6 ms·
We need a cheaper way to down these spy balloons. The sidewinder missile + F-22 flight time costs are an order of magnitude greater than the total cost of launc
by 1970-01-01 4y ago
We need a cheaper way to down these spy balloons. The sidewinder missile + F-22 flight time costs are an order of magnitude greater than the total cost of launching one balloon. Send over the High Energy Laser with Integrated Optical-dazzler (HELIOS) to protect the west coast.
- jabroni_salad 4y agoYou must be an eve online player.
- 1970-01-01 4y agoThe laser is real. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34373672 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34373672
- jabroni_salad 4y agoI've read about those but I'm more referring to the cost comment. In eve it is common to hedge a loss as "ISK Positive" if the value of the ammo that blew you up costed more than your ship, as tallied up on the killmail.
- Sharlin 4y agoI can't not shake my head reading comments like this. Seriously, the concept of weighing the cost of an action vs the cost of inaction was not... exactly invented by Eve Online players. The entire point of warfare is to make waging war more expensive to your opponent than to yourself, whether in terms of men, materiel, dollars, or popular support. And the concept of a Pyrrhic victory is likely as old as war itself – even our very term for it derives from a battle fought 2300 years ago!
- jabroni_salad 4y agoNice, you spent 479 characters to say literally nothing. I'm +80 characters positive now in this thread where I also have said literally nothing.
- Sharlin 4y agoHN happens to be one of the rare places on the modern internet where just flapping your figurative mouth pieces for the sake of flapping your figurative mouth pieces is not looked upon favorably. The attitude of "have something to say or shut the fuck up" is very refreshing. And if you think that I didn't say anything… I suggest re-reading my comment.
- ilyt 4y agoI mean your entire comment could be just "...also known for centuries as Pyrrhic victory" and lose nothing but some words
- Sharlin 4y agoThe rest was important context, IMO. It was less “this already has a name” and more “this is the very essence of warfare”. And has been for tens of thousands of years.
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 4y ago> The sidewinder missile + F-22 flight time costs are an order of magnitude greater than the total cost of launching one balloon. This seems like conjecture. Is there any reliable data on how much said balloon cost?
- serf 4y ago>This seems like conjecture. It's conjecture for me to presume the sky is blue without looking out of my window, but it's a safe bet on days with good weather. Unless this balloon -- or whatever it was -- was diamond-bedazzled and platinum-plated and filled with alien technology it's a safe bet that it was a fair amount cheaper to produce/launch/maintain than sortieing one of the most expensive and exclusive modern aircraft in the world and shooting off a missile that costs 600k/ea -- and that's not even considering collateral costs associated to the action.
- arcticfox 4y agoRight, but presumably F-22s need to fly and pilots need to shoot down things with live ammo occasionally anyways to stay in shape? And logistics needs to know how to supply, and intelligence needs to know how to scramble them etc. This seems like what amounts to a training program to me, unless a lot more start coming.
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 4y agoI don’t think that’s really such a good bet. The first one was supposedly the size of multiple buses. That is a bunch of computer hardware held up by a balloon rather than “just a balloon”. The price of such a thing could easily reach hundreds of thousands of dollars in hardware, let alone any associated R&D costs. That’s all before bringing up that the person I quoted claimed off-hand that it’s an order of magnitude difference. They’re probably rather similar in cost.
- ilyt 4y agoBig complex one-off things are expensive. Anything needing bus-sized solar array gonna have some fancy equipment on board. All of that needs engineering to not fail at the temperature range up above and code to make it do what is needed
- pixl97 4y agoWe need to base the number of occurances against our average training flight time/ammo expenditure. Currently we train a hell of a lot more than we actively shoot down targets so the expenditure is practically nothing. Now if a lot more show up that's a different equation.
- someweirdperson 4y agoIf shooting the balloons replaces the traing it is cheaper overall. No more expenditure for artificial targets.
- Waterluvian 4y agoDon’t necessarily disagree and I don’t know sufficient details to form a responsible opinion, but I imagine there’s expenditure for training, whether they hit actual stuff or not?
- nsxwolf 4y agoFor some number of balloons N, the operational experience our fighter pilots get is priceless.
- rocqua 4y agoWhat keeps a cannon from working? That would already reduce the costs by a lot, and from the visual identification it seems that 40,000 feet is well within the flight ceiling of fighter jets
- adolph 4y agoWhy Shooting Down China’s Spy Balloon Over The U.S. Is More Complicated Than It Seems https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/why-shooting-down-chinas-spy-balloon-over-the-u-s-is-more-complicated-than-it-seems https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/why-shooting-down-chin... See also: F-22 Shoots Down Chinese Spy Balloon Off Carolinas With Missile (Updated) https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/f-22-shoots-down-chinese-spy-balloon-off-carolinas-with-missile https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/f-22-shoots-down-chine... U-2 Spy Planes Snooped On Chinese Surveillance Balloon https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/u-2-spy-planes-snooped-on-chinese-surveillance-balloon https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/u-2-spy-planes-snooped... F-22 Shoots Down “Object” Flying High Over Alaskan Waters https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/f-22-shoots-down-new-object-flying-high-over-alaskan-waters https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/f-22-shoots-down-new-o... The Soviets Built Bespoke Balloon-Killer Planes During The Cold War https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/the-soviets-built-bespoke-balloon-killer-planes-during-the-cold-war https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/the-soviets-built-besp...
- nradov 4y agoCannons are very short range. The fighter would have to approach the balloon at a high closure rate, creating some risk of a mid-air collision. With a missile, the pilot can shoot from several miles out and never has to fly directly at the target. So, it's much safer.
- hotpotamus 4y agoThe closure rate thing reminds me of a great scene in The Simpsons where Sideshow Bob steals the Wright Flyer and they scramble jets to get him. After blowing by the Flyer too fast, the pilots get out and walk after it.
- dharmab 4y ago
- cm2187 4y agoThe big balloon from earlier this month was more like a satellite hanging from a balloon. Not sure it was that cheap. The problem is what can you fly that has a cannon and can reach those altitudes. Apparently only the F22 and F15 could, and that was their very limit.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- oceanplexian 4y agoThat’s definitely not their limit since they can shoot down satellites at the altitude of the International Space Station. And that’s the stuff we’re allowed to know about.
- robswc 4y agoCould they shoot down the ISS, if they wanted? Isn't that thing moving insanely fast? haha. Not a space guy but always found it interesting.
- XorNot 4y agoASAT weapons already exist, so most countries could kill the ISS if they wanted.
- ianburrell 4y agoThe SM-3, which is launched from ships for ballistic missile defense, can be used as anti-satellite missile. Its ceiling is supposed to be 1000 km. Which means could reach ISS. It was tested in 2008 to destroy failed recon satellite.
- vkou 4y agoThe ISS orbits at ~420 KM. Epotential = mgh = 420,000m * 9.8 m/s^2 * mass ~= 4,200,000 m^2/s^2 * mass To reach that altitude, ignoring air resistance, you'd need kinetic energy, provided by the formula: Ekinetic = (mv^2)/2 Solving for v, we get v = sqrt(8,400,000 m^2/s^2) ~= 2.900 m/s ~= Mach 9 That's the minimum muzzle velocity you need to send a projectile up into the ISS's path (Add a few more mach numbers due to air resistance). It's certainly easier than getting into orbit, a single-stage missile could do it without any trouble.
- lazyeye 4y agoWhat would be ideal would be some kind of anti-balloon weaponry/recovery system. Some kind of balloon-based counter-balloon technology that could take control of the balloon and bring it to the ground intact. Would be a fun project to say the least.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- samwillis 4y agoA "sidewinder missile + F-22 flight time costs" are a rounding error in the national security budget. The experience and lessons learnt from using it are valuable to all layers of the military and administration, significantly more so than the financial cost. (I'm British and so not a US tax payer, just a spectator, but would argue the same here)
- mrleinad 4y agoWhat lessons might shooting some balloon from an F-22 might give you that you don't already know?
- sundvor 4y agoAbsolutely. The value of F-22s actually launching some $400k AIM-9Xs not at training targets with a 100% success rate would be far, far greater than those unit costs. It's a crying shame the F-22 production line was shut down, so it's great to see it performing well. (Speaking as a DCS sim pilot with a long time interest in military aviation).
- ilyt 4y agoOh yes the useful and oh so important lesson that F-22 is indeed capable of disposing of not only maneuverable airborne crafts but also non-maneuverable ones! Clearly a baloon is so hard to dispose target that making sure the aircraft indeed can be up to this task is worth any money!
- ianburrell 4y agoThe balloon shot down last week was likely order of magnitude more expensive than the Sidewinder that shot it down. Someone posted link to similar sized NASA balloon that cost $1 million for just the balloon and maybe platform but not the payload. It might be possible to shoot down balloons with unguided rockets. It depends on how close the fighter can get and how accurate the rockets are. Rockets are super cheap.
- mrexroad 4y agoYeah, but that’s a NASA balloon which adds one or more “0” to the price tag just so it can source components from, and support jobs in, all 50 states. (Ok, being sarcastic, but I’m curious on the actual cost.)
- csa 4y ago> We need a cheaper way to down these spy balloons. Probably fits nicely in the training budget.
- willis936 4y agoThen it's a good thing the US spends an order of magnitude more on weapons than anyone else. The world will run out of helium before the US runs out of missiles.
- Gustomaximus 4y agoIf this became a frequent occurrence. Infrequently does it cost much more? The airforce would have thousands of missiles. Assuming they have some FIFO system they would use missiles heading for expiry. Not sure how pilot training goes but would assume they have training hours requirement. If a mission covers those hours all the better for more real experience on what they would be flying anyway. Anyway I don't know this as an expert, but logically seems costs are largely sunk regardless of an infrequent balloon incident.