A ******* missile to shoot down a balloon? Talk about overkill.
They are actually quite difficult to bring down.
Taiwan and China thread.
- Thread starter dowie
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They are actually quite difficult to bring down.
They immune to having holes torn in them by plane mounted guns? I'm more surprised the missile actually exploded and just didn't pass right through the fabric.
A ******* missile to shoot down a balloon? Talk about overkill.
Why?
They presumably want to just take it down rather than look like clowns having fighter jets spend ages shooting at the thing.
Pretty much, yes! It took a few days for the Canadian Airforce to bring down a balloon that way.
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When a weather balloon went rogue almost 25 years ago, fighter jets fired 1,000 rounds at it and couldn't bring it down
"With something like this, which is stationary in the air when the CF-18s are flying very, very fast, it is difficult to shoot it," a lieutenant said.
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Not something I know much about but by all reports it can be quite a faff to shoot them down with cannon fire and a higher risk.
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Soldato
Four more and the guy will be an ace!A ******* missile to shoot down a balloon? Talk about overkill.
A ******* missile to shoot down a balloon? Talk about overkill.
It's only a $200k missile, same as two HIMARS GMLRS rockets
I think the reason they went with a missile was to release all the helium/whatever gas is inside at once so that it falls in a narrow area where as if they shoot holes in it, the debris field might dozens and dozens of miles and make it harder to collect all the bits in the sea
I'd imagine a burst from one of their guns would rip it enough enough to take it down pretty quick. As I said above I'm surprised the missile actually exploded on impact and didn't tear straight through. Not sure how their missiles work if they're based on range or they explode on an impact, just surprised if they're impact based thee balloon provided enough resistance for it to explode.
Probably a timed fuse or remote detonation is my guess
Well, your imagination is far from reality in that case.
Oh, tried it have you?
No, but the Canadian airforce has as I already pointed out.
(FWIW I also remember being told that the surveillance balloon the British Army used over Basra could take a few thousand rounds too.)
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Soldato
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The Canadians tried with 20mm cannon fire from their F-18's in the past but failed (not this recent balloon)A ******* missile to shoot down a balloon? Talk about overkill.
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That was a quarter of a century ago, would have thought it would be trivial these days to take down a large balloon with whatever guns the plane has mounted to it.
Soldato
plus fast jet, slow balloon, short range gun is a recipe for disaste. Much safer to fire off a missile from a few miles rather than get in close to a slow target and risk a collision.
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FFS because bullets have magically changed in 25 years??? How old is the F22 again?
I think you need to stop relying on your imagination tbh..
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No, because the amount of tech planes have on board has increased drastically in 25 years so I would think that targeting systems etc have all increased in accuracy.
Any more angst you want to vent?
Soldato
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Better video of the balloon getting rekt
I'm more amused that anything, FWIW the F22 is equipped with basically the same canon as the F18 has... which is what the Canadian Airforce used.
You're just coming out with nonsense here.