War with Russia

[AreOut]

TU160 is a brilliant machine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTpLn30PbbQ

hidetheelephants said:

Short of full scale war what's the point? They're white elephants that have spent more time moldering on aprons and in hangars than in active service, the reconstruction of the existing ones took vast amounts of time and money. I can't think of any export customers apart from China and I doubt Volodya wants to sell to them.

they are a very good first-strike surprise option, they can carry up to 12 Kh-55 nuclear missiles with range of 2.500 km that fly very close to the ground (terrain masking) and are very hard to detect, they could come relatively close to the west coast and devastate american cities(or ICBM launchers) with the very high chance of americans not even noticing

Edited by AreOut on Wednesday 6th May 20:54

[hidetheelephants]

AreOut said:

they are a very good first-strike surprise option, they can carry up to 12 Kh-55 nuclear missiles with range of 2.500 km that fly very close to the ground (terrain masking) and are very hard to detect, they could come relatively close to the west coast and devastate american cities(or ICBM launchers) with the very high chance of americans not even noticing

Edited by AreOut on Wednesday 6th May 20:54

Like I said, they're not much use for owt apart from the opening(and indeed closing) moves of WW3.

[AreOut]

they could surprise-attack non-nuclear nations too with conventional missiles

[Mojocvh]

If you put the airframes capabilities aside for a moment..

http://www.janes.com/article/46087/russia-flies-fi...

"The Russian Air Force (Voyenno-Vozdushnyye Sily - VVS) has 16 of the 1980s-vintage Tu-160 bombers in its inventory. A modernisation programme to bolster the aircraft's nuclear armament with the capacity to carry 12 conventionally armed Raduga NPO Kh-555 (AS-15 'Kent') long-range cruise missiles and laser-guided bombs has been ongoing for some years, with the first such upgraded aircraft having been delivered back to the VVS in April 2008.

This weapons upgrade, which is also understood to include improvements to the aircraft's Kuznetsov NK-32 engines, has been dogged by funding problems, but should now be complete by 2020.

While it is unclear how this latest radar and avionics upgrade ties in with the weapons modernisation package, it is likely that the remaining aircraft to be enhanced will receive both sets of improvements, with those aircraft already delivered with an enhanced weapons capability being retrofitted with the new radar and avionics also.

This work, which is being done with the Pacific and Atlantic theatres of operation in mind, will see the Tu-160 remain in service until its replacement by the developmental PAK-DA bomber around 2030. The PAK-DA bomber is set to replace the Soviet-era Tu-160, Tu-22M3 'Backfire', and Tu-95 'Bear' platforms, with the first prototype PAK-DA scheduled to begin trials around 2020"..

it's the intent that matters.

[hidetheelephants]

AreOut said:

they could surprise-attack non-nuclear nations too with conventional missiles

They can, but much like the USAF using the B1B or B2 for conventional strike they have other platforms that can do most of the likely tasks just as well and far more economically. It's a formidable weapon system but I'd have thought the money could be better directed elsewhere.

[AreOut]

it could, but we don't know their intentions while they probably do

[hidetheelephants]

Maybe he's channelling Gorshkov and it's all for the purpose of denying SLOCs when the balloon goes up. No doubt some of PH's older ex-forces types will remember the fun and games of REFORGER.

[AreOut]

it would be fun to see reactions if they could rebuild this and move it to black sea

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caspian_Sea_Monster

I wonder what missiles would NATO use to counter it, since it's going too fast for antiship missiles and flying too low for AA ones.

[skyrover]

AreOut said:

it would be fun to see reactions if they could rebuild this and move it to black sea

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caspian_Sea_Monster

I wonder what missiles would NATO use to counter it, since it's going too fast for antiship missiles and flying too low for AA ones.

NATO does not need missiles.

A few mid sized waves will do the trick... hence the reason the program was abandoned

[AreOut]

black sea is usually not very wavy

[Octoposse]

isee said:

skyrover said:

Yes I am well aware

It's interesting how several ex-soviet countries banned it as symbol of totalitarianism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_star

http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/OEWatch/201307/Ru...

In your original picture comment you said the Russians hae brought back the red star... Calling it a red star is like me calling the german isignia a swastika.
OH NOES, everyone quick, prepare your bunkers, the Nazis are back and they are about to gas us all! OMGWTFBBQ!!!!1111oneoneone

Your constant moving the goalposts is pathetic, I prove you wrong on one point, you only deflect and make it about something else... tedious.

Quite so . . as to Skyrover's contention that black/orange is some weird religious symbolism, have a look at this guy's medals:




Incidentally, the decision by Cameron and other EU leaders to boycott the 70th anniversary celebrations of Victory Day in Moscow is considered hugely disrepectful and offensive to the fallen in Russia . . there will hardly be a family there who didn't lose a grandfather, great grandfather, grand mother . . . . It was an opportunity to be apolitical, build bridges, but 'we' chose gratuitous offence as deliberate policy instead.

[Bluebarge]

AreOut said:

it would be fun to see reactions if they could rebuild this and move it to black sea

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caspian_Sea_Monster

I wonder what missiles would NATO use to counter it, since it's going too fast for antiship missiles and flying too low for AA ones.

Given that it sank in 1980, when Cold War defence spending was at its height, and they couldn't be bothered to recover it, I expect it wasn't thought to be very useful. I can't imagine it would be much fun to pilot - doing 500kph at 5m altitude all the time would be rather stressful I would have thought!

[AreOut]

well good thing is you couldn't crash it

times have changed from 1980 though, if they find TU160s useful they might find some use even for this, if nothing else but for experiment

[isee]

AreOut said:

well good thing is you couldn't crash it

times have changed from 1980 though, if they find TU160s useful they might find some use even for this, if nothing else but for experiment

they already have found it useful though.
http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/fly-or-f...

[Mr Whippy]

Octoposse said:

It was an opportunity to be apolitical, build bridges, but 'we' chose gratuitous offence as deliberate policy instead.

The cynical person might just think this is all just pantomime for the plebes.

What it's designed to distract us from though... hmmmm.

Dave

[skyrover]

It seems Chechen fighters are mysteriously disappearing from the battlefields of Donbas

More signs of conflict between the Kremlin and Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov?

http://www.kyivpost.com/content/kyiv-post-plus/sus...

[AreOut]

Russia's new Armata battle tank, which is set to officially debut in Moscow for the Victory Day parade on Saturday, May 9, appears to have broken down during a dress rehearsal on Thursday, according to reports from Russian media and a video of the parade from RuptlyTV.

http://www.businessinsider.com/russias-armata-tank...

classic Russians

[skyrover]

Not sure I would fancy changing the track with only 2 crew-members

[isee]

skyrover said:

It seems Chechen fighters are mysteriously disappearing from the battlefields of Donbas

More signs of conflict between the Kremlin and Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov?

http://www.kyivpost.com/content/kyiv-post-plus/sus...

Assumes all Russian news are lies. Because "we have a free and neutral press and theirs is state run", uses "kyivpost" as source... Has intimate knowledge of some ancient and obscure coin with Ukrainian trident on it... My spidey senses are tingling, "John"...

[skyrover]

It's not without precedent though is it?

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/23/chech...