Russian forces have started covering some of their attack aircraft with car tires,

Those Russian Knuckle Heads…….

Russia is covering aircraft with car tires, potentially to protect them from Ukrainian drones

Moscow’s forces have started covering some of their attack aircraft with car tires, in what experts say could be a makeshift attempt to protect them from Ukrainian drone strikes that have had increased recent success in targeting Russian military airports. Satellite imagery from Maxar of Engels Airbase, deep inside Russia, shows two Tu-95 strategic bombers with car tires on top of the airframes.

Have you ever seen a old tire dump on fire?

Duhhhhh…this can’t be good

I’m almost sure the crews placing the tires were laughing….


👽

a reply to: Ophiuchus1

Might limit -some- fragmentation and blast effect. But yeah, if they burn ...

Cheers

originally posted by: F2d5thCavv2
a reply to: Ophiuchus1

Might limit -some- fragmentation and blast effect……

In that case…..hopefully they used steel belted radials…. 😆

👽

a reply to: Ophiuchus1

From the size of them I would say military truck tires. I don't see what they think they are doing by putting them there. I don't see any advantage.

a reply to: Ophiuchus1

" Ukrainian drones "


The Ukrainians Do Not Have Drones , they are ALL American and NATO Hardware .

a reply to: Ophiuchus1

Cruise missiles mostly rely of taget image verification or something like that. So basically if the target does not match the predownloaded image of the target the missile doesn't engage and then just goes somewhere else I guess.
But those tires are to disrupt that process.

They missed a couple of parts on the plane. Just wondering, Would the tyres not obviously put more weight on the plane and make it harder to control? Stupid question probably but thought I’d ask anyways.

a reply to: Techno92LFC

It’s not for use in flight, it’s to protect them from drone attack on the ground.

a reply to: Stopstealingmycountry

Yes, my thought as well. A sort of camouflaging.

Here's another image from: www.thedrive.com...

A covering of tires could well be calculated to break up the infrared signature of these aircraft, to confuse cruise missiles using image matching for targeting. This technique is also frequently referred to as DSMAC (Digital Scene Matching Area Correlator) or ATR (Automated Target Recognition) when used in cruise missiles.

As we have previously discussed, using DSMAC/ATR would provide land attack versions of Ukraine’s homegrown Neptune missiles with a significant advantage, making them largely immune to electronic warfare jamming. At the same time, their approach to the target would not involve any telltale radio-frequency emissions, thanks to the passive nature of the targeting.

I guess they could call it Operation GOODYEAR

originally posted by: Zanti Misfit
a reply to: Ophiuchus1

" Ukrainian drones "


The Ukrainians Do Not Have Drones , they are ALL American and NATO Hardware .

All made in China...

a reply to: Ophiuchus1

a reply to: Zanti Misfit

The Ukrainians Do Not Have Drones.

Yes they do.

The hot new tech sector in Ukraine? Making military drones

sifted.eu...

It's a variation on the camouflage used on ships in WWII. The idea isn't so much protection as it it is to breakup the outline to foil optical recognition. In WWII submarines had books with information on different ships. This information was things like ship length, mast height and other facts to identify the ship. If they knew the length and the mast height they were able to accurately determine the range. Once you had the range, speed was easy to compute. That made torpedo attacks more accurate. The paint schemes in WWII served to break up the outline of the ship, making those calculations harder and attacks less accurate.

All laugh at the Russians heh. But the question that should be asked is who and how did they get these images from an active Russian base. Well that's normally called spying. Now the images are from a private company 2023 Planet Labs Inc. and in their blurb comes "quote" "Planet remains committed to making it's data and tools available to all users, large and small, to provide a foundation for innovation and positive feed back". Nice bit of info that but is the available bit just for the US or could Russia use them?

a reply to: [post=27128111]Ophiuchus1[/post

tire fire party where the vodka and political assassinations flow free.

there's no better way to make sure if your aircraft burn up. if hit cause tire fires burn pretty damn hot and for a long time.

Well, if they are hit they will burn hotter with all that tyre rubber; and the smoke will be very black.

But there is a logic, as already mentioned, to make it harder to ID from the air. Wonder if it also dampens infrared and the like?

I am no supporter of the Russians and their belligerence, but they are not stupid, so there is a reason in doing this.

originally posted by: JIMC5499
It's a variation on the camouflage used on ships in WWII. The idea isn't so much protection as it it is to breakup the outline to foil optical recognition. In WWII submarines had books with information on different ships. This information was things like ship length, mast height and other facts to identify the ship. If they knew the length and the mast height they were able to accurately determine the range. Once you had the range, speed was easy to compute. That made torpedo attacks more accurate. The paint schemes in WWII served to break up the outline of the ship, making those calculations harder and attacks less accurate.

Actually, if you notice, the tires are all placed over fuel tanks in the wings and fuselage. I think this is so the aircraft can be parked with the tanks full and ready to go but avoid fires started by low velocity shrapnel from small drones.

a reply to: 1947boomer

Nothing personal, but I doubt that the tires are there for protection. It would be too simple to use incendiaries to set the tires on fire and destroy the aircraft that way. There is also the issue of the underside of the wings. There's no way to protect them. Another thing is that it would take a lot of time and manpower to ready those aircraft for flight.

I'm still with the idea of them being there to change the outline of the aircraft and now that I think about it to possibly change the heat signature of the aircraft. I can see the tires acting as a black body to possibly heat the fuel in the tanks, changing the heat signature.

Anybody see the movie “Rubber”?

Those crazy Russians saw that movie and are going to drop those in major city’s to unleash Hell!

Tires?

That's what you all are going with?

Yes because this makes the most sense while looking at a grainy satellite image taken from a few hundred miles in orbit viewed on the screen of your phone/PC.

Someone please enlighten me to the logic and science behind this defensive strategy of putting a few thousand pounds of flammable objects on the outside of an aircraft that could potentially damage the body of said aircraft beyond operation.

Something that would take hours to remove if they even so much as wanted to move the aircraft to a different part of the base. This just sounds absurd. It's likely some sort or radar or IR cammofloug...