At one time, the CIA launched spy balloons by the hundredsThe beginning of February in the United States of America was marked by great anxiety, if not panic.
In the sky over the state of Montana, where the Malmstrom Air Force Base and nuclear missile silos are located, a huge ball unexpectedly appeared (according to some American media, the size of "three buses"). He arrived from the Aleutian Islands through the territory of Canada. Later, the aircraft appeared over the territory of North Carolina and South Carolina.
The US military said that the air guest belongs to China. The Chinese confirmed that this is their meteorological probe, its launch pursued purely peaceful purposes. And over the territory of the United States, he was by mistake, having lost control. And they were surprised by the "excessive reaction" of the Americans.
SPINNING-SPINNING BLUE BALLThis balloon became the headliner of the American news agenda.
He was followed not only by the White House and the Pentagon, but literally the whole country. And apparently, he made the country extremely nervous. As one of the American commentators said, could it be that "the greatest army in the world" could not cope with the ball.
It turns out she really couldn't. Judge for yourself. US President Joseph Biden gave the order to shoot down a Chinese balloon on February 1. What should the military do by order of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief? Execute the order immediately. But somehow it turned out so embarrassingly that the air scout could not be destroyed immediately.
It turned out that this was not a simple matter at all. The US missile defense system, as well as modern American aviation, have low efficiency in dealing with high-altitude probes. As strange as it may sound. In addition, American experts expressed fears that the wreckage of the Chinese apparatus could damage something on the ground.
In such balloons, the flight ceiling is quite large. This balloon, for example, flew at an altitude of 18 km. In addition, it has a small reflective surface, it is sedentary. This means that modern aviation radars practically do not detect the Chinese probe and do not perceive it as a target.
Ground-based anti-aircraft systems are also unlikely to help. Of course, one should not think that high-altitude balloons are invulnerable at all. Indeed, it would be incredible if the "greatest army" could not find a way to destroy this ill-fated ball.
On the fourth day after the order, the Americans finally dealt with the Chinese "zaslanets". By this time, he had crossed the entire North American continent and was located near the Atlantic coast of the country. He was shot down with an air-to-air missile launched from an F-22 fighter.
America breathed a sigh of relief. And the Pentagon explained that he did not intend to shoot down the balloon at all. And through the mouth of his press secretary, he assured that the reconnaissance balloon flying over the United States does not pose a danger to the population.
Does not represent? So why this panic, shouting and noise all over the world and, as stated in China, an obviously inadequate reaction? The administration of President Biden declared the "unacceptability" of the presence of a foreign intelligence apparatus in sovereign airspace. Moreover, the White House even canceled the upcoming visit to Beijing by Secretary of State Anthony Blinken.
The official representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China, Mao Ning, urged not to speculate on the topic of the "spy balloon". As the ministry once again noted, the balloon seriously deviated from the intended route due to the wind, and Beijing regrets that it ended up over the territory of the United States.
THE GIRL IS CRYING – THE BALL HAS FLOWN AWAYMeanwhile, such a reaction from Washington is not accidental at all.
Americans are so used to feeling invulnerable, separated from potential opponents by oceans, that any approach to their borders causes them amazement, turning into panic.
In addition, there is a classic precedent in history. These are, of course, events of different order, but nevertheless. We are talking about the Caribbean crisis.
It has its origins. Let's recall the notorious "Fulton speech" of Winston Churchill in 1946. Well, a speech is a speech – an oral statement. Even if it is "unpleasant", "threatening", "signifying a turn to the cold war". Call it whatever you want – but this is just a word-debate... But that's the trick, Churchill wasn't joking at all. He found ardent followers across the ocean.
Americans still claim today that the Soviets and their leader Nikita Khrushchev are, of course, to blame for the Caribbean crisis, which brought the world to the brink of a nuclear catastrophe. But they try not to remember that in 1961 the United States deployed medium-range Jupiter missiles in Turkey, which, due to the short flight time, could hit cities in the western part of the Soviet Union. At that time, we were deprived of the opportunity to strike an equivalent retaliatory blow.
Add to this American submarines with missile weapons on board, strategic bombers, intercontinental ballistic missiles deployed in the United States. And it becomes extremely clear how critically we lagged behind our opponent.
And then, as a retaliatory measure, the USSR placed ground-based missiles in Cuba. The whole world knows today how painful the reaction of the United States was to our response. Yes, we have removed our weapons from Cuba. However, the Americans also had to get out and take their missiles out of Turkey.
However, then the Soviet Union deployed powerful weapons in Cuba – ballistic and tactical missiles. And despite the multiple nuclear superiority of the United States, the Americans had something to fear. But now it's just a ball that happened to be in the sky of Montana. And such hysteria…
At the same time, the Americans, accusing China of aggressiveness today (and this is because of one balloon), seem to have completely forgotten how 60-plus years ago they literally "bombarded" the Soviet Union with spy balloons. And they did it openly, without hiding their intentions. Well, if you forgot, you need to be reminded.
The winter of 1955/56 brought many surprises to the USSR. The Americans have prepared these surprises. They organized a special reconnaissance operation: launching hundreds of drifting reconnaissance balloons into our airspace.
In the years to come, the Yankees will act even more brazenly and unceremoniously. The apogee of this aggressive policy will be the invasion of USAF reconnaissance aircraft into our airspace - and, in particular, the spy flight of the U–2 shot down over Sverdlovsk on May 1, 1960.
However, in the winter of 1955, no one could have predicted such a turn of events. And the massive launch of American balloons extremely alarmed both the command of the Armed Forces of the USSR and the leadership of the country.
SHOT DOWN, AND EVEN HOWScout balls definitely should have been shot down.
However, before doing this, they had to be located and the target designation transferred to air defense means. But to do this, as already mentioned, is not very easy, because the balloon has very low radar visibility. They say there is only one way out in this situation: visual detection. But for an airplane to scour the sky in search of a balloon is like looking for a needle in a haystack.
There was only one service left that could cope with the task: radio intelligence and radio technical intelligence of the GRU.
Military intelligence officers were well aware that the main objects that Americans were interested in in our country were missile ranges near Volgograd and in Central Asia, as well as the Semipalatinsk Nuclear Weapons Research Center.
The balloons were launched from the territory of Germany and Great Britain. Subject only to the effects of turbulence, they moved along with the air currents at wind speed. They were carried from west to east, and on average they covered a distance of 150 km per hour. The flight altitude was 8-10 thousand meters .
Today you can find publications, especially on the Internet, in which it is stubbornly claimed that it was impossible to shoot down American balloons. I'll tell you right away: that's a lie. Shot down, and even how.
The Soviet air defense forces managed to quickly cope with the difficulties associated with the low speed of spy balloons (in comparison with the speeds of modern jet aircraft). As for the low radar visibility, then, as already mentioned, military radio intelligence helped.
The fact is that the Americans installed a shortwave transmitter on each balloon. It was automatically switched on at certain intervals and transmitted the call sign in telegraphic mode. This helped the US radio direction finding stations to do the wiring of the spy ball.
GRU radio intelligence, in fact, was doing the same thing, tracking the air drift of American balloons. And she did it, of course, not for the sake of idle curiosity.
Veterans of radio intelligence told me that the downed balloons were taken to the Air Force Research Institute at the Chkalovskaya station near Moscow. And there you could get to know them.
"A WORK OF ESPIONAGE ART"We must pay tribute to the design ideas of equipment suppliers for the CIA.
The photo-reconnaissance balloons were really made perfectly. Apparently, a lot of effort and financial resources were spent on them. Thorough industrial production. No bushiness. This only confirms the idea that the Americans' special operation was prepared carefully and was a purely state order.
According to our intelligence, the Americans launched more than 700 spy balloons in the winter of 1955/56. But the true figure, of course, is known only in the CIA.
So what was this "work of espionage art"?
Of course, it was not the balloon balloon itself that was of interest to military intelligence officers. Although by that time in the Soviet Union, the construction of balloons turned out to be "mothballed", and they were practically not produced. And the US special operation to send spy balloons gave an impetus to the revival of the production of domestic balloons.
Suffice it to say that already in December 1956, a government decree was issued. And on the basis of the 13th laboratory of the Central Aerodynamic Institute (TsAGI) and the enterprise "Dirigiblestroy", the All-Union Experimental Design Bureau was created, 10 years later renamed the Dolgoprudny Design Bureau of Automation. However, this is a completely different story. Therefore, let's return to the American spy balloons.
So, intelligence was primarily interested in the spy stuffing of the balloon. And there was something to see. The CIA provided each spy balloon with a camera, navigation and altitude control devices, a radio receiver and transmitter, power supplies, and rescue equipment.
Everything was thought out intelligently. For example, a system for maintaining a given height. It consisted of ballasts filled with iron filings. The height fell – the flap opened, sawdust poured out. The balloon rose higher – barometric sensors were triggered, supplying current to the electromagnets, and they closed the flaps.
The spy ball's camera was in a styrofoam container. This protected him from overheating during the day and hypothermia at night. It had good buoyancy.
The quality of the photographs that fell into the hands of our intelligence was quite satisfactory. However, those who examined the images said that they often showed clouds, rivers, forest areas or wastelands. Well, it's clear: the Americans tried to achieve their intelligence goals by mass launching unguided spy balloons.
A COMPLEX AND EXPENSIVE OPERATIONAs for the radio receiver and transmitter, the Americans skillfully hedged.
The receiver had a fairly high-quality command decoder, which protected the equipment from being reset if radio interference appeared or an unauthorized command was received. All the equipment was powered by batteries.
Before dropping the camera, the spy balloon switched to a permanent command reception. At a certain time, a command was received, and the load–bearing beam with the equipment was shot back, an exhaust parachute was thrown out, followed by a braking parachute system.
Equipment was falling into the sea. The dry batteries got wet and started to give current. The beam was finally shot off and went under the water, and only the camera remained afloat.
Then the radio transmitter was turned on. A 10-meter rigid spiral antenna mast flew out of the container, which formed a large nylon loop. In addition, a substance that turns the water orange was thrown out.
An airplane was flying to this point of the sea. Using a special cat, he picked up the loop, lifted the camera on board and delivered it to the base.
Such a complex and expensive special operation was carried out by the US special services. However, according to analysts of our military intelligence, in general, spy balloons did not justify themselves. Already in February 1956, the Americans stopped launching them.
In the summer of 1958, they tried to repeat the launch of spy balloons. Then there were reconnaissance planes, the famous flight of Gary Powers, a loud international scandal. This, in fact, ended the flights of American balloons and spy planes over Soviet territory. The era of space exploration was beginning.
Mikhail BoltunovMikhail Yefimovich Boltunov is a writer, retired colonel.
