High altitude object shot down
IF these objects are as difficult to detect as the reports suggest, I cannot understand how anyone would know where to return fire. Besides, who ever said that a putative attack would just comprise one balloon?
And, of course, there are many other types of weapon. A sprinkling of septoria from 40,000 feet could damage the wheat fields of Canada quite badly...
And, of course, there are many other types of weapon. A sprinkling of septoria from 40,000 feet could damage the wheat fields of Canada quite badly...
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IF these objects are as difficult to detect as the reports suggest, I cannot understand how anyone would know where to return fire. Besides, who ever said that a putative attack would just comprise one balloon?
And, of course, there are many other types of weapon. A sprinkling of septoria from 40,000 feet could damage the wheat fields of Canada quite badly...
And, of course, there are many other types of weapon. A sprinkling of septoria from 40,000 feet could damage the wheat fields of Canada quite badly...
Seems these things are getting attention now because of the large size of the first one shot down. Not at all new though. The hangars for the Chinese ones were first spotted in 2013. My guess is that their existence was known, but just never really made it into the public eye until now.
Soon no weather balloon will be safe 
Pretty simple. Any attacking aircraft and weapon system needs to find the target. This may use active sensors the thing can record and uplink for later analysis. The attacker then needs to acquire the target. As above, data can be acquired and uplinked. Then the weapon system needs to be initialised, launched and home in for the kill. As above. All that data can be acquired and uplinked for later analysis.
The value to China of knowing EXACTLY how these things are being shot down is high. Knowing the fine details of how these things are being intercepted and shot down gives China a golden opportunity to develop countermeasures. I can't think of a cheaper or more effective way of getting solid data like this. may also explain why a relatively "dumb" missile was used to down the first one. Might have been the best weapon for the job. Then again it could have been a weapon that was so old and well understood that there was no risk of China obtaining data it didn't already have.
The value to China of knowing EXACTLY how these things are being shot down is high. Knowing the fine details of how these things are being intercepted and shot down gives China a golden opportunity to develop countermeasures. I can't think of a cheaper or more effective way of getting solid data like this. may also explain why a relatively "dumb" missile was used to down the first one. Might have been the best weapon for the job. Then again it could have been a weapon that was so old and well understood that there was no risk of China obtaining data it didn't already have.
Seems the balloon was above 20000m and still some 2000m above the F22 which was already flying at it's service ceiling (or so claimed) with a missile payload at around 18000m. (May most likely have been deliberately limited to avoid betraying actual aircraft performance to adversaries). The M61A2 Vulcan cannon has an effective range of some 600m and therefore well short of a high kill probabilty. The AIM-9X is the cheapest air-to-air missile in the US inventory and the right choice for the job.
And here goes another one,,,
https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/u-s-sho...rder-1.6270790
To be very honest i do not feel very confortable at all with some nation(s) taking down some objects out of the sky without knowing nothing about their origins, missions, or above all, wich "entity" they belong...pure arrogance and selfishness if "they" were not acting in an hostile behaviour...NOTAMS and Temp Reserves could be used....unless they know at all 100% to who/whom they are messing up ?
https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/u-s-sho...rder-1.6270790
To be very honest i do not feel very confortable at all with some nation(s) taking down some objects out of the sky without knowing nothing about their origins, missions, or above all, wich "entity" they belong...pure arrogance and selfishness if "they" were not acting in an hostile behaviour...NOTAMS and Temp Reserves could be used....unless they know at all 100% to who/whom they are messing up ?
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And here goes another one,,,
https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/u-s-sho...rder-1.6270790
To be very honest i do not feel very confortable at all with some nation(s) taking down some objects out of the sky without knowing nothing about their origins, missions, or above all, wich "entity" they belong...pure arrogance and selfishness if "they" were not acting in an hostile behaviour...NOTAMS and Temp Reserves could be used....unless they know at all 100% to who/whom they are messing up ?
https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/u-s-sho...rder-1.6270790
To be very honest i do not feel very confortable at all with some nation(s) taking down some objects out of the sky without knowing nothing about their origins, missions, or above all, wich "entity" they belong...pure arrogance and selfishness if "they" were not acting in an hostile behaviour...NOTAMS and Temp Reserves could be used....unless they know at all 100% to who/whom they are messing up ?
Downing a UFO in your own airspace isn't arrogance, it's security.
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And here goes another one,,,
https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/u-s-sho...rder-1.6270790
To be very honest i do not feel very confortable at all with some nation(s) taking down some objects out of the sky without knowing nothing about their origins, missions, or above all, wich "entity" they belong...pure arrogance and selfishness if "they" were not acting in an hostile behaviour...NOTAMS and Temp Reserves could be used....unless they know at all 100% to who/whom they are messing up ?
https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/u-s-sho...rder-1.6270790
To be very honest i do not feel very confortable at all with some nation(s) taking down some objects out of the sky without knowing nothing about their origins, missions, or above all, wich "entity" they belong...pure arrogance and selfishness if "they" were not acting in an hostile behaviour...NOTAMS and Temp Reserves could be used....unless they know at all 100% to who/whom they are messing up ?
Remember both Russia and China have downed spy aircraft
Do the research. The hangars and launch facilities were publicly identified in 2013. No doubt western intelligence knew of them long before that. They've been spotted a handful of times over the past few years. All in the public domain and linked to earlier in this thread. They are a hot topic now just because the sky happened to be clear enough over Montana for someone on the ground to take a photo of one at around 60,000ft. Had that photo not been published on the web I doubt we'd be chatting about these things now.
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Unless it's a biochem warfare object, containing a kg or 2 of their first class material, not from a Biosafety Level 4 lab, but from an innocent wildlive market. 
And if it's an electronic warfare game, then enough samples from different interceptors, datalink transmissions, etc. should be enough for their supercomputers to give it a go at cracking the encryption and ECM protocols...
And if it's an electronic warfare game, then enough samples from different interceptors, datalink transmissions, etc. should be enough for their supercomputers to give it a go at cracking the encryption and ECM protocols...
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Exactly this. Getting up front and personal data from an attacking platform and weapon is the holy grail for anyone intent on countermeasures. Being able to get this in near real time and upload it to a sat link right up to the moment of impact will provide a goldmine of data. That data is now safely stored behind the Great Firewall of China. We can be 100% sure they will gain more from it than from any conventional spying programme. Got to admire them for adopting this tactic. One hell of a clever way to cheaply get data that's just about unobtainable.
Unless it's a biochem warfare object, containing a kg or 2 of their first class material, not from a Biosafety Level 4 lab, but from an innocent wildlive market.
And if it's an electronic warfare game, then enough samples from different interceptors, datalink transmissions, etc. should be enough for their supercomputers to give it a go at cracking the encryption and ECM protocols...
And if it's an electronic warfare game, then enough samples from different interceptors, datalink transmissions, etc. should be enough for their supercomputers to give it a go at cracking the encryption and ECM protocols...
Thats why quantum computing is so interesting to governments and the military. Once they have that figured out, the worlds financial system will be toast, until somebody creates encryption techniques that quantum computers cant break. Not that I particularly worried, I will have passed before then.
There is no way any government can decrypt data assuming it has encrypted correctly. Modern encryption is just too secure for that to happen. Thats why governments complain so much about Apple, and Whatsapp, and Telegram, and Signal, etc, etc. They know they cant crack the encryption in any time frame thats considered useful.
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There is no way any government can decrypt data assuming it has encrypted correctly. Modern encryption is just too secure for that to happen. Thats why governments complain so much about Apple, and Whatsapp, and Telegram, and Signal, etc, etc. They know they cant crack the encryption in any time frame thats considered useful.
Thats why quantum computing is so interesting to governments and the military. Once they have that figured out, the worlds financial system will be toast, until somebody creates encryption techniques that quantum computers cant break. Not that I particularly worried, I will have passed before then.
Thats why quantum computing is so interesting to governments and the military. Once they have that figured out, the worlds financial system will be toast, until somebody creates encryption techniques that quantum computers cant break. Not that I particularly worried, I will have passed before then.
That is why F-4 with basic comms and old style targeting + Vulcan is a cheap and effective answer to any such target as long as it cannot return the fire. And it is expendable - you just build a few dozens out of a thousand stored. The latest war has shown that cheaper assets in mass can do much more than a few uber drones, while having a much lower total cost and training requirements.