Taiwan’s defence ministry said it had detected six more Chinese balloons flying over the Taiwan Strait on Sunday, one of which crossed the island, the latest in a spate of such balloons the ministry says it has seen over the past month-and-a-half.
The ministry earlier this month, in a strongly worded statement, accused China of threatening aviation safety and waging psychological warfare on the island’s people with the balloons, days before Taiwan’s Jan. 13 elections.
They need to start shooting them down as soon as they enter Taiwanese airspace
Wouldn’t that be a good way to waste a lot of valuable air defenses. If you’re spending millions to shot down balloons that cost thousands is that really a win?
Who said it costs millions to shoot it down? It’s a baloon, couldn’t a prop plane with a machine gun take it down? Or just a cheap drone?
They float at like 60000 feet plus. There’s a reason why america used the F22 to shoot the balloon down.
Honestly, they didn’t need to use an expensive missile to do it and blow the thing to pieces while wasting valuable intel they could have gained from it if more was intact.
The balloon was 200ft tall. The payload hanging beneath it was 200ft wide. The sidewinder has the ability to explode near its target which is why it was chosen. It was the equivalent of popping a party balloon with a firecracker. They also waited for it to be over a large body of water so the 2,000lb payload (many sensors, propellers, antennas, transceivers, etc) didn’t fall apart on descent and crush people/things, and while they can control a missile if it misses it’s target, they can’t control bullets, which could rain down and hit whoever/whatever happened to be unfortunate enough to be in their path. Bullets fall at terminal velocity, even after they’ve lost initial momentum, that’s why people on the ground die from guns being fired into the air during celebrations.
So unless they found a way to reverse a Globemaster mid-air and put the payload in the trunk, they made what seems to be the best call. Seeing as the first missile did miss on 1 of the 3 objects, I’d say that call was right.
The FBI has been analyzing the wreckage after the dive team retrieved it.
Shit, that’s crazy. So even a drone wouldn’t work without some stupid expensive rocketry.
Send up a counter balloon. Or shoot it with a laser. Or send up a counter balloon with a laser.
All in all, they total 99 red balloons
I forgot about Chinese balloons lol, did anything ever come about after that one was shot down by the Americans?
Which one
The kid that leaked material about the war in Ukraine over Discord last year also leaked info about the balloon.
It’s on the Internet… Here’s a documentary that mentions it: https://youtu.be/AkgkBEuEHwU look around 3 minutes in
Thanks for this, something to listen to over my lunch break :)
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Absolutely nothing. They really pumped up that new red scare propaganda though.
They are spy balloons, so what are you on about?
One of them might have actually been a weather balloon. Not from China though. They adjusted their radars to catch balloons better after the first one and suddenly noticed a whole lot of them, some Chinese and some local.
None alien though, sorry UFO enthusiasts, I know you guys got your hopes up there.
I mean, what do you think SHOULD have happened?
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6 red balloons floating in the summer sky.
Looks like the balloons are all full of hot air, just like the CCP!
