I heard rumors that during the bosnian war they were making fake SAM sites using microwave ovens with the door taken off. Get them to fire an air-to-ground missile at a device you got from the junkyard and an extension cord.
This was supposedly done during the US bombing of yugoslavia... open microwaves transmit pulsed radiation, automatic systems think it's a radar and bomb the site.
Can confirm this and that it happen in both Bosnia and the Serbia campaigns. I had family members who were involved [0].
The deception methods that were applied were truly remarkable, they used decoy tanks and sent people out to imprint fake tank tracks into fields.
They also understood IR and would shield real troops while leaving coal to burn in empty pillboxes and bunkers
There was also the shoot down of the F-117A by what was effectively a rag-tag group of AA who planned the operation and pulled it off
A lot of what was learned in the earlier Bosnia campaign was applied later in '99 - not just the use of decoys and microwaves, but using spotters to track the regular flight paths of incoming fighters and intermittently switching radar off and on (this is how Scott O'Grady was shot down in his F16)
Gen. Wesley Clark was a huge advocate of the doctrine that you could win wars with air power alone and never have to sacrifice ground troops - that thinking changed after '99
[0] note that I in no way condone the overall goal of what took place there and those same family members would be the first to tell you it was horrific
> Gen. Wesley Clark was a huge advocate of the doctrine that you could win wars with air power alone and never have to sacrifice ground troops - that thinking changed after '99
Delusions about winning wars with only air power are very close to a century old now. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bomber_Mafia ) But they seem hugely appealing to parts of human psychology - so "proved horribly wrong, yet again" doesn't do much to cure them.
That said - Gen. Clark was a career Army officer, not Air Force. And "we don't need an army to win" ideas have, ah, limited appeal to career Army folks. My read is that he was a good officer, stuck under a political leader (Pres. Bill Clinton) extremely reluctant to commit ground forces. Clark knew not to contradict his boss, and did what he could within the imposed constraints.
"...One of Clark's most debated decisions during his SACEUR command was his attempted operation to attack Russian troops at Pristina International Airport, immediately after the end of the Kosovo War in June 1999..."
"https://www.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/comments/6hjuss/kos..."
I heard the downing of the f-117 was due in large part to them flying the same patterns at the same time every night. Was this true? Or was there more involved in the AA hit?
Yes, the same flight plans, routes and timetables, were re-used, so when spotters saw the aircraft take off they had a very good idea of where it would come from.
The shoot down also involved the SAM radar operator violating his own SOP by leaving his radar on longer than they normally do, and firing at a non-PID contact, because they _knew_ the aircraft was going to be there.
Positively Identified. Western forces have many safeguards in place to only shoot at PID targets because the cost of 'blue-on-blue' is so destructive for morale
I believe so, but also because they decided to still fly missions on a day where the Prowler EW platform was inoperable. Due to the extreme predictability of the route, along with no countermeasures, and intelligence on the matter, they were able to burn through.
This is the article I read about this some time ago; good detail here! They quote complacency as a factor, arrogance would be another good word - in grossly underestimating the sheer determination on the other side.
I’m not sure you “don’t get to complain”, but essentially you’re reiterating my point, that I believe General Clark is wrong on this point (obviously with the caveat that I’m a guy with a keyboard and a monitor, but never seen a battlefield).
I’m from a country where we would be able to launch massive manned and unmanned aerial attacks at an enemy country. And yet I still think that we should be careful to avoid such an asymmetrical use of force.
Using aerial attacks as part of a wider strategy, fine. But if the enemy sees absolutely no possibility of winning a war conventionally, as you say “you don’t get to complain”.
Microwave ovens frequency is 2.45GHz with a narrow spectrum because microwave ovens are under strict RF regulation, like anything that is an intentional or unintentional radiator.
Microwave oven magnetron's power is miserable compared with any AAD radar. Plus, microwave oven is not designed to emit RF energy when it's opened. So, emitted power will be even less.
Presumably, GP is referring to a HARM[0] or similar anti-radiation missile[1]. I believe the targeting automatically, but presumably the pilot still had to pull the trigger.
Microwaves transmit on a frequency nowhere near missile systems and are not modulated in any way resembling a missile fire control system, but cool story.
ECM gear in US warplanes can classify a system based off its emissions and people think they're fooled by a microwave oven?
Not to be too provocative, but hugely expensive precision equipment being fooled by a microwave oven with the door cut off is exactly what I’d expect from the US military.
Based on a long history of similar failures? As one example, claiming that they were bombing tanks when they were actually bombing “pneumatic rubber images of tanks” with heat sources strapped to them: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/377943.stm
Doesn't mean it worked. One can _attempt_ to create a decoy, especially if they have little knowledge of how radiation is transmitted into the environment. On South Park, Randy Marsh, a geologist with a Ph.D., puts his nuts in the microwave to get just enough cancer that he can qualify for medical marijuana. [0]
People often say "nuke" when referring to using a microwave.
I tried growing marijuana with CFL lights in my dorm room. When the cops showed up, I ate the biggest of the 3 plants, a few inches tall, right in front of them.
> Microwaves transmit on a frequency nowhere near missile systems
S band is used for target acquisition a whole lot.
> and are not modulated in any way resembling a missile fire control system
Yup, but when you're deciding whether or not to launch a HARM it's better safe than sorry. In turn, asymmetries accrue.
Indeed, you can't really afford to ignore the microwave oven S-band emitter, because you could use even a literal microwave oven for illumination with passive radar techniques for target acquisition pretty well.
So the obvious solution for any AAA designer would be to emulate the radiation pattern of a microwave as closely as possible?
Point being - even if the emissions doesn't match anything you have on record (except possibly a microwave) - would you risk a $100M airplane on it being a decoy?
Isn't it the control circuits surrounding the magnetron that do a lot of this work? If you clip off some transistors and wire on a new one, how much can you change the frequency?
> How much does a weather baloon cost? ...compared to a F22 flight, a missle + all the logistics?
If this is an actual spy object you also need to factor in the cost of the surveillance. How much money does the military lose due to the sensitive information being lost. Or how much does the military need to spend to regain strategic advantage? That probably costs more than a F22 flight and a missile.
Obviously this depends on the number of objects that one needs to respond to. Cheap surveillance devices can obviously overwhelm this and then you have a war of attrition.
In the example of the article we need to consider the cost of flights being downed (which they down when considering the cost of hitting an object and downing an aircraft. Quite expensive). Flights being canceled and/or delayed is expensive.
> How much money does the military lose due to the sensitive information being lost.
...probably around zero dollars. It would be different if it was above say active war zone but in this case it is almost as far from potential warzone as possible so probably absolutely nothing.
I don't think it would be a stretch to say that we're in a cold war with China. Many modern battlefields aren't on the ground and fought with bullets. They are economic, political, and proxies. In cold wars you often have technological and economic races too (see cold war with Russia). Militaries believe that if you don't want a hot war to break out you wave the biggest {st,d}ick.
It would be naive to believe that military information is only important when bullets are being fired. This would be like saying that your class textbook is only useful when you're taking a test. (A cold war is like you have an upcoming test)
I’d hesitate to call this psychological warfare, but it now seems like the American people are paranoid about spy balloons and having their airspace violated. America is the one who brazenly flies and spies over other countries, that doesn’t happen to us.
So now our leaders are trigger happy about shooting down any potential new balloons in order to try and save face while looking tough. Meanwhile, I’m sure plenty of Chinese officials are feeling pretty smug at the reaction they were able to cause and pride that they can present themselves as a capable challenger to American hegemony.
We're trigger happy because the right used this to attack Biden in an effort to show that he is weak. This is also why many papers also mention that many balloons floated over during the previous administration. Though of course, why wouldn't China take advantage of that? Troll your enemies in any way you can.
> it now seems like the American people are paranoid about spy balloons and having their airspace violated
Only naive people would think so. 9/11 was 21 years ago. Where have you been?
> America is the one who brazenly flies and spies over other countries, that doesn’t happen to us.
Satellites have been used by all major powers since pretty much forever. As for other means, do you have insights of those brazen efforts by the US?
> So now our leaders are trigger happy about shooting down any potential new balloons in order to try and save face while looking tough
Lazy thinking. You don’t know if this latest incident was in response to the event last week or there was something specific that prompted them to shoot it down. They didn’t even say it was Chinese. Strange unknown flying objects are not new of course. They following article discussed something happened in 2019, and was disclosed a year ago:
So the US flew all those U2 spy planes over the Soviet Union for fun, and the Soviet Union shot one down in 1960 just to prove that they could?
I agree that a ballon over Alaska is unlikely to gain much intelligence, but with the right equipment at the right place you can get a lot of useful insights into your enemy's capabilities even at peacetime.
I'd say the Soviets absolutely shot down that U2 in large part to prove that they could, and that to some degree at least, the US was flying those planes over to prove that they could.
There's a school of thought that says the US won the cold war by convincing the Soviets to bankrupt themselves trying to keep up with the arms race. Now I don't necessarily think that fully explains things, but I do think there's a lot more politics to a "spy" device than the actual photographs, especially outside the context of a hot war.
There is a lot you can learn by floating a slow moving object rigged with antennas over your adversary and then noting which types of radar light you up and from which direction. Especially when you float them over military sites.
But my dad, who worked on (British) military IFF stuff, did have a story about an ICBM early warning system (I think American) that determined an attack was inbound because someone forgot about the Moon.
More to the point, if one side keeps secrets and another doesn't, the secret keepers have an advantage. Its a Prisoner's Dilemma scenario, where secrecy is defection.
Early on in the whole balloon situation, there was discussion about how - having seen the US response - the most logical course of action would be to launch 10 balloons.
Then 100. Then 1000.
By all means, let the US military shoot as many as they want.
Let the propagandists call it "a great military display".
Then, just like the West is doing with Ukraine when it comes to artillery rounds, watch the Western arsenal of A2A missiles drop to critical levels that they won't be able to rebuild with any sort of expediency.
It should be a lesson the US learned a thousand times over, but we just saw them do it again: the aeronautical equivalent of bombing a farmer with an AK-47 and calling it a "victory".
The helium is generally the biggest cost for a launch. You generally need welding grade helium instead of the party balloon variety which costs more. The price fluctuates a lot because of some complicated economics related to natural gas production, but getting that high can easily set you back $400.
If I recall rightly, hydrogen leaks out of the balloon so fast because of the change in pressure at high altitudes. Not a problem at lower ones, but way up I seem to recall that it is.
This is an unmanned device so it doesn't have the same safety concern. Also at the cruising altitude there is so little oxygen it's probably as safe as helium at that altitude.
> Twice a day, every day of the year, weather balloons are released simultaneously from almost 900 locations worldwide! This includes 92 released by the National Weather Service in the US and its territories.
You’re missing the big picture. The wonderful, open, democratic society that we live in exists only because we secure it against adversaries. China has $1.4B striving, hungry citizens who would love to get a crack at that prosperity. If we let them, they will take it.
You don’t think it already took over? I have nothing here at home that wouldn’t be “made in China” expect couple of old engineering equipment and bigger furniture pieces. I am not sure about car, it was apparently assembled in Munich.
If it's cheap enough, there will probably be youtubers and tiktokers buying them en-masse just "for the lulz".