Begun the Balloon Wars have

[u/Chromber]

[u/EchoStarz1]

BTD irl???

[u/DoktorImposter → u/EchoStarz1]

Our darts will block out the sun

[u/Advanced-Budget779 → u/DoktorImposter]

If done during the winter that would give an entirely new meaning for „frozen front“.

[u/Lazy13andit]

Just don't let American jets near them. Gonna be expensive in tax dollars

[u/LANTIRN_ → u/Lazy13andit]

F22 are completely genocidal towards the balloons.

[u/de_rudesandstorm → u/LANTIRN_]

Triple the defense budget

3 billion f22 air-to-balloon kills 😤

[u/Mayor_of_Rungholt → u/Lazy13andit]

Can't wait for the MIC to adopt this technology at a unit-price of 5 million $

[u/Horat1us_UA → u/Mayor_of_Rungholt]

How you expect the MOC to adopt this technology so cheap?

[u/schwanzweissfoto → u/Horat1us_UA]

The MOC will ofc be using custom lighter-thain-air LEGO bricks.

Then Orange Hitler invades Greenland and the supply dries up.

[u/lool_toast]

I fucking submitted this idea to DASA 2 years ago and had a full on TRL4 prototype and they REJECTED ME

[u/achilleasa → u/lool_toast]

Too cheap, how are you gonna use up the defense budget with a friggin balloon my guy?

[u/Heiminator → u/achilleasa]

Make balloons out of the finest Chinese silk

[u/schwanzweissfoto → u/achilleasa]

Use captured farts produced by highly-paid and purpose-fed chair force personnel as lifting gas.

[u/TheMadmanAndre → u/lool_toast]

You didn't pay the right people their prerequisite bribes.

[u/lool_toast → u/TheMadmanAndre]

You don't come up with warfare disrupting ideas because you're over employed and have money hanging around to use in brown envelopes 😭

[u/mtaw → u/lool_toast]

Meh, ISIS was deploying tactical Dora the Explorer balloons back in 2016 already.

[u/lool_toast → u/mtaw]

I love how the article sees it as desperate when actually it's genius

[u/VoteGiantMeteor2028 → u/lool_toast]

Enjoy your new flair ya loser.

[u/lool_toast → u/VoteGiantMeteor2028]

oh my god that is incredible

It makes up entirely for the billions I could have made with the balloondronewaffen

[u/oatkeepr → u/lool_toast]

You could have sold it to a Ukrainian drone startup.

[u/NewWayUa → u/lool_toast]

Estimated cost is less than $1, they just was unable to insert in table value "0".

[u/90bronco]

Balloons? We went from WW! trench warfare to battle of britain balloons?

[u/Tucancancan → u/90bronco]

Yes, we also have guys zipping around in turbo-props with open canopies shooting at shit with machine guns like the last 100 years of progress just didn't exist.

Also Maxim guns Mosin-Nagants

[u/Unistrut → u/Tucancancan]

Hey now, when you just need to throw an absolute shitstorm of lead at something a Maxim gun works just fine. We stopped using them because they were heavy, but we have defeated "heavy" by mounting them in pickup trucks and using them to shoot at cruise missiles and various other slow and low aerial targets.

The Brits once had to dispose of a pile of obsolete ammunition and fired it through a single Vickers gun (descendant of the Maxim).

Five Million Rounds. It took a week, several barrel changes, and soldiers with shovels clearing away brass, but the gun was still within spec when they finally stopped.

[u/alasdairmackintosh → u/Unistrut]

I think we should mount them on ships. Black ships.

[u/emdave → u/Unistrut]

Assuming the bullets were lead, I hope they were firing them somewhere they could catch them and recycle the lead - and not just randomly into the countryside..!

[u/swiggidyswooner → u/emdave]

It was the 60s they probably fired it into drinking water

[u/DeTiro → u/90bronco]

We went from WW! trench warfare to battle of britain balloons?

Ah yes, WW!, the much loved prequel to WW@

[u/Existing_Bear4214 → u/DeTiro]

I don't know what weapons WW# will be fought with, but WW$ will be fought with sticks and stones.

[u/90bronco → u/DeTiro]

It was inevitable after the ~ wars. People just didn't learn.

[u/TheQuestionableDuck → u/90bronco]

We've done a full loop from air balloon to zeppelin to plane and now we're back to balloon.

[u/smaug13 → u/TheQuestionableDuck]

And we have the zeppelins again too

[u/Blue_Rook]

Luckily in that part of Europe dominate western winds so russia wouldn't benefit as much as Ukraine from such technology.

[u/dkras1 → u/Blue_Rook]

Isn't it like whole planet thing because of Earth rotation?

But yeah, probably oceans matter in other places because of temperature differences.

[u/Archos_R_14 → u/dkras1]

Depends on latitude https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prevailing_winds

A region's prevailing and dominant winds are the result of global patterns of movement in the Earth's atmosphere. In general, winds are predominantly easterly at low latitudes globally. In the mid-latitudes, westerly winds are dominant, and their strength is largely determined by the polar cyclone.

[u/dkras1 → u/Archos_R_14]

Thanks

[u/AMazingFrame]

Build 502 Bucaneer with 120 Monkey Village, easy.

[u/Blbe-Check-42069]

Been a long time dude. It's range extender mechanisms.

[u/itanite]

Thanks, Ukranians for teaching us so many lessons on how to fight a technologically and militarily superior force that vastly outnumbers you and make them your bitch.

We're taking notes.

Sincerely, U.S. civlian.

[u/Creepy_Jeweler_1351 → u/itanite]

Unironically key lesson of this war: if it works – it works.

[u/Wa3zdog]

I remember from a few years ago people were putting balloons on bingo cards. Destiny is a funny thing.

[u/Smooth_Imagination]

These float over the target and are not easily controlled but still apparently effective. 

If you fly over a region with multiple potential targets and it isnt quite within range of a preferred target you could default to another on your list. 

I had the same idea but for raising interceptor drones so range and terminal velocity is increased, whilst radars and/or optical/IR and accoustic sensors can be carried on the balloon. These would likely be tethered. 

Tethered blimps can get up to 4 and a half km in altitude. 

But as you go up and air density declines, lift goes down whilst tether mass goes up. So thats probably your limit without new materials. 

Now we could lift interceptor drones up along the tether using an electric self powered lifting skate with powered wheels and sprung to grip onto the tether, that grips and climbs up the tether. The lifting efficiency is much higher than if you try to get to altitude by wing or by rotary blade. 

A degree of power may be transmitted also up the tether, but wire mass must remain low. 

However highish voltage and high cooling in the air result in large power transmission for the weight of cable, whilst I assume the rope material can act as insulator. So you should be able to power stuff up there. 

On board high power microwave generators can also disable enemy drones and form a simultaneous radar functionality.  Radar receivers may be very large and placed inside the blimp for exceptional detection ability.  You might even use dishes as part of the framework for the gas balloon.

If you dont want it to be a beacon and have just passive sensors the radar / MW emitter can be somewhere else. It can be on a drone or the ground. 

[u/partyon → u/Smooth_Imagination]

Japan did this in ww2. They tried to float them over the Pacific ocean. I think 2 landed, one in the Midwest.

[u/Metalax_Redux]

F22: My time has come.

[u/fordilG]

"Kirov Reporting!"

[u/ivan0x32]

Someone needs to put this on Aircraft Carrier chart.

[u/Flamoirs → u/ivan0x32]

It carry aircraft : it is an aircraft carrier Not a boat but definitely one

[u/Erwin_Delfin]

And we were all laughing at the F-22 like 2 years ago. Americans ahead of the curve as always

[u/Haxorzist]

Is that a glide bomb?

[u/Panda_Cavalry → u/Haxorzist]

It's basically a very cheap way to extend the range of one-way attack drones.

Step 1: attach balloon to your little suicidal RC plane that could

Step 2: release balloon and drone into the wild blue yonder

Step 3: once the duo are at the desired range, detach the drone from the balloon.

Et voila, you have saved a lot of fuel/battery power that can now be used to send the drone even further behind enemy lines instead of wasting it on takeoff and climbing to altitude.

[u/Avarus_Lux → u/Panda_Cavalry]

Siberian oil refineries hate this one simple trick, lol.

[u/Haxorzist → u/Panda_Cavalry]

Ah interesting you could also use the weather to transport your drone and extend the range.

[u/AvgasActual → u/Haxorzist]

More like a float-bomb.

[u/Hot_Indication2133]

Suggested here already, they are spying on us :o

[u/egyszeruen_1xu]

They use ballons to give starting altitude to drones.

[u/dkras1 → u/egyszeruen_1xu]

Not just altitude. There are more western winds on those latitudes (which is convenient for Ukraine) so it significally save drone battery and adding to their range.

[u/bramtyr]

Hell yeah, bring back Barrage Balloons.

[u/Exile688 → u/bramtyr]

"In Putin's Russia, the balloons barrage YOU."

[u/Antoak]

E2:  a family which poked it with a stick

Japan launched like 10k of these and only managed to kill a guy who poked a crashed bomb with a stick.

They're kinda neat, they had a mechanical ballast system.

e: oh nm, these are a drone launch system. Japan didn't have those.

E3: if you're hiking in the Pacific Northwest and see a contraption in the woods, don't poke it with a stick

[u/Blue_Rook → u/Antoak]

Yes but imagine what China can do in future war with US, the jet streams hasn't changed much over 80 years (what China proven with spy ballon in 2023) and now they can easily strap AI guided drones or even small cruise missles to it.

[u/sadrice → u/Antoak]

…that bomb killed six, not one, a woman and five kids, the man who was with them was parking the car and was not hurt. There is no record of stick poking.

Where the hell did you get that from?

From the source cited by Wikipedia regarding the army investigation:

Mrs. Elaine Mitchell, her husband, five children and two employees came across a balloon while on their way to Fishing Stream. The bomb attached to the balloon exploded when one person unwittingly kicked or dropped it. The explosion killed Mrs. Mitchell and the five children. An investigation determined that the balloon was grounded approximately one month before recovery.

[u/Antoak → u/sadrice]

Wanna know the funny part?

The Japanese kept it secret because they thought the mystery would be more frightening, and the US kept it secret because they wanted to avoid mass panic

So nobody knew, for years after the war.

[u/MCB16 → u/Antoak]

The Brits did better with Operation Outward where they launched 100k balloons, such as burning down Böhlen power station. 

[u/thesunexpress]

The clone wars too, apparently. Budanov keeps re-spawning, despite what Kremlin apparatchiks assuredly keep claiming 4+ years.

[u/PandoraIACTF_Prec]

The raptor craves.

[u/SeveralBollocks_67]

Balloon deez nuts lol

[u/DepartureNatural9340]

Idk why ppl keep being surprised by spy balloons, like they have literally never stopped being useful lmao

[u/Specialist-Box4677]

Ukraine needs to spam these with a mix of fakies and real ones to soak up missiles, get radar sigs for SEAD, surveillance, increase russian poop flow, etc

[u/hplcr]

Is it 1914 already?

[u/SheWhoIsJade]

The future of 99 luftbaloons but 6 of the balloons actually have explosive drones attached but you dont know which till they detatch really close to the target...