Russian Bears, Blackjacks, Backfires & other bombers
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- #22
where? what part of the engine housing shows any sign of LO management?
what's faceted on the inlets?
whats blended on the housings?
where's there any evidence of signature ramps?
where on any part of the fuselage or on the wing tips is there any sign of sig management modifications
the cockpit isn't even gold tinted for signature reflection management.....
where is there any evidence of 1st. 2nd or 3rd generation signature management techniques applied to a legacy platform?
So are B-52's, F4's and Martin B-57's - so whats your point?
The point is, that with its tremendous endurance, the Bear Tu-142 is one of the most impressive maritime patrol aircraft ever built. Capable of carrying a 25000lb payload to a radius of 4600 miles at a speed of 550 knots, the Bear can run lengthy ASW patrols at a great distance from its base, and carries enough weaponry for multiple engagements
Apart from the strawman response, what evidence have you got? The B-52 has already been around longer than the Bear and has another 30 years of upgrades projected.
Why is a very good design? In what battlespace is it competitive?
Utility is directly linked to threat environment. Outside of that its a meaningless and vacuous statement.
No. and again.
Utility is directly linked to threat environment. Outside of that its a meaningless and vacuous statement.
It was useless as an ASW asset and in a contemp more managed environment is even less useful now.
Loadout is a subset of the repeated comment made earlier. What advantages does it provide in a modern contested battlespace?
Just because a plane looks good with all the salad hanging off if it doesn't mean zip if its in contested battlespace unsympathetic to its own capability.
Plane capability is more than pictures, stats and article cut and pastes.
As the rec version is my favorite, i'll stick to that one.
1) It has longer endurance then any other i know of, and also longer range, and relatively fast,
hence why i like it to accompany a battlegroup in large bodies of water.
Far away from an airbase, it has little need of refuling. In fact, when the distance is too great,
its the only option unless you have a carrier and a few hawkeyes. Russia dont have hawkeyes, and AEW helos is a really poor excuse.
2) I simply assume its turboprops needs less maintenance then a jet,
while at the same time consume less fuel, and still is faster then a sentry.
3) It cost $ 30 mil, if i remember correctly, thats cheap for its usefulness.
I dont doubt Orion has much better signal processing, i am talking about the aircraft,
and the Bear could carry that set of sensors and computers farther away, quicker,
and stay and search/patrol for a longer period of time.
With such a range, it can fly a wide circle around hostile radar before heading to its patrol area,
a plane with half the radius cant afford that. So i think it is more survivable.
It is also fast enough to have a decent chance to outrun an incoming fighter.
1) It has longer endurance then any other i know of, and also longer range, and relatively fast,
hence why i like it to accompany a battlegroup in large bodies of water.
Far away from an airbase, it has little need of refuling. In fact, when the distance is too great,
its the only option unless you have a carrier and a few hawkeyes. Russia dont have hawkeyes, and AEW helos is a really poor excuse.
2) I simply assume its turboprops needs less maintenance then a jet,
while at the same time consume less fuel, and still is faster then a sentry.
3) It cost $ 30 mil, if i remember correctly, thats cheap for its usefulness.
I dont doubt Orion has much better signal processing, i am talking about the aircraft,
and the Bear could carry that set of sensors and computers farther away, quicker,
and stay and search/patrol for a longer period of time.
With such a range, it can fly a wide circle around hostile radar before heading to its patrol area,
a plane with half the radius cant afford that. So i think it is more survivable.
It is also fast enough to have a decent chance to outrun an incoming fighter.
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It's a combat weapon system/platform, not a car. It's utility is directly related to its effectiveness in a battlespace.
It doesn't matter how much it can carry
It doesn't matter far it's range
it's persistence becomes irrelevant if it cannot survive efficiently in its likely environment of threat.
effectiveness is not measured by simplistic use of stats - and ASW is not measured by range and speed. the impliction of speed to target and range denotes a lack of coverage in the first place. eg, count up all the Orions the USN had in it's day, and add in the Trackers or Vikings. It's efficiency and utility of the asset in the battlespace and likely operational area.
and it did not carry an equivalent sensor suite, the onboard acoustic environment for a Bear compared to an Orion is vastly different - and we're not even beginning to venture into the effectiveness of that sensor suite.
why do you think Russian aviation ASW/maritime tactics involved "beating the bushes"?? that alone should tell you how confident they were of the effectiveness of their ASW systems.
The effectiveness of the Bears fails all of the useful battlespace empiricals. How nice it looks and how impressive stats are in isolation of reality has got nothing to do with battle or platform competency when measured against numerous variables that count. Photgenics isn't one of them.
I realized what you were asking:
a plane with half the radius cant afford that. So i think it is more survivable.
It is also fast enough to have a decent chance to outrun an incoming fighter.
More specifically i imagine a Russian battlegroup in GIUK, and the need to make a circle around northern Norway.
Pacifics wast area would of cource also be an ideal place for the Tu 95 rec
With such a range, it can fly a wide circle around hostile radar before heading to its patrol area,
a plane with half the radius cant afford that. So i think it is more survivable.
It is also fast enough to have a decent chance to outrun an incoming fighter.
More specifically i imagine a Russian battlegroup in GIUK, and the need to make a circle around northern Norway.
Pacifics wast area would of cource also be an ideal place for the Tu 95 rec
How is it going to outrange (eg) sea based X band which has 3-4 times it's range?
It's sensor range has to be useful within its operating environment.
Who had ASW dominance in the cold war?
Numbers = overlap
Numbers = saturation
Numbers = endurance
Numbers = less crew fatigue
Numbers = easier maintenance
In ASW aviation the russians had and have none of that
Mach 1.5+ fighter + Mach 4+ missile. Missile turns at Mach 35. I know where I'd put my money....
How? The reality is that NATO STANAVORLANT dominated the GUK completely. History beats theory hands down....
How and where? The threat corridors of importance are covered by X band and other OTHR systems.
The Bear was an irritant then - and an irritant threat for some navies in the PACRIM now - but in the main? I'd be putting my money on 3-4 sophisticated militaries in that region being able to neutralise what is a legacy item of the 1950's intercontinental piston era fairly quickly.
Single platform persistence was identified by the Soviets as a weakness, thats why they developed "Beating the Bushes" - BtB was also an abject compromise.
The US regarded them as such a minor threat that they killed off all long range air to air intercontinental missile development. In the current climate, how long do you think that it would last against an SM3 attack by an asset that outranges it in sensor and strike capability?
It's about systems - not platforms in isolation - and that platform is of limited value even before you try to make it fit in a strike SOP.
Like battleships, it's a relic of a bygone era - and its madness to use it in contemp warfare.
anyway, I'm not going to continue to debate this when the basics are not understood - we've been through this type of exercise on another thread (keeping the battleships alive as 21st Century arsenal ships)
An impressive plane? Yes, for its day. Not today.
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- #33
Well, the B-52s have 8 old fuel-inefficient engines, and will have to be re-engined or start flying on expensive synthetic fuel, not to mention airframes that are older than the most of their pilots! While Russia just resumed Bears' long-range flights, the USAF used its B-52s in every war/campaign it participated in since the early 1990s!
As for the Bears' utility, they can also lay minefields- those are no less lethal than missiles & torpedoes!
As for the Bears' utility, they can also lay minefields- those are no less lethal than missiles & torpedoes!
For goodness sake, how many times do we have to go through this?
You cannot just look at raw stats and extrapolate a mythical capability.
The B-52's don't need to be re-engined - the re-enginering program was regarded as a WOFTAM. There's a mule sitting in Davis Monthan as a legacy to that idea. The US found other priorities. SynFuel is a prog that has other long term targets - and the Strat fixed wing bomber fleet is not one of them - esp legacy intercontinental aircraft where the absolute strike mission is more effectively served by other assets.
Similarly the B-52 was also a minelayer - it did it during the Vietnam War. I was also used as a testbed for long range anti-shipping and for standoff. It's also able to deploy torepdoes - esp the wing kit long range torepdoes. Currently it's delivering SDB's.
But. SO WHAT Even though it's able to undertake a variety of missions and is expected to stay in service for another 40 years that will be determined by it's relevance in a likley theatre of operation.
Latency (which is the mantra implied by all those who lust in quoting stats and pasting pictures) has to be mneasured against requirement and battlespace relevance.
The Bear, as good as it was for the Soviets in it's day - is not going to survive in contemp contested battlespace against a competent enemy.
You can quoye stats, facts and figures all day - but when measured against those empiricals that actually count in the real world - it's a flying coffin.
Sure it can survive in a low grade threat environment - but that counts out all of the sophisticated opponents that it could theoretically be fielded against.
Can you not just respond by cutting and pasting trinkets of selective and ultimately useless information and present them as some force of evidence of technical counter claims? It becomes frustrating and does nothing to support a vehicle of debate. If you are going to cut and paste stats then at least make the effort to understand them in context and then apply them to the fundamentals of contemp requirement, contemp survivability, contemp battlespace and likely contemp OPFOR
Realistically the same for the B-52 of course. That's why they're used for carpet-bombing Afghanistan (when you're out of B-1B to do that job), not for the first-wave strikes of the Iraq invasion.
The Bear would be just as useful for such uncontested sorties.
The Tu-142 MPA version however, seriously, is only good for long-range pollution control, fishery overwatch, or non-stealthy surveillance (ie if you want to be seen/heard) these days.
Might actually be worth it for some NGOs or supranational agencies (eg Antarctic research, South Pacific observation) to look into acquiring a handful or so, if they could get any cheap with low hours and a lot of spares.
Agreed, and thats why my response has been carefully worded about contemp contested battlespace Bear in mind (NPI) that the US has a far more mature systems package that they can also fall back on at a package level. B-52's can still be used at a package level
Agreed
Exactly, again, refer to the careful wording within my prev replies
Cost and frequency of spares would be an issue..... There are far better solutions avail in my view. In fact an interncontinental or transnational ranged UAV with current SAR suites will cover 5 times as much space for longer hours and with less crew side effects.
Thats why BAMS technology is focused on UAV's rather than manned solutions. The costs for the type of work achieved are better served with UAV's. An armed Bear is useful against a relatively unsophisticated opponent.
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- #37
Excuse me, but by the same measure, strategic/MPA Bears can also be used in a package, together with fighters, AWACS, tankers, and more modern Su-34s, Blackjacks & Backfires. Thanks to their range, they may get into positions to attack multiple targets before they are themselves can be attacked. Otherwise, why keep them in the RN/AF & Indian AF? Are the USAF/N's B-1s/52s/P-3/8s more survivable?!
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It's not your job to tell when someone has to qualify their argument.
Feanor repeatedly makes the effort to conduct himself appropriately in here with meaningful debate. His history of posting demonstrates that he can comment about platforms, systems and how doctrine is employed.
OTOH, there are others in here that revert to cut and paste, demonstrate NO KNOWLEDGE of basic doctrinal concepts and systems limitations, and only respond to others buy reflex. (ie they have demonstrated a complete inability to demonstrate inciteful and considered commentary), they expect a cut and paste and throw away lines to qualify as considered coherent debate.
I and some of the other Super-Mods are not prepared to have these topics degrade into another contest of fact scraping arguments presented as a vehicle of debate and with NO DEMONSTRATION within the history of responses as understanding the basics.
This thread is closed.
Smarten up people.
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