Not a Bot said:

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Per guy on Fox, Biden wanted to shoot it down over Montana, DoD and other military advised Biden not to attempt a shoot down. There's a Twitter thread a few pages back that explains why it would have been tricky over land.

The guns on fighter jets use cannon rounds, not bullets. They are designed to explode on impact and the balloon surface wouldn't allow for that, and those rounds would have to come down somewhere. Using a proximity warhead on a missile would have the same issue. It's also flying at a high enough altitude that F-22 would be operating near it's upper limit. Even though it looks like an easy target it actually isn't.

This is one area the new laser pods being developed could really help. It's a shame we couldn't conduct a real-world test yet.

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The devil really is in the details on this one. IT'S COMPLICATED

Ghost91 said:

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Not a Bot said:

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Per guy on Fox, Biden wanted to shoot it down over Montana, DoD and other military advised Biden not to attempt a shoot down. There's a Twitter thread a few pages back that explains why it would have been tricky over land.

The guns on fighter jets use cannon rounds, not bullets. They are designed to explode on impact and the balloon surface wouldn't allow for that, and those rounds would have to come down somewhere. Using a proximity warhead on a missile would have the same issue. It's also flying at a high enough altitude that F-22 would be operating near it's upper limit. Even though it looks like an easy target it actually isn't.

This is one area the new laser pods being developed could really help. It's a shame we couldn't conduct a real-world test yet.

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So the government wants us to believe that there's no way that we can take out a BALLOON? We can take out a terrorist with pinpoint accuracy from miles away, but a BALLOON just baffles all our technology.

BS.

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They must have non explosive rounds they can load. Just strap a rifle to the top of a drone and fly it up there.

Or hit the hardware with one of those high powered anti drone lasers.

I don't care if they take their time taking out the balloon to minimize any debris risk and also maximize the recovery effort to verify exactly what it was.

So as long as they bring it down eventually to examine it, I am satisfied. Doesn't matter what day it was.

Not bringing it down ever and just let it float away, then I'd be pissed. But smoke does look like they are going to take it down.

bmks270 said:

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Ghost91 said:

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Not a Bot said:

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Per guy on Fox, Biden wanted to shoot it down over Montana, DoD and other military advised Biden not to attempt a shoot down. There's a Twitter thread a few pages back that explains why it would have been tricky over land.

The guns on fighter jets use cannon rounds, not bullets. They are designed to explode on impact and the balloon surface wouldn't allow for that, and those rounds would have to come down somewhere. Using a proximity warhead on a missile would have the same issue. It's also flying at a high enough altitude that F-22 would be operating near it's upper limit. Even though it looks like an easy target it actually isn't.

This is one area the new laser pods being developed could really help. It's a shame we couldn't conduct a real-world test yet.

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So the government wants us to believe that there's no way that we can take out a BALLOON? We can take out a terrorist with pinpoint accuracy from miles away, but a BALLOON just baffles all our technology.

BS.

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They must have non explosive rounds they can load. Just strap a rifle to the top of a drone and fly it up there.

Or hit the hardware with one of those high powered anti drone lasers.

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I can't tell if you're serious or not.

I'm sure we'd like to examine the electronics package on this thing.

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So the government wants us to believe that there's no way that we can take out a BALLOON? We can take out a terrorist with pinpoint accuracy from miles away, but a BALLOON just baffles all our technology.

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Not trying to act as an apologist, but to be fair there is a significant difference between a target on the ground and one at an altitude of 60K ft. Just like there is a big difference in putting a man on the moon and a manned mission to Mars. They're mostly the same but still present different logistical challenges.

But having said that, we should've had an answer to this problem in the arsenal going decades back. Did we really not consider balloon borne espionage when we were developing satellite contingencies? Our think tanks need to do some more thinking.

TommyBrady said:

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It also went over NGA - West in St Louis and I'm guessing it will cross over a few more NRO, NGA, and NSA spots as well as Ft Bragg which does a ton of the tier 1 missions around the world remotely

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AAAAND now over North Carolina heading to Fort Bragg

good call.

Boom

It just got shot down.

Down goes the balloon! Down goes the balloon!

Down it goes

THERE IT GOES

That was an AA missile.

1872walker said:

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Pumpkinhead said:

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I don't care if they take their time taking out the balloon to minimize any debris risk and also maximize the recovery effort to verify exactly what it was.

So as long as they bring it down eventually to examine it, I am satisfied. Doesn't matter what day it was.

Not bringing it down ever and just let it float away, then I'd be pissed. But smoke does look like they are going to take it down.

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It should have been taken down before it ever entered our airspace.

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Don't care as long as we grab it (in a way optimally that isn't vaporizing it) to examine it. It was in Canada airspace before ours, so I don't necessarily agree with your take.

The article at the top of the thread detailed why it is so difficult to target and hit and gave an example of concerted efforts to shoot down a weather balloon several years ago.

That was an INCREDIBLE hit. People should realize how difficult that shot was.

Ernest Tucker said:

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SidetrackAg said:

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So are we just letting it go back to China? No take down, nothing? What a damn joke of an administration

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It was the price of his presidency.

When our military states that the reason they didn't drop this thing is because of public safety, over freaking Montana, and has elected to allow our global rival to fly a device over our sensitive installations, then it's obvious something is not adding up.

The sad thing is the nation will just shrug its shoulders, like we all did during the disastrous Afghanistan debacle, and the Epstein fiasco and say "well that was odd" instead of demanding better.

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let's not forget about the fact the electronic surveillance airship first entered US airspace OVER ALASKA

but we couldn't shoot it down because of "risk to civilians on the ground"

Not a Bot said:

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That was an AA missile.

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So there probably won't be much to recover. How convenient. Let if fly over every military installation not located in Hawaii and then destroy the evidence.

Jim Bob from Carolina on CNN right now. Damn.

Not a Bot said:

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That was an AA missile.

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Looks like it took out the sensor package. So much for getting any intelligence off of that.

agent-maroon said:

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Not a Bot said:

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That was an AA missile.

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So there probably won't be much to recover. How convenient. Let if fly over every military installation in the lower 48 and then destroy the evidence.

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I'm guessing we disabled it's surveillance capabilities before this hit the news.

🚨 BREAKING: The U.S. has shot down the Chinese Spy Balloon off of the coast of the Carolinas.

pic.twitter.com/1g8G9RqeG0

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) February 4, 2023

LMCane said:

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Ernest Tucker said:

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SidetrackAg said:

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So are we just letting it go back to China? No take down, nothing? What a damn joke of an administration

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It was the price of his presidency.

When our military states that the reason they didn't drop this thing is because of public safety, over freaking Montana, and has elected to allow our global rival to fly a device over our sensitive installations, then it's obvious something is not adding up.

The sad thing is the nation will just shrug its shoulders, like we all did during the disastrous Afghanistan debacle, and the Epstein fiasco and say "well that was odd" instead of demanding better.

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let's not forget about the fact the electronic surveillance airship first entered US airspace OVER ALASKA

but we couldn't shoot it down because of "risk to civilians on the ground"

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Yes, everybody knows that TexAgs Politics board feels everybody at the Pentagon are idiots, and if only WE were running things…

Read the article posted at the top of the page detailing on how difficult it is to actually target these balloons. Low radar cross section, very slow moving to the point they are difficult to target, very low pressure balloon so even a hit with Vulcan cannon would likely leave it aloft for a while out of control. Those were all the considerations. The risk of missing and an unexploded missile or Vulcan rounds hitting the ground was VERY high.

Amazing they actually hit it and have it dropping so fast.

A Canadian weather balloon went out of control several years ago and over 1,000 rounds were fired at it from aircraft along with several missiles. It still stayed aloft for days after being hit. These are very difficult to bring down. The DoD didn't want to risk attempting this over land. They will need to develop better countermeasures in the future.

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I'm guessing we disabled it's surveillance capabilities before this hit the news.

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One would certainly hope so. But what was it trying to accomplish with all the maneuvering? Did someone think it could run away somewhere and hide?

fc2112 said:

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🚨 BREAKING: The U.S. has shot down the Chinese Spy Balloon off of the coast of the Carolinas.

pic.twitter.com/1g8G9RqeG0

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) February 4, 2023

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Good.

It probably wasn't able to gather/transmit info anymore which is why it wouldn't make sense to endanger civilians to shoot it down.