Kind of doesn't if the "rocket" misses the target.What else says ‘F’ you than a big bang with a rocket!
Variety of reasons.
At that height a fighter needs to be supersonic to maintain altitude. Depending on when a bullet is fired a jet could very well overtake it.
Difficulty of firing on a stationary object at that speed.
More importantly, pressure differential. You could put 1k holes in it. Helium won't escape quickly at that altitude. Balloon would just drift off...
The joke is ..... they were trying to destroy the payload , not recover it!I thought for a minute there I was in the Joke section?????????
I'm not saying anything for sure.The gas not escaping quickly is the whole idea, a slow descent.
At least from my pragmatic point of view.
Are you saying the US Air Force does not have the capability to hit a helium balloon with a bullet or shooting a balloon full of bullet holes at 60K feet wouldn't begin to deflate it?
They are still putting the dust fragments togetherI'm wondering what's happened to the wreckage of the 4 UFOs shot down in the last month?
in 1998, a Canadian weather balloon went rogue, and 2 RCAF CF18 jets tried to down it with gunfire. Thy put over 1000 rounds of 20mm into it with no visible results. It ended up crossing the Atlantic, causing problems over the UK, and eventually came down in Finland a week later.I'm not saying anything for sure.
I provided a variety of considerations that may have contributed to the decision to utilize a missile in this instance.
I do not pretend to know better than the professionals whose job it is to deal with downing airborne objects.
But yes, at that height even 100 bullet holes wouldn't bring it down neatly. It could stay airborne for days, drifting unpredictably.
Not to mention the physics of shooting up at a stationary object, within target range, while traveling close to 700 mph.