3 ms·

Not very fun fact: Japan tried to use the jet stream to bomb America via incendiary balloon. It was largely unsuccessful of course, but still a creative way of

Not very fun fact: Japan tried to use the jet stream to bomb America via incendiary balloon. It was largely unsuccessful of course, but still a creative way of bridging the Pacific: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fu-Go_balloon_bomb?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fu-Go_balloon_bomb?wprov=sfla1

UberFly 4y ago
Sadly only success was killing a church group out on a Sunday school picnic.
- scruple 4y ago
  I went down a shallow rabbit hole about this event. The man who survived the Fu-Go Balloon Bomb event in Oregon, Reverend Artchie Mitchell, went on to be captured, as a Christian missionary, by the Viet Cong in 1962 and he was never seen again. Given enough time lightning strikes the same spot more than once, I guess.
- dirtyid 4y ago
  Which was censored until after war because the idea that CONUS is vunerable to JP attacks is itself significant. Media spasms around PRC balloons reflect that. Except with current capabilities, it won't be 9000 primitive balloons with single digit % arrival rates and ineffective incendiary payloads but 100,000s of modern balloons with high chance of arrival and potential to deliver guided bombs. Possibly sufficient to satuate CONUS defenses and loiter around to hit strategic targets of opportunity. The unspoken narrative behind PRC sending cheap balloons over CONUS is PRC sending thousands of cheap bombs over CONUS. The conniption over PRC hypersonics was also over US homeland vunerability, but the balloons IMO represent a new type of vunerability both in scale and economics of defense.
  - anon7725 4y ago
    Sending 100,000 armed balloons towards a nuclear-armed adversary doesn’t sound like 10d chess strategic thinking.
    - dirtyid 4y ago
      US warplanners considers sending 100,000s of bombs on PRC mainland targets in case of TW scenario all the time. Is that 10D thinking? It's basic escalation dynamics of recipricating homeland attacks with home land attacks, the difference is up until recently CONUS has been shielded from both precise and volume of long range strikes from her adversaries, largely due to technologic limitations, enabling US to project power with impunity. This is PRC incrementally establishing mutual homeland vunerability to deter US from messing in her back yard. It's trying to deter US from intervening in TW by raising costs to CONUS, just like US is trying to deter PRC from moving on TW by raising cost to PRC mainland. Except until recently, only PRC had to factor in homeland attacks due to asymmetric US power projection capabilities. More and more, and for the first time since revolutionary war, US now has to factor in serious homeland attacks with respect to PRC. Demonstrating CONUS is vunerable, especially if it influences public thinking, is as strategic as it gets. Lots of Americans are still operating off the notion that Fortress America is impervious and US mil actions abroad stays abroad, and generally that's true, until it's not. Ability to generate simultaneous bandwith of 100,000s of fires is also significant, most conventional long range strike / projection platforms are severely limited in how much fire they can deliver / unit of time. It's not feasible to sortie past limit of carriers or air bases, but the amount of balloons (or land based missiles) that can be delivered is much easier to scale, which means it's easier to satuate defenses. At the end of the day PLA is going to have very limited traditional methods of projecting power to CONUS (lack of carriers, or local basing), so they're going to latch onto any asymmetric platforms that can reliably bring war to CONUS. TBH I was not really anticipating mass balloons, and PLA planners probably weren't either. But the idea of hitting strategic targets with expensive long range missiles (i.e. prompt global strike) is something PLA is pursuing, now I imagine PLA planners are likely going to explore the virtues of cheap balloons that can scale more economically than missiles.
      - anon7725 4y ago
        If you send 100,000 bomb-balloons at your nuclear-triad-possessing enemy you have telegraphed the world’s worst sneak attack. You’d better get it over with and try your first strike after launching your balloons because your enemy will probably initiate one against you.
KennyBlanken 4y ago
It was a terror weapon, and only by suppressing news of any incidents involving the devices did it "fail."

UberFly 4y ago

Sadly only success was killing a church group out on a Sunday school picnic.

scruple 4y ago
I went down a shallow rabbit hole about this event. The man who survived the Fu-Go Balloon Bomb event in Oregon, Reverend Artchie Mitchell, went on to be captured, as a Christian missionary, by the Viet Cong in 1962 and he was never seen again. Given enough time lightning strikes the same spot more than once, I guess.
dirtyid 4y ago
Which was censored until after war because the idea that CONUS is vunerable to JP attacks is itself significant. Media spasms around PRC balloons reflect that. Except with current capabilities, it won't be 9000 primitive balloons with single digit % arrival rates and ineffective incendiary payloads but 100,000s of modern balloons with high chance of arrival and potential to deliver guided bombs. Possibly sufficient to satuate CONUS defenses and loiter around to hit strategic targets of opportunity. The unspoken narrative behind PRC sending cheap balloons over CONUS is PRC sending thousands of cheap bombs over CONUS. The conniption over PRC hypersonics was also over US homeland vunerability, but the balloons IMO represent a new type of vunerability both in scale and economics of defense.
- anon7725 4y ago
  Sending 100,000 armed balloons towards a nuclear-armed adversary doesn’t sound like 10d chess strategic thinking.
  - dirtyid 4y ago
    US warplanners considers sending 100,000s of bombs on PRC mainland targets in case of TW scenario all the time. Is that 10D thinking? It's basic escalation dynamics of recipricating homeland attacks with home land attacks, the difference is up until recently CONUS has been shielded from both precise and volume of long range strikes from her adversaries, largely due to technologic limitations, enabling US to project power with impunity. This is PRC incrementally establishing mutual homeland vunerability to deter US from messing in her back yard. It's trying to deter US from intervening in TW by raising costs to CONUS, just like US is trying to deter PRC from moving on TW by raising cost to PRC mainland. Except until recently, only PRC had to factor in homeland attacks due to asymmetric US power projection capabilities. More and more, and for the first time since revolutionary war, US now has to factor in serious homeland attacks with respect to PRC. Demonstrating CONUS is vunerable, especially if it influences public thinking, is as strategic as it gets. Lots of Americans are still operating off the notion that Fortress America is impervious and US mil actions abroad stays abroad, and generally that's true, until it's not. Ability to generate simultaneous bandwith of 100,000s of fires is also significant, most conventional long range strike / projection platforms are severely limited in how much fire they can deliver / unit of time. It's not feasible to sortie past limit of carriers or air bases, but the amount of balloons (or land based missiles) that can be delivered is much easier to scale, which means it's easier to satuate defenses. At the end of the day PLA is going to have very limited traditional methods of projecting power to CONUS (lack of carriers, or local basing), so they're going to latch onto any asymmetric platforms that can reliably bring war to CONUS. TBH I was not really anticipating mass balloons, and PLA planners probably weren't either. But the idea of hitting strategic targets with expensive long range missiles (i.e. prompt global strike) is something PLA is pursuing, now I imagine PLA planners are likely going to explore the virtues of cheap balloons that can scale more economically than missiles.
    - anon7725 4y ago
      If you send 100,000 bomb-balloons at your nuclear-triad-possessing enemy you have telegraphed the world’s worst sneak attack. You’d better get it over with and try your first strike after launching your balloons because your enemy will probably initiate one against you.

KennyBlanken 4y ago

It was a terror weapon, and only by suppressing news of any incidents involving the devices did it "fail."