Pentagon tracking suspected Chinese spy balloon over the US

[tower9]

Pentagon Warns U.S. That They Had Scary Dream About China

WASHINGTON—Still trembling after the “startlingly lifelike” nightmare, Pentagon officials warned the nation Friday that they had a scary dream about China. “China was chasing us, and they had a knife,” said Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, who suggested that the rival superpower could be more...

www.theonion.com

 

[Stranagor]

Blinken scraps trip to China over spy balloon drama

The Pentagon said the surveillance airship posed no threat to civilians and said shooting it down was not an option due to the potential danger to people on the ground.

www.nydailynews.com

Secretary of State Antony Blinken scraps trip to China over spy balloon drama

 

[onebyone]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1621583846146981890

 

[epebble]

Well, fighter don't go up that high, they probably level at FL500 or FL600. this is about 70,000 to 90,000 ft. It's hard to shoot it down with conventional mean (like low calibre munition or short-range missile.) Most of the time they would use long range AAM/SAM to bring it down, well, the might is there, but whether or not they use it is another matter.

Since you know this stuff, I am wondering if this sucker would be detected by our Missile Defense system (and eliminated from afar). I am not worried about China, but copycat behavior from North Korea, Iran or even Al Queda type crazies.

 

[jhungary]

Since you know this stuff, I am wondering if this sucker would be detected by our Missile Defense system (and eliminated from afar). I am not worried about China, but copycat behavior from North Korea, Iran or even Al Queda type crazies.

It would, again, it's the same situation (well, almost the same) when Soviet shot down KAL-007, in KAL case, the Russian needed the aircraft to drift in and out of Russian airspace for it to shoot them down, because it take times to scramble those jet to intercept the aircraft. But then that KAL was flying at comair level, so it's not really that hard. You just need to scramble a fighter in time to shoot it down before it leaves Soviet Airspace.

For this balloon, this is outside the normal interception range because it was flying a bit above the maximum ceiling, on the other hand, would we actually wanted to? I mean if we are to intercept that, that probably not a job for F-15 or F-16, but rather F-22 or F-35. Which mean if we send those up and engage that balloon, that balloon would transmit anything before it goes down, that most likely would play into PLAAF hand. Which mean if we were to engage that balloon. we would most likely do it with SAM like THAAD or SM-6, those are the one that have enough range to intercept. There is static SAM equipment positioned at the coast and ship with missile just to do that.

On the other hand, as I explained, they would have and could have done it before it enter Alaska or before it enter Canadian Airspace (Which NORAD own both) but they didn't, no doubt there were a chance to engage that balloon before it enters population, but DoD did not do it, and instead put it on front page news and cry foul about China, which is quite strange, I would think if this is Iran or NK balloon, they would have just blow it out of the sky. But then if that was NK or Iran, that would have been just rudimentary balloon with no value. maybe the Pentagon think this is something worth studying on and so it just leaves it in place? Again, I don't know.

 

[epebble]

It would, again, it's the same situation (well, almost the same) when Soviet shot down KAL-007, in KAL case, the Russian needed the aircraft to drift in and out of Russian airspace for it to shoot them down, because it take times to scramble those jet to intercept the aircraft. But then that KAL was flying at comair level, so it's not really that hard. You just need to scramble a fighter in time to shoot it down before it leaves Soviet Airspace.

For this balloon, this is outside the normal interception range because it was flying a bit above the maximum ceiling, on the other hand, would we actually wanted to? I mean if we are to intercept that, that probably not a job for F-15 or F-16, but rather F-22 or F-35. Which mean if we send those up and engage that balloon, that balloon would transmit anything before it goes down, that most likely would play into PLAAF hand. Which mean if we were to engage that balloon. we would most likely do it with SAM like THAAD or SM-6, those are the one that have enough range to intercept. There is static SAM equipment positioned at the coast and ship with missile just to do that.

On the other hand, as I explained, they would have and could have done it before it enter Alaska or before it enter Canadian Airspace (Which NORAD own both) but they didn't, no doubt there were a chance to engage that balloon before it enters population, but DoD did not do it, and instead put it on front page news and cry foul about China, which is quite strange, I would think if this is Iran or NK balloon, they would have just blow it out of the sky. But then if that was NK or Iran, that would have been just rudimentary balloon with no value. maybe the Pentagon think this is something worth studying on and so it just leaves it in place? Again, I don't know.

Thank you for your explanation. That is reassuring. Putting it all together, this is a political storm than a military or technological puzzle.

 

[大汉奸柳传志]

You can't weaponize balloon...It's not the same thing you have a missile travelling down March 2-5 from 100,000 AGL and a balloon that flow from 60,000 ft and slowly float to wherever you want to attack. It's like you are trying to ride a bike to bomb your target...

I mean, there are nothing stopping anyone to do that, China can of course do that, again, there are no point of such a thing.

If it can be easily mass produced at such low cost and gives your enemy a headache then I consider it already weaponized. Ukrainians used to laugh at the Iran made Shahed-136 and now so many small nations are chasing after it, still no one would consider it a high tech or reliable weapon, numbers and low cost is what makes it shine.

Wind riding balloons are a step further in that direction.

 

[Viet]

it's not a spy balloon, I think it's more like a feasibility demonstration of weaponized balloons. We used to have such feasibility study around early 2010s that aim to dump nasty things onto Japan with westerlies-riding balloons during war time, the technology must be pretty matured by now.

For example a balloon that carries radioactive waste only cost like 0.01% of an ICBM + nuclear warhead, but basically does a same job.

Yes why not drop nuclear waste from the balloon, or how’s about spraying coronavirus from above? You hopefully realize, that’s a violation of other country’s airspace and that will draw inevitably a military response.

 

[etylo]

So, whats the fuss ? US airplanes spy on China mainland nearly everyday just off Chinese coastlines and on Chinese islands in SCS.

 

[大汉奸柳传志]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1621583846146981890

that's the path it took? why didn't Canada say anything

Yes why not drop nuclear waste from the balloon, or how’s about spraying coronavirus from above? You hopefully realize, that’s a violation of other country’s airspace and that will draw inevitably a military response.

doesn't matter if it's a wartime strategy, and yea bio agent also works such as anthrax

 

[Viet]

Nah, they did this all the time, we also do that, Russia do that, it's just the matter of whether or not you get caught, and whether or not the government publish such report. Which I found that odd they did it now when the Chinese has been doing this since at least 2000.

As I said before, these intrusion would become international incident ONLY if they were detected, and most of the time the government will let them pass by in order to maintain the integrity of their intelligence (They know but you think you get the goods so you won't do anything like changing its course or attempting another way to penetrate) which mean DoD is talking about it is strange.


You can't weaponize balloon...It's not the same thing you have a missile travelling down March 2-5 from 100,000 AGL and a balloon that flow from 60,000 ft and slowly float to wherever you want to attack. It's like you are trying to ride a bike to bomb your target...

I mean, there are nothing stopping anyone to do that, China can of course do that, again, there are no point of such a thing.

That incident is a clear provocation. The chinese have guts. I don’t know what they have eaten at breakfast. Some bad dimsum? The balloon flies over Montana, the location of US strategic ICBMs.

 

[大汉奸柳传志]

the US needed an excuse to Trumpify sleepy?

 

[gambit]

Nothing to see here. China got tired of US flying SIGINT off their coast and got mocked online for it, so the CPC had to do something, even as useless as floating a balloon over.

 

[doorstar]

Nothing to see here. China got tired of US flying SIGINT off their coast and got mocked online for it, so the CPC had to do something, even as useless as floating a balloon over.

so just a little face-saving exercise that backfired, giving the state a pretext to weaponize the upcoming visit to China?

 

[jhungary]

If it can be easily mass produced at such low cost and gives your enemy a headache then I consider it already weaponized. Ukrainians used to laugh at the Iran made Shahed-136 and now so many small nations are chasing after it, still no one would consider it a high tech or reliable weapon, numbers and low cost is what makes it shine.

Wind riding balloons are a step further in that direction.

you have to have the balloon flow toward stratosphere. and then come down in an unpowered way. First of all, that balloon would have cost 2 or 3 or even 5 times to make the Shahed drone. and second of all, you either drop the payload from 70,000-90,000 ft above ground, which by the time your projectile come back to earth it will be burn out because things that dropped that far up will disintegrate if it passes terminal velocity, that's similar to Space Shuttle Challenger diaster where the shuttle burn up on reentry.

Or you dive the entire balloon into your target unguided and unpowered, first of all, good luck hitting your target, second of all, it would be too slow you probably can shoot them down with small arms fire.

And then the major thing, YOU DON'T CONTROL THE WIND, for that to be able to weaponise, you need the wind to work in your favor, otherwise if the wind did not blow East, YOUR BALLON CAN NEVER GET TO THE US....