shouldn’t a few rounds from a mig 29 be able to bring a balloon down without any effort? Sounds like a skill issue.
So firstly at 5-7km you shoot a balloon it doesn’t just deflate and drop. It’ll keep floating (slowly returning to earth over days).
You’ve been vectored in by ground controllers. You have to spend a heap of time waiting for orders and directions. You can’t even see it properly. Its mylar. The FLIR, if its working, isn’t showing shit when it comes to mylar.
Secondly imagine you’re doing 800kph in a mig-29. Your radar won’t lock onto the balloon.
So you somehow line up and setup guns for the shot. Bam, your past it before you have time to even think.
So you line up for another pass. You slow your MIG down to 350kph. This time you have maybe 5-8 seconds before you’re pass the target.
You have no idea if you’ve hit it. You’ve probably missed it.
A couple more passes and now you’re running out of fuel and or ammo (tactical fighters usually have enough ammo for a 1-3 second total firing time) and have to return to base.
Plus all the running cost stuff the other posters have pointed out makes using tactical fighters to shoot down balloons a completely losing proposition.
When the Americans shot down those Chinese balloons it was a near miracle they were able to do it.
Of interesting to note is one of the core applications for the Soviet / Russian A-60 airborne was to shoot down American “weather” balloons.
Really fascinating video (that goes into trainspotting levels of detail) by Not a Pound for Air to Ground
There are two targets - the balloon and the payload. If you shoot down the balloon without disabling the payload, then it just drops and targets whatever was below it. If it’s a drone, it may be able to be steered to a proper target anyway.
So firstly at 5-7km you shoot a balloon it doesn’t just deflate and drop. It’ll keep floating (slowly returning to earth over days).
You’ve been vectored in by ground controllers. You have to spend a heap of time waiting for orders and directions. You can’t even see it properly. Its mylar. The FLIR, if its working, isn’t showing shit when it comes to mylar.
Secondly imagine you’re doing 800kph in a mig-29. Your radar won’t lock onto the balloon.
So you somehow line up and setup guns for the shot. Bam, your past it before you have time to even think.
So you line up for another pass. You slow your MIG down to 350kph. This time you have maybe 5-8 seconds before you’re pass the target.
You have no idea if you’ve hit it. You’ve probably missed it.
A couple more passes and now you’re running out of fuel and or ammo (tactical fighters usually have enough ammo for a 1-3 second total firing time) and have to return to base.
Plus all the running cost stuff the other posters have pointed out makes using tactical fighters to shoot down balloons a completely losing proposition.
When the Americans shot down those Chinese balloons it was a near miracle they were able to do it.
Of interesting to note is one of the core applications for the Soviet / Russian A-60 airborne was to shoot down American “weather” balloons.
Really fascinating video (that goes into trainspotting levels of detail) by Not a Pound for Air to Ground
https://youtu.be/tO2Jk5jjzdE
There are two targets - the balloon and the payload. If you shoot down the balloon without disabling the payload, then it just drops and targets whatever was below it. If it’s a drone, it may be able to be steered to a proper target anyway.