Russian nuclear bomber flies undetected to within 20 miles of Hull

reply to post by primamateria


Have you ever been to Hull? No wonder Russia picked there.. it knew no one would notice. It is a grim town.
I meet loads of russians in Cyprus.... they are nice people.

reply to post by primamateria


Doesn't it seem like the Russians are simply testing the proverbial waters, the resolve and efficiency (ok, lack of) of the major world players lately? Invasion and occupation of Georgia, battleship to the Caribbean, a billion dollars of weapons given to Venezuela and now a nuke bomber 20 miles off the British coast. By themselves, these actions are considered by many as too small to be met with military opposition. But in aggregate, show the lack of readiness, a hesitation to commit if you will, by those super powers who only a few short years ago claimed global reach and global power supreme?
Just wondering?


[edit on 10/1/2008 by eaganthorn]

[edit on 10/1/2008 by eaganthorn]

Are there any Research or Strategic sites there or are they pulling a Bush and looking for WMDs that don't exist so they can rally support from UN to invade.

Originally posted by Fang
No I can't tell you the type and number of satellites deployed. They tend to keep this sort of thing quiet. BUT I do know that the Kola peninsula is still one of the most heavily satellite monitored areas in the world and has been from the mid 60's, back in the Keyhole-9 days.

I would keep the fact that i don't have many or any spy satellites left quite too!

www.foxnews.com...

Isn't buying them from civilian agencies a bit silly? Why did the last one 'fall
' from the sky, and crash into Peru? Who's shooting down US spy satellites and was the anti sat test a retribution against whomever did it? Plenty of questions the most interesting being why the US armed forces had to be satellite data from private FOREIGN contractors during the recent invasion of Iraq.

Another limiting factor is space-based intelligence assets, officials said, which have not changed much since the Gulf War. Likely on call for the current operation, intelligence officials said, are US National Reconnaissance Office Ferreg signal and electronic intelligence satellites to pick up air defence radars; KH-11A+ radar imaging satellites; Defense Satellite Communications System (DSCS) satellites; various eavesdropping satellites; and Europe's MOPS meteorology spacecraft.

Such satellites, especially the imaging ones, follow very specific tracks and pass over an area of interest infrequently. Before the current operation, such satellites were unlikely to have photographed Yugoslavia's difficult terrain. "There could be new buildings there we didn't know before," one industry official said.

The USA hopes to solve some of these problems with the Discoverer II series of small imaging satellites, which will be launched in the 2002 timeframe, officials said.

www.janes.com...

Satellites do not have to be deployed in 'Strategically Significant' numbers to do this. I thought this might be your area of expertise but then I read your comments about spy satellites not preventing the US soldiers being blown up in Iraq. I found this a bit odd

Well admittedly satellites don't have much use against resistance style tactics so yes, sorry. I wanted to point out that you need many more than one spy/whichever satellite as they can and have been vulnerable to ground based weapons since at least the 70's. Either way at least one, or both, side will quickly lose their space based assets in a large scale war and my point was simply that they US do not seem to have many imaging spy satellites around for the last two decades.

Yes,I do find it very unlikely that a lone Cold War era bomber could fly from it's base past some of the most sophisticated Radar and sensor systems in the world, then across the North Sea to the English coast, undetected. It would be a first.

Why would it be a first? How could we know and why do you think it so impossible in the first place?

As for 9/11 yes thanks, I have heard of Norad and yes I'm sure they do have access to the same real time information as the FAA. Do they routinely monitor it? No they don't.

whatreallyhappened.com...

WASHINGTON — In what the government describes as a bizarre coincidence, one U.S. intelligence agency was planning an exercise last Sept. 11 in which an errant aircraft would crash into one of its buildings. But the cause wasn't terrorism -- it was to be a simulated accident.

Officials at the Chantilly, Va.-based National Reconnaissance Office had scheduled an exercise that morning in which a small corporate jet would crash into one of the four towers at the agency's headquarters building after experiencing a mechanical failure.

www.boston.com...

Everyone who had to know knew and they knew for around 45 minutes in the last instance.

This was confirmed when the taped conversations between FAA flight Controllers and The NORAD Duty Officer were released during the 9/11 inquiry. Why should NORAD monitor the movements of aircraft taking off and landing within the USA?

You have to ask?

" North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD)"

What the hell else are they supposed to do? Protect Canadian airspace?

And what's this nonsense about the 9-11 inquiry 'revealing' much anything that were not previously uncovered by private individuals who decided not to keep what they knew secret?

You seem to be taking all this a little personally. Are you by any chance Russian?

Nope, and as far as i know i don't have Russian ancestors for at least a few generations back. Would that change anything about your perception of my 'bias'? Good luck with that.....

Stellar

Originally posted by homo_borg
Well, it IS still currently the most advanced bomber in the world. We all know how useless F-117s are. We could only surmise how the B2 would fail miserably against Russian defences.

Nice of you to spout off nonsense. Only one F-117 has ever been shot down. It performed it's job well, which makes you wonder what they replaced it with?

The B2 is a very good piece of machinery as well. It better be, at it's price tag.

The Blackjack looks more like a B1, I didn't read about any stealth characteristics.

Yep, I was right.

First flown in 1982, the Tupolev Tu-160 'Blackjack' is a counterpart to the American B-1B. Both share a similar configuration, but the Soviet designed bomber is about 30 percent larger and considerably faster. Its initial combat radius of 7300 km is estimated on a mission profile of subsonic high altitude cruise, transonic penetration at low altitude. The Blackjack has a conventional or nuclear free-fall bombing capability, but it has more often been associated with the AS-15 'Kent' cruise missile. The Blackjack is an extremely expensive aircraft, so with the current economic crisis affecting the former Soviet Union, together with the relaxation in international tension, it is unlikely that more than the 25 bombers currently in service will be completed.

reply to post by neformore


I stand corrected, it should say "nuke bomber", instead of just "nuke".
That's what happens to me when I try to multitask beyond my limitations, I error.


[edit on 10/1/2008 by eaganthorn]

Originally posted by neformore


Well now....

First off, QRA planes don't do "other missions". Thats why they are QRA planes.

Second, in order to get here it would have had to fly down off the coast of Norway, and possibly off Denmark - that means they missed it too?

Something fishy with the article then. IMHO

just delete this. sorry

[edit on 1-10-2008 by finallianstallion]

Its not that great of a plane, our B1 is a copy of it.

Both were created in 73.


[edit on 10/1/08 by Cyprex]

reply to post by StellarX

Well I think it's best to call it a day; You say there are no Western Satellites over Northern Russia, I say there are. I say no russian Aircraft has arrived at UK airspace over the last 30 years without being detected and tracked first, you say different. As for NORAD and the 9/11 inquiry, you are just plain wrong. Perhaps you need to widen your sources, Fox News and What Happened Next?. Hmmm.

Originally posted by citizen smith
damn...just 90 seconds short of getting rid of Hull

Hull was not the intended target...

It was Sc.unthorpe. Home to Europe’s largest steel foundry formerly known as British Steel / Corus now known as Tata Steel.

S.c.unthorpe would be one of the first HIT in a Nuclear style war.

Followed very quickly by Grimsby where there is a MAJOR OIL and Gas Field.. Conoco Philips and Lindsey Oil + about 5 Major Power stations. + a PORT.

Sc.unthorpe and Grimsby have both been thought of by many as major CHAV towns but they are both in fact of great national and international importance.

All the best,

NeoN HaZe

Edit to get around the censor..

[edit on 1-10-2008 by Neon Haze]

I really wish people would put "daily mail" in the subject when they post things from there so I can promptly ignore such blatant propaganda.

Since they just upset us (Arsenal) at home, yes HOME!, Russia can bomb them...

I still can't believe it...

Originally posted by pavil

Originally posted by homo_borg
Well, it IS still currently the most advanced bomber in the world. We all know how useless F-117s are. We could only surmise how the B2 would fail miserably against Russian defences.

Nice of you to spout off nonsense. Only one F-117 has ever been shot down. It performed it's job well, which makes you wonder what they replaced it with?

Two f117 nighthawks were lost, one was utterly shot down the other was damaged so heavily it never flew again, in the same conflict by inferior Yugoslavian forces. Imagine what Russia would do to them. No on second thought let's not.

Several astute posters have pointed out the likelyhood that this ' incident'
probably didn't happen.

If it did happen- then it was almost certainly not a bomber. It would have been a ' reconnaissance bomber '. Such an aircraft does the following : it provokes an air-defense response and ' maps ' that response. In this alleged case, some RAF guy would have said into the phone something like,' holy cow, there' a TU160 only about twenty miles out '!

This call would be recorded and anylized,the caller voiceprinted and ID'd.

Hopefully, the british gave up some insight into their scramble codes and all sorts of other info- all of wich are important to military planners. And so on. My own father did this very thing on an RB50 flight crew back in the fiftees... still happens all the time, I suspect.

No need for a TU160 to be twenty miles from a target.. it's cruise missiles are probably unstoppable.

reply to post by neformore


No one got shot down ? Cat and mouse ?
Can't tell you why I know... but- lot's of people got shot down.

I think you are right about the purpose of this mission... if it happened at all.

reply to post by rufusdrak


And do you have ANY idea how many missions have been flown by F-117s into hostile territory over the years? There have been TWO F-117s that reportedly have been hit by ground fire since they started flying combat missions. The second one that was hit has conflicting reports on it that I've seen. Some say that it was damaged by ground fire, others say it was a landing accident in the US that was claimed to have been in Germany after a mission over Yugoslavia.

The ratio of missions flown to aircraft lost, even if the second one WAS over Yugoslavia is incredible. Even if you ONLY look at Yugoslavia, the ratio is still amazing.

Over Iraq in Desert Storm the F-117 was only 2.5% of the total fighter force, but flew 1250 sorties, and 6900 hours of the air war.

In Yugoslavia, 24 F-117s flew missions over Yugoslavia before the end of fighting. There were 12 initially, and 12 more were added later. They flew a total of 850+ combat sorties.

In Iraqi Freedom, 12 F-117s flew over 100 combat missions.

No matter how you look at it, either one loss, or two that's an INCREDIBLE ratio. That's over 2200 sorties, for at MOST two losses. No matter how you look at it, that's a pretty successful aircraft.

Th F117 that went down in Yugo was felled by bullets not missiles, Lucky shot Yugo's. The TU-160 is a copy of the B-1 and not a very good one (already stated by another member) but it is somewhat of a stealthy design, just like its American cousin. I doubt that the Ruskies have anything near plasma stealth, else it would be a MAJOR priority for them. The new bomber flights are letting the world know that Russia is still a power to be reconed with. Ive been on radar and its hard to distinguish ghost contacts from real ones sometimes, but I doubt that the Brits are really worried that Russia will attack them and while I dont really know why they didnt intercept the plane farther out, I also dont know exactly how far out that plane was. Just because someone said it was with in 20 miles doesnt make it 20 miles.

Actually no.
Plane was downed with SA-3 missile.

Zoltan used the human spotters and brief use of radar, with short range shots at American bombers. The SA-3 was guided from the ground, so you had to use surprise to get an accurate shot in before the target used jamming and evasive maneuvers to make the missile miss. The F-117 he shot down was only 13 kilometers away.

How to take down an F-117

Originally posted by rufusdrak


Two f117 nighthawks were lost, one was utterly shot down the other was damaged so heavily it never flew again, in the same conflict by inferior Yugoslavian forces. Imagine what Russia would do to them. No on second thought let's not.

Ummm that second one made it home did it not, that doesn't qualify as shot down now does it?

The only reason the other one was lost was that it stupidly followed the same flight path and schedule. It was easy to predict when and where to fire at it. It used poor tactics and should have been shot down for doing such.

There must be something better than the Nighthawk currently, else why would you retire it?