Originally posted by draknoir2
The AA flak seems to be going everywhere but towards the target.
Originally posted by Tifozi
reply to post by draknoir2
The AA guns aren't suppose to be precise.
...the same way depth charges work with submarines.
Originally posted by gambon
hello all , any more research on this ? thread seems to have died which seems a shame
The case is pretty much solved for me, but there are only two mysteries about it that come to mind:
1. What was the offshore radar contact around 2-2:30am that was going a couple hundred MPH? We don't know and probably never will. But there's no
evidence that was the object they were shooting at over LA because the shooting didn't start until the balloons were released at 3am. nd there was no
radar tracking between 2:30 and 3am.
2. Why didn't the AA shoot down the balloons immediately? Both meteorological units reported that the AA fire was just making their balloons dance
around in the sky. This is plausible if a shockwave from the AA explosion hit the balloon, but no shrapnel did. This raises questions about the
quantity, size, and dispersal pattern of AA shrapnel and the distance the AA shells were detonated from the balloons, but as Tifozi said, they
weren't intended to be direct hits. However i suspect that the AA shells were exploding even further from the target than expected.
To the people that say that if it was balloons they were shooting at, they would have been shot down immediately, I have to agree with that
observation, as this would have been my expectation as well. But apparently I come to a different conclusion than some others. I conclude that it was
in fact balloons they were shooting at, at least initially, and wonder why they weren't able to shoot them down. I think there are good answers to
that question.
Other people seem to conclude that the balloons must be bulletproof to not be shot down by AA fire, and while I'm puzzled by this, I don't think the
answer is that the balloons were bulletproof. I think the shockwave hit them, but the shrapnel didn't, if the meteorological balloon soldiers
statements are accurate about what the AA fire did to the balloons.
Remember, we know that the radar training was found to be dismal, and the radar was used for aiming the AA fire, so if they had terrible radar
training, then it seems possible their aim could be off and they wouldn't get close enough to the balloons to shoot them down with the first couple
of shots. I suspect that eventually, the balloons were shot down, but that they withstood so many shots initially without being shot down is
fascinating, especially since the shots were close enough to the balloons for the shock waves to knock the balloons around in the sky. Either that or
it was some kind of optical illusion like autokinesis where their eyes told them the balloons were getting knocked around but it was just an optical
effect from the explosion that they misinterpreted. But they were sure that those were the balloons they had released that were being shot at, and I
don't see any reason to doubt that.