Russians claim bomber flights over US territory went undetected

just found a link on the canada airforce site that mentions russian flights in the artic area. here yeahs go
www.airforce.forces.gc.ca...
as for my take on it? not to sure. Ive followed that we deployed up there a while back but i let it slip my mind when i saw this thread pop up.

cheers for that link Also, maybe when NORAD is at a heightened alert is a good time to see if you can get through? Also, maybe if you do then it is a good thing to brag about it? I admit it doesn't make a whole lot of sense but if Russia is aiming to sell some Blackjacks to China, what better advert than getting through US defences?

I think you may have hit the nail on the head with the china sale waynos. I was unaware of this side of the story and it makes the russians story look like just that a story to play up their possible sale.

Also I think that there had been rumours about a russian overflight and canada and the US where ready for it and it never happened. Maybe thats why they never appeared on radar?

Ummm i have a question though it may appear to be a stupid one. If the plane is that great and its getting updates why are there only 16 of em? Is it because russia can't afford them or are they not as great as they say? Now they want to sell them and they aren't even a proven platform thats a 1980's design. With the states putting a 22 sqn up in alaska soon i dont think I'm going to lose any sleep over this claim from the russians.

[edit on 1-5-2006 by Canada_EH]

[edit on 1-5-2006 by Canada_EH]

Why does this have to turn into a fear debate, they flew over some ice, okay they flew through a suspected radar zone supposedly undetected. By what means are they claiming they were undetected. Just because no escort fighters were sent up to make sure their little encursion got back on track. Does not mean they were not detected. It only means that there was no threat and no reason to dispatch any aircraft over an empty ice field to divert the Russian aircraft.

Does not take a rocket science degree to determine the cost benefit reason why no aircraft were sent up to chase down the Russian aircraft.

Kind of like when your childhood friend down the street is walking by your house, are you going to send out your attack dog to scare him away from your driveway. Or are you going to let him walk on by and if he stops to chat with you are you going to have a conversation with him.

Russia was not trying to enflame the US by saying they breached us airspace undetected.

There is a big global show of force going on, a lot of feather fluffing basically in a time of a changing shift in power from the West to the East.

Each player is trying to show the rest of the world they have the military might to be able to defend their insterest in the area.

In the case of the Russian's it is their vaying for power in the middle east to show the small arab countries that they could fend off the US from possible military intervention in their countries in exchange for monetary support in buying Russian made arms, sure its the start of another cold war era arms and "aquisitions" stage, history repeating itself ala warsaw pact alliances.

But its all a front, the US and Russia are power brokering and leveraging their prespective influences to control all areas. US Russia and China are all at the same table as partners....

The rest of the world then is choosing "sides" only as a matter of face value.

Originally posted by ghost
Third, If the Russian really did this, I doubt that they would so openly admit to it. Remember, Entering another nation's soverign airspace with a military aircraft without authorization is an act of provocation.

US controlled airspace != US sovereign airspace

Otherwise Iraqi airspace would be US sovereign airspace, which I have my doubts about.

Originally posted by Simon666
US controlled airspace != US sovereign airspace

Otherwise Iraqi airspace would be US sovereign airspace, which I have my doubts about.

My fualt! I misread something. I though the Russians had entered Alaskan Air Space.

Tim

Originally posted by Englishman_in_Spain
From my very limited knowledge of military hardware, do the pilots not have access to a detector which tells them when radar has locked onto them? Not just the guided weapons system of an enemy aircraft, but ground or AWACS stations too?

I would imagine that, since their equipment did not show them to be 'pinged', they are claiming a successful incursion.

You can hear when aircraft are targeted I believe. SAM Sites, AWACS, to my knowledge its the same deal. Question-Does the US have regular AWACS patrols and/or SAM sites in the high arctic?

Originally posted by Canada_EH
If the plane is that great and its getting updates why are there only 16 of em? Is it because russia can't afford them or are they not as great as they say?

- I think it is because they were enormously expensive at a time when the USSR/Russia could not afford too many and at a time of political instability they were not especially high on anyone's priority list.

Afterall the US only bought 20 or so B2's and have a small number of B1's in service but they remain capable bombers.

I happen to think they are an extremely impressive bomber.

I'd be very interested in a joint venture British variant (UK engines and avionics) - it might cheer Waynos up and calm the RAF 'bomber gap' worries.

Now they want to sell them and they aren't even a proven platform thats a 1980's design.

- Well you can't exactly blame them for seeking an export market, and what else is on the market in that, admittedly very small and limited, catagory?

Maybe with the RAF's short-fall in that niche 'we' might be interested in a squadron or two as well!

With the states putting a 22 sqn up in alaska soon i dont think I'm going to lose any sleep over this claim from the russians.

- I think the days of anyone seriously losing any sleep over the Russian are long over, thankfully.

Originally posted by sminkeypinkey- I think the days of anyone seriously losing any sleep over the Russian are long over, thankfully.

lol

except no one cares about bombers, this isn't red dawn. if russia was ever to attack the US it would be with nukes, not bombers. russia has nukes. the US has no viable anti-ballistic missile defense system. with russia's current nukes, even if the US had something it'd be very hard to stop them.

russia is a threat today just as much of a threat as it was during the cold war, don't let the poverty issues fool you. russia's nuclear forces have recieved more than enough funding.

Yes, but did you forget that the same thing can be said for the US? The only viable option for the Russians is nuclear war, hence why the Russians are no longer the threat they used to be.

lol

except no one cares about bombers, this isn't red dawn. if russia was ever to attack the US it would be with nukes, not bombers. russia has nukes. the US has no viable anti-ballistic missile defense system. with russia's current nukes, even if the US had something it'd be very hard to stop them.

russia is a threat today just as much of a threat as it was during the cold war, don't let the poverty issues fool you. russia's nuclear forces have recieved more than enough funding.

Russia doesn't have the defenses to stop all our nukes either.

Originally posted by WestPoint23
Yes, but did you forget that the same thing can be said for the US? The only viable option for the Russians is nuclear war, hence why the Russians are no longer the threat they used to be.

True, however, I think you should lend a little more credibility to Russia's armed forces. Although Russia is not what it used to be she's still powerful enough, even without nukes, that others would think twice before invading her. On that note, yeah, the US would probably win in a non-nuclear war if Rusia starts it

Originally posted by urmomma158Russia doesn't have the defenses to stop all our nukes either.

But Russia is the only country with a functional anti-ballistic missile defense system. There's a bragging right for you.

Originally posted by urmomma158
True but why talk about it if you did do it.

Because the original article did not say where it got the information from which is not even legal last i checked.

Theres no point in bragging.

You should talk?

A similar situation occurred with russian news sources when the iaq war started..they were reporting mass casualties.

I assume on the US side? Do we know that was not in fact true?

This happens more than we all think.

Western media lies far more often than anyone gives it credit for and it is simply not held accountable for it. You have no idea just yet but that does not surprise me either.

US drones constantly overfly iran. Incidents like this were common during the cold war.

Us drones may on occasion enter Iranian air space but i doubt they go very far over the border; feel free to prove otherwise.

The same could be said about the U2 or SR 71.

Overflights of the USSR stopped rather early on after they proved they could shoot them down. Flying along borders might get you good press but it is hardly the wreckless disregard for international law you suppose it is. The Us has granted Russia the right to overfly the US with recce aircraft( a few times a year as i recall) as long as they provide the flight plans and that was what i tried to point out here..

Stellar

[edit on 14-5-2006 by StellarX]

Originally posted by The Crow
But Russia is the only country with a functional anti-ballistic missile defense system. There's a bragging right for you.

They have not only an admitted capability around Moscow but also their thousands of dual use S-300 types all over Russia. If you add that to the fact that half their land based ICMB's are mobile ( and thus reloadable) then one begins to see who will very likely have the advantage in a nuclear exchange.

Stellar

Originally posted by StellarX
They have not only an admitted capability around Moscow but also their thousands of dual use S-300 types all over Russia. If you add that to the fact that half their land based ICMB's are mobile ( and thus reloadable) then one begins to see who will very likely have the advantage in a nuclear exchange.

Umm... exploding a nuke to destroy an incoming nuke, great plan, the US had a similar one but abandoned it after a while. Now, as for those unproven S-300’s I wouldn’t even factor them in the scenario. Both countries have enough nuclear weapons available to negate any limited shield either one may have. Plus, the Russians may mobile launchers but the US has better strategic bomber capably and better submarine capability.
By the way, how's that Russian EW radar net going? Last I heard they were having problems.


[edit on 14-5-2006 by WestPoint23]

Originally posted by WestPoint23
Umm... exploding a nuke to destroy an incoming nuke, great plan, the US had a similar one but abandoned it after a while.

If you lack the accuracy to destroy it any other way it's a GREAT plan considering the option of just doing nothing. The US did indeed have a similar plan and abandoned it for POLITICAL reasons thus leading to the endangering of tens of millions of American lives.

Now, as for those unproven S-300’s I wouldn’t even factor them in the scenario.

Then you should start reading so that you may have the knowledge and confidence to start factoring them in as they ARE relevant and so beyond your wildest fantasy.

Both countries have enough nuclear weapons available to negate any limited shield either one may have.

Well the Russian shield is by no means limited if you consider that they are re loadable and widely dispersed and would make strategic targeting of Russian nuclear forces extremely hard to do. How many warheads do you now have to assign to every city/ICBM silo to make sure that at least one gets trough the thousands of interceptors waiting to blunt your attack?

Plus, the Russians may mobile launchers but the US has better strategic bomber capably and better submarine capability.

US silo's have no admitted reload capacity and American submarines will have no ports to return to for their own reloads. American bombers will mostly be destroyed on the ground and those that do get in the air must not only defeat Russian interceptor aircraft but the thousands of Sam's that can shoot down cruise missiles nearly as well as the bombers depending on who they get to shoot at.

By the way, how's that Russian EW radar net going? Last I heard they were having problems.

Their early warning radars are not in the shape they used to be but they were always better to start with and with the advances in electronics you can now do far more with much less if your not doing it with Sat's to start with.

I suggest you start checking out the material i posted on the following threads to see just how much material there is to support what i have said so far.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

www.abovetopsecret.com...

www.abovetopsecret.com...

There are some others but if your serious those should keep you occupied for a few weeks AT LEAST.

Stellar

I'm guessing propaganda here. They don't have much else to brag about, do they ? Gotta keep the people intersted in funding the military somehow...

Originally posted by StellarX
If you lack the accuracy to destroy it any other way it's a GREAT plan considering the option of just doing nothing. The US did indeed have a similar plan and abandoned it for POLITICAL reasons thus leading to the endangering of tens of millions of American lives.

The Russian A-135 ABM system is limited consisting of about 100 interceptors, as such it is vulnerable to a saturation attack, and there are questions about its capability to withstand a concentrated attack with complex counter measures. Not to mention the combat ready condition of this and other ABM systems.

Despite the improvements, US military and intelligence reports say the Moscow system would still be relatively easy to defeat. The Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Strategic and Theater Nuclear Forces told the House Armed Services Committee in 1987 that although the Soviets had spent over 10 years and billions of dollars developing an ABM system, the United States could penetrate it with a small number of Minuteman ICBMs equipped with "highly effective chaff and decoys," he went on to say that, "if the Soviets should deploy more advanced or proliferated defenses we have new penetration aids as counters.” The Department of Defense has said that the Soviet system is no more advanced than was the US Safeguard system, which was developed in the early 1970's, but deactivated as soon as it was deployed in 1975 because of its military ineffectiveness and high cost. A 1989 report on Soviet Military Power also concluded that "with only 100 interceptor missiles, the system can be saturated, and with only the single Pillbox radar at Pushkino providing support to these missiles, the system is highly vulnerable to suppression."

Link

At the time of the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991, the new ABM system had still not reached full operational capability. Much of the early warning radar upgrade program associated with the improved system had not yet been completed, and of those radars that had been updated, several were in republics other than Russia. The sharp decline in the Russian defense budget after the break-up also effectively ended most work on the program, and the early-warning network quickly deteriorated. Despite these problems, the system has continued to operate at partial capability, and a secret presidential decree in 1995 declared that it was still operational.

In February 1998, Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev said at a press conference that Russia was "standing down a number of the ABM system's missiles from alert duty." The current state of readiness of the interceptor missiles is unclear. The radars associated with the system have other missions in addition to supporting the ABM system, so they remain operational.

Link

Although it represents an improvement over the earlier A-35 system, the upgraded A-135 system suffers from limited capabilities. Although it might be effective against single warheads, a multi-warhead strike would likely overwhelm the system, and there are also questions whether its sensors would not be blinded by the explosions of its own missiles' nuclear warheads. In addition, the extremely complex radar and command center electronics reportedly have a low combat readiness rate, and in the interests of safety the system's nuclear warheads were usually stored separately from the missiles. Bringing the missiles into operational readiness would require at least 12 hours, an operation that would likely be performed at early stages of a developing nuclear crisis. As a result of its low performance and extremely high operation and maintenance costs, the A-135 system has been controversial within Soviet, and later Russian, decisionmaking circles throughout its existence.

Link

Originally posted by StellarX
Well the Russian shield is by no means limited if you consider that they are re loadable and widely dispersed and would make strategic targeting of Russian nuclear forces extremely hard to do. How many warheads do you now have to assign to every city/ICBM silo to make sure that at least one gets trough the thousands of interceptors waiting to blunt your attack?

Yes it is, besides the Moscow centered A-135 system your magical array of less then thousand’s of unproven S-300 systems is not going to provide a sufficient defense capability to a full out nuclear attack.

[edit on 14-5-2006 by WestPoint23]

Originally posted by StellarX
Their early warning radars are not in the shape they used to be but they were always better to start with and with the advances in electronics you can now do far more with much less if your not doing it with Sat's to start with.

Their EW radars are extremely vulnerable and are defiantly not as capable as they once were. The combat ready and capability status of the remaining ones is also questionable. Most Russian EW radar sites are in former soviet states, some are still used by the Russians and other aren't. Regardless they are vulnerable to a preemptive strike whether it be conventional or nuclear. Gaps do exist in Russian ground radar converge and in Russian satellite coverage. This gap puts their remaining radar sites in danger and put their interceptors and nuclear sites in danger of being destroyed in a first strike.

By November 1997, 68% of SPRN satellites and 48% of ground systems had exhausted their nominal service lives, and the number of satellites dropped considerably. By early 1998, only four to five satellites were still functioning instead of the optimum nine, barely enough to provide continuous coverage.[39,40] The SPRN satellite network was particularly hard hit in 1996, when not a single early warning satellite was launched. Some Russian sources have alleged that gaps in coverage sometimes last six hours at a time, rendering the satellite network nearly useless.[32] The drop in the number of geostationary satellites in orbit meant that coverage had to be limited only to North America, and there was a brief period in late 1998 when there was not a single satellite in geostationary orbit, following the premature failure of the Kosmos-2350 after only three months in orbit.[41] Although the situation has improved somewhat in the late 1990s, the satellite early warning network was still well short of its full potential. In the first half of 1999, SPRN's satellite fleet consisted of only three early warning satellites in high elliptical orbits (out of nine planned) and of only two satellites in geostationary orbit.

Link

Having reached near-complete coverage of Soviet borders by 1991, SPRN ground radar network suffered serious breaches in coverage following the fall of the Soviet Union which left many of the stations outside of Russia's national borders. The Russian government sought to rebuild the fragmented network. These efforts included the signing by CIS countries of the Agreement on Missile Warning and Space Monitoring Systems on 6 July 1992. However, only three out of nine SPRN stations remained on the territory of the Russian Federation. The early warning system's situation was further complicated by the CIS states' rejection of Russia's proposals to develop some sort of "dual-use" role for the stations and to use them in the interests of their host countries. Nearly all work on completing unfinished radars stopped.

The multilateral 1992 agreement was followed by bilateral negotiations between Russia and other CIS countries to further regulate the status of the early warning stations. These negotiations have had mixed results, and Russia's dependence on other CIS countries for operating ground-based early warning radars has introduced an additional element of uncertainty about the system's effectiveness. However, without the means to create a new network of radars based entirely on its own territory, Russia is left with no other option.

The results of Russia's efforts to preserve the early warning radar network varied from country to country. Although Russia and Latvia signed a lease agreement in 1994 on the Skrunda station, the agreement expired in August 1998 and the station's two Dnestr-M radars ceased operation at the end of the month and were dismantled by the end of October 1999. The unfinished Daryal-UM radar at Skrunda was dismantled even earlier, in 1995.

The SPRN stations' gradual obsolescence has also begun to threaten the system's effectiveness. This issue is especially relevant to the remaining older types of radars, such as the Dnepr and Dnestr-M stations.[11] Dnepr radars, in particular, exhausted their service lives in the mid-1990s, and aging has led to decreasing operational readiness and even occasional false signals.[3] By 1998, 48% of SPRN's ground systems had exhausted their nominal service lives.[39,40] Modernization of the aging radars, with the goal of extending their service life, has progressed slowly due to the low level of financing.

Link

Look, neither Russia nor the US can ‘win’ a full out nuclear exchange, both countries will be devastate to an unsustainable and unacceptable level. Neither country at the moment has a sufficient ABM capability to defend against full nuclear exchange. I don't even know why we are discussing this?

[edit on 14-5-2006 by WestPoint23]