Tu-160 "White Swan"

The job of a plane and the pilots is to fly, not sit around on an airfield and wait for something. Also the Tu-160 is back in production.

Isos wrote:With only around 15 tu-160 in service they shouldn't send them around the world and risk losing them.

In that case Russia risk using experience of using them up to that point and from that point risk loosing all the new tactics it will develop while using them all the time.

Planes are replaceable but pilot operational experience and his training in using them are not and when the point in time comes that requires their experience and tactics you will have the planes and no one to use them.

Isos wrote:With only around 15 tu-160 in service they shouldn't send them around the world and risk losing them.

Doesn't stop US with only 21 B-2 from sending them to the U.K.  

https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2019/08/27/b-2-stealth-bombers-deploy-to-europe/

Hole wrote:21.10.2019 (19:52)
The Russian Aerospace Forces air group consisting of two Tu-160 strategic missile carriers, Il-62 and An-124 Ruslan military transport aircraft will visit the Republic of South Africa

Bad news for the RN on & around the Falklands! If Russia decides to help Argentina, the UK will have more trouble defending them.

Power projection?

The US has carriers and Russia has Tu-160s. Similar numbers too

ult wrote:

Isos wrote:With only around 15 tu-160 in service they shouldn't send them around the world and risk losing them.

Doesn't stop US with only 21 B-2 from sending them to the U.K.  

https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2019/08/27/b-2-stealth-bombers-deploy-to-europe/

It's an operational deployement in a friendly country. Tupolevs trip will be for useless diplomacy (not like they would sell any tupolev to South Africa nor would they make a military alliance with them).

Those tu-160 will fly in the south hemisphere where there are few airports that can hadlle them in case of emergency landing and I wouldn't trust the countries for giving it back if it happens.


I remember an accident when a chinese fighter collided with a US P-3 (or another maritime surveillance plane) and the US plane had to land in China. It was returned into pieces ...

Tsavo Lion wrote:

Hole wrote:21.10.2019 (19:52)
The Russian Aerospace Forces air group consisting of two Tu-160 strategic missile carriers, Il-62 and An-124 Ruslan military transport aircraft will visit the Republic of South Africa

Bad news for the RN on & around the Falklands! If Russia decides to help Argentina, the UK will have more trouble defending them.

It's south Africa not south america.

In that case Russia risk using experience of using them up to that point and from that point risk loosing all the new tactics it will develop while using them all the time.

Planes are replaceable but pilot operational experience and his training in using them are not and when the point in time comes that requires their experience and tactics you will have the planes and no one to use them.

African airspace has no value for tu-160 pilots. Their main mission is to launched nuclear missile 2000km away from the country being targeted. All the potential countries that they would target are Europeans, China, US and Israel. Training around and in Russia is enough.

They weren't in a position to do otherwise... but with Brexit and the terrible state of the british navy... would it be able to defend the Falklands again?

Boris might use it as a unifying moment to cement his position in power, or he might be the one in charge when they lose the Malvinas.

Both countries could probably do with a win like this to boost morale in their countries respectively... and the seriously Russophobic British would become an easy target for Russian trolling... perhaps Argentina might want to lease some Su-24s with upgrades and some Su-35s to support them... they could test the new RVV-BD missiles for instance...

It's south Africa not south america.

from there, armed with LR AShMs, they could effectively close the S. Atlantic/Indian Ocean to British/US shipping to/from the Falklands & Australia/NZ.
Tu-160s in Cuba/Venezuela could also prevent them from using the Panama Canal to go around the Cape Horn.

Arrival.

Tsavo Lion wrote:

It's south Africa not south america.

from there, armed with LR AShMs, they could effectively close the S. Atlantic/Indian Ocean to British/US shipping to/from the Falklands & Australia/NZ.
Tu-160s in Cuba/Venezuela could also prevent them from using the Panama Canal to go around the Cape Horn.

What are you smocking ? South Africa is full of british poeple. They would destroy any russian plane on the land if it tries to target british assets.

You can't close half of the world to US and british with 2 tu-160. Get realistic a little bit.

What are you smocking ? South Africa is full of british poeple. They would destroy any russian plane on the land if it tries to target british assets.

so is Argentina, but they didn't aid the UK in 1982. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Argentines

They could send more than 2 + a dozen Tu-95/142s & fighter/support aircraft. Videos:
https://iz.ru/935519/2019-10-23/opublikovano-video-dozapravki-tu-160-po-puti-v-iuar

There would not be much value in basing a White Swan all the way down there, but in terms of impressing the locals with an aircraft they would otherwise never get a chance to see up close, and to talk cooperation and trade and military deals it is a very good ice breaker and conversation starter.

They r conducting familiarization flights via Iran, over the Arabian Sea & Indian Ocean, in case they r needed there later, besides the White Swan diplomacy.
It will take a long time to sail Poseidons there from Kola & Kamchatka!

Isos wrote:

Tsavo Lion wrote:

It's south Africa not south america.

from there, armed with LR AShMs, they could effectively close the S. Atlantic/Indian Ocean to British/US shipping to/from the Falklands & Australia/NZ.
Tu-160s in Cuba/Venezuela could also prevent them from using the Panama Canal to go around the Cape Horn.

What are you smocking ? South Africa is full of british poeple. They would destroy any russian plane on the land if it tries to target british assets.

You can't close half of the world to US and british with 2 tu-160. Get realistic a little bit.

I'm sorry, I don't understand what you mean by British People would destroy any Russian plane if targeted British assets, I'm a South African, and I know for a fact us engelsmanne are nowhere near that organized, most of us don't care about England anyway.

It's good to see these TU-160's here, Pretoria and Johannesburg are extremely high in altitude and hot climates,so this would be a good chance to test the TU-160's in these conditions.

https://mobile.twitter.com/krakek1/status/1176499165133770753


Nice thread with pictures about a supersonic missile called meteorit and launched by soviet union. It seems there were some 60 tests. The missile could fly around 3000km. Kh-55 was a temporary solution. Its rcs was reduced to 10 db which isn't stealth at all but it had a towed decoy. Anyway a supersonic missile was totally safe from nato defences back in the days and even today they would have hard time intercepting it.

we all knew Tu-160 can do it and now it happened  

Tu-160 outrun F-35 (with ease so it seems )

Fast and the Furious, Japanese drift: "Outdated" Tu-160 overtook American fighters
https://tsargrad.tv/news/trojnoj-forsazh-japonskij-drift-ustarevshie-tu-160-obognali-amerikanskie-istrebiteli_225037

The amusing thing is that they would even struggle with the Bear let alone Backfire or Blackjack... the F-35 is effectively a subsonic aircraft because the time needed in straight level flight in full AB will dramatically reduce its effective interception range...

New reports suggest that full AB is not very likely. Overheating of the tail structure!

God, the inanity. The flight characteristics of the Tu-160 are not outdated. In fact, the F-35 with its load of contradictory
parameters including stealth, has sub-par flight characteristics. Recall that the F-117A was a flying coffin because its designers
chose to make it as stealthy as possible. This necessitated computer assistance to the pilots and even that did not make the
aerodynamics of this POS good enough.

We see here the clear progression of "moron disease" in the west. Some two bit jets with half the range of the F-18, decided
to take on a strategic supersonic bomber with designed features well above of the interceptors. There is the expected
moron surprise that the Tu-16 could easily outrun the interceptors.

Hahahaha... you made a typo there but the amusing thing is that you are probably still right... the F-35 would probably struggle to catch Tu-16s as used by the Chinese too...

The F-35 neither has the flight range nor the speed to be a useful interceptor, yet in replacing the F-16 and F-18 and in some cases the F-15 that is exactly what it needs to be able to do.

The problem is that the conflicting requirements to carry internal weapons makes the aircraft a flying brick... and this is what I have been talking about regarding the PAKDA being a flying wing but also being able to supercruise being useful when the next gen western interceptor will be transonic at best most of the time.

Of course the ability to supercruise for the PAK DA will be improved by it being a low drag flying wing design, but then made much more difficult because to be a strategic range flying wing it wont be slim like the S-70... it will need to be quite chunky to carry all that fuel and that internal heavy payload to strategic ranges so supercruising would be rather less likely unless they really go overboard in terms of engine power... and why would they... who needs high speed when they already have White Swans?

Source: the first modernized Tu-160M ​​passed for testing

MOSCOW, Nov 28 - RIA News. The first modernized Tu-160M bomber was handed over to the flight test station for ground and flight tests, a source in the Russian military-industrial complex told RIA Novosti on Thursday.
"On November 28, the first deeply modernized strategic missile carrier bomber Tu-160M ​​was transferred from production departments to the flight test station KAZ named after SP Gorbunov to work out the stage of factory ground and flight tests," the agency’s interlocutor said.

According to him, after the completion of ground tests, the Tu-160M ​​will be transferred to the flight test phase.

https://ria.ru/20191128/1561694119.html