Re:U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance ...
by dmix on Saturday February 04, 2023 @10:59PM
(#34661691)
I could tell this was a dumb story from the beginning. The US gov deciding to make it super-important by not sending a top official to China was a natural fire-starter for regular people, not just news junkies.
Ultimately, the only interesting conversation I got from it was why it might be hard to shoot down:
A standard 50cal as used circa WW2 to shoot down balloons would be sufficient but too short ranged
A fighter jet with an 20mm autocannon would easily deal with it but they also shoot 2000+ rounds a minute which would result in tons of dangerous rounds going right through then possibly hitting the ground near civillians.
Modern autocannon bullets that will safely auto-destruct in the air but there wasn't an US airforce craft that had them available.
So even totally wasteful stories can generate interesting thought experiments. Even when the total sum of human attention is a million times out of whack of the IRL value of caring in the first place.
Ultimately, the only interesting conversation I got from it was why it might be hard to shoot down:
A standard 50cal as used circa WW2 to shoot down balloons would be sufficient but too short ranged
A fighter jet with an 20mm autocannon would easily deal with it but they also shoot 2000+ rounds a minute which would result in tons of dangerous rounds going right through then possibly hitting the ground near civillians.
Modern autocannon bullets that will safely auto-destruct in the air but there wasn't an US airforce craft that had them available.
etc, etc, etc.
https://twitter.com/TrentTelenko/status/1621960968375877632
So even totally wasteful stories can generate interesting thought experiments. Even when the total sum of human attention is a million times out of whack of the IRL value of caring in the first place.