If US or anyone fights Iran, the Russian new weapons will become battle tested

This thread has degenerated yet more into nothing remotely like the original topic Sheesh!! Everybody knows the Commies suck and the only ones still clinging to the belief that the old days were better are the deluded and the old Sovs that need the reinforcement of familiar times.

On topic- it doesn't matter what toys Iran gets from Russia or anybody. They don't possess the training on a scale remotely like any of the western powers or the tenacity of the IDF. Give 'em M-1s and F-15s against our M-1s and F-15 and we'll still beat 'em. Same goes for the IDF.

Originally posted by orangetom1999

Only SOME good points!!?

Vietnam was never about winning and I am begining to suspect that the same people who kept the Vietnam war going for buisness reasons are doing the same in Iraq/Afganistan and eventually other places. They have hijacked the war for their profit purposes.

Rumsfeld was VERY unhappy when Chief of staff Shinseki told them that he needed 300 - 400 thousand troops to ensure reconstruction and general order. They viciously attacked him the press and generally treated him and other senior officers rather badly.

Vietnam was about bringing a nation into the Twentieth Century in ten short years or less and then when the nations was sufficiently developed...and the oil discovered and capped off the nation was then ready to be put into storage. Yes you can put a nation into storage. You only have to make sure a Communist government is installed.

Few of the 'holding governments' ( i like the term and general idea ; not something i have considered in that way before) were in fact communist by almost any definition of that term. I am not sure how ten years of carpet bombing and burning villages and general genocide and mass murder can be called 'development'. As far as i can tell the Vietnamese were good old fashioned freedom fighters and were even kind enough to go help liberate their neighbours from US inspired terror in Cambodia. For their effort they were invaded by the Chinese which promptly gave up when they realised these people were for real and not interested in giving up their independence. Well that's the version of history i have arrived at and feel free to ( try) set me straight.

Communist Governments are excellent for keeping out competitors and at the same time making sure no unauthorized progress takes place. Communist nations are perfect for this role as certain progresses are impossible under such a controlling government. The same could be said for a Taliban type government. Certain progresses are impossible here too.

While i agree with the logic i think a huge amount of development took place in Russia even if it mostly went into military infrastructure people got schooled and learning institutions were constructed on a vast scale. I am still waiting for classical communism to pop up somewhere ( and not get bombed/assassinated into oblivion) so we can have a proper study of what is possible under 'ideal' circumstances. That all being said what you suggest is what normally gets done but in my knowledge normally by means of one reactionary dictators who are either allowed to model their countries in western interest or forced into 'austerity' spirals where whole countries are forced to consume their people and infrastructure in effort to escape sanctions and even more dire situations.

These types of Government would be perfect for Global buisnesses to put a whole nation into storage while at the same time keeping competitors out. They will replace the Communists in this role.

As above i have the the same ( minor) objections to this very well described 'game plan'.

Chairman Mao was perfect for keeping progress out of China and other competitors out...until the time for developement...then the ping pong team comes in and opens the doors...wola..progress happens and then you have Wal Mart. The epitome of civilized development. Next thing you know they will be moving up to the oriental equivalent of Hooters.

I think the starvation of the 60's were largely due to severe ( as far as i remember Mao's right hand man was the problem here serving the interest of his foreign masters) mismanagement due to some factions in the government and not Mao's express will or intent..... As far as my knowledge and investigation goes conditions for average people improved vastly, and almost consistently, since the second world and without those earlier efforts their apparent ( in western eyes anyways) quick rise to power would not have been at all possible. Ever since the 'free market' came to China the situation of the very poor have declined severely and while the group may be shrinking they are now facing disproportionate hardships , as under even Moa, as in so many other 'free market' slave states.

The trick is spotting the next development area..either for resources or Labor. The materials can be shipped anywhere in the world ..even the manufacturing plants can be shipped. The competition today is in Labor...cheap labor. Resources is a different problem ..by this I mean raw materials....though one could also look at cheap labor as a resource......ala...Mexico.

I could probably ramble on but i wont improve much on this summary. All i will say is that human negentropic ( ordering) energy is the final and ultimate resources and that's why the aim is always to control the labour time/energy of as many as you can ; that is imo the true intent of the rulers of the world.

Take a close look at the history ...you will see this fingerprint there in the background..behind several layers.

The USA has been one of the biggest supporters of the Soviet UNion....and kept them afloat several times when they would have gone under. Our US State Deparement is anything but Pro American.

Well i would say that the USA could have crushed the USSR for the few decades before and even one or two after the cold war had it's intent been to get rid of this force in the world. Since this force was created by wall street ( as was Nazi Germany ) the intent was obviously to control it but the lost control of Hitler in the late 30's and i am not sure how well they controlled Stalin

THey are pro Buisness and this often means getting in bed with nations which dont like us and would like to see us go down the tubes. The State Departmet going back to the days of Woodrow Wilson was always pro Communist...even in the days of FDR...unto today.

As far as i am concerned the people who run wall street ( and they have not been American for some decades now) are actively trying to destroy America as it's citizens enjoy far too many freedoms and are on the whole well enough armed to safeguard them. That will never be acceptable ( to those who seem to be making the decisions ) and America has been in economic and strategic influence since the mid 70's.

The point that so many people miss is that the history of the world is not written in the Wars ...which is the drivel one gets in the media and public education. THe history of the world is written in its buisness dealings..who is sleeping with whom and why.

While that may be true if one wants to discover who holds the power and how they exercise it i think the most overlooked aspect ( it's not covered at all really) is the common struggle of people world wide to resist what is so often imposed on them; the wars and general misery obviously serves as good evidence of how often we have failed...

I am speaking of Banks, Insurance companys, manufacturers, companys which harness the raw materials/resources, Transport them etc etc. These buisness dealings are what is really happening and govern the future of nations. Not the drivel which passes for news, information, and public education.
When you understand this type of concept and the portent of it ..it changes the way you look at governments, news and informations.

Sure does! While it may seem that i disagree with quite a few things you have said it is imo clarifications ( if i am right that is) NOT correction or general disagreement. I think you understand far more than even most here and i generally enjoy, and frequently learn, from your posts on a wide range of issues.

Keep up the valuable contributions!

Stellar

[edit on 23-10-2006 by StellarX]

Originally posted by Cruizer
This thread has degenerated yet more into nothing remotely like the original topic

Sheesh!! Everybody knows the Commies suck and the only ones still clinging to the belief that the old days were better are the deluded and the old Sovs that need the reinforcement of familiar times.

Talk about off topic! Why do you think they call what happened in the USSR "Stalinism" and not communism?

On topic- it doesn't matter what toys Iran gets from Russia or anybody. They don't possess the training on a scale remotely like any of the western powers or the tenacity of the IDF.

I think that's rather self evident!

Give 'em M-1s and F-15s against our M-1s and F-15 and we'll still beat 'em. Same goes for the IDF.

What do you think of the Iranian use of the American F-14's against Iraq?

Stellar

Well owning to the fact that literally all the US trained pilots and maintenaince personnel that knew the intricasies of the F-14 left when the iatollah came in they were handicapped severly. The planes had their weapons systems sabotaged by either departing Grumman techs or pro-Shah Iranian techs to not be able to fire missiles. With all the spares meant for Iran being never sent only a few planes at a time were ever in the air. Planes were canibalized to keep other flying. To say maintenaince was a problem was an understatement.

It's rather redundant to make any determinations as to any successes or failures of them in combat due to the hyperbole from both Iran and Iraq during that conflict. At any rate no US trained pilots were in the mix so it was more a case of dumb versus dumber. Vegas sure wouldn't want to give odds on Iranians in F-14s coming out on top of Israelis or Americans in F-15s today. They'd get creamed.

^^^ Absolutely correct. No more needed to be said, Steallarx's argument was pointless, but hey nothing new. His agenda is farely well known by now. Ladida

Originally posted by Cruizer
Well owning to the fact that literally all the US trained pilots and maintenaince personnel that knew the intricasies of the F-14 left when the iatollah came in they were handicapped severly.

And they never trained any Iranians? Interesting claim that and even if true it still rests on the belief in general American superior systems which others can simply not learn to maintain and operate. Or is this just blatant 'racism' ( even thought race is dumb concept to start with I'm guessing you believe in such things?)?

The planes had their weapons systems sabotaged by either departing Grumman techs or pro-Shah Iranian techs to not be able to fire missiles. With all the spares meant for Iran being never sent only a few planes at a time were ever in the air. Planes were canibalized to keep other flying. To say maintenaince was a problem was an understatement.

Basically you believe every conservative claim every made about F-14's in Iranian service it seems? This seems to be a trend with you and i am starting to think you are ever bit as old as you say you are! Is there opinions on military matters where you came to your own conclusion or do you just go by what's most commonly accepted?

It's rather redundant to make any determinations as to any successes or failures of them in combat due to the hyperbole from both Iran and Iraq during that conflict.

"It might be hard and since i did not investigate it must be impossible" type 'logic' i see you use so often.

At any rate no US trained pilots were in the mix so it was more a case of dumb versus dumber.

Since wars fought by other people are by their very nature amateur contests with people dying by accident or due to mismanagement and general ineptness? Just keep talking as this is a education of note.

Vegas sure wouldn't want to give odds on Iranians in F-14s coming out on top of Israelis or Americans in F-15s today. They'd get creamed.

Probably so but that does not mean you should know as little as you seem to....

www.acig.org...

home.att.net...

en.wikipedia.org...

www.amazon.com...

Once again it seems to me rather clear that your view of reality has very little to do with reality.

Stellar

A couple of the guys in the crew I am currently working in got their jobs because they were in the Civilian side of the F14 program by the manufacturers. When the F 14 program wound down they moved to other jobs in the Northrop Grumman company.
They worked at alot of Navy bases over the years where ever the F14s were assigned. The last one being Oceana in Virginia Beach. They tell me some intresting stories about the F14 aircraft.

The Iranian versions of the F14 are the A models..some of the first ones produced.
From what I have been given to understand ..even in the A model Iranian configuration the F14 was in performance and pilot training ahead of most of the aircraft in that area of the world. THe vendors may have clipped some of the electronic programs but even in the cannabalized state in which the Iranian Air Force was forced to fly them the reports are that when used they were quite effective and often the Iraqis learned to avoid them when they came into contact.
Alot of this info is pretty much kept out of the Amerinan news media for reasons of politics but can be found with enough searching. I know a bit about it because of contact with these gentlemen with whom I work.

Keep in mind now that from the A models the F14 has gone through alot of changes both in electronics and mechanically. Many upgrades..none of which the Iranians were privy.

Thanks,
Orangetom

My introduction to this line of thinking came from several directions but mostly it was a handful of books difficult to find.

The first was

"The Empire of the City" by E C Knuth.

In this book they describe the foreign policy of the mercantile association of England or the Crown and its machinations around the world up until WW2 and the Brenton Woods Agreement which laid the foundation for todays UN.

This Crown ( not the throne of England) had been dealing and double dealing for their banking and buisness intrests around the world ..even the Opium Wars were their dealings back into the 1800s and into the 1900s.

Of particular intrest to me was the mention of the Crowns dealings in using Muslim fundamentalism to further their intrests and keep the muslims disorganized or on their side when needed and then later thier enemys when needed

The Ottoman Problem is textbook of this kind of double dealing as time went along. Partner at one point and later enemy. A very similar fingerprint to what is happening to America today. One would be inclined to think the same people or decendents of the same people are running the same policys here in America.

It is my impression that the people who gained control of British buisness intrests and ran the British government for their uses...also got control of America sometime just before Teddy Roosevelt came to power. They may have been trying to get control of the American Government back during the American Civil war.

Teddy Roosevelt to me was clearly thier boy. With Teddy we suddenly found ourselves in a war with Spain and with control over the Phillipines in clear contradiction to the Monroe Doctrine. Also helping the British in China during the Boxer Rebellion. Another violation of the Monroe Doctrine. After that it didnt seem to matter.

I suspected this because the fingerprint over and over ..is that only Americans are stupid enough to go to war over and over and bring home no real spoils. YOu know ... "the Victors get the spoils." Since we obviously dont bring home any significant spoils or territories we are obviously the loosers and or are fighting these wars for someone elses spoils. Someone not seen..not known.
Only Americans can be this inherently dumb not to notice this fingerprint and keep sending thier finest blood off to someone elses wars...and continue on without hardly a ripple in thier system.

Dont misunderstand me Stellar X. I am as patriotic as the next Amereican but when you see this over and over...and realize it is not a new strategy you have to wonder how far back in history this kind of thing goes.
In my limited knowlege of history it goes back as far as Hannibal and the Romans battling at a place called Cannae. As I recall...the Romans lost some 90,000 men to Hannibals 25,000 at the end of the day. The surviving Romans ran back to Rome and declared before the Senate ..."you must grant us all power to save Rome from Hannibal." And they did. THis was a coup de etet. These dummies continued fighting Hannibal in Italy for some 20 years without victiory.
When it was time for Hannibal to leave Italy he got off the Italian Penensula with all his men..the Romans didnt even attack the last bunch. Obviously Hannibal was being sent out of Italy. But this is not how the history books read.

My question by observation is when did it happen here without the knowlege of most Amerians and without the knowlege of most of the Congress of the United States???

Mind you once again..I dont think this is just happening to America alone. I think there are other nations to which this has also happened. Russia is one of them.

Just a opinion..you dont have to buy into any of this. Most Americans would think I am nuts.

Is ignorance really bliss??

Thanks,
Orangetom

I can recall at work ..one of the guys in my crew at that time..was previously in the US Navy. What he told me floored me. I never made the connection until something else happened which was in the news media.

What he told me was that when the Vietnam war was over for us....at some point before official recognition and relations were normalized with North Vietnam..the US Navy had been pulling into ports in Vietnam to restock and resupply thier ships.
I was floored by this information. He told me they could go out on the pier but not able to walk around the countryside. North Vietnamese guards were all round with their guns but nothing happened. This ...he told me happened for many years before any kind of offical declaration of normal relations was released to the general American public. He was assigned at the time to a US Navy destroyer and had been there several times.

The other bit which seemed to confirm the truth of what this ex sailor told me ..was that then relations were normalized with Vietnam during the Clinton Administration....the very day when this information was announced...the news showed a fully functioning soft drink company in Vietnam. A Pepsi Cola company.
This company was operating in Vietnam all along ...war or not ...relations or not. Very intresting and telling.

What most Americans do not know is that Pepsi Cola is the only American soft drink company allowed to operate in Soviet Russia during the cold war days. Not Coca Cola. There are reasons for this but the point I am making is that Pepsi Cola has no problem working with Communist or any other governments. They are a type of Government to themselves. They are able to cross borders for which other companys have huge problems accomplishing. This is not information or a line of thought wont to be made public in the media or in public schools. I am sure there are other companys like this in existance. Perhapsed some of you know of others.

My other point is that these buisness arrangements are much more than the pubic is wont to know or understand. I get the impression that some of these buisnesses ..especially buisnesses working together are in fact a government.

Once again ..you folks dont have to buy into this one ...but it is food for thought. Remember ..when the wars are over and the dust dies down ..it is buisness as usual. Would we think it so strange to learn that the Generals of Buisness were running things all along. General Motors, General Foods, General Dynamics, and all the other Generals and Captains of industry.

Thanks,
Orangetom

Well orangetom it could be possible. I have to wonder why they never commenced any type of "trade" with Cuba. Being that there's no history of dead Americans in combat since Spanish American War like there is in Vietnam I find that curious too.

Originally posted by Cruizer
Well orangetom it could be possible. I have to wonder why they never commenced any type of "trade" with Cuba. Being that there's no history of dead Americans in combat since Spanish American War like there is in Vietnam I find that curious too.

I had not considered Cuba in that manner. Good point from which to consider Cruiser. I shall have to muse on that one awhile.

Thanks,
Orangetom

we are going to war in february, iran will strike the first blow we will be invading iran. it is over this gulf thing. ive seen it happen, these pictures, like a fast moving camera in my head. it is getting more intense now

i have once guess a whole stack of cards and the people i was with said i fixed it when i did not and asked him to write down anything, and he did, and i told him to show it to another and i repeated what was on the paper. he called me a --------, im not to say it on ats. i was not good lets put it that way

The fingerprint I notice Cruizer ..is that when the wars are over ..someone goes in to the war torn areas and gets the choice locations for manufacturing plants for pennies on the dollar. I call this urban renewal by "bombers" instead of bulldozers. Or perhapsed the bombers are in fact the buldozers used to establish the correct property values. Today it might be cruse missles.

The destitute labor force is there ...all you need is a few key people to know how the automation and key jobs on the assembly line work ..then you shovel the stuff in one end of the factory and the finished product is boxed up with your new cheap labor.
I have seen this kind of thing in Japan. In one end the stuff goes in ...somewhere on the assembly line the typewriters went two different directions ..one group packeged to Royal typewriter shipping boxed...the other assembly line going to Smith Corrola typewriter boxes. Another part of the assembly line instead of typewriters they made knitting machines. Most of the people on the line were just a little cog in the spokes of the big wheel of the plant.

Same thing in Germany after the war...new plants and equipment. All built with western loans.
It became ovbious to me Cruizer that the major stockholders of these companys were not Japanese or Germans. They took the Japanese and German Generals and Admirals out of jail because they were really people managers..exactly the skills they needed to keep a plant working and the countrys progressing.

So in my mind ..the countrys often seem to be a urban renewal project planned and carried out by someone to some conclusion.

Thanks,
Orangetom

Just going off on a tangent thats kind of relevant to this thread, I think that history books written one hundred years hence will say that WW!!! began with the first gulf war in '91, and continued with various key events and defining moments as the war ebbed and flowed over a 30 year or so period. It will go for another 20 years or so, and may end up fizzling out after a couple of climactic defining events, some of which may be upon us soon, unfortunately.

We're probably about half way through WW!!! now, and I do believe that terrorism will be yesterdays news and unheard of at some point in the near future. I think the Muslim world will tire of the Jihadist movement and the attrocities they committ and will cease to flock to join terror groups. Starved of oxygen, such groups will die.

As for Dubya, in about 50 years and after a period of Nixon-like historical revisionism he'll be cast as a Truman-like President who did things that were not understood at the time but are understood in hindsight and with new details coming to light that couldn't be released at the time. This new information will cast him in a new light.

[edit on 28-10-2006 by JamesinOz2]

Originally posted by JamesinOz2
Just going off on a tangent thats kind of relevant to this thread, I think that history books written one hundred years hence will say that WW!!! began with the first gulf war in '91,

Actually I think there is a greater chance that history will record another year for the start of WWIII 1979.

1979 Feb 11, Followers of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini seized power in Iran, nine days after the religious leader returned to his home country following 15 years of exile. Premier Bakhtiar resigned.

1979 Feb 14, Adolph Dubs, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, was kidnapped in Kabul by Muslim extremists and killed in a shootout between his abductors and police.

1979 Feb 14, Armed guerrillas attacked the U.S. embassy in Tehran.

1979 Mar 22, Israeli parliament approved a peace treaty with Egypt.

1979 Mar 26, The Camp David peace treaty was signed by Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat at the White House

1979 Jun 16, Moslem Brotherhood killed 62 sheiks in Aleppo, Syria

1979 Jun 28, OPEC raised oil prices 24%.

1979 Jul 16, Saddam Hussein succeeded Premier al-Bakr and became president of Iraq and chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC). He established a multilayered security system with 3-5 secret police units. He later put his son Qusai in charge of his 10,000 member Special Guards

1979 Sep 22, A 2-3 kiloton thermonuclear device was set off in the waters off Bouvet Island, a little-visited possession of Norway located between the bottom of South Africa and the Prince Astrid Coast of Antarctica. It was speculated to have been set off by either Israel, South Africa or Taiwan.

1979 Nov 4, The US Embassy was taken over by Iranian students and a hostage crisis began. 90 people, including 63 Americans, were taken hostage at the American embassy in Teheran, Iran, by militant student followers of Ayatollah Khomeini who demanded the return of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to Iran for trial. He was undergoing medical treatment in New York City. The students held 52 American hostages for 444 days, and were released on the day of the inauguration President Ronald Reagan, January 20, 1981.

1979 Nov 16, Some 200 armed men and women, Mahadists, seized the Grand Mosque in Mecca. They denounced the monarchy and demanded an end to corrupting modernization and "foreign ways." French special forces shot dead all the Wahhabi extremists.

1979 Nov 21, A mob attacked the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan, killing two Americans.

1979 Dec 2, Some 2,000 Libyans ransacked the US embassy at Tripoli, Libya, chanting support for the radical Islamic regime that took power in Iran earlier in the year.

1979 Dec 27, Soviet forces seized control of Afghanistan after a 2nd leftist coup. A Soviet backed coup ousted leftists and put a more pro-Moscow regime in power in Kabul. Babrak Karmal (1929-1996) became the new puppet leader and Soviet troops bolstered his rule against Muslim resistance fighters. Hafizullah Amin, who was overthrown and executed, was replaced by Babrak Karmal. Some 15,000 Soviet soldiers reportedly died along with 1 million Afghans.

1979 In Iran Germany began to build a 1,000-megawatt light-water nuclear reactor at Bushehr. Germany later abandoned the project and it was given over to Russia.

timelines.ws...

Pavil, I agree there will be disagreement as to a start date for WW111, however I suspect in 100 years that many historians will view the first Gulf War as a general starting point for this conflict, which will be defined by a series of inter-related but different events that eventually form a confluence that can be clearly identified as WW111.

Definately no defining start date and no treaty signing stop date, more a sputtering out as the Jihadist groups give up the ghost and terrorism becomes very yesterdays news and passe. Kind of like how we view those kooky European terrorists of the 1970's today - dated and yesterdays news.

[edit on 28-10-2006 by JamesinOz2]

Originally posted by Cruizer
Ok the bottom line is that if an Iraqi got a lucky hit on the F/A 18 it was just that- a fluke.

Well if you want to spent the time to prove that it was 'just a fluke' feel free but as far as i am concerned there is no evidence to suggest that Mig-25's can not in fact shoot down other planes when presented with the rare opportunities they are likely to get while in service with third world nations...

One kill don't make no air superiority or turn the tide of a battle. MiG 25s did not dominate the battle field in Iraq so I completely reject any portrayal of it as some super plane.

One kill or even a hundred would not have stopped the USAF and the Mig-25's clearly did not dominate the sky as much as survive a few skirmishes by simply out fleeing the enemy... That being said since when is that ability to flee at will a bad thing ever since we switched from dog fighters to sky assassins?

As for the quality and mission role of the MiG 25 anyone may believe what they wish.

I have certainly noticed you doing that, yes.

[quiote] As a writer of air combat accounts I have interviewed hundreds of aces and pertinemt personnel in conflicts from WW 2 on. I've sat with top Russian aces, German aces many American and British aces plus a couple Japanese aces. I interviewed Viktor Belenko long ago when he was present at a function in Southern California.

Sounds like you had thousands of opportunities to become better informed than you are; how did you avoid so much knowledge?

Throwing statistics produced by propaganda-driven states falls short when compared with accounts from the individuals who were participants in history.

Individual accounts of history is certainly wonderful but then again people are people and people create their own realities. If you do not actually have material you can post ( i am sure many or most of those interviews are somewhere online or in books; that's certainly true for second world war aces) that disputes my 'propaganda' in a way that everyone can evaluate in their own way there hardly is any point in loudly claiming that i am 'wrong', somehow.

Belenko was straight forward about the good and poor points of the Foxbat. "It was a remarkably easy to maintain plane with thought given for normal servicing simplicity. The cockpit was well laid out and visibility was decent. It had a good auto-pilot too."

Well some things are so straight forward that you can not lie about them but i do not consider Belenko a specifically trustworthy individual considering his defection with plane and all. He could have ditched the plane and saved his own skin but instead he chose to compromise technology only to further his own retirement plans. Can't keep your wife happy so you defect to the west? I am sorry but i believe what the manuals say and not what Belenko decided to make of it.

"1st you must realize that we truly believed the B-70 was coming along.

The royal 'we' huh? Surprised this was public enough knowledge to tell everyone in the Soviet air force even thought the manufacturer and other high ranking officials denying it.

Hell, it was being publicly test flown for just that effect. The political officer showed us films of it flying. We knew the SR-71 was flying because they tracked it on radar every time it was in range."

The Sr-71 would not have been a threat had it carried weapons as it's airframe would probably have have taken the strain as it was.

They acknowledge that it was a real and present threat and that the B-70 would outclass everything they had.

Back in the 60's there were plenty of US weapons that outclassed what the USSR had and they did not need the B-70 or anything flying at Mach 3 to further increase their strategic superiority...

They were actually of the belief that the SR-71 was watching them day and night. The paranoia ran deep. The B-70 pre-dated the SR-71 with information leaked to the Soviets in 1960, a time before the Blackbird was for real. So of course the B-70 was a threat. It wasn't cancelled until 1967, long after the MiG 25 was flying.

Once again even thought it's tracked on radar and both sides have recon sats they were 'paranoid' about the SR-71? Paranoid about the large scale deployment of nuclear weapons by NATO in Europe but paranoid about a unarmed spy plane that can't change altitude or course very fast for fear of breaking apart? The more i read of Belenko the more sycophantic he seems in his declarations of everything Mig-25 related being crap. As if the CIA needed encouragement to underestimate Soviet potential....

The political officers told the pilots that they didn't believe the B-70 was cancelled. It had to be some sort of ruse because just because one crashed in testing wouldn't be reason enough to abandon it and the Americn capitalists had plenty of money to fund building them.

Which i guess is true since the B-58's crashed in bunches regularly incinerating crews as i understand. I think there is probably evidence enough that a Mach 3 bomber would not only suck up large amounts of resources for little throw weight but that it would have been completely dumb as terror weapon against the third world which was fast becoming the true aim of the American armed forces. That being said there were hardly a need for another supersonic bomber considering NATO forward bases ringing the USSR.

The MiG 25 was a throw-together crate cobbled up out of the desperation of OUR Cold War propaganda.

While i understand where that idea comes from it's relatively well know that the USSR had completely penetrated western intelligence services ( allowed to do so imo) at the time and had a relatively good idea of what was in fact going on. The reality is that they needed a fast as hell point defense fighter if not against the B-58 ( which could have gone into mass production or stayed in service for decades more) then against the F-111 and other high speed strike bombers able to penetrate at Mach 2.5. The reality is that the USSR needed a very high speed interceptor independent of US moves to Mach 3 capable bombers even if the spectre of if may have contributed in part to the 'rush' ( which is hard to establish considering the time it actually took to develop the plane) when i came to engine choice. As my earlier post indicates there is good evidence to suggest that similar feats are not expected of any or many modern interceptors...

The USSR and the USA swallowed each others propaganda! No MiG 25 was supposed to fly at Mach 2.5 and do 5 G manuevers and neither was any American ship.

More willingly than not depending mostly on political choices and not strategic misconceptions on the whole. There would not have been a plane in the sky at the time that would require of the Mig-25 5 G maneuvering to intercept ( the Mach 3 bombers would certainly not have been able to unless you believe in alien alloys) but yet it could do just that and keep flying.

I can tell you without doubt that Duke Cunningham and Steve Ritchie both manuevered against MiGs at that rate of G and more- not at Mach 2, of course!

And as my earlier sources indicates there are still not any such planes ( secret projects and anti grav- alien- ships apart) that can rival what the Mig-25 can do at Mach 2 or even 2.5.

Point is the MiG 25 was prohibited from the aforementioned Mach numbers at any speed!

In peace time they were not supposed to do much over 2 g's AT MACH 2.5 but the fact is they did sometimes and landed safely.

Viktor related the stories that led to those prohibitions that never made the western news. Lots of MiG 25 jocks cashed in their chips thinking they could throw their crate around like it was a MiG 17.

The Mig-25 was not meant to be flown like a Mig-17 or 21' and there were relatively few accidents compared the technological leap. The Mach 2.2 'limit' was a peace time measure so as to not expose a expensive airframe to undue stress but when taken in perspective it was overly restrictive mostly indicating the fact that the planes were prized for their strategic deterrence value. There is no need to train for high G maneuvering ( especially not when you are a experienced pilot that have had extensive training in other aircraft) while in a expensive interceptor airframe.

"If the tanks are full there was so much weight in the wings that they would tear off if you manuevered above 2.2"

And we can be quite sure that mister Belenko did have first hand experience of this? As the sources said the 2.2 was just a peacetime measure and had nothing to do with what it could pull when world war three broke out.

During training and familiarization the Sovs drove the pilots 12 hours a day 7 days a week in some misguided effort to make them "magically become proficient." "The MiG 25 is an unforgiving aircraft and many pilots lost their lives too from being too tired to compensate for its idiosyncracies."

I don't even know where you come up with this stuff?? The pilots were all selected for the aircraft and were all experienced in their own right and were NOT dangerous to fly compared to what they were used to.

He had been an instructor in MiG 17s and SU 19s and thouroughly familiar with the 25.

If that's true then he clearly chose to lie about the Mig-25 performance capabilities and the did not get to fly the plane after all so they had viktor's word to go on and he would apparently say anything to be the bearer of good news and not bad.

When I met him he had already been exposed to F-14s, 15, and 16s in ride-alongs. He was blown away by their abject superiority in electronic, fire control, armament and navagational systems that completely eclipsed anything he'd ever seen. Technically he was never supposed to have hands on stick but....

All which becomes possible if you just ignore EMP effects and hope that nuclear weapons do not go off near your aircraft or air base. Soviet aircraft were built to fight in a nuclear environment while US aircraft simply would not be able. You can have all the advantages in the world but if they have nothing to do with how the plane will be operated what is the point? American equipment are well made to terrorize third world nations and fighting conventional wars but that is it and that would not have been enough had a actual world war broken out.

As for pure dash speed the MiG 25 that raced over Israel from Egypt in 1973 at Mach 3.2 led the Americans to believe that this was its normal operation speed.

Only those who wanted to believe.

"Nothing was farther from the truth. We were warned to never exceed Mach 2.5.

In peace time control become hard after 2.5 and almost impossible above 2.8 which obviously does not mean that they would not have been used as one shot weapons in opening stages of a nuclear war.

EVERY time it flew that fast (Mach 2.8+) the engines overheat and burn up. You (the Americans) didn't realize that every time a MiG flew that fast the engines were ruined and the pilot was lucky to land in one piece!"

What do you mean lucky to land in one piece? The USSR did not provide parachutes or train their pilots how to land?

"In interception excercises the poor range limited our take off for intercept so severely that it was a coin throw if we could reach altitude, simulate missile firing and make it back to land.

It could gain altitude and fly out to a range of nearly 300 km's as fast as it's engines allowed for ( meaning Mach 2.5). At economy cruise ( mach 0.80 i believe) speed it could fly out to 500- 600 km AT SEA LEVEL ( show me another plane of it's size and era that can do that) and at best altitude and just supersonic the range was around 600 -700 km. As far as my knowledge goes few operational planes at the time or even now beats any of those numbers by significant margins but since i am not expert feel free to correct me.

Sadly, some pilots did not make it. We would have had to wait for an enemy to be nearly overhead before we took off to ensure our ability to return to base.

22% of the B-58 hustlers that were built were lost in accidents ( some 30 aircraft) and compared to that they had few accidents so why pretend otherwise? If by overhead to intercept you mean 300 - 700 km i guess that's true. To suggest that they had to wait for the enemy bombers to get within miles of the airbase before take off is just a bald faced lie and if Belenko said that he was clearly as drugged as the Soviet negotiators said he was.

It would have been a true gamble if a wing of B-70 appeared near our base.

Appeared, as if by magic? Since when were the B-70's super stealth bombers and since when were they actually built?

Certainly we could not have intercepted them all.

The allies did manage to lose over just over 20 000 heavy bombers over Germany in the second world war so i suppose if they built them in that numbers the Soviet air defenses would have been completely overcome...... Who suggested that you must intercept all enemy bombers instead of a few or as many as you can?

A few minor course corrections and the use of afterburner and we would have the red fuel warning light before we were even set up to shoot."

Course corrections would obviously have been really important against subsonic B-52's which was the main opposing strategic bomber force... Can you show me documents where he actually said this as it's just completely unbelievable when one looks at what can be found on the Internet? Since when did the USSR/Russia take over the Internet and change all the data or convinced all western sources to deliberately inflate the performance margins of the Mig-25 by 1000% in terms of range? I find what you say completely unbelievable and there is NOTHING in defense documents that validates this claim as even a opinion.

"You know when I escaped I flew out of Chuguyevka with full tanks- 14 tons of fuel- and used all but about 50 US gallons in just 500 miles! And this was sweating out a best-economy mode. Unlimited afterburner use needed for an intercept restricted us to no more than 300 kilometers( 186 miles) radius."

He was sweating at best economy at near tree top level probably not flying as direct a route as he could have at higher altitude. 500 miles is still close to 800 km and that's 350 km range at sea level in deep penetrating strikes; not bad imo considering it's high level performance and normal operating height. Unlimited afterburner for 300 km run is NOT BAD; show me a western fighter now in service that can reach it's operating altitude in two minutes and then fly out to 300 KM with four missiles at Mach 2.5 and i show you a Mig-25 with a NATO paint scheme.

So what eventual modifications and/or improvement came in the way of missiles later, as of 1976 the MiG 25 could not have intercepted the SR-71

We just know for sure that the US never attempted deep overflights of the USSR while the Mig-25 was in service so imo that should be considered as evidence that not everyone shared your opinion of the SR-71's invulnerability to Sa-5's or Mig-25's.

and it would have been a crap shoot to destroy a wing of B-70s at 80,000 feet.

That's why they operated many hundreds of nuclear tipped Sa-5's with Mig 25''s either as point defense weapons to shoot down remaining bombers or herders to make sure the bombers went where they were most vulnerable to S2A fire.

The hoopla and propaganda of how good the MiG 25 was always came from the press once Belenko had educated our misguided military analists.

And you think you can trust the Military analyst who kept on building big targets in the form of aircraft carriers? I do not have much good to say about industry controlled press but they do occasionally tell the truth and in this case i have not found much to dispute very many of the claims made in respect to the Mig-25 post Belenko defection.

After 1976 every guy that went through training knew what to expect from the Foxbat.

Like training really prepares one for everything you face in combat.

He insisted the MiG was not a fighter and not an air superiority plane. It was an interceptor, nothing more.

With performance capabilities that rivals many air superiority fighters.

"It did that job reasonable well but it would be virtually helpless against even the F-4.

If you let a F-4 intercept get within firing range you obviously deserve what you get.

" Viktor ended our interview with- "No F-14, F-15 or F-16 pilot need fear the MiG 25.

Fear profits no man anyways and there is no reason to suggest that any of those planes are inferior in overall capability in a conventional war against conventional enemies in the ME. The USSR had a massive and integrated air defense system with thousands of radars and thousands of air defense missiles and thousands of interceptor aircraft and comparing the individual merit ( even thought it does not seem inferior by any wide margin if at all) of the plane as if it would fight in a strategic and tactical vacuum is just hot air from someone who never went beyond talking about individual aircraft going up 'one against one' in some kind of medieval non -sensical joust.

Every system and countermeasure they have is superior to the equal ones of the MiG. Any fighter pilot shot down by a MiG 25 would be either unlucky or asleep."

Well that then becomes a question of which are superior and which are inferior and how much it matters in the Soviet doctrinal employment of the platform. I dont disagree but for him to come the conclusion he did based on what he said just tells me that the conclusion was rather more important than the qualifications.

I believe you should try discover how aircraft fits into the USSR's war fighting doctrine as you seem to under the impression that they were supposed to gain air supremacy without any support and fighting on a equal numerical basis. Soviet ground forces were simply not as dependent on strike aircraft ( SP artillery is cheaper after all) as was the NATO forces and their air superiority fighters would not have been burdened by serving as escorts for strike aircraft and would have thus have gained the initiative that is so important in fighter ( and almost all other types) combat. Western fighters in fact were not imo superior to the degree that it would have required to gain superiority over the dense Soviet AA forces ( thus preventing Soviet strike aircraft from swarming to support penetrations) and support their own strike aircraft against Soviet interceptors, operating over well defended airspace, as well as being able to protect airfields and and ward of massed fighter sweeps.

If the nukes start going off the NATO air forces are obviously as good as written off considering the limited air bases and hardening against EMP effects.

Stellar

Originally posted by JamesinOz2
Just going off on a tangent thats kind of relevant to this thread, I think that history books written one hundred years hence will say that WW!!! began with the first gulf war in '91,

We're probably about half way through WW!!! now

small typo correction to my above post: WW!!! should of course read WWIII