Comments by "MarcosElMalo2" (@MarcosElMalo2) on "Could New Russian Barrage Balloons Stop Ukrainian Drones?" video.

  1. “Oh, the Putinanity!”, cries Tucker Carlson as he weepingly witnesses an exploding hydrogen balloon.
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  2. Same reason there isn’t a shark.
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  3. Correct , H2 has 2 protons. But a single Helium atom has two protons and 2 neutrons. (Afaik, Helium doesn’t form diatomic molecules at gaseous temps.) But what do we mean by larger and smaller? The mass? The physical width of the nuclei?
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  4. Do you not think the high value targets inside Russia haven’t already been identified?
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  5.  @williamjacobs  William, I dare say, are the balloons getting bigger the further we go in? Or are we getting smaller?
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  6. I think it might work when used as a last line of defense, not the only line. It would probably be more viable to protect the energy infrastructure (refineries and tank farms and whatnot) deeper in Russian territory, where the Ukrainians have surprised everyone by getting through. I gave barrage balloons a some thought when Russia began using the Iranian drones to target the Ukrainian power grid. Another strategy would be to create gargantuan cope cages around critical infrastructure. Three or four towers (or more if you want redundancy, and wire mesh could stop a drone. A counter strategy would be to send one drone to blow a hole in the mesh and another to fly through the hole, but that would be hard to manage. Perhaps you send 5 “wire cutting” drones for each drone tasked with destroying the target? In the first year, when Ukraine was taking a beating from the Shahed drones, I came up with some crazy ideas that are probably impractical. Nets stretched between helicopters to catch the drones was one. Anti-drone drones armed with tennis rackets was another.
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  7. If you don’t think the targets are already identified, you have very low confidence in the capabilities of U.S. reconnaissance.
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  8.  @WALTERBROADDUS  It’s not like militaries around the world don’t have access to up to date satellite maps and rooms full of analysts poring over the photos. Some of these comments sound like they’re coming from people who drink a lot of lead contaminated water.
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  9. You are aware that there is a thing called satellites, yes? Did you know that some of them take high resolution photos of the earth’s surface? Did you know that militaries have experts on staff to analyze these photographs to determine where vital infrastructure is, for those cases where street addresses aren’t known? It’s cute that you think Russia has secret oil refineries. It’s an open question whether barrage balloons will be effective, but your innocence is quite charming.
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  10. I also imagine they’d be an inner ring defense for anything that gets past the outer rings. I thought about barrage balloons during the first year of the war, when Ukrainian civilian infrastructure and the power grid was being targeted. I figured that Ukraine already had people smarter and more qualified than I am that had considered barrage balloons as a solution. I also had more far fetched ideas that no one would have seriously considered (anti drone drones armed with tennis rackets). The idea might indeed be viable, but I think it’s a sign that Russian air defense is spread thin. They have more critical infrastructure than they have the capability to defend it. It’s a solution born of desperation.
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  11. 99 Red Balloons would be somewhat ironic.
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  12. That could be important if reconnaissance satellites totally stopped working. C’mon Chet. Use your g.d. noodle.
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  13. The He2 molecule is only stable as a liquid. There are no gaseous Helium molecules. But that said, yes, a diatomic helium molecule (He2) is larger than a diatomic hydrogen molecule (H2). It has 4 protons and 4 neutrons, vs the 2 protons of a diatomic hydrogen molecule. Did you not ever learn about basic chemistry? Or do you doubt the existence of atoms and molecules?
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  14. I think you’re spot on with your first thought. WRT to closer to the front line, it really depends. What sorts of Russian assets would be defended this way? Completely static ones, like harbors and docks? That seems a viable use. Hidden ammunition caches? Not so much. The best use would be for critical and strategic infrastructure far from the front. I think the point of barrage balloons is that these would be used as an inner ring of defense, not the only ring.
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  15. Are you aware of a class of things known as reconnaissance satellites? They’re these things in orbit that are equipped to take photos, and then send the data back to earth. Some countries have their own, but there are commercial companies that will sell you their photos or even book time as they fly over what ever part of the world you want to surveil. Nobody needs look for barrage balloons to indicate high value targets. That could actually work against you, as your adversary could set up balloons around false targets. This is super obvious to me, and I’m not exceptionally smart. I don’t know if the balloons will prove to be viable or not, but the objections like yours just seem like you’re unaware of Google Earth and/or maps that get updated more frequently. Nobody needs to see barrage balloons to find targets.
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  16. The thing is, we don’t know if it doesn’t work. We see the successful hits that have avoided the nets. We haven’t seen those times (if any) where a drone got hung up in a net. Look up “survivor bias”. It’s a well known pitfall in fault analysis. The gist is that you can’t do fault analysis with an incomplete set of data.
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  17. Do you think oil refineries and tank farms are in secret locations?
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  18. Or ongoing slow refill.
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  19. That could work if you were using King Kong sized butterfly nets.
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