"exchanged smiles"? WTF? Russian bomber jets resume Cold War sorties http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070809/ts_nm/russia_military_flights_dc MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's strategic bombers have resumed Cold War-style long-haul missions to areas patrolled by NATO and the United States, top generals said on Thursday. A Russian bomber flew over a U.S. naval base on the Pacific island of Guam on Wednesday and "exchanged smiles" with U.S. pilots who had scrambled to track it, said Major-General Pavel Androsov, head of long-range aviation in the Russian air force. "It has always been the tradition of our long-range aviation to fly far into the ocean, to meet (U.S.) aircraft carriers and greet (U.S. pilots) visually," Androsov told a news conference. "Yesterday we revived this tradition, and two of our young crews paid a visit to the area of the (U.S. Pacific Naval Activities) base of Guam," he said. President Vladimir Putin has sought to make Russia more assertive in the world. Putin has boosted defense spending and sought to raise morale in the armed forces, which were starved of funding following the fall of the Soviet Union. Androsov said the sortie by the two turboprop Tu-95MS bombers, from a base near Blagoveshchensk in the Far East, had lasted for 13 hours. The Tu-95, codenamed "Bear" by NATO, is Russia's Cold War icon and may stay in service until 2040. "I think the result was good. We met our colleagues -- fighter jet pilots from (U.S.) aircraft carriers. We exchanged smiles and returned home," Androsov said. Ivan Safranchuk, Moscow office director of the Washington-based World Security Institute, said he saw nothing extraordinary in Moscow sending its bombers around the globe. "This practice as such never stopped, it was only scaled down because there was less cash available for that," he said. "It doesn't cost much to flex your muscles ... You can burn fuel flying over your own land or you can do it flying somewhere like Guam, in which case political dividends will be higher." COLD WAR CAT-AND-MOUSE The bombers give Russia the capability of launching a devastating nuclear strike even if the nuclear arsenals on its own territory are wiped out. During the Cold War, they played elaborate airborne games of cat-and-mouse with Western air forces. Lieutenant-General Igor Khvorov, air forces chief of staff, said the West would have to come to terms with Russia asserting its geopolitical presence. "But I don't see anything unusual, this is business as usual," he said. The generals said under Putin long-range aviation was no longer in need of fuel, enjoyed better maintenance and much higher wages, a far cry from the 1990s when many pilots were practically grounded because there was no money to buy fuel. The generals quipped that part of the funding boost was thanks to a five-hour sortie Putin once flew as part of a crew on a supersonic Tupolev Tu-160 strategic bomber, known as the "White Swan" in Russia and codenamed "Blackjack" by NATO. The current state of Russia's economy, which is booming for the eighth year in a row, has allowed Russia to finance such flights, said Safranchuk from the World Security Institute. "Maintenance and training are not the most expensive budget items of modern armies. Purchases of new weapons really are."
They are going to keep the Bears operating until 2040? I'm suprised they're not still using bi-planes.
Hayes slept through his Military History class. Anyways, here is a link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-95
And the B-52 is a hell of a lot better aircraft. I'm surprised they're still flying those Bears, as well. Guess they were sitting around, Russia finally could afford some aviation fuel and maintenance, and the crews had nothing better to do. What to do? Let's go the Guam!!! Good to see you, Hayes. D&D. Impeach Goofus and His Buddy.
source [rquoter] Russians Didn’t Pass Guam, U.S. Says WASHINGTON, Aug. 10 (Reuters) — The Pentagon on Friday rejected a claim by the Russian military the day before that the Russians had resumed bomber flyovers in American territory, saying that the planes did not fly near Guam or close enough to any American ships to prompt an order to intercept them. According to a Pentagon spokesman, Lt. Cmdr. Chito Peppler, two Russian aircraft were detected Wednesday flying south over the Pacific toward Guam. Another Defense Department official said the Russian bombers were about 305 miles from Guam and about 100 miles from any American aircraft. On Thursday, the head of long-range aviation in the Russian Air Force, Maj. Gen. Pavel Androsov, said Russia had resumed cold war-style missions to areas patrolled by the United States. He said that a Russian strategic bomber flew over the United States naval base at Guam and that American aircraft were scrambled to track the Russian aircraft. He added that the Russian and American pilots “exchanged smiles.” [/rquoter]
Which isn't our top line bomber anymore (b1, b2), is better than the Bear anyway, and won't be in service in 2040. We're already initiating the next phase of our bomber development - more and more sources are saying we can't maintain the B-52 much longer (see upper wing surface hour limits etc). Air Force envisions stealthy long-range bomber for 2018 By Megan Scully CongressDaily June 13, 2007 A senior Air Force official on Wednesday said the Air Force plans to leverage existing technologies developed for the F-22 Raptor fighter jet to create and field a next-generation, long-range bomber over the next decade. The service, which hopes to fly the bomber by 2018, likely will use the F-22's stealth and maneuverability capabilities when developing the new aircraft, Lt. Gen. Robert Elder, commander of the 8th Air Force at Barksdale Air Force Base, La., said during a breakfast with reporters. The F-22 features fifth-generation stealth technologies. By contrast, the Air Force's B-2 bomber -- the youngest aircraft in its bomber fleet -- was fielded in 1989 and features only second-generation stealth capabilities. The service also plans to make the bomber a subsonic propulsion aircraft, said Elder, who also oversees integrated analysis and planning for so-called global strike capabilities for the U.S. Strategic Command. Hypersonic technologies now under development will not be ready by 2018, but could be used in a follow-on bomber the service will field around 2035. "The reason this thing is doable in 2018 is that the technologies exist," Elder said. "For 2018, we have technologies that we can exploit quickly." Plans for the long-range bomber were unveiled last year in the Pentagon's Quadrennial Defense Review to fill a looming capability gap in the fleet. That review also called for retiring 38 B-52 H-model planes, a move that has been strongly opposed by lawmakers reluctant to part with the venerable bomber fleet. After Wednesday's breakfast, Elder noted that congressional restrictions on retiring 20 of the B-52s the service had planned to take out of service could eventually strain budgets for the bomber development effort. "It hasn't yet, but it will," Elder said. "Would it help the Air Force, in terms of having resources for the next-generation bomber, to have these airplanes retired? The answer is yes." Elder also said the Air Force is moving ahead with plans to modernize and man only 56 of the B-52 bombers, and cannot afford to do more than that. "You can have airplanes, but if you don't have the crews to fly them it really doesn't do anything for us," Elder said. "So we are manned to fly and robustly fly those 56 airplanes." http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0607/061307cdpm1.htm See above.... You too, buddy!
It occupies the same role for us that the B-52 does for us. Their top line bomber is the Tu-160, which is basically a larger B-1, done Soviet style. Since some of the disparaging comments about the Bear here I did some reading up and it actually is considered a very sound plane. And the contra-rotating turboprops were extremely advanced at the time and are actually sort of hybrids between jet engines and traditional propellers, and has quite a bit in common with the turbofans in the A-10. As far as the B-52 comming out of service sooner, I think if Russia had the money they would be building newer generation weapons as well, and if the US Air Force didn't have the money to get new toys every week they would keep it in service. The original plan, in fact, was to keep it in service until 2040 and beyond. The following is from globalsecurity.org: [rquoter] Updated with modern technology, the B-52 will continue into the 21st century as an important element of US forces. There is a proposal under consideration to re-engine the remaining B-52H aircraft to extend the service life. B-52 re-engine plans, if implemented, call for the B-52 to be utilized through 2025. Current engineering analysis show the B-52's life span to extend beyond the year 2040. The limiting factor of the B-52’s service life is the economic limit of the aircraft's upper wing surface, calculated to be approximately 32,500 to 37,500 flight hours. Based on the projected economic service life and forecast mishap rates, the Air Force will be unable to maintain the requirement of 62 aircraft by 2044, after 84 years in service The May 1997 Report of the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), prescribed a total fleet of 187 bombers (95 B-1, 21 B-2, and 71 B-52). Since the QDR, two B-1s had been lost in peacetime accidents. However, the Report of the Panel to Review Long-Range Air Power (LRAP) concluded the existing bomber fleet cannot be sustained through the expected life of the air frames and that additional aircraft will eventually be required. To address this issue, the Air Force will add five additional B-52 attrition reserve aircraft, bringing the B-52 total from 71 to 76 for a total bomber force of 190. The B-52 fleet will remain the same with 44 combat-coded aircraft. Since those studies, the Air Force has decided to retire 33 B-1s and 17 B-52Hs, reducing the current fleet of 208 bombers (93 B-1s, 21 B-2s, 94 B-52Hs) to 157. Of these bombers, only 96 will be combat coded, with the rest used for backup and other purposes. The B-52H and B-2 still retain a conventional and a nuclear mission, while the B-1 is roled for the conventional mission only. [/rquoter] BTW the per unit cost of the B-2 is $2.1 billion , which is why there will never be many more than the 20 or so now in existence, and so it will never supplant the B-1/B-52. I saw someone liken its status to Dreadnaught Battleships around WWI - so expensive that you can't build many and the cost of loosing one is so high that you have to be very judicious about which missions you send them on.
Commenting on the article above -- i've heard the 2040 retirement date from many different sources now so I believe that is accurate. What really surprises me is that we only have 96 combat ready bombers -- it seems like we would have hundreds if not a thousand or more based around the world. The 'Bear' is a typical Russian workhorse military machine ~ it looks like a piece of sh*t but it will run forever in the worst conditions. <object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Ceh6llUEr5E"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Ceh6llUEr5E" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>
Not really - although the B-52 is a ready to go nuclear platform, you're going to see it doing Arclight retread missions like in Afghanistan, not trying to penetrate into Russia. That was my original point - it's not a big deal if they want to send Bears over Guam because in a crisis a Bear would never survive against US airpower anymore than the B-52 would against modernized Russian fighters. However, if we were going to try to penetrate Russian air space, we'd be using the B2 as a nuclear or tactical platform, the F 117, or the B1 - none of which are comparable to the Bear. Which doesn't change the observation that getting buzzed by a Bear is a joke. I'm glad the Air Force has more money than Russia to update our air power. That way we won't be flying B-52s in strategic roles as they will with the Bear. The QDR and the LRAP both were before the article I cited that the old plan for continuing the B-52 program that long is not going to happen. You don't need 100 B2s because they don't need number to achieve their mission.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/world/5063668.html Russia puts bombers back on long-range patrols By IVAN SEKRETAREV Associated Press CHEBARKUL TESTING RANGE, Russia — President Vladimir Putin placed strategic bombers back on long-range patrol for the first time since the Soviet breakup, sending a tough message to the United States today hours after a major Russian military exercise with China. Putin reviewed the first Russian-Chinese joint exercise on Russian soil before announcing that 20 strategic bombers had been sent far over the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic oceans — showing off Moscow's muscular new posture and its growing military ties with Beijing. "Starting today, such tours of duty will be conducted regularly and on the strategic scale," Putin said. "Our pilots have been grounded for too long. They are happy to start a new life." Putin said halting long-range bombers after the Soviet collapse had hurt Russia's security because other nations — an oblique reference to the United States — had continued such missions. "I have made a decision to resume regular flights of Russian strategic aviation," Putin said in nationally televised remarks. "We proceed from the assumption that our partners will view the resumption of flights of Russia's strategic aviation with understanding." U.S.-Russian relations have been strained over Washington's criticism of Russia's democracy record, Moscow's objections to U.S. missile defense plans and differences over crises such as the Iraq war. But the Bush administration downplayed the significance of the renewed patrols. "We certainly are not in the kind of posture we were with what used to be the Soviet Union. It's a different era," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said. "If Russia feels as though they want to take some of these old aircraft out of mothballs and get them flying again, that's their decision." Soviet bombers routinely flew missions to areas where nuclear-tipped cruise missiles could be launched at the United States. They stopped in the post-Soviet economic meltdown. Booming oil prices have allowed Russia to sharply increase its military spending. Russian Air Force spokesman Col. Alexander Drobyshevsky said that today's exercise involved Tu-160, Tu-95 and Tu-22M bombers, tanker aircraft and air radars. NATO jets were scrambled to escort the Russian aircraft over the oceans, he said, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency. A pair of Russian Tu-95 strategic bombers approached the Pacific Island of Guam — home to a major U.S. military base — this month for the first time since the Cold War. Last month, two similar bombers briefly entered British air space but turned back after British fighter jets intercepted them. Norwegian F-16s were also scrambled when the Tu-95s headed south along the Norwegian coast in international air space. "This is a significant change of posture of Russian strategic forces," Alexander Pikayev, a senior military analyst with the Moscow-based Institute for World Economy and International Relations, told The Associated Press. "It's a response to the relocation of NATO forces closer to Russia's western border." NATO has expanded in recent years to include the former Soviet republics of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia as well as the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland. As of the beginning of the year, Russia had 79 strategic bombers, according to data exchanged with the United States under the START I arms control treaty. At the peak of the Cold War, the Soviet long-range bomber fleet numbered several hundred. Friday's war games with China near the Urals Mountain city of Chelyabinsk involved some 6,000 troops from both countries, along with soldiers from four ex-Soviet Central Asian nations that are part of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a regional group dominated by Moscow and Beijing. The former Cold War rivals share a heightening distrust of what they see as the United States' outsized role in global politics, and they have forged a "strategic partnership" aimed at counterbalancing Washington's policies. The United States, Russia and China are locked in a tense rivalry for influence in Central Asia, the site of vast hydrocarbon resources. Washington supports plans for pipelines that would carry oil and gas to the West and bypass Russia, while Moscow has maneuvered to control exports. China also has shown a growing appetite for energy to power its booming economy. Putin, Chinese leader Hu Jintao and other leaders of the SCO nations attended the joint exercise, which followed their summit Thursday in Kyrgyzstan's capital Bishkek. The summit concluded with a communique that sounded like a thinly veiled warning to the United States to stay away from the region: "Stability and security in Central Asia are best ensured primarily through efforts taken by the nations of the region on the basis of the existing regional associations." Putin hailed the exercise — which involved dozens of aircraft and hundreds of armored vehicles countering a mock attack by terrorists and insurgents striving to take control of energy resources — "as another step to strengthen relations between our countries." Hu said the maneuvers "underlined the SCO's readiness to confront terror." The exercises underlined that "the SCO wants to show that Central Asia is its exclusive sphere of responsibility," said Ivan Safranchuk, an analyst at World Security Institute Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Losyukov said the exercise was not aimed at the United States. "I don't see anything anti-American in the SCO exercise," he was quoted as saying by the ITAR-Tass news agency. The SCO was created 11 years ago to address religious extremism and border security issues in Central Asia. In recent years, the group has grown into a bloc aimed at defying U.S. interests in the region. In 2005, the SCO called for a timetable to be set for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from two member countries, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. Uzbekistan evicted U.S. forces later that year, but Kyrgyzstan still has a U.S. base, which supports operations in nearby Afghanistan. Russia also maintains a military base in Kyrgyzstan. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose country has SCO observer status, attended the summit for the second consecutive year. On Thursday, he echoed Russia's criticism of U.S. plans to deploy missile interceptors in Poland and a radar in the Czech Republic, saying they were a threat to the entire region. ——— Associated Press Writer Vladimir Isachenkov contributed to this report from Moscow
Except I'm not sure in what part of the article they described the mission as penetrating deep into US airspace. If one were to take that as the goal, you would be correct. Unfortunately based on the comments by the Russians it seems that that was not the plan. The mission was to flex Russian muscle in a visible way, to say "look we are here". If the plane had flow undetected, how would that accomplish the mission? For the goals that they intended, the Bear was a perfectly acceptable option. They did the same thing to the UK last month and were apparently happy enough with the results that they repeated the process here. If the Russians had wanted to scare us, they would have used the Tu-160 or the Tu-22M. Maybe the problem here is that you don't understand the Russian motivation for this action? It seems pretty clear that they are trying to say, "Remember us? We're still here, so keep that in mind." In fact at another point they were trying to test the US Airspace, and they did send at Tu-160 which did penetrate and it received much less publicity (at least outside the military) than this action, thus indicating that the Bear may in fact have been the proper choice for a high visibility mission. An analog would be the recent US Naval presence in the Gulf. The mission was filled by aircraft carriers not boomers. If you send missle submarines and the the Iranians don't know they are there, how is that a show of force? My primary point of contention and the reason for my interjection into this debate is your statement: Given that the USA considered using the B-52's until 2040 seems to indicate that the idea is not as archaic as you indicate. That's the whole point. The Bear is a legitimate second tier platform until 2040 if you don't have the cash that the USA has. If the US Air Force was operating on a smaller budget, the USAF would continue to use the B-52. If it was considered as a legitimate option at one point for the USA, why is it so insanely bad an idea for the Russians? Continuing to use the Bear is not a decision worthy of derision and not analogous to using biplanes. Of course the Russian military is not the equal of the US. But you know what? Nobody else's military is either. Holding everybody up to the standards used by the USA for comparison is not particularly useful.
