Posted on 02/04/2023 12:52:37 PM PST by Conservativetpa
That pretty much justifies the $67.3 billion spent on the F-22 Raptor program.
If the Chinese are even slightly good, they probably beamed any data UP to a satellite. That’s almost impossible to tap. And, of course, there is no real need for payload recovery, I’d be surprised if they had 500K in that thing anyway.
People are calling this a Sputnik moment. In some ways it is, because we could have put up a satellite years before Sputnik but there were political pressures that delayed it. Sound familiar?
Russia putting up a satellite was a real breakthrough of imagination. This balloon was 1940’s tech with maybe a little 21’st century tech mixed in. I don’t think we have anything that can actually _capture_ an object floating between 50 an 120K feet, after spending trillions on national defense and having 50+ years to contemplate the problem.
Balloons were probably harder to take down than fixed wing aircraft in 1918.
Way more than the whole balloon mission
Air to air sends out pellets like a shotgun in every direction, fired by a proximity fuse. A missile doesn’t actually HIT an aircraft. It gets within a certain distance and acts like an omnidirectional claymore once the prox fuse is triggered.
I could see putting some poison chemicals in the balloon to disperse over the area if it’s shot down. That would seem to be a pretty effective weapon.
Maybe next they could decide to maybe for once try to shoot down one of those “UFO’S” that have been invading military air space lately..
They probably removed the explosive and attached large fins so the missile gets tangled in the balloon and pulls it straight down quickly before it goes out to sea.
Well, it helped that the balloons were filled with hydrogen!
British developed tracer .303 in 1915. They were certainly used against Zeppelins, so I assume used against observation balloons.
I seriously doubt this balloon used hydrogen for lift.
I wonder if the missile ran out of propellent short of the balloon and coasted into it. I am certain that the pilot and his command worked out a plan of attack that would minimize risk to the pilot, airframe and the people on the surface of the earth or sea. The balloon wasn’t going anywhere, if one attempt failed they could try something else. There was almost certainly a plan B.
🔝
No......China OWNS the BIDEN CRIME FAMILY, and this was a payoff for MILLIONS given to them!
World War III is coming, IMHO.
Wars and rumors of war.
(I just did a rumor 😂)
The balloons skins were impervious to 0.30 cal that old school biplanes used. The Krauts are not stupid. There was a guy who landed on top of a Zeppelin, set a time delayed fused and parachuted back down to mother England. Earned a Victoria Cross, and not posthumously.
Hmm.. There were ‘balloon busters’ in WWI! What did they use?
The pilot who got this “kill” continues the legacy of Frank Luke but in the 21st Century.
What a man our president is and decisive too, on top of things , why that china spy balloon thing didnt even get to the atlantic ocean, stopped it over south carolina, that there is prime bragging rights, call in that hot shot press secwetary that everyone loves so an lets get some milage poll miles.s/ spit
The next two years (the Biden window) are going to be dicey.
Our adversaries know he’s feeble and unable to manage multiple crises. They recognize an exploitable opportunity when they see it.
They are also keenly aware of the degradation of our military. Our population may not see it, but our adversaries do. Opportunity is knocking for them.
But wait...things could get even worse if Kamala should need to step in as president. Can’t you just see her talking to the country like a kindergarten class telling us that big missiles can fly high and make loud booms when they fall to earth?
Elections have consequences.
You might be correct. It definitely used to exist. I saw it first hand at Ft. Benning back in the 80’s. It doesn’t take a genius to adapt the solution in this video
Of course they wouldn’t give him accurate information.
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