(CNN) Ukraine is burning through ammunition faster than the US and NATO can produce it. Inside the Pentagon’s plan to close the gap.

For techies only. U.S. contract solicitations indicate the same basic method used in WW2,  the “Upsetter method”, is employed. The Upsetter forge  is a horizontal forging press.

A Signal Corps documentary explains the Upsetter method in great detail, minus the automation of the modern Scranton plant:

MANUFACTURING 3-INCH ANTI-AIRCRAFT SHELLS WORLD WAR II ORDNANCE FILM FRANKFORD ARSENAL 10414

(CNN) China accuses US of ‘illegally’ flying balloons across its airspace.

The winds off the coast of China blow in the wrong directions, away from China:

World Wind Map

***Which way the wind blows***

(CNN) A trio of new intrusions leaves America’s leaders grasping for explanations. Quoting,

A deepening national security mystery is threatening a political storm after US fighter jets scrambled three days in a row to shoot down a trio of unidentified aerial objects high over the North American continent.

To all, patience. The answer will come.  This is science.  When it comes, it will be technical, not political.

The only political aspect is, how much do you want to spend?

(CNN) Analyst thinks this is why more unidentified objects are being spotted.

CNN national security analyst Juliette Kayyem wants to know the constitution of the “bigger aperture.” I’ll explain the part that any electro-physicist or radar engineer knows.

Decluttering algorithms are essential to radar function. These algorithms are characterized by scales of time, known as time constants. Normally kept fixed, these numbers are now being varied — “swept.” For a balloon, you want a larger number than for an airplane, because in most circumstances, balloons move slower.

The “aperture” has another part. Out  of respect for secrecy, I will not discuss what I think it is.

(CNN) US military shoots down high-altitude object over Lake Huron on Sunday. Quoting,

The object was shaped like an octagon with strings hanging off it and did not appear to be carrying anything.

The octagonal shape renews interest in a balloon structure that may contain integral antennas:

• An octagon imposes a weight penalty over a spheroid, so there must be a good reason.
• Kapton, a favored plastic for planar antennas,  is inelastic and only moderately flexible.
• Design of a highly specified antenna on a curved, dimensionally unstable substrate is hopeless.

A suspended capsule containing active electronics may have been deliberately dropped.

(CNN) US jet shoots down ‘unidentified object’ over northern Canada, Trudeau says.

After Deadhorse Alaska, this is the second balloon discovered within the polar vortex, in the vicinity of the North Warning System.

The AN/FPS-117 radar component of the  North Warning System uses pulse compression to defeat jamming. To jam this radar requires detailed knowledge of its emissions. To avoid the distortion of atmospheric dispersion, the radar pulse must be sampled close to the source.

Reliable insertion into the polar vortex requires launch from Russian territory, a courtesy that may have been provided to China.

(CNN) Exclusive: US developed method to track China’s spy balloon fleet within last year, sources say.  Quoting,

But the new method is important because the balloons are extremely difficult to track without it – they are slow-moving and can fly extremely high, in some cases as high as much as 60 miles up,

This error appears to be propagation of a typo in a government report.

For theoretical and practical reasons, the limit is close to 170,000 feet, 32 miles.

The world record is held by NASA “Big 60”.

(CNN) Biden ordered US military to ‘down’ a ‘high-altitude object’ over Alaska, White House says

The ambiguous shape description suggests it may be a balloon made of multiple non-spherical gas cells, like an inflatable mattress.

This would allow the attachment of inconspicuous conformal antennas. See patch antenna.

So it may be a miniature, low capability spy balloon.

(Aljazeera) US has questions to answer over Nord Stream blasts, Russia says. Quoting,

Comments by Russia’s foreign ministry come after a piece by American investigative reporter Seymour Hersh alleging the US military was behind the Nord Steam attacks.

Hersch is wrong. He swallowed hook, line, and sinker.

See Who Sabotaged Nordstream Pipelines? and (Wapo) No conclusive evidence Russia is behind Nord Stream attack.

Hint: amber.

Last week, major news outlets reported that the inner core of Earth was about to stop turning. Now a prominent columnist has declared that the Chinese balloon weighed as much as three buses, which is about 105,000 lbs. This is baloney. So I did a calculation.

We need the diameter of the balloon. Based on a photo, and the length of the truss, stated by U.S. authorities as three coach bus lengths (12 meters/bus X 3), the diameter is estimated as 50 meters.. We use:

• Density of helium at STP.
• Height of 20,000 meters.
• An altitude air density table for standard day,
• Adjustment of buoyancy  for altitude with Boyle’s Law.
•  F=m*g for the force to be balanced.

This determines a total weight in the vicinity of 11,000 pounds. The payload may be a third of that.