Russia is one the move

[ayzo]

first they announce that they will be re-opening bases in Syria http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/simon_tisdall/2007/08/putins_power_play.html

As well as providing them with some air defense units http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/Rest_of_World/Russia_delivers_air_defence_units_to_Syria_Report/articleshow/2287976.cms

then they announce nuclear bombers are now extending the ranges they patrol further http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003842150_russpower18.html

As if that wasn't enough they teamed up with China to flex their military muscle http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070817/ap_on_re_eu/russia_china_maneuvers_1

And now they have announced that they will be censoring the BBC in Russia http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,,2151253,00.html

Is Putin just crying out for more attention again or do you think he really wants to establish more power for the kremlin?

[exlude]

Putin just increased the defense spending budget big time, gotta expect that money to go somewhere. I'm not too worried about Russia, atleast not yet.

[mikeb]

You forgot that they have claimed rights to the north pole also. Putin is returning to the old ways.

[ALLAN]

You can take the boy out of the KGB, but you can't take the KGB out of the boy.

Time to up that F-22 order.

[cbrjames]

Let em flex! They just better squeel real loud when they realize they fucked up after kick their asses back to the cold war era.

[ALLAN]

http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20070817/capt.b4aa4519437e470b86bbca5f3f7fe8a1.norway_russi a_bombers_osl104.jpg

In this image made available by 331/332 Squadron of the Norwegian Air Force a Russian MIDAS IL76 refuels MIG31 fighter planes Friday Aug. 17, 2007. Eleven Russian military planes exercised West of Norway on Friday in the biggest show of Russian air power in the Norwegian Sea since the early 1990s, a military official said. The planes included strategic bombers, airborne early warning aircraft, fighter jets and refueling planes, said Brig. Gen. Ole Asak, chief of the Norwegian Joint Air Operations Center. (AP Photo by 331/332-Squadron of the Norwegian Air Force/Scanpix


http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/nm/20070817/2007_08_17t152322_450x300_us_russia_airforce.jpg

A Russian Tupolev Tu-22M plane is photographed by the Norwegian Air Force in International waters outside the coast of Norway August 17, 2006. (331/332-SQUADRON/Scanpix/Reuters)

[Trip McNeely]

With their technology they aint got shit. Their bombers are cold war era planes. Those things wont have to be shot down, they will probably fall apart. I actually think it will be funny because now we will get to put our F22s and JSFs to use with someone who actually will fly planes as a threat. :)

[ZYouL8R]

Bring back the USAFE bases!

[ayzo]

With their technology they aint got shit. Their bombers are cold war era planes. Those things wont have to be shot down, they will probably fall apart. I actually think it will be funny because now we will get to put our F22s and JSFs to use with someone who actually will fly planes as a threat. :)

Well keep in mind that thanks to high energy prices and demand Russia is rolling in cash, but right now would be a good time for the army to show off its latest laser weapons and that new jet thats supposed to travel really really really fast (project nova jet i think?)

[Denny]

I'm not comfortable with Russia that close to Israel.I would think they will attack Israel before Syria or Iran. They're supposed to anyway.

[cbrjames]

Bring back the USAFE bases!

Aviano has a pretty large stockpile of Vipers, and Ramstein has quite a few Eagles left. Not to mention if needing to switch roles, the squadrons at Balad could help out too. :cool:

And if they try to come the other way....via Alaska, Elmendorf just got a squadron of 22's. :D

[ayzo]

yet more news

http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,,2153669,00.html

Russia steps up military expansion

Vladimir Putin announced ambitious plans to revive Russia's military power and restore its role as the world's leading producer of military aircraft yesterday.

Speaking at the opening of the largest airshow in Russia's post-Soviet history, the president said he was determined to make aircraft manufacture a national priority after decades of lagging behind the west.

The remarks follow his decision last week to resume long-range missions by strategic bomber aircraft capable of hitting the US with nuclear weapons. Patrols over the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic began last week for the first time since 1992.

Presidential aides hinted yesterday that Russia could shortly resume the production of Tu-160 and Tu-95 strategic nuclear bombers, now that the aircraft are again flying "combat missions". The bombers would be used as a "means of strategic deterrence", a presidential aide, Alexander Burutin, told Interfax.

Mr Putin said Russia would also resume the large-scale manufacture of civilian planes. "Russia has a very important goal which is to retain leadership in the production of military equipment," he said.

The new emphasis on Russia's revived military prowess comes against a backdrop of deteriorating relations with the west. Mr Putin has denounced the US's missile defence plans in Europe, scrapped an agreement with Nato on conventional armed forces, and grabbed a large, if symbolic, chunk of the Arctic.

Yesterday a senior Russian general warned the Czech Republic it would be making a "big mistake" if it permitted the US to use its territory. Yuri Baluyevsky, Russia's military chief of staff, said Prague should hold off any final decision on the shield until after next year's US presidential elections.

"I do not exclude that a new administration in the United States will re-evaluate the current administration's decisions on missile defence," he said, after a meeting in Moscow with the Czech defence minister, Martin Bartak.

Speaking at yesterday's MAKS-2007 international airshow, Mr Putin said: "Russia, as a state that has acquired new economic capabilities, will continue to attach special importance to high technology and development."

Analysts, however, took issue with Mr Putin's claim that Russia was already the leading producer of military aircraft. However, they acknowledged that Russia had developed some impressive "technologies".

These include a new S-400 missile and aircraft interceptor system, similar but better than the US Patriot, and a lethal new supersonic cruise missile, the Meteorit-A.

"They have some very good kit," one industry observer said.

Russia also used yesterday's airshow - held at Zhukovsky, a former Soviet airbase on the leafy outskirts of Moscow - to show off its latest generation of jet fighters.

These include an upgraded Sukhoi jet, the SU-35, which has a new engines and a new radar system, and a revamped "vector thrust" MIG, the MIG 29-OVT. "They are good aircraft. The MIG can do a very lovely flip," the industry observer added.

One analyst said Mr Putin did not want confrontation with the west but was determined to restore Russia's strategic parity with the US.

"Russia wants balance. It wants a strategic balance with the US," Ivan Safranchuk, a Moscow-based expert on defence, told the Guardian.

"Russia wants to do this as cheaply as possible. But with the Bush administration withdrawing from arms control treaties, Russia is saying it is also ready to keep the balance at a high level of cost."

Asked about Russia's resumption of long-range bomber patrols, Mr Safranchuk said: "It's significant. For 15 years the political leadership was constraining the military on this. Now it isn't."

In the 1960s and 1970s the Soviet Union produced more civilian planes than any other country in the world apart from the United States.

After the collapse of communism, Russia's impoverished government drastically cut spending on its aircraft industry. Factories producing military planes fared better than those building civilian aircraft, mainly because of buoyant sales to India and China. But Russia started to fall behind the west in the design of advanced fighters and other military aircraft.

Mr Putin is now determined to make Russia the world's third-largest manufacturer of passenger jets - after the United States, with Boeing, and the European Union, with Airbus.

Russia's passenger airlines own about 2,500 ageing aircraft - of which just 100 are western-made models - although they fly one-third of all Russian passengers.

Last week Russian officials said they planned to build 4,500 civilian aircraft by 2025, while the Kremlin has pledged £125bn to boost the civilian industry.

As part of the plan to boost significantly Russia's civilian aircraft industry, a new state-controlled organisation, the United Aircraft Corporation, has been created.

It is led by Sergei Ivanov, Russia's hawkish first deputy prime minister, who sat next to Mr Putin during yesterday's airshow - and the leading candidate to succeed him after next year's presidential elections.

[Denny]

The remarks follow his decision last week to resume long-range missions by strategic bomber aircraft capable of hitting the US with nuclear weapons. Patrols over the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic began last week for the first time since 1992.

LMMFAO!!!!


You gonna try to bring that shit over here in THAT shit?!?!

[AL P]

What a fucking joke. I welcome a new arms race though, it is great for the economy.

[46Tbird]

LMMFAO!!!!


You gonna try to bring that shit over here in THAT shit?!?!Well, he's got guts. You gotta give him .. props.

http://dropshot94.files.wordpress.com/2007/01/amo72004_1.jpg

[cbrjames]

Well, he's got guts. You gotta give him .. props.

http://dropshot94.files.wordpress.com/2007/01/amo72004_1.jpg

All guts and no brain? :confused: :D

[PWTRTXSS]

Maverick and Ice Man will save us!!!!

[Geor!]

Maverick and Ice Man will save us!!!!Talk about a highway to the danger zone.

[mardyn]

What a fucking joke. I welcome a new arms race though, it is great for the economy.

According to the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition:

Rule #34. War is good for business.

and of course,

Rule #35. Peace is good for business.


I say we team up with the Russians and kick some Muslim/Islamic butt.

mardyn

[ayzo]

Yea cold war 2.0 can't be too far off in the distance

Georgia says it fired at Russian plane this week

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070824/ts_nm/georgia_russia_airplane_dc


TBILISI (Reuters) - Georgian forces fired at a plane they believed was Russian after it violated the Caucasus republic's airspace on Wednesday, a senior interior ministry official said.

The incident marks an intensification of a row between the two countries in which Georgia has accused Russian planes of violating its border and of dropping a missile near Tbilisi.

Russia called the Georgian statement a provocation. It has not reported any plane missing, and when asked specifically about the Georgian statement an official denied Russian aircraft had violated Georgian airspace.

"The day before yesterday at 22:24 in the mountains of Upper Abkhazia we opened fire on a Russian plane, after which we heard an explosion," Shota Utiashvili, head of the interior ministry's analytical department, told Reuters on Friday.

It was not clear what caused that explosion.

"The forest is on fire there, but we cannot confirm that the plane was shot down," Utiashvili said, adding that the interior ministry would send a helicopter to the area on Saturday to investigate.

Utiashvili could not say what kind of airplane it was, but insisted it was Russian. He said that it had headed towards a deserted mountain part of the rebel Georgian region of Abkhazia that was held by separatists.

Upper Abkhazia, where Georgia says the shooting incident took place, is a small mountainous part of the breakaway Abkhazia province still controlled by Tbilisi.

Moscow-backed Abkhazia is a regular source of tension between the two countries, as Georgia seeks to regain control over the region.

INTERNATIONAL REPERCUSSIONS

Moscow says its planes have never violated Georgia's border.

"This is another provocation in the information campaign waged against us," Interfax news agency quoted Alexander Drobyshevsky, an aide to Russian airforce commander, as saying.

"I say this officially, Russian airplanes did not violate the Georgian air space."

Interfax also quoted an official from Abkhazia's defense ministry as saying: "We haven't registered recently any downings of any plane at territory controlled by the Abkhaz side."

Georgia said on Wednesday two Russian planes had violated its border around the same area. Two weeks ago it accused Russian jets of dropping a missile near the capital, Tbilisi.

Russian news agencies quoted Abkhaz authorities as saying earlier on Friday their forces had fired warning shots on Thursday at an unidentified plane that crossed into Abkhazia from Georgia.

The row over aircraft has highlighted a crisis in relations between Russia and Georgia, which has been deepening since U.S.-educated President Mikhail Saakashvili began moving his republic of five million people out of Moscow's orbit.

Russia last year severed air, sea and postal links with its southern neighbor over a spying row. Before that, Moscow had banned imports of Georgian wine and mineral water, both major sources of revenue, citing health concerns.

The missile incident has had repercussions beyond the region, turning into an irritant in ties between Russia and the United States.

[ALLAN]

http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/DefenceNews/MilitaryOperations/TyphoonLaunchesOperationallyForTheFirstTime.htm

[ayzo]

Oh sweet, environmentally safe super-bombs. Al Gore will be pleased.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070911/ap_on_re_eu/russia_bomb_test


MOSCOW - The Russian military has successfully tested what it described as the world's most powerful non-nuclear air-delivered bomb, Russia's state television reported Tuesday.

It was the latest show of Russia's military muscle amid chilly relations with the United States.

Channel One television said the new weapon, nicknamed the "dad of all bombs" is four times more powerful than the U.S. "mother of all bombs."

"The tests have shown that the new air-delivered ordnance is comparable to a nuclear weapon in its efficiency and capability," said Col.-Gen. Alexander Rukshin, a deputy chief of the Russian military's General Staff, said in televised remarks.

Unlike a nuclear weapon, the bomb doesn't hurt the environment, he added.

The statement reflected the Kremlin's efforts to restore Russia's global clout and rebuild the nation's military might while the ties with Washington have been strained over U.S. criticism of Russia's backsliding on democracy, Moscow's vociferous protests of U.S. missile defense plans, and rifts over global crises.

The U.S. Massive Ordnance Air Blast, nicknamed the Mother Of All Bombs, is a large-yield satellite-guided, air-delivered bomb described as the most powerful non-nuclear weapon in history.

Channel One said that while the Russian bomb contains 7.8 tons of high explosives compared to more than 8 tons of explosives in the U.S. bomb, it's four times more powerful because it uses a new, highly efficient type of explosives that the report didn't identify.

While the U.S. bomb is equivalent to 11 tons of TNT, the Russian one is equivalent to 44 tons of regular explosives. The Russian weapon's blast radius is 990 feet, twice as big as that of the U.S. design, the report said.

Like its U.S. predecessor, first tested in 2003, the Russian bomb is a "thermobaric" weapon that explodes in an intense fireball combined with a devastating blast. It explodes in a terrifying nuclear bomb-like mushroom cloud and wreaks destruction through a massive shock wave created by the air burst and high temperature.

Thermobaric weapons work on the same principle that causes blasts in grain elevators and other dusty places — clouds of fine particles are highly explosive. Such explosions produce shock waves that can be directed and amplified in enclosed spaces such as buildings, caves or tunnels.

Channel One said that the temperature in the epicenter of the Russian bomb's explosion is twice as high as that of the U.S. bomb.

The report showed the bomb dropped by parachute from a Tu-160 strategic bomber and exploding in a massive fireball. It featured the debris of apartment buildings and armored vehicles at a test range, as well as the scorched ground from a massive blast.

It didn't give the bomb's military name or say when it was tested.

Rukshin said the new bomb would allow the military to "protect the nation's security and confront international terrorism in any situation and any region."

"We have got a relatively cheap ordnance with a high strike power," Yuri Balyko, head of the Defense Ministry's institute in charge of weapons design, told Channel One.

Booming oil prices have allowed Russia to steadily increase military spending in recent years, and the Kremlin has taken a more assertive posture in global affairs.

Last month, President Vladimir Putin said he ordered the resumption of regular patrols of strategic bombers, which were suspended after the 1991 Soviet breakup.

(This version CORRECTS spelling of military official's surname to Rukshin, not Rukhsin.)

[Yale]

There was some exercise recently where we play dog-fought the russians, and they apparently won. My only beef was that for their planes, they used SU-37's, and for ours, they used F-15's, and that's just a mismatch. F-22's would fuck up some SU-37's. Where was that exercise?

[Denny]

There was some exercise recently where we play dog-fought the russians, and they apparently won. My only beef was that for their planes, they used SU-37's, and for ours, they used F-15's, and that's just a mismatch. F-22's would fuck up some SU-37's. Where was that exercise?
But... they won, huh? Who cares who used what. There's more F-15's in service than F-22's, so the scenario is more likely. BTW, where is some footage or write-up of this exersize? I hear about stuff like this a lot, but it turns out to be just hog wash.

[mikeb]

Drudge is reporting this morning that putin has dissolved the russian government.

[Denny]

Drudge is reporting this morning that putin has dissolved the russian government.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070912/D8RJT6F00.html

[Denny]

Yahoo too:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070912/ap_on_re_eu/russia_government

[Denny]

Apparently, Putin is trying to get another KGB buddy into the Prime Minister's office... this guy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Ivanov

[exlude]

But... they won, huh? Who cares who used what. There's more F-15's in service than F-22's, so the scenario is more likely. BTW, where is some footage or write-up of this exersize? I hear about stuff like this a lot, but it turns out to be just hog wash.

I'd be surprised to see our F-15s engage SU-37s like that, though...not without F-16 or 22 support.

We were talking this stuff over yesterday in one of my military science classes, a fellow cadet mentioned that he doesn't think the Cold War ever ended...we were just at halftime. I think he's right. But I also don't think that the reemergence of the Cold War is necessarily a bad thing. We need to get America back to backing it's military, not fighting it. It's a huge part of what makes us, us.

[Denny]

I'd be surprised to see our F-15s engage SU-37s like that, though...not without F-16 or 22 support.

We were talking this stuff over yesterday in one of my military science classes, a fellow cadet mentioned that he doesn't think the Cold War ever ended...we were just at halftime. I think he's right. But I also don't think that the reemergence of the Cold War is necessarily a bad thing. We need to get America back to backing it's military, not fighting it. It's a huge part of what makes us, us.
Right. The Cold War never did end. The USSR just put on a happy face and got rid of the rif-raf. The KGB is still alive and well, just under sheep's clothing.

[ALLAN]

But... they won, huh? Who cares who used what. There's more F-15's in service than F-22's, so the scenario is more likely. BTW, where is some footage or write-up of this exersize? I hear about stuff like this a lot, but it turns out to be just hog wash.
Sounds like Cope India with the SU30MK1's.
Basically India got to use every advantage and the F-15's had to turn stuff off. :rolleyes:

You can't argue 104 to 0 for the F-15.

More F-22 would be ideal, but the F-15 can still kick ass.
Besides there is only two SU37 built so far.

[Sean88gt]

Well, it will be interesting to see the rest of the world come begging us to help them after they've been screaming that we are shit for 10 years.

I don't know if Russia has the economic base to support this kind of build up, but ultimately it could be a good thing for the US, especially if we re-arm.

Or we could vote for that Cunt Hillary and just hand everything over since socialism is a better plan anyway:rolleyes:

[ayzo]

With oil approaching $80 a barrel they can do just about anything they want.

[mopar63]

There was some exercise recently where we play dog-fought the russians, and they apparently won. My only beef was that for their planes, they used SU-37's, and for ours, they used F-15's, and that's just a mismatch. F-22's would fuck up some SU-37's. Where was that exercise?

Why tip your hand and show them what the F-22 will do.

[BP]

Why tip your hand and show them what the F-22 will do.

Especially when it's replacement is still classified:) All the F-117s are about to be retired and how many of those have we've seen in combat? I've got faith that there is something way more high tech than the F-22 and F-35 in the pipe.