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Chinese spy balloons floating over the US and latin america
- Thread starter CallumJohn
- Start date
Hmmm… I wonder where Ward got that info, or did he simply make an assumption based on the video?
My thought on seeing the shootdown video is that the grayish cloud at intercept may be the warhead going off. I suspect this was a “fleet standard” AIM-9X, but I’m willing to be set right if someone has more info.
My thought on seeing the shootdown video is that the grayish cloud at intercept may be the warhead going off. I suspect this was a “fleet standard” AIM-9X, but I’m willing to be set right if someone has more info.
Yeah, I'm going to put that in the plausible, but still highly speculative category. I've seen enough live warheads go off via long distance ISR video during the past 8 months to say that you don't always get a visible fireball... even for a large warhead like Harpoon. I asked Ward about it on Twitter... we'll see what he comes up with.
Perhaps. Given the current requirements and political climate for any type of strike that will make the news, I'd wager it was more based on what was practiced the most that would give the most consistency in the sim in the days and even hours prior to those guys "stepping" to their airplane.
Gun shots probably aren't as predictable as running a missle timeline. I don't doubt that those guys ran that scenario in the sim way more times than they needed to, with each metric front loaded to higher, in order to go on this mission.
Agreed. Guns also require getting a lot closer to the target, which presents risk to the aircraft and pilot, especially with the high TAS and limited maneuverability at very high altitudes. Totally agree with the missile as a choice of weapon.
You definitely don’t want to be the pilot who tried to gun a balloon… and missed.
I've since learned the F-22 has a hard 50K limit on the gun because of the way the gun door operates.
There’s one “made in China” thing I would buy, just to enjoy the irony.
I also don’t think we were “slow” to shoot it down, I think there was an effort to learn as much as possible about the Chinese targets and potential methods of collection. I think this one was played well. As others have said, it’s likely that non-kinetic methods of suppression and avoidance were used to limit any intelligence gains from the balloon. If they come out to the world in a week or two with incontrovertible evidence that it was a CCP spy vehicle, then it’ll be a nice cherry on top.
Fuck China.
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I agree we weren’t slow to down it…I just need the timeline for my pun.There’s one “made in China” thing I would buy, just to enjoy the irony.
I also don’t think we were “slow” to shoot it down, I think there was an effort to learn as much as possible about the Chinese targets and potential methods of collection. I think this one was played well. As others have said, it’s likely non-kinetic methods of suppression and avoidance (e.g. OPSEC) were used to limit any intelligence gains from the balloon. If they come out to the world in a week or two with incontrovertible evidence that it was a CCP spy vehicle, then it’ll be a nice cherry on top.
Fuck China.
Standard for an F-14 guy.
I’d add that our gov wasn’t that concerned about collateral people/property damage in the vast swath of unpopulated area from Alaska through Canada and Montana to St. Louis. We blow lots of stuff up in/over more populated areas and only make reasonable efforts to keep bombs and missiles on our sides of hwy 50 and 95.There’s one “made in China” thing I would buy, just to enjoy the irony.
I also don’t think we were “slow” to shoot it down, I think there was an effort to learn as much as possible about the Chinese targets and potential methods of collection. I think this one was played well. As others have said, it’s likely that non-kinetic methods of suppression and avoidance were used to limit any intelligence gains from the balloon. If they come out to the world in a week or two with incontrovertible evidence that it was a CCP spy vehicle, then it’ll be a nice cherry on top.
Fuck China.
