your comment reminded me of this tweet
I’m sure many people of chinese descent are pondering the matter.
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- Thread starter bd popeye
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your comment reminded me of this tweet
I’m sure many people of chinese descent are pondering the matter.
I would like to know too. I see many people believing that this would be possible and that such an object already exists in some armed forces in the world, even citing several advantages in relation even against satellites.
What if Blinken’s plane literally bumped into another spy balloon?
This is what "being sold by someone but still counting money for them" literally looks like
In4ser
Junior Member
If anything it’s hurting the US more as it’s attempts are turning the US more Indian
Other than China, the US is also exploring ways to deploy munitions and drones from high-altitude balloons in the warzones:
Imagine in times of war, China release tens or hundreds of these balloons and have them float to be near/over enemy-held territories, and have them release Shahed-like loitering munitions/kamikaze drones towards their designated targets below using swarming drone tactics. That's going be a sight to behold...
Now that we know the usefulness of high-altitude balloons (and high-altitude loitering UAVs in general) for national defense, including for offensive (launching munitions) and non-offensive (ISR) usages, I do expect that major powers would be looking into ways to deploying and countering these high-altitude balloon-based military platforms.
Recall that the US tested an airborne laser weapon system mounted onboard a modified Boeing 747 in the 2000s, i.e. Boeing YAL-1:
The laser was mounted at the nose of the aircraft. The laser platform's purpose is to become an airborne missile defense system to destroy tactical ballistic missiles at boost phase.
However, due to the high costs incured by the program and the impracticality due to the need for the platform to fly inside enemy territory to intercept enemy ballistic missiles, this project was eventually shelved in 2011.
Meanwhile, I think it's time for China to come up with solutions that can effectively deal with these kinds of threats at affordable costs.
As of now, both the US and China are already well in progress of developing newer airborne lasers that can be mounted on current and next-generation warplanes in the future, including both combat and non-combat warplanes.
In fact, Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Northrop Grumman have jointly delivered a high-energy laser weapon (LANCE) that can be carried by aircraft in podded form to the USAF for testing and evaluation in July last year:
Of course, this airborne laser weapon should be useful for not just intercepting enemy AAMs and SAMs, but also target enemy warplanes and drones in the future. In retrospect, military-purposed high-altitude balloons and high-altitude loitering UAVs in general can be targeted as well, such as this high-altitude loitering UAV airship:
As a sidenote, the famous PLA military hardware 3d-modeller @大包CG on Weibo made this Chinese counterpart to the Boeing YAL-1 by mounting an airborne laser system on a Y-20 to mock the panicking Americans:
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Solution is return to the motherland where their talents will be cherished, and also have the satisfaction of bringing back China where it has historically always been, on the top.