Hey stas; I just uncovered a major MAJOR MAJOR flaw in Norseman's attack.
He tried to be cute and tricky; and fucked himself in the ass with it.
It was staring me in the face all this time, but I didn't realize it until now.
Even the lowest of them [balloons] hung at 100,000 feet, though some were over 110,000 feet in the air.
If you want to reach those kinds of altitudes, and do it over a long enough period to make it reliable as a deep strike weapon; guess what? The balloons will have to be ENORMOUS. We're talking several million cubic feet of helium/hydrogen minimal.
The Japanese balloon bombs in WW2 only reached about 30,000+ feet minimum, by the way.
Link
This is a photograph of one such high altitude (125,000 ft) balloon being launched in Antartica in 1987. Clearly, this is not something that you can spam a lot of fast in the numbers that Norseman claims.
I think where norseman got his idea from was those "homemade" science experiment balloons which have reached 75,000 to 90,000 feet. He forgot that:
1.) Said balloons had no range, they literally came up and went back down in a short period of time
and
2.) Said balloons had very tiny payloads. Literally only a few kilos, which leaves very little room for a control system and bomblets.
Most likely case is a couple of balloons get into the air; and then Shepistani Air Force comes and bombs/rockets/strafes the ship to oblivion before it can launch it's other 90 balloons.
With that in mind, here's my revised attack scenarios:
SHEPISTAN VS ASTARIA:
Phase One:
60 x SS-26s: 1,000 lbs warhead each
90 x SLCMs, 2,000 lbs warhead each (it IS launched from a 26" tube, so we can improve warhead over a TLAM, which must fire from a 21" tube)
120 tons of agents in Phase One launched in total. About 60 tons or so impact in Astaria.
Phase Two:
12 x JB-89s (Tu-22M4s) dropping 69 x 550 lb bombs each
227.7 tons of agents in Phase Two. All impact Astaria.
ASTARIA VS SHEPISTAN:
100 balloons launched against Shepistan in total. There are to be 200 more balloons launched; but they're sunk on board the ships when the Shepistani Air Force shows up and bombs them into oblivion.
30 overshoot Shepland due to jetstream at high altitudes pushing them over the maximum set limits in their computers for ground speed. They eventually come down in the sea well past Shepland after their hydrogen on board leaks out.
40 shot down with air defenses at very long ranges -- Hey guess what? Something made of mylar and having several million cubic feet of gas in it is gonna make a bitchin' radar reflector; and guess what? I have a very long ranged missile in the BOMARC; with a huge warhead that will be a hell of a lot more effective in the thin air up that high; and guess what? Balloons can't manouver, unlike a manned aircraft!
So I can shoot them down well before they reach Shepistan. However, doing this expends Shepistan's last BOMARC warstocks, pretty much. We're out of them now.
15 come down over OD controlled lands
15 come down over Shepistani controlled lands.
Total payload attempted to be delivered: 66,000 lbs.
Total Payload ACTUALLY delivered: 3,330 pounds each onto Shepistan and OD.
See guys? This is why I keep my schemes remarkably simple and easy, such as using Submarines to spam heavy SRBMs and ALCMs onto Astaria. They can be launched fast, arrive fast, and carry heavy warloads.
When you get into cute trickery like balloons, and you don't know what you're doing, it fucks your plans up.