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xypher

Senior Member
Registered Member
solarz said:
I just thought of a way the US can solve its balloon problem:

Send up a balloon of its own, except this one has nuclear powered propulsion, and place it in the path of the Chinese balloon. When it gets within range, blow it up with a nuclear explosive.

As a safeguard, send Tom Cruise up with the balloon, so that if remote detonation of the nuke fails, Tom Cruise can take the nuke and jump on the Chinese balloon to manually detonate it.
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Would be hard to do for Tom in his high-heel elevator shoes.
 
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xypher

Senior Member
Registered Member
daifo said:
It could be misinformation either way about the ability to detect it. If they were able to detect it, they may not want to let the Chinese know that they can detect. If they can't detect it , they may also not want the Chinese know that they can't detect it. They have known that these balloons have been going over the US for years (since they prob do the same with China and other countries). I suspect these balloons usually dip up and down from 100k or stay above 100k as that is consider out of territory/space. This instance could either be a "accident" where an error prevented the balloon to move back up or a purposely done event to troll on the US (Blinken).

If this disappears into the atmosphere and leaves the US it will be LOL from Team China
If this gets shot down and retrieved, it will be LOL for Team USA
If this "gets shot down" and never retrieved, both sides are giving face.

Former colonal says there is only a 12 mile window between the us coast and international waters that the US can legally shoot it down.

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There is no "face saving" way around this balloon for the US anymore. If they shot it down right away, maybe the fallout would be minimal although they would still get a lil' cucked because it passed through their "numba one military" air defences undetected and was found due to civilians on a plane seeing it, lol. Instead they tried to virtue signal and scaremonger but it backfired dramatically with the US now looking like a clown having a meltdown over a freaking balloon and being unable/unwilling to shoot it down. They already spent way more resources on tracking and crying over that balloon than its launching cost, so even shooting it down now would mean nothing and if it turns out that it indeed was a weather balloon, then it would be equivalent to Xi taking a massive dump on Sleepy Joe.
 
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O

Overbom

Brigadier
Registered Member
Witchhunter12 said:
They're shutting down airports over a frickin' balloon, this whole thing gets funnier and funnier.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1621935344307376129
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Imagine working full-time in a PLA propaganda unit trying to create videos to scare America. You show your hypersonic missiles, your J-20s, your navy, you go through all that paperwork, all that tiring video shooting, all that editing.

And then one day, you turn on the TV and see the mass US hysteria over a Chinese PhD student's balloon. Wouldn't you at that time start doubting your life's work?
 
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Atomicfrog

Major
Registered Member
plawolf said:
At that altitude, there is minimal internal pressure in the balloon, so if you puncture it, all you do is put a tiny hole in the material and it won’t pop like a balloon at ground level would. Helium will leak out, but very very slowly and it can take days for the balloon to drift down to earth.

To bring such balloons down quickly, you need an explosion to rip a huge tear in it so it looses structural integrity. For that, you need a missile, which opens up the problem of guidance. Radar won’t work, neither will regular IR. Only mainstream missile guidance that might work is high end imaging infrared (IIR), but those seekers are typically only used on short range AAMs, so you need a fighter with high service ceiling and a top of the range IRAAM to have a go at intercepting the balloon. Also, since radar is suboptimal, you ideally want IRST on your fighter to help it find and guide the missile until it’s own seeker can lock onto the balloon.

The PLAAF had the perfect package in the J10+PL10. I think the USAF sent those F22s to have a crack, but without IRST, they probably couldn’t get a firing solution.
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I was talking about the Cf-18... not the balloon, sorry for miscomprehension. These old jet are falling apparts...
 
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