Politics

[CoElkHunter]

Heckuva game of Whack-a-Mole. I think each sidewinder costs 200k-300k plus time cost and risk to plane and pilot, but who’s counting. Some would argue good range practice… if you count shooting fat, relatively stationary floating objects as useful practice. Maybe a better question would be NORAD radar detection ability and discrimination practice and who/when decisions made for intercept. I notice Murkowski couldn’t stand it and got into the “sounding tough” act following idiot in chief’s lead. You know, “Corn Pop was a bad dude”.

I wouldn’t want to be flock of migrating birds, moving at altitude about now.

$400,000 per Sidewinder missile and the first one from the F16 missed the balloon over Lake Huron. The pilot had to shoot a second one. $800K for a balloon shoot down! LOL

 

[Red Leg]

This is a shortened version of the video I posted a couple of days ago of a Russian company team destroying itself in a minefield. It is now clear how the Ukrainians are successfully emplacing these on short notice along avenues of approach well ahead of the front lines. Sappers or special ops could do it, but the risk would be great in such open terrain.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1624863819393540096

One of the more effective anti-armor weapons languishing in our war reserve stocks is the M718 and M741 Remote Anti-Armor Mine System. This is 155mm round capable of carrying nine anti-armor mines. Fired into the target area the mines are scattered as they are dislodged from the cargo munition. Just three or four RAAM shells can saturate an avenue of approach and in winter conditions are essentially invisible from a tracked vehicle.

I say languishing, because the US has been very reluctant to use anything but command detonated mines for many decades. Short of a major land war with China (that will in any case be a naval and air conflict) or Russia (rather a remote possibility thanks to Ukraine), it is unlikely these munitions would ever have been employed.

We have provided Ukraine with 7,200 of these rounds, and it is these with which they are now being so effective in destroying Russian mounted attacks - particularly in the vicinity of Vulehdar and Bakhmut.

Being caught in a minefield requires specific battle drills from the mounted infantry in the IFVs in order to successfully extract the armor. To continue driving as the Russians seem compelled to do is almost farcical - or perhaps tragic - it is hard to laugh at a burning man who had no choice and no proper training.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1622636064069255178

https://twitter.com/x/status/1624882656298115072

These mines do have a self-destruct mechanism, so they won't form the long term problem the larger Russian anti-armor and anti-personnel mines that are being emplaced by both sides are certain to do.

 

[NE 7x57]

Perhaps if Biden would have said something to the effect of, "If Ukraine is invaded we will support them by imposing sweeping sanctions and military aid to include tanks and aircraft", Putin MIGHT have reconsidered the timing. Biden's lack of resolve and stumbling response probably did give Putin some assurance that he could handle anything the west did in response. Regardless of who was in office, sooner or later Russia was going attempt to expand it's borders by attacking Ukraine.

Russia is and has always been paranoid about their security. They feel the need to control the states surrounding them as to deny invasion corridors to their perceived enemies. If they had rolled over Ukraine in a week like many anticipated I'm sure the next adventure would have been Moldova. Then Putin would have had to decide if he wanted to directly confront NATO in the Baltic states.

 

[Kevin Peacocke]

Back to the balloons, the only plausible explanation for the absurd and thin information being trickled out by the MOD is that they have found something really significant and scary. If it were just trash cans in the sky what possible harm could there be in admitting so?

 

[PARA45]

$400,000 per Sidewinder missile and the first one from the F16 missed the balloon over Lake Huron. The pilot had to shoot a second one. $800K for a balloon shoot down! LOL

Those missiles do not detonate on impact, they are basically flying darts. It is what the AF uses to practice shooting down drones. Some of those balloons are too high to use the guns.

 

[Ray B]

@Red Leg I'm wondering about the 155mm mine system. The diagram notes 9 mines per shell, since a 155 HE shell went 98 pounds, each mine could be about 10 pounds. These appear to be disc shaped with dimensions about 2"x 5". Is the dispersal done while the shell is in flight- jettisoned out the back as the shell approached ground or did the shell detonate and send the mines out along the lines of the cofram shell? If the shell is fired from a M109 it would seem the gun could travel a preplanned route in darkness, lay-up and fire a few and retreat before the enemy could counter-battery shoot.

 

[Hunter4752001]

When considering the Chinese balloons, especially the first balloon, one fact seems to be missing from the public conversation. During the development of the Chinese hypersonic missiles, some of the test launches were from very similar balloons. Depending on whether China believed US radar systems could
i. identify a slow moving balloon (would depend on whether the balloon material reflects radar or is partially transparent to radar)
ii. Would US radar AI systems automatically identify it as a threat.

From the publicly available data, the Chinese hypersonic missiles have a range of about 2,000 km. They can change course in flight so launch position isn't critical. Even unguided balloons could give them an avenue to disperse a strike capacity inside US and take out critical targets before any threat was detected. Whereas a missiles launched from outside the US, on subs or piggybacking on long range missiles/aircraft, would be detected much earlier.

The question is, were the recent balloons actually surveillance balloons, or test runs on alternative strike mechanisms. Given the initial reactions by the Chinese government, it is possible they didn't know. And that it was an experiment by someone within the military.

 

[Red Leg]

@Red Leg I'm wondering about the 155mm mine system. The diagram notes 9 mines per shell, since a 155 HE shell went 98 pounds, each mine could be about 10 pounds. These appear to be disc shaped with dimensions about 2"x 5". Is the dispersal done while the shell is in flight- jettisoned out the back as the shell approached ground or did the shell detonate and send the mines out along the lines of the cofram shell? If the shell is fired from a M109 it would seem the gun could travel a preplanned route in darkness, lay-up and fire a few and retreat before the enemy could counter-battery shoot.

It is an explosive base ejection system which is essentially the same as that used in the M483 DPICM cargo round. The resulting pattern is generally circular. A couple of mines in each payload have an anti-tamper feature that generally discourages attempts to clear them (though maybe not Russians? )

 

[Ray B]

Back in the day the units had what was called Cat of Nine Tails. These were shells for the various guns that instead of an exploding warhead were a bunch of weights connected by cables. To clear a mine field basically a multi-weighted bolo was blasted out onto the ground ahead of the tanks/guns and the weights would detonate any mines in the location. Seems like the Russians could invest in a few of those.

 

[CoElkHunter]

My late father served in the Korean War and was a history teacher and I got a lot of his books when he passed. I'm currently reading "The Korean Air War" by Robert F. Dorr and Warren Thompson. The "primitive" Mig 15s of the 1950s would fly at 50K feet and "jump" our F86 Sabres, who typically flew at 40K, where they excelled in dogfighting at that altitude. Anyway, if a Mig 15 from the 1950s could fly at 50K, our modern jets should be able to fly at 80K and shoot down a balloon with their cannons? LOL As a side note, our P51 Mustangs and F4U Corsairs, were giving the Mig 15s a run for their money at the early stages of the Korean War. One F4U pilot shot down 5 Migs and was awarded Ace. I'm still reading the book. That is all.

 

[barryk]

What's to stop anyone...not necessarily China.....from charging one of those balloons with a biological agent? We just blow these things out of the sky without knowing what they are or contain? Surely we aren't that stupid....someone must know more....right???

 

[Hunter4752001]

While I suspect the altitude and dilution effect would result in any bio-agent having little effect at ground level. Despite the hype, bio-agents aren't that big a threat.

 

[CoElkHunter]

What's to stop anyone...not necessarily China.....from charging one of those balloons with a biological agent? We just blow these things out of the sky without knowing what they are or contain? Surely we aren't that stupid....someone must know more....right???

"Surely we aren't that stupid". I don't know, look who we have as President?

 

[John Wasmuth]

What's to stop anyone...not necessarily China.....from charging one of those balloons with a biological agent? We just blow these things out of the sky without knowing what they are or contain? Surely we aren't that stupid....someone must know more....right???

I’m sure the resident virologist will come by to explain how it’s only effectively transmits from person to person and it can’t be air borne and wear a mask……. Or not…..

 

[barryk]

"Surely we aren't that stupid". I don't know, look who we have as President?

Exactly

 

[barryk]

While I suspect the altitude and dilution effect would result in any bio-agent having little effect at ground level. Despite the hype, bio-agents aren't that big a threat.

Well..you probably know more about that than I...hope you're right.

 

[John Wasmuth]

Well..you probably know more about that than I...hope you're right.

They made Covid-19, they are working on covid-23 and a whole lot more ugly junk than that being financed by our own freaking government to make it more deadly than it is……. It’s what we don’t know about what bugs they are developing that’s scary. Regardless of what the resident know it all tells you, they can drop enough crap from a ballon that large to kill a significant amount of the population.

 

[CoElkHunter]

I’m sure the resident virologist will come by to explain how it’s only effectively transmits from person to person and it can’t be air borne and wear a mask……. Or not…..

I just read an article where a large participant study was done regarding the effectiveness of masks preventing ANY virus from infecting humans. The masks, including N95, had NO measured effectiveness in preventing the transmission of Covid or any other flu like viruses to humans. Maybe a "balloon" virus would be more transmittable? LOL

 

[WAB]

I just read an article where a large participant study was done regarding the effectiveness of masks preventing ANY virus from infecting humans. The masks, including N95, had NO measured effectiveness in preventing the transmission of Covid or any other flu like viruses to humans. Maybe a "balloon" virus would be more transmittable? LOL

Surely that’s not news to anyone?

 

[CoElkHunter]

While I suspect the altitude and dilution effect would result in any bio-agent having little effect at ground level. Despite the hype, bio-agents aren't that big a threat.

I don't know? The Chinese weaponized Covid 19 was pretty effective from infected people via commercial aircraft? Probably not from a balloon though, but possibly from an object dropped from a balloon TO ground level in a hermetically sealed environment? Nuclear was much more simplistic and easier to understand? LOL