.Russia to Threaten North America with Brand-New Bombers? Think Again
In 2007, Russia resumed its Cold War practice of sending long-range bomber patrols into international airspace along the North American coast. The patrols sparked a minor panic in certain quarters here. In an interview with The Washington Times, retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney called the patrols practice for “coordinated attacks coming into our air defense identification zone.” They are “far more sophisticated than anything we had seen before,” he added. The panic only mounted when Russia put out feelers for bomber staging bases in Cuba and Venezuela.
Depending on whom you ask, Moscow’s bomber threat is about to get a lot more dangerous — or it was never all that dangerous to begin with.
Lately, Russia has had to make do with aircraft left over from the 1980s. The Russian strategic bomber force — 16 Tu-160 Blackjacks and 64 Tu-95 Bears — is roughly half the size of the U.S. bomber force, but more importantly, the Russian birds have not been significantly upgraded in 20 years. Most of them cannot use any kind of precision-guided bomb, making them mostly useless for anything but a full-scale nuclear war.
To remedy that, bomber-maker Tupolev is reportedly developing a new “fifth-generation” bomber for the Russian air force, for service after 2020. “The new plane will use a wide selection of high-precision weapons, and will have a whole range of new combat capabilities, allowing it to apply new methods to carrying out deterrence tasks,” Col. Gen. Alexander Zelin said.
Before you start building a bomb shelter in your backyard, consider this: in the impoverished Russian aerospace industry, talk is cheap. Moscow has been promising to show the world an F-35-like stealth fighter prototype for years, but so far no one has seen so much as a Testors model kit. An order placed this summer for 64 older Sukhoi fighters by 2015 represents the biggest Russian aircraft buy in 15 years. In the same time-frame, the Pentagon will buy probably 10 times that many fighters, of more modern design.
And according to one Russian general, new bombers aren’t even a wise investment. Maj. Gen. Pavel Androsov, who has commanded many of the North American flights, told Air Forces Monthly just a few weeks ago that no new bombers were needed. Instead, he said, his existing bombers require “deep upgrades” to improve flight safety, navigation and bombing accuracy. He said he wanted his bombers to be able to drop unguided munitions to within 60 feet of their targets. U.S. bombers, you might recall, can reliably put guided bombs through windows and air shafts.
At the end of the day, Moscow has just one over-riding military priority: to maintain and modernize its fleet of nuclear-missile-armed submarines. Everything else, bombers included, is a luxury.
Wired
Hey don't forget the subs that were spotted off the Atlantic coast, no doubt based out of the Caribbean..
Depending on whom you ask, Moscow’s bomber threat is about to get a lot more dangerous — or it was never all that dangerous to begin with.
Lately, Russia has had to make do with aircraft left over from the 1980s. The Russian strategic bomber force — 16 Tu-160 Blackjacks and 64 Tu-95 Bears — is roughly half the size of the U.S. bomber force, but more importantly, the Russian birds have not been significantly upgraded in 20 years. Most of them cannot use any kind of precision-guided bomb, making them mostly useless for anything but a full-scale nuclear war.
To remedy that, bomber-maker Tupolev is reportedly developing a new “fifth-generation” bomber for the Russian air force, for service after 2020. “The new plane will use a wide selection of high-precision weapons, and will have a whole range of new combat capabilities, allowing it to apply new methods to carrying out deterrence tasks,” Col. Gen. Alexander Zelin said.
Before you start building a bomb shelter in your backyard, consider this: in the impoverished Russian aerospace industry, talk is cheap. Moscow has been promising to show the world an F-35-like stealth fighter prototype for years, but so far no one has seen so much as a Testors model kit. An order placed this summer for 64 older Sukhoi fighters by 2015 represents the biggest Russian aircraft buy in 15 years. In the same time-frame, the Pentagon will buy probably 10 times that many fighters, of more modern design.
And according to one Russian general, new bombers aren’t even a wise investment. Maj. Gen. Pavel Androsov, who has commanded many of the North American flights, told Air Forces Monthly just a few weeks ago that no new bombers were needed. Instead, he said, his existing bombers require “deep upgrades” to improve flight safety, navigation and bombing accuracy. He said he wanted his bombers to be able to drop unguided munitions to within 60 feet of their targets. U.S. bombers, you might recall, can reliably put guided bombs through windows and air shafts.
At the end of the day, Moscow has just one over-riding military priority: to maintain and modernize its fleet of nuclear-missile-armed submarines. Everything else, bombers included, is a luxury.
Wired
Hey don't forget the subs that were spotted off the Atlantic coast, no doubt based out of the Caribbean..
posted by madtom at 8:48 PM
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