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                Vladimir Putin Plans to Deploy a Balloon Barrage Net to Defend Russian Air Space

    

         The Russians have announced plans to create barrage balloons supporting nets in an effort to defeat Ukrainian drones that are attacking Russia. 

          This is not a new idea, as in 1917 Britain erected several balloon borne structures to try and protect London from German air attacks. 

          While it had a definite impact on the morale of German aircrew it was not that successful.

          Britain had managed to acquire a number of Observation Balloons and decided to set up several lines of defence to try and prevent German aircraft from 

          getting their bomb loads onto certain parts of London.

         To do this they set up a complicated series of three observation balloons linked together horizontally from which hundreds of lengths of piano wire hung 

         down with weights on the bottom to keep the wires taut.  These were then let up to heights of 8,000 feet.

       

           

           It was felt that bomb-laden German aircraft would not be able to fly over the nets and would hopefully fly into the wires and crash.

           In theory it seemed a great idea but the practical reality was that such balloon borne structures were extremely difficult to operate.

          The weather was one major stumbling block with high winds causing mayhem and causing balloons to deflate and cause the entire structure to 

          collapse. The other big problem was that the balloons lost gas and required regular topping up. The process of synchronized hauling down of three

          balloons was virtually impossible and fraught with danger as was the reverse process of letting them up. Lightning strikes were not uncommon. 

         In cold weather ice and snow would accumulate on the balloons and cause lack of lift. Once one balloon had its lift compromised then the remaining

         lift provided by the other balloons was insufficient to maintain the net and it would collapse. Such proposed Russian balloon borne nets would require

         large numbers of personnel to operate and deploy the balloons as well as multiple winch systems to provide letting up and hauling down of these nets.

        Thanks to Gazprom Russia has plenty of Helium to inflate the balloons and is unlikely to use Hydrogen as a lifting gas due to the dangers inherent in its use.

        The Russian idea is to fly a trio of balloons horizontally with a span of 300 metres and have a light net suspended between them at a maximum altitude of

        250 metres. 

  Each balloon would have a 30 Kilogram lift suggesting that the maximum weight of net it could support would be below 100 Kilograms.

  If intended to defeat drone attacks, it is clear that the Russian balloon net defence itself, would be very vulnerable to drone attacks as the balloons could be 

  easily punctured with drone shrapnel. These Russian balloons are large and easily seen and as such make easy targets. Ukraine would probably have to send in 

  several waves of drones, with the first waves to destroy the balloons leaving the sky relatively undefended from drone attacks. 

  Ukraines accuracy with hitting small Russian battlefield targets is legendary and the balloons would make easy targets for the Ukrainian drone operators.

 The Nazis used the same tactic in 1939-45 when prior to an attack on Britain they would send in  Nazi aircraft equipped with special cutting devices to cut the 

 single cables of barrage balloons and render the barrage balloon defence of no value and meant that enemy bombers could fly to their targets unimpeded by  

 barrage balloons.

 In 1940 we had many static balloon sites and it did not take long for the Nazis to map their localities and brief their crews to avoid certain areas where

 balloons were known to be. The same thing applies to any Russian balloon nets. The ability to make these balloon nets mobile is fraught with difficulties and the 

 locations of the proposed balloon nets would soon be part of regular intelligence reports. The proposed Russian nets would not be continuous and would have 

 many vulnerable gaps through which drones could pass. Plus there would be nothing to stop the drones flying over these relatively low level nets.

 The Daily Telegraph ran an article on the news from Russia. 

 (See https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/07/06/long-range-strikes-have-badly-damaged-energy-infrastructure/)

 This action by Russia shows quite clearly that they are being subjected to considerable damage by successive drone attacks and an element of desperation

 has now crept in. Putin is welcome to waste more resources and personnel but this proposed net will not make any significant defence for Russia from Ukrainian 

 drone attacks. This may make news but is not really an effective game changer in the Ukrainian War against Russia. 

 

 

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