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I wonder if a laser would have worked...
NeoBlackdog
Member Posts: 17,186 ✭✭✭✭
For taking down a balloon? IIRC they've been working on lasers that can burn a plane or missile out of the air, seems like it'd be an easy shot to use one on a fairly static target like a big ol' ChiCom gas bag.
Seems like you could lop a bit off the top of the balloon and let it flutter to Earth. Simplistic, I know, but seems plausible, doesn't it?
Comments
It has been my experience of 75 years that any idea that begins with "All you have to do is..."
Won't work.
Should work
Bet this sucker would work. Trick would be toting it up to 50-60K feet.
Look, all you have to do is hit it with a sidewinder missile.
And fiery auto crashes
Some will die in hot pursuit
While sifting through my ashes
Some will fall in love with life
And drink it from a fountain
That is pouring like an avalanche
Coming down the mountain
a hundred + years ago biplanes were taking them out
should not be that hard to do and make such a fuss 😁
I could easily end Rocky's sentence with; "hold my beer" 😁
My unknowing and uninformed mind would guess that we would prefer to bring it down with a publicly known weapon in our arsenal vs using something that we had, but have not previously exposed or acknowledged its capabilities.
Just a thought from the peanut gallery.
Mule
You all forgot about the classified docs in Joey's garage ,
The balloons in WWI were made with fabric, filled with hydrogen, and flown at only a few thousand feet. The biplanes fired tracers and flew at only about 100 mph.
I still find it hard to believe they don't have some type missile or drone with expanding blades sort like broadhead on arrow, just fotr this instance or even a drone that could be flow into it. as someone else said maybe it is some technology they don't want released right now, but I can't bring myself to believe they have not prepared for this type of threat and don't have some type of counter weapon laying around.
I still find it hard to believe that anyone thinks ideas like that would work at SEVENTY FOOKING THOUSAND FEET on something the size of a football stadium.
I still find it hard to believe they had to use a missile on it. just say'n
I give up. No matter how many times I explain it, there's always somebody...
I'm done.
A TR1 dragging a cluster of Chinese made Ginsu kitchen knives.Hell, in the 60s we caught film canisters dropped from satellites with modified C-130s. Just go old school. Apparently almost anything is possible.
Brad Steele
Did you stick a fork in it to be sure your done 😂
Opinions are just that, we all have them , no need to get your panties all twisted, maybe a quiet nap will help.😴
Should have flown a drone into it.
And fiery auto crashes
Some will die in hot pursuit
While sifting through my ashes
Some will fall in love with life
And drink it from a fountain
That is pouring like an avalanche
Coming down the mountain
Yes. Just takes will to use.
That makes it sound easy, Rocky. But can you imagine being that guy in a fabric covered plane with a scarf and a leather helmet actually doing it? By you I mean most of us.
C'mon fellas.......it's a moot point.
Like Mr Raab said..........it was at 70-freaking-thousand feet!!! 😳😳😳
At 70,000 feet the atmosphere is as light and thin as the helium inside the ballon almost. This is why poking small holes in it really wouldn’t be that effective. It could take days for it to come down. To be effective you have to tear the ballon surface substantially enough to let the helium escape rapidly.
Americans have always been a head of the game when it comes to ingenuity. I’m sure that at this very minute there is someone sitting at his drafting board designing a rocket such as the sidewinder, that doesn’t explode. But rather when fifty foot from the target using a proximity fuse it will deploy maybe eight four foot blades and slice the skin of the ballon.
Bottom line, I hope we learn from this mistake and are more prepared for future intrusions. The Chinese are not are friends.