TU-22M3 and TU-160's

[hairyben]

hidetheelephants said:

Blaster72 said:

I'd never heard of the TU-160 until a few weeks back but its an amazing bit of kit.

Capable of carrying 15 Nuclear Cruise missiles while travelling supersonic and having a normal range of over 12,000km. It really is a masterpiece.

The B1 has very similar performance; at those ranges it's non-tactical, flying at high altitude and low power settings. The only remarkable thing is that they bothered to build them at all; it doesn't offer any major abilities over the Backfire and the cost to build and operate has been crippling.

Amazing piece of kit but it was more borne of obsession by military leaders to produce a top-trumps bragging piece that was an outdated concept by the time they succeeded wasn't it? America had moved on to the B-2 which was a generation up the street in it's conception, as a tactical weapon.... Would have been smarter to concentrate on the ekranoplan which may have brought both a military advantage and perhaps commercial opportunity later on.

Amazing they're flying though given the story, being seized by Ukraine following the breakup of soviet russia who couldn't afford to actually do anything with them.

[dvs_dave]

Ekranoplan is a novel idea, but anywhere beyond flat calm waters and they arent much use.