.
China condemns US ‘attack’ on surveillance balloon as ‘overreaction’
China condemned the U.S. military’s decision on Saturday to shoot down a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon that flew over the U.S. last week. “China strongly disapproves of and protests …
thehill.com
So I was talking about this with a friend last night and I'd wondered why, instead of launching an expensive missile, a gun run hadn't been performed (it's not as it the balloon could pull evasive maneuvers). I came to find out that the balloon was far higher than I'd thought- sixty thousand feet, ten thousand feet above the operational ceiling of pretty much any fighter jet (only specialized stealth bombers can really go higher).
And Republicans wanted civilians to shoot it down. I guess 5.56mm can go upwards more than eleven miles if you just love America enough.
And Republicans wanted civilians to shoot it down. I guess 5.56mm can go upwards more than eleven miles if you just love America enough.
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Same reflex here. While aware that 60000 feet is out of reach of most slingshots, I was surprised downing a balloon could require a one million dollars missile. I suppose that at that altitude a plane cannot manoeuver enough to aim its canons at a balloon or to fire them ?
Anyway, while I'm here, good old Manley's take on the thingy, before it got shot down (14:56 in case yt isn't embedded with custom starting point) :
I imagine the issue is that if you have to fire at it at an upwards angle, you lose a great deal of control over where those rounds come back down. Plus, ten thousand feet (well, a fair bit more than that, really, given approach angles) is probably a little much to ask even for a computer-controlled gun system to manage accurately.