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Surprise!

Started by GDS_Starfury, February 02, 2023, 06:43:31 PM

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steve58

Government is not the solution to our problem—government is the problem.   Ronald Reagan
The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.   Thomas Jefferson
During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.   George Orwell  The truth is quiet...It's the lies that are loud.   Jesus Revolution
If you ever find yourself in need of a safe space then you're probably going to have to stop calling yourself a social justice warrior. You cannot be a warrior and a pansy at the same time   Mike Adams (RIP Mike)

Gusington



слава Україна!

We can't live under the threat of a c*nt because he's threatening nuclear Armageddon.

-JudgeDredd

GDS_Starfury

ok

whats Darpa playing with?   :evil:
Toonces - Don't ask me, I just close my eyes and take it.

Gus - I use sweatpants with flannel shorts to soak up my crotch sweat.

Banzai Cat - There is no "partial credit" in grammar. Like anal sex. It's either in, or it's not.

Mirth - We learned long ago that they key isn't to outrun Star, it's to outrun Gus.

Martok - I don't know if it's possible to have an "anti-boner"...but I now have one.

Gus - Celery is vile and has no reason to exist. Like underwear on Star.


SirAndrewD

Quote from: GDS_Starfury on February 08, 2023, 07:37:50 PMok

whats Darpa playing with?   :evil:

Go watch a few of those UAP videos and you'll probably get a partial answer.
"These men do not want a happy ship. They are deeply sick and try to compensate by making me feel miserable. Last week was my birthday. Nobody even said "happy birthday" to me. Someday this tape will be played and then they'll feel sorry."  - Sgt. Pinback

FarAway Sooner

The US has been working on similar hypervelocity weapons for about 20 years now.  The program seems to go in fits and starts, but it seems better suited to targeting carriers than any other kind of particular platform.

Blowing up a target on the ground is always a good thing.  But if each missile costs $50,000,000, you'll like have a very short target list...

GDS_Starfury

and the continuing problem for the Chinese is being able to track and target our carriers.  it's really not an easy thing.
Toonces - Don't ask me, I just close my eyes and take it.

Gus - I use sweatpants with flannel shorts to soak up my crotch sweat.

Banzai Cat - There is no "partial credit" in grammar. Like anal sex. It's either in, or it's not.

Mirth - We learned long ago that they key isn't to outrun Star, it's to outrun Gus.

Martok - I don't know if it's possible to have an "anti-boner"...but I now have one.

Gus - Celery is vile and has no reason to exist. Like underwear on Star.


JasonPratt

#111
Not exactly news, really, but...

QuoteThe Chinese spy balloon that flew over the United States for days before being shot down could monitor communications signals, a U.S. official says.

"High resolution imagery from U-2 flybys revealed that the high-altitude balloon was capable of conducting signals intelligence collection operations," an official with the State Department, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Epoch Times.

"The high altitude balloon's equipment was clearly for intelligence surveillance and inconsistent with the equipment onboard weather balloons. It had multiple antennas to include an array likely capable of collecting and geo-locating communications. It was equipped with solar panels large enough to produce the requisite power to operate multiple active intelligence collection sensors," the official added.

Frank Gaffney, executive chairman at the Center for Security Policy, told NTD that China would likely have an interest in monitoring communications between intercontinental ballistic missile silos.

Officials said the balloon entered U.S. airspace over Alaska on Jan. 28. It flew over Canada before re-entering the United States on Jan. 31. President Joe Biden ordered the balloon taken down and it was shot from the sky on Feb. 4. The North American Aerospace Defense Command was tracking the balloon the entire time.

"The United States sent a clear message to the PRC that its violation of our sovereignty was unacceptable by shooting down the balloon, protecting our own sensitive intelligence, and maximizing our ability to track the balloon and recover the payload to get more information on the PRC's program," the State Department official said, adding that the United States would explore taking action against Chinese entities that supported the incursion of U.S. airspace. PRC stands for People's Republic of China.

The balloon is believed to be part of communist China's fleet of balloons developed to conduct surveillance operations, which are typically undertaken at the direction of the People's Liberation Army. The program has been in operation "for several years," a Pentagon spokesman said Wednesday. U.S. officials have since learned that China has flown the surveillance balloons over more than 40 countries across 5 continents, the State Department official said.

The United States is contacting other countries to learn about the scope of the program and other details.

Mao Ning, with China's Foreign Ministry, told reporters in Beijing that the accusations "may be part of the U.S. side's information warfare against China" and claimed that the United States was "overreacting" when it shot the balloon down.

Some U.S. lawmakers have been critical of the decision to wait to bring the craft down until it had flown across multiple states.

An assessment of the risk of intelligence collection was deemed to be low to moderate while the risk to U.S. personnel on the ground if the balloon was shot down was determined to be moderate to significant, prompting officials to advise Biden to wait to bring down the balloon until it was over water, Lt. Gen. Douglas Sims, director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said during a hearing on Capitol Hill on Thursday.

Melissa Dalton, assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense and hemispheric affairs, assured members of Congress that the United States was able to "protect against PRC intelligence collection," saying it was "straightforward because we knew where the balloon was."

The balloon entering the United States "is part of the broader suite of operations that China is undertaking to try and get better understanding of U.S.," Jedidiah Royal, principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs, told members before being interrupted by Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), who asked whether U.S. officials know what intelligence the Chinese were trying to collect.

"We have some very good guesses about that, and we are learning more as we exploit the contents of the balloon and the payload itself," Royal said.

So, confirmation that NORAD was tracking the thing the whole time, and no one pulled the trigger while it was over Alaska or, with permission, over West Canada.

My charitable guess is that they wanted to ensure recovery for study with zero risk to human life, so they planned to shoot it down in recoverable shore area near deployable recovery assets, rather than in or off-shore wilderness areas; and meanwhile practice counter-sigint against it. If they had said so, China might have blown the thing up; not saying so meant not doing anything until people noticed on the ground, and then running out the clock with stalling tactics. To be fair, the State Department's statement, quoted above, kind of says that in diplo-tech-speak.

However, if that had been the plan, the time to say so would have been ten seconds after gun-cam confirmation that the balloon was dead, rather than weak-sounding statements of "we, uh, showed them Chinese that no one can mess with us and we mean businesszzzz...."
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

Meanwhile, slightly late news on my part (I was at work and shuttling Mom to a clinic checkup until not long ago), but adds weight to the counter-intell-op theory I was floating in my prior post.

(......FLOATING AH HA HA HA HAH haa ha....  :HideEyes:  :embarrassed: )

QuoteMultiple Congressional staffers have confirmed to The Epoch Times that Congressional representatives will be briefed on the morning of Feb. 9 regarding the Chinese spy balloon that flew over the United States last week.

The meeting comes after days of debate between Republicans and Democrats about how the Biden administration addressed the craft and the threat from communist China, more generally.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has pressed for just an all-of-Congress meeting, as confirmed by House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) on Feb. 7.

A message attributed to the GOP conference claims the meeting will take place at 8 a.m. on Thursday, and that it will be bipartisan and members-only. It will be a top secret-sensitive compartmented information (TS-SCI) meeting, according to that same message.

TS-SCI information is highly classified. It contains details on intelligence sources and methods.

The message did not clarify whether the meeting will only include members of the House or will also include members of the Senate.

According to the message, at least five U.S. officials will help brief Congress tomorrow.

Morgan Muir of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is among them.

In addition, the briefers will include three officials from the Defense Department.

These officials are Colin Kahl, undersecretary of defense for policy; Lt. Gen. Douglas A. Sims, director of operations at the J3 level for Joint Staff; and Joint Staff Gen. Glen VanHerck, commander of the United States Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) and North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD).

Finally, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Dan Kritenbrink will also participate in the morning briefing.

The Biden administration has defended its decision to take down the balloon on Saturday after it had floated over Alaska's Aleutian Islands, parts of Canada, and much of the United States for a week, saying the delay was to avoid possible harm to civilians if the device was shot down over land.

U.S. officials said the military took unspecified mitigation measures to thwart the balloon's data collection, and that the United States was able to use the opportunity of the balloon's week-long flight to conduct counterintelligence.

"We acted responsibly and prudently to protect our interests," said Secretary of State Antony Blinken in a Feb. 8 press conference with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.

Blinken said the surveillance balloon was part of a broader global Chinese campaign that has violated the sovereignty of countries across five continents.

He added the Biden administration is currently working to recover parts of the fallen balloon, adding that the administration would "share relevant findings with Congress, as well as with our allies and partners around the world."

Earlier on Feb. 8, Pentagon spokesperson Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder confirmed that new intelligence had allowed the United States to determine at least four previous spy balloon incidents in the United States, three of which occurred during the Trump administration and one during the Biden administration.

In all four incidents, Ryder said, Chinese surveillance balloons had entered the airspace of the continental United States in an apparent effort to spy on "strategic sites."

A staffer for Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio), the House Intelligence Committee's current chair, confirmed earlier this week that an intelligence-focused "Gang of Eight" in the House and Senate would be briefed on the balloon.

The Epoch Times has reached out to multiple Congressional staffers for additional details.

Andrew Thornebrooke and Eva Fu contributed to this report.

So we'll likely hear some spin-and-poli-jousting leaks from this meeting, which should have happened this morning.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

GDS_Starfury

QuoteHowever, if that had been the plan, the time to say so would have been ten seconds after gun-cam confirmation that the balloon was dead

they were saying what the plan was for days.  how did you miss that?
Toonces - Don't ask me, I just close my eyes and take it.

Gus - I use sweatpants with flannel shorts to soak up my crotch sweat.

Banzai Cat - There is no "partial credit" in grammar. Like anal sex. It's either in, or it's not.

Mirth - We learned long ago that they key isn't to outrun Star, it's to outrun Gus.

Martok - I don't know if it's possible to have an "anti-boner"...but I now have one.

Gus - Celery is vile and has no reason to exist. Like underwear on Star.


Sir Slash

Hate to burst your bubble, see what I did there, but nobody was saying anything from the government that they planned anything but to let it pass over because shooting the balloon down was too great a threat to anyone in the debris field. That's why no news network except for FOX was broadcasting when the balloon went down. Unless of course that is what you meant.
"Take a look at that". Sgt. Wilkerson-- CMBN. His last words after spotting a German tank on the other side of a hedgerow.

GDS_Starfury

perhaps your news sources weren't covering it.
Toonces - Don't ask me, I just close my eyes and take it.

Gus - I use sweatpants with flannel shorts to soak up my crotch sweat.

Banzai Cat - There is no "partial credit" in grammar. Like anal sex. It's either in, or it's not.

Mirth - We learned long ago that they key isn't to outrun Star, it's to outrun Gus.

Martok - I don't know if it's possible to have an "anti-boner"...but I now have one.

Gus - Celery is vile and has no reason to exist. Like underwear on Star.


JasonPratt

Neither was this Grogheads thread, evidently.  :kiss:

Unless by "the plan" you only meant the part where they shoot it down over water, which was not all the plan I was talking about.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

FarAway Sooner

Come on guys, we're all Americans here in this conversation right now.  The important thing is that we're all able to feel sanctimonious about ourselves, our world view, our own political party, our preferred media outlets, and the struggle for democracy in the free world!

I kinda had forgotten the Cold War Dynamic where we were always losing it as long as the other party's President was in power and we were always winning it when our President was in power.  Except for Jimmy Carter.  Man, was he unpopular by the end of his term!

Gusington

^Iran didn't help Jimmy Carter either  :undecided:


слава Україна!

We can't live under the threat of a c*nt because he's threatening nuclear Armageddon.

-JudgeDredd

JasonPratt

Quote from: FarAway Sooner on February 10, 2023, 11:00:52 AMCome on guys, we're all Americans here in this conversation right now.  The important thing is that we're all able to feel sanctimonious about ourselves, our world view, our own political party, our preferred media outlets, and the struggle for democracy in the free world!

FREEEDOMMMM!!  :RockOn:  :Party:  :ThumbsUp:

I'm not even being ironic about that.  :peace:


To be fair, the full plan may have been included in one or more article links posted upthread, which I happened not to read. I don't recall discussing the full plan in the comments, but all the pieces might have been discussed in parts at different times.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!