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 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
Maybe I'm just naive and don't understand military oneupmanship, but what is the actual point of stuff like this or the "we should park a carrier group in the Black Sea" like ideas?

We know that the Russians won't bomb us and the Russians know that we won't bomb them. If either one of us wanted to bomb the other we can do that just as well from our established bases without all this posturing.

It seems like it establishes nothing expect giving the domestic populations some propaganda footage and causes people to get bend out of shape over what is essentially an expensive game of "I'm not touching you, I'm not touching you".

Pretty much. Many Russians who lived through the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union feel that they were not treated fairly after Yeltsin, so in some cases it is very much a matter of national pride. Also the Russians seem to prefer having a strong leader on the world stage, and Putin tugging at the tail feathers of the American Eagle ticks that box too.

True, these bomber flights have more to do with internal Russian politics than with international ones. If Putin can say to his people: 'Look, our bombers fly along the US coast, Russia is important and to be taken seriously again.', that will gain him a lot of support from the Russian people, boost his approval ratings and make him more likely to win elections. Many Russians have a strong dislike of the US and want their country to be a great (military) power once more. If Putin shows them he can accomplish that and also give the US the finger, it will make him massively popular.

this is a fair point. Its also an excellent distraction from a crappy economy that is getting worse.

Meanwhile China just laughs at everyone.

the probe type flights never stopped... we probe them, they scramble, they probe us, we scramble, and on and on.

I mean, for decades the US and russia have always been buzzing each other, seems like the only difference is that its a news item now (with mandatory spin from both sides OFC)

 Frazzled wrote:
this is a fair point. Its also an excellent distraction from a crappy economy that is getting worse.

Meanwhile China just laughs at everyone.

Did they ever deal with the housing bubble they had brewing? I mean, the government was sinking massive amounts of money into construction of places that are now ghost towns.

So much lolzy misinformation in this thread.

This has been ongoing since the 1940s, it reached its peak in the 70s/80s and sunk to a low in the 90s/early 2000s, but it never stopped. Both sides do it, yes we do still fly training missions that skirt Russian airspace. In fact for a while we flew through Russian airspace (with their permission and at the cost of many millions/billions of dollars) in order to keep our boys in Afghanistan supplied. Bomber flights in the Gulf are no different than our flight and naval ops in the Black Sea region, its tit for tat, not like Russia is being an aggressor for doing it. Further those Bears are analogous to B-52s, they might not be quite as good, but they are still good enough to give someone a bad day.

As for this talk of nukes and icbms, there were more of those in the US and Soviet arsenals during the Cuban Missile Crisis than there are today (and we were most certainly capable of destroying the world with them at the time), iirc Russia has more of them at the moment than we do as well. The missile crisis was a joke for one reason and one reason only - it was a legitimate response to our use of Turkey for the same exact purpose, and the resolution was mutual withdrawal of nuclear forces from Cuba and Turkey respectively. It was literally a taste of our own medicine and we didnt much like it.

The Russians are like a scorned Girlfriend who is just desperate for our attention.

Don;t they know we are seeing ISIS now. Move on guys!

We're just not into you any more.

What kind of bombers are they flying anyway?

Canadians intercepted these relics:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/canadian-fighter-jets-intercept-russian-bombers-in-arctic-1.2772440

Supposedly in the Gulf its these and newer blackjacks (which look like they should be called B-1skys). Wiki says they only built 35 of them though.

http://theaviationist.com/2014/11/14/russians-head-to-the-gulf/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-160

 Frazzled wrote:
Canadians intercepted these relics:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/canadian-fighter-jets-intercept-russian-bombers-in-arctic-1.2772440

To be fair, we're the country that has bomber pilots flying the exact same planes that their grandfathers flew 50 years ago.

 Frazzled wrote:
Canadians intercepted these relics:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/canadian-fighter-jets-intercept-russian-bombers-in-arctic-1.2772440

Supposedly in the Gulf its these and newer blackjacks (which look like they should be called B-1skys). Wiki says they only built 35 of them though.

http://theaviationist.com/2014/11/14/russians-head-to-the-gulf/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-160

Those "B-1skis" are a lot larger than the B-1... also faster and has longer legs. Its intended for use as a long range missile platform rather than as a traditional bomber ala the B-1.

 Peregrine wrote:
To be fair, we're the country that has bomber pilots flying the exact same planes that their grandfathers flew 50 years ago.

My grandfathers flew stealth bombers?

Hes referring to the B-52 which remains our primary bomber platform, of which the number in service currently exceeds the number of B-1s and B-2s combined.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Canadians intercepted these relics:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/canadian-fighter-jets-intercept-russian-bombers-in-arctic-1.2772440

To be fair, we're the country that has bomber pilots flying the exact same planes that their grandfathers flew 50 years ago.

But only against guys without running water, not dudes starting to deploy laser systems and rail guns... Its like the IG vs. Tau, if the Tau had more guys than the IG...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

chaos0xomega wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Canadians intercepted these relics:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/canadian-fighter-jets-intercept-russian-bombers-in-arctic-1.2772440

Supposedly in the Gulf its these and newer blackjacks (which look like they should be called B-1skys). Wiki says they only built 35 of them though.

http://theaviationist.com/2014/11/14/russians-head-to-the-gulf/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-160

Those "B-1skis" are a lot larger than the B-1... also faster and has longer legs. Its intended for use as a long range missile platform rather than as a traditional bomber ala the B-1.

I saw the stats. Its a lot like the old B57. But again they only have a few of them, and thats not particularly impressive.

The next time they fly them follow right behind them with two pairs of F22s. That would make an excellent photo op.

 Frazzled wrote:
We're just not into you any more.

It's not you, it's us.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

chaos0xomega wrote:
Hes referring to the B-52 which remains our primary bomber platform, of which the number in service currently exceeds the number of B-1s and B-2s combined.

A good many years ago (right at the end of the Cold War), I got inside a B-52. It was pretty interesting. It's a big plane, but I was surprised how cramped it was. The damn thing is almost literally all fuel and bombs.

The first time I saw a pic of a b-52 I almost thought it was a ww2 heavy bomber. Then I realised those were jet engines. And read it was still being used. And laughed.

When you are delivery nukes, qunatity has a quality all its own. After all, you only need one to make it the target.

 Da krimson barun wrote:
The first time I saw a pic of a b-52 I almost thought it was a ww2 heavy bomber. Then I realised those were jet engines. And read it was still being used. And laughed.

Stand inside one of the two cavernous bomb bays that can hold meg sized nukes or 60,000 lbs of bombs in cobination with the wing pods. You'll quit laughing.

 Frazzled wrote:

 Da krimson barun wrote:
The first time I saw a pic of a b-52 I almost thought it was a ww2 heavy bomber. Then I realised those were jet engines. And read it was still being used. And laughed.

Stand inside one of the two cavernous bomb bays that can hold meg sized nukes or 60,000 lbs of bombs in cobination with the wing pods. You'll quit laughing.

SO!

MUCH!

FREEDOM!!!!!!!!

It's just how Nations troll each other, that's all. We do similar things to them all the time.

In researching, apparently the B36 was a better plane than its contemporary TU95, but we retired it a few models and decades ago.

The days of winning wars with massive, indiscriminate bombing raids with slow moving, non-stealthy aircraft is over, I think.

 Ouze wrote:
The days of winning wars with massive, indiscriminate bombing raids with slow moving, non-stealthy aircraft is over, I think.

That's a political question...

Of course we can carpet bomb the feth out of anyone.

But, could the public at home withstand the images in the aftermath?

PLUS: Unless we're at total war, our military doctrine is prohibited from doing that. (I think)

 whembly wrote:
Of course we can carpet bomb the feth out of anyone.

You mean "anyone who doesn't have a functioning air defense network". Yeah, B-52s are great bomb trucks when you're bombing a bunch of "terrorists" whose only AA weapon is praying for god to smite the plane, but in a war against an equal-level enemy (Russia, China, etc) their only useful contribution is launching cruise missiles from hundreds of miles away. They're hopelessly obsolete for anything else, unless you're willing to accept massive losses in a "human wave" attack just to get a few bombers through.

Zap Brannagan would just send his B-52's in to be ruthlessly killed until the enemy was out of AA missiles.

 Peregrine wrote:

 whembly wrote:
Of course we can carpet bomb the feth out of anyone.

You mean "anyone who doesn't have a functioning air defense network". Yeah, B-52s are great bomb trucks when you're bombing a bunch of "terrorists" whose only AA weapon is praying for god to smite the plane, but in a war against an equal-level enemy (Russia, China, etc) their only useful contribution is launching cruise missiles from hundreds of miles away. They're hopelessly obsolete for anything else, unless you're willing to accept massive losses in a "human wave" attack just to get a few bombers through.

True... which is why we've been maintaining our first strike capabilites:

and...

Waves any AA platform good bye.

Then bring on the air trucks!

The funny thing about warfare is that half of your most advanced tech is usually revealed as not being half as advanced or effective as you thought it would, and some of what you thought was obsolete junk proves itself quite useful.

Y'all might be underselling the B-52 a good bit... particularly if and when they ever get around to the EB-52 upgrade, it would become quite a bit more resilient to attack than you might expect. Turns out you don't much need stealth when you're sending off so much noise and radiation that enemy targeting systems can't even find the plane right in front of them.

Then again, thats the point of Ewar assets like the Prowler and Growler in general. Its not like we haven't flown missions over integrated air defense networks before.

I'm just going to pretend all my years of war-gaming esp. with the 'Wargame' series has prepared me for this specific moment in our history. I'll be like the f**kin john connor except it's NATO vs russia instead of the resistance vs skynet and their terminators.

Now i can show everybody playing video games isn't a total waste of time and that maybe taking school off to play video games more would help to save the 'Free World' .

I kind of hope we hit Cold War 2.0. I just ordered some Soviet era nixie tubes. Might be able to flip them for decent amounts of cash.

I mean, silver lining for the majority of my lifetime being paranoia about boogymen on the other side of the world, right?