Chinese Spy Balloon Invades US Airspace.

[Infidel Dog]

Terrorists? Iran supported maybe.

[Dougie93]

1 minute ago, Infidel Dog said:

Terrorists? Iran supported maybe.

again, the hydrogen bomb is so much more destructive than the localized EMP, the EMP is rendered moot

[Dougie93]

5 minutes ago, Infidel Dog said:

Terrorists? Iran supported maybe.

plus, if you are a terrorist with a hydrogen bomb, you would detonate at ground level

to maximize fallout

the closer the detonation is to the ground, the more radioactive material is spread downrange

[Infidel Dog]

I don't know. I get the impression there's not a lot of research you can access on low altitude explosions. At present it seems more like who knows what's possible with what. But some sort of EMP effect does seem possible at about 25 miles up which would be the limit of balloons.

This one is fun:

Chinese Spy Balloons: Potential Purposes for the High Altitude Invasion

It isn't really about EMPs. It's more on stuff DARPA is working on that might explain why the Chinese would want spy balloons.

Edited February 5, 2023 by Infidel Dog

[Nationalist]

OK so I think now would be a good time to reflect and postulate.

Biden gets elected...sort of.

The USA sticks its tail between its legs and surrenders to the Taliban.

Russia invades Ukraine. 

NATO is powerless to stop the Ukraine war.

BRICS alliance is formed.

China flies a giant balloon across America.

Biden let's the balloon traverse the bulk of the USA.

What the hell is happening? I smell rotten fish...somewhere in this...arrangement?

[Dougie93]

2 minutes ago, Infidel Dog said:

Chinese Spy Balloons: Potential Purposes for the High Altitude Invasion

It isn't really about EMPs. It's more on stuff DARPA is working on that might explain why the Chinese would want spy balloons.

seems like trying fit the conspiracy theory to the event

I start with the premise of what is the benefit to the Chinese ?

the Chinese method of spying by infiltration is highly effective

what more could they learn with a balloon ?

 balloon surveillance is a tactic that doesn't seem to have much strategic relevance

 

[Dougie93]

9 minutes ago, Infidel Dog said:

I don't know. I get the impression there's not a lot of research you can access on low altitude explosions. At present it seems more like who knows what's possible with what. But some sort of EMP effect does seem possible at about 25 miles up which would be the limit of balloons.

thing is, China is like a parasite feeding off of America

China doesn't create anything, it relies on America to create, then China attaches itself to that

so it does not benefit China to launch a surprise attack to destroy America

for if the China parasite kills the host, then China dies too

[Dougie93]

the PLA is not actually built to go on the offensive against America

the PLA is not building capacity to attack America itself

they actually don't have many ICBM's/SLBMs

the bulk of the Chinese firepower is much shorter ranged

so I don't think Beijing has a plan to launch a first strike

rather, the Chinese live in fear of an American first strike

so they are in a defensive crouch, Anti Access Area Denial in the Western Pacific

[Dougie93]

thus I would submit that Russia remains the primary threat

and it has nothing to do with ideology

it just comes down to Russia possessing the strategic weapons built by the Soviets 

Russia has the warheads

Russia has the missiles

Russia has the submarines

only the Russians have the capabilities to challenge America on the high seas

this is not a balloon war, this is a submarine war

[Dougie93]

1 hour ago, Nationalist said:

OK so I think now would be a good time to reflect and postulate.

Biden gets elected...sort of.

The USA sticks its tail between its legs and surrenders to the Taliban.

Russia invades Ukraine. 

NATO is powerless to stop the Ukraine war.

BRICS alliance is formed.

China flies a giant balloon across America.

Biden let's the balloon traverse the bulk of the USA.

What the hell is happening? I smell rotten fish...somewhere in this...arrangement?

this is much more the strategic threat that China presents

China able to deploy trillions of US dollars in order to bribe the elites in the West to betray their own countries

but again, this is the Communist parasite feeding off the American host

which means there is no benefit to China escalating to a direct military confrontation

a direct military confrontation would in fact wreck the whole Chinese plan to win by slow & steady infiltration

the Chinese plan is not to destroy America,  but rather for America to subjugate itself willingly

[Infidel Dog]

[Dougie93]

25 minutes ago, Infidel Dog said:

there is an American intelligence interest in letting the balloon fly its course

one, you get to see what the Chinese might be trying to spy on

two, you get to look at the sensor package and determine what sensors they might be using

furthermore, the gondola went down in only 47 feet of water off Myrtle Beach

so now the SEALs can go down and recover it

so if it is a spy balloon, all the Chinese have done is handed it over to America to study it

Edited February 5, 2023 by Dougie93

[Nationalist]

2 hours ago, Dougie93 said:

this is much more the strategic threat that China presents

China able to deploy trillions of US dollars in order to bribe the elites in the West to betray their own countries

but again, this is the Communist parasite feeding off the American host

which means there is no benefit to China escalating to a direct military confrontation

a direct military confrontation would in fact wreck the whole Chinese plan to win by slow & steady infiltration

the Chinese plan is not to destroy America,  but rather for America to subjugate itself willingly

Which this administration is doing.

[Iceni warrior]

20 hours ago, Dougie93 said:

I am expert on thermonuclear weapons

but I've never heard anything about them being delivered by a balloon

you posted "Today there's the danger EMP attacks. Apparently high hovering Balloons would be ideal for that."

that makes no sense to me, knowing what I do about EMP

first of all, EMP is not useful against military targets

military electronics are hardened against EMP

only civilian infrastructure is vulnerable to EMP

the threat of an EMP attack ;

would be a continent wide long term blackout by detonation of a nuke in the Ionosphere

mind you, it's not hard to protect civilian electronics from EMP too

either by a Faraday Bag

or even just wrapping them in tinfoil will prevent them from being fried by EMP

Presumably a nuclear warhead large enough would be heavy?

Heavier than a few solar panels and cameras as seen on this balloon.

 

[Iceni warrior]

20 hours ago, Dougie93 said:

 

a bioweapon attack needs to be plausibly deniable

like deliberately releasing a bioweapon from a lab and then claiming it was an accident, for example

Even that would backfire on you as you would have to close down your own economy as the disease spread amongst your population.

[Dougie93]

7 minutes ago, Iceni warrior said:

Presumably a nuclear warhead large enough would be heavy?

Heavier than a few solar panels and cameras as seen on this balloon.

a small warhead would still produce a localized EMP

a small warhead would still produce a wide area EMP if it was detonated 400 kilometres up

[Dougie93]

8 minutes ago, Iceni warrior said:

Even that would backfire on you as you would have to close down your own economy as the disease spread amongst your population.

not if you wanted to close down your economy in order to restore the control of totalitarian Marxism

[Dougie93]

the appearance of the gondola and the operating altitude of 60-70 thousand feet

makes this look like a Geostationary Balloon Satellite ( GBS )

but those are stationary, with a motor to keep them in one spot

so one military explanation is that this is a Chinese GBS

which simply had an engine failure and then blew downrange

the GBS makes total sense for the PLA

because those would be deployed defensively over the China Seas

so perhaps they are testing them to support the PLA Navy

if one blows off course, they just say, don't be alarmed, don't shoot it down, just a weather balloon

Edited February 5, 2023 by Dougie93

[Iceni warrior]

12 minutes ago, Dougie93 said:

the appearance of the gondola and the operating altitude of 60-70 thousand feet

makes this look like a Geostationary Balloon Satellite ( GBS )

but those are stationary, with a motor to keep them in one spot

so one military explanation is that this is a Chinese military GBS

which simply had an engine failure and then blew downrange

the GBS makes total sense for the PLA

because those would be deployed defensively over the China Seas

Admiral Mullen seems to think it had propellers.

Quote

Admiral Mike Mullen, former chair of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Sunday he thought the Chinese military might have launched the balloon intentionally to disrupt Mr Blinken's trip to China. His visit would have been the first such high level US-China meeting there in years.

Adm Mullen rejected China's suggestion it might have blown off course, saying it was manoeuvrable because "it has propellers on it".

"This was not an accident. This was deliberate. It was intelligence," he added.

Makes sense that it had some sort of malfunction. Although you would think they had someway of bringing it down if it did to stop it getting into the wrong hands.

[Dougie93]

14 minutes ago, Iceni warrior said:

Admiral Mullen seems to think it had propellers.

Makes sense that it had some sort of malfunction. Although you would think they had someway of bringing it down if it did to stop it getting into the wrong hands.

perhaps it was a complete systems failure

everything went dead, including the comms link for deploying the recovery parachute

[Dougie93]

don't forget that the bleeding edge of the arms race right now is Hypersonic weapons

Geostationary Balloon Satellites have been proposed by the Pentagon for countering Hypersonics

a network of GBS to detect the incoming Hypersonic Glide Vehicles ( HGV ) after they reenter the atmosphere

so more for early warning surveillance than reconnaissance

[Dougie93]

reports are that the gondola is in fact quite large

the size of three school buses

so that is definitely not a weather balloon

in this photo, you can see how large the balloon actually is, in relation to the F-22

bear in mind that the balloon is 7,000 feet above the Raptor

you can make out the details of the gondola, you can see the four propellers

from almost two miles away

so that thing is actually huge, the size of an airliner

you can see the propellers,  because they are not moving, more indication of malfunction

Edited February 5, 2023 by Dougie93

[August1991]

On 2/3/2023 at 1:23 PM, Infidel Dog said:

How worried should we be about this?

 

The US flew U2 missions over the Soviet Union.

This is not a Cold War.

====

America won the economic war, the ideological war. These guys in Vietnam won an important battle.

Nowadays, around the world, people are free to trade. Free to travel.

Imagine.

 

Edited February 6, 2023 by August1991

[August1991]

I fear that experts in Washington DC now are like the experts in European capitals in the early 1900s.

These supposed advisors - wise leaders - believed that they were smart - and yet they were about to destroy themselves.

And involve ordinary people in destruction

=====

Some Americans foolishly think that this is a battle with Hitler - 1939.

No, this is a war that can be avoided by negotiation - 1914. We could have have avoided this war

[August1991]

Take pride.

You Americans won the Korean War. Your Leftists (Aaron Sorkin etc) may think that you lost the Vietnam Battle but you won the Cold War.

Germany is one country, civilised again. People can travel from Poland to Spain.