USA Political Thread 2023

[golferjohn]

This a serious geopolitical challenge to America but I do not believe President Biden is up to the challenge.

Up to the challenge of taking-out a balloon that a pimply-faced tween w/a drone could disable? The US tracked it from Alaska, then across your great country, down through Montana and finally shot it down off the coast of Carolina. Remove your Fox hat and try a bit of common-sense...ask why this was allowed to proceed through its manuvers while being monitored by anyone w/a pair of binoculars. Whatever The Chinese were 'trying' to spy on was most definitely met with a Wiley Coyote 'hit it here' sign on the ground.

Now I gotta get back to Gym Jordan's compelling hearings about why Twitter won't let us see Hunter's dick

 

[carvesg]

Up to the challenge of taking-out a balloon that a pimply-faced tween w/a drone could disable? The US tracked it from Alaska, then across your great country, down through Montana and finally shot it down off the coast of Carolina. Remove your Fox hat and try a bit of common-sense...ask why this was allowed to proceed through its manuvers while being monitored by anyone w/a pair of binoculars. Whatever The Chinese were 'trying' to spy on was most definitely met with a Wiley Coyote 'hit it here' sign on the ground.

Now I gotta get back to Gym Jordan's compelling hearings about why Twitter won't let us see Hunter's dick

Golferjohn you are like a Greek philosopher stating the obvious. But you prose is just lacking on the poetry this morning. I totally agree with your assessment

I read that the US was scrambling the communications being transmitted all along .
Could partial or full data collected over the US and Canada have been sent we might never know. Bringing it down over water might have preserved a good portion of the equipment for analysis instead of smashing it to smithereens on the ground or imbedded deep into the ground which is as hard to retrieve than something in deep water . Lucky bastards doing the salvaging are in 50' of water for most of the debris...I'd say a pretty lucky strike from the air force pilot.

 

[westwoody]

Up to the challenge of taking-out a balloon that a pimply-faced tween w/a drone could disable?

How would this tween disable it?
If it was so easy someone would have done it.

 

[rlock]

How would this tween disable it?
If it was so easy someone would have done it.

Really. Children huh ?


Meanwhile at Chinese intelligence HQ:

In any case, the USAF shot down another (lower and apparently different) balloon over Alaska just this afternoon.

 

[jgg]

...Bringing it down over water might have preserved a good portion of the equipment for analysis instead of smashing it to smithereens on the ground or imbedded deep into the ground which is as hard to retrieve than something in deep water . Lucky bastards doing the salvaging are in 50' of water for most of the debris...I'd say a pretty lucky strike from the air force pilot.

A fall from 300 feet into the water would be like falling onto concrete.

 

[carvesg]

A fall from 300 feet into the water would be like falling onto concrete.

I'm guessing that they were hoping for a lesser than high velocity crash as things seemed to be linked by cables, solar panels, antennas and other not too aerodynamic devices under the balloon which might have slowed down the fall a bit . "If" the missile didn't destroy everything after the initial explosion.... hopefully they lessen the charge to be a bit more surgical about it.

 

[golferjohn]

How would this tween disable it?

sorry, perhaps I should have used 'a hill-billy with a bottle rocket'...the point being that the balloon posed no threat (and I'd argue that it presented an intelligence opportunity) and allowing it to be monitored/followed/reverse-engineered is a far better strategy than a knee-jerk response hailed by the brain trust of Gates, Greene & Bobert

 

[rlock]

sorry, perhaps I should have used 'a hill-billy with a bottle rocket'...the point being that the balloon posed no threat (and I'd argue that it presented an intelligence opportunity) and allowing it to be monitored/followed/reverse-engineered is a far better strategy ...

No doubt that's what they're doing now with the blasted remains of these balloons.

 

[ModSquad]

I saw an interview with Marco Rubio and he was on a bit of a rant about the potential danger these balloons posed and the Dem WH was doing nothing.

The interviewer reminded him that the same occurrence happened 3X during the Trump presidency.

Jaw drop. Rubio was literally speechless.

 

[JimDandy]

sorry, perhaps I should have used 'a hill-billy with a bottle rocket'...the point being that the balloon posed no threat (and I'd argue that it presented an intelligence opportunity) and allowing it to be monitored/followed/reverse-engineered is a far better strategy than a knee-jerk response hailed by the brain trust of Gates, Greene & Bobert

Not as easy as you might think:

https://eurasiantimes.com/1000-roun...loon-using-best-of-fighter-jets-25-years-ago/

JD

 

[golferjohn]

Not as easy as you might think:

https://eurasiantimes.com/1000-roun...loon-using-best-of-fighter-jets-25-years-ago/

JD

...clearly my 'tween and hill-billy' references were an exaggeration, the point being that the balloons posed no threat and had been monitored throughout its 'journey'.

 

[80watts]

Why a balloon. Travels closer to the ground then satellites. Less interference from atmosphere/weather. Travels slowly across the world. Satelites travel very fast and to get info back has to transmit data, which can be picked up.

 

[golferjohn]

Why a balloon. Travels closer to the ground then satellites. Less interference from atmosphere/weather. Travels slowly across the world. Satelites travel very fast and to get info back has to transmit data, which can be picked up.

cuz the previous 3 weren't detected (and quite possibly successful)...Rubio's face was priceless

 

[80watts]

The US is not worried about pictures or even open communications. Everything they have to hide is buried or done through fibre optic cables. Shit the Americans loved what they found in Germany at the end of WW2. The autobann. The reason for the new highway system in the 1950s ....
The forest factories and underground manufacturing places... With American spyplanes into the 80s, you think the Americans would know that to hide something you bury it underground. Dig tunnels far underground between key places. Put in place underground factories with stored raw resources etc. Or a portion of equipment placed in underground prepared sites.
Since Pearl Harbour, Americans have done alot of planning. Even pre WW2 plans for invasions of any country that could be a threat had invasion plans, even Canada got one.
Consider the nuclear threat of the cold war. A great bomb shelter would be at least 200 feet below or farther. Now connect the bomb shelters. On a irradiated surface, travel below the surface.
More underground then what balloons or satelites can see....

 

[rlock]

Balloons are not that easy to detect, with no transponder and no heat signature to give them away (unlike a missile launch which sattellites can detect).
Fox reported that a Sidewinder missile was fired at one and missed, but a sidewinder is a heat-seeker, so this is not surprising. Not really that surprising that they would try to find out if they could be shot down without using a radar-guided missile. (Remember the radar signatures might be the very intelligence secret that the spy balloons were trying to discover.)

However, the big 1st one they supposedly knew about since it launched from Hainan island, China. US intelligence did not want to let it be known that they knew about it, because they wanted to study the balloon without the Chinese knowing that they knew. But the civilian guys in Montana who reported on it made it impossible for them to keep that on the D-L anymore. Once that was in the open, the cycle of balloon detecting & destroying kicked off.

Apparently they are not even sure that the balloons other than the 1st one were the intelligence gathering kind. Could be commercial. Shot them down because the policy got switched to "fuck all balloons".

Google used to use balloons for projects like trying to bring internet to remote areas, and scrapped the idea in 2021. It's not known whether they or any other company uses them for mapping purposes. Quite possible.
In any case, the Chinese government seemed interested in their balloon tech also.

Well, I do not know if this will affect military / intelligence balloons, but officials in various places are now calling for [big/high-altitude] balloons to start having transponders and file flight plans just like other aircraft. Probably for the best if that change is made.
Ditto for drones. When you think about it, drones can take many shapes, so calling these spy balloons drones is not out of the question if they are able to manuoever. An unsanctioned flight of anything these days is risky & intrusive.

 

[80watts]

Xi saying "I'll show you fucking balloons". cut to picture of him and chinese woman with big tits....

 

[Uncled]

I think this is the definition of Freaking Awesome.

It appears that the USAF used a missile costing almost a half million dollars to down a $12 hobby balloon over the Yukon.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...-military-shot-down-amateur-hobbyists-balloon

Also, it would be the first official “kill” for the F-22 fighter.

 

[Uncled]

Xi saying "I'll show you fucking balloons". cut to picture of him and chinese woman with big tits....

Sorry, I couldn’t resist.

 

[MB Mod]

 

[MB Mod]

Is anyone else finding this situation completely insane? A billion dollar aircraft using a half a million dollar sidewinder to shoot down a fifty dollar balloon which our multi million CF18’s couldn’t shoot down? Or am I getting old and cynical?