• A spy blimp with a supercomputer could be over Afghanistan by 2011
    80 replies, posted
They've actually been doing this for a while now, just not with blimps. The term is Network Centric Warfare, this is the picture they use at my work - [img]http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/9030/jfspic.jpg[/img] Very similar to the one in the article minus the blimp of course.
War blimps.
[QUOTE=Eudoxia;27518349]I think this is a safe enough altitude.[/QUOTE] The real threat would be during taking off and landing as it is with "real" aircraft. [QUOTE=elitehakor v2;27518378]And if it isn't, I'm pretty damn sure they will have some sort of countermeasures against enemy fire[/QUOTE] Short of a teleporter there is nothing they can use to counter unguided RPGs and gun fire. I think alt is the best defence for it.
[QUOTE=M2k3;27523237]They've actually been doing this for a while now, just not with blimps. The term is Network Centric Warfare, this is the picture they use at my work - Very similar to the one in the article minus the blimp of course.[/QUOTE] The Downside to the old model is that a AC-130 used a fuckton of fuel and has to constantly circle while a blimp can stay in place and use minimal fuel.
[QUOTE=kaze4159;27518342]Blimps aren't known for their strength But it's not like there's any RPG's down there right? :ohdear:[/QUOTE] You must be the world's best sharpshooter if you can take that thing down with a RPG 20,000 feet above the ground
What if they got hands on a guided AA rocket? Those are designed to take down helicopters/jet planes, what would stop a missile from blowing a massive hole in it? Flares?
[QUOTE=Jsm;27523557] Short of a teleporter there is nothing they can use to counter unguided RPGs and gun fire. I think alt is the best defence for it.[/QUOTE] A RPG-7 only has a range of about 50 or 60 yards so we can assume a safe lading zone has been secured, it will be landing well outside the zone of engagement, and it will be flying well over 50 yards in the air.
RPG will not travel 20,000 feet into the air.
[QUOTE=B!N4RY;27523609]You must be the world's best sharpshooter if you can take that thing down with a RPG 20,000 feet above the ground[/QUOTE] Yeah, specially since a RPG's distance is 1/4 of that.
It is estimated to be deployed over Afghanistan sometime in 2011. It left the US in 2007. In other news, the Taliban have deployed a dangerous new technology to counter the airship: [URL=http://img440.imageshack.us/i/balloonboy.jpg/][IMG]http://img440.imageshack.us/img440/7984/balloonboy.jpg[/IMG][/URL]
Facepunch, we need to hi-jack this, paint it up like a Red Alert 2 Kirov and land on Comic-Con.
I can see it now : talibans in helium balloons floating up, armed with RPG's and AK's. Then the blimp tries out that new pirate laser to blind them and make them crash to the ground. [B]BLIMP WARS[/B]
20,000 feet? You could hit that with a 40mm or something along those lines at a stretch. Who's to say where the Soviet/East German AA weapons went after the second world war? The Taliban MIGHT have something like that up their sleeves, and for that amount of money wasted from their enemies, they might roll it out.
Two hundred and eleven MILLION dollars going into a BALLOON.
[QUOTE=rawr >:3;27524405]Two hundred and eleven MILLION dollars going into a BALLOON.[/QUOTE] The money is going into the supercomputer on the balloon.
Of course the guys designing this have taken stuff like that into consideration, They wouldn't drop $211 million on something that can be taken down so easily and be a complete failure [editline]19th January 2011[/editline] Speaking of blimps, I thought that solar powered USN air-refueling blimp from Stealth was pretty cool
[QUOTE=Jon27;27524190]20,000 feet? You could hit that with a 40mm or something along those lines at a stretch. Who's to say where the Soviet/East German AA weapons went after the second world war? The Taliban MIGHT have something like that up their sleeves, and for that amount of money wasted from their enemies, they might roll it out.[/QUOTE] Surely if they had any sort of serious AA (And knew how to operate it) they would have used it to shoot down something over the past years?
[QUOTE=animephreak135;27519911]Yeah, but they'd be pretty hard pressed to get an RPG with a 20,000 foot range.[/QUOTE] They would use their highly advanced anti air systems to shoot it down. [img]http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/6470/camelgun2.jpg[/img]
[img]http://img831.imageshack.us/img831/7011/rpgfailblimp.png[/img]
[QUOTE=rawr >:3;27524405]Two hundred and eleven MILLION dollars going into a BALLOON.[/QUOTE] :fsmug:
You could take that mother fucker down with a fuckin scissors and a lighter.
[QUOTE=geoface;27526227]You could take that mother fucker down with a fuckin scissors and a lighter.[/QUOTE] [img]http://www.rda-forever.com/images/macgyver.jpg[/img] oh hell no
For some reason I thought of Gmod with a spy's face on a blimp. :sigh:
Even if they do have AA rockets, more than likely needs a heat source and provided that this thing has servers it could give off some heat but not enough. (It would most likely lock on to the sun rather than the blimp it's self lol)
Don't they call it a zeppelin in English? Or a blimp and a zeppelin are different things?
ITT: blimps are constructed out of the same material as balloons and are easily popped.
that will last like a day
[QUOTE=Mercenary-;27521885]Don't worry, the GLA doesn't have planes.[/QUOTE] I don't know man. Those Battle Buses can pack a wallop.
Doesn't it seem dangerous to centralize your data processing, especially on a blimp. Sure, the current enemy couldn't do shit about it, but any formal military could blast that thing out of the sky, and then without a redundancy program that would make this technology worthless in the first place, you would be blind. [QUOTE=Crhem van der B;27527452]Don't they call it a zeppelin in English? Or a blimp and a zeppelin are different things?[/QUOTE] A blimp is a non-rigid airship (the envelope is held in shape only by air pressure) with the only occupiable space in the gondola. A Zeppelin is a rigid airship (an airship with a metal skeleton keeping the envelope in shape) made by the Zeppelin Company, but it became slang originally for rigid airships, then any airship. So, you'll hear them used the same way, but they are different things entirely. [editline]19th January 2011[/editline] [QUOTE=RBM11;27529711]ITT: blimps are constructed out of the same material as balloons and are easily popped.[/QUOTE] I know, the [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Macon_(ZRS-5)]USS Macon[/url], a lighter-than-air aircraft carrier from the thirties, was made of the then-latest hardened aluminum alloys. Just imagine what we could do with our modern ultra-light, ultra-strong materials.
[QUOTE=ASmellyOgre;27531608]Doesn't it seem dangerous to centralize your data processing, especially on a blimp. Sure, the current enemy couldn't do shit about it, but any formal military could blast that thing out of the sky, and then without a redundancy program that would make this technology worthless in the first place, you would be blind.[/QUOTE] Well, this flying data-processing station is for low-intensity warfare, not for conventional theater war. The potential problem of this is this thing caters right to the "tactical general" mindset, you know, the two stars who stare at four hours of UAV footage in order to personally decide the type of bomb to drop on your targets. That and smart, unconventional adversaries can totally spoof all the fancy sensors too, as the Soviet-style OPFOR has shown to US Army units at the NTC (which they have likely subsequently forgotten for a LIC mindset) back in the 1990s.
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