The problem with probing anything with the Bear is the Bear itself. In service since 1955 it's old. It's old and huge. It has four enormous engines turning enormous, counter-rotating propellers. That's a total of 32-enormous steel propeller blades spinning about giving this beast the radar cross section of a battleship. When the Russkies designed the Bear, stealth was not a consideration.
In effect, the Bear announces its presence well before it gets anywhere near Canadian airspace. The Russians put in an appearance, check how long it takes for a Canadian fighter to intercept, and then head home. No matter how much Peter MacKay wants to hype the event, the Russkies are hardly probing our defences. If they wanted to do that they might fly a much different profile with a far better aircraft.
And folks said McCarthyism wasn't making a come back
ReplyDeleteMcCarthy never left the building!
ReplyDeleteWell, the vintage of the Bear bomber does date back to McCarthy's heyday.
ReplyDeleteIf Russia were to try and invade us we would have to rely on the US for protection.....now that is funny.
ReplyDeleteIf Russian invades us we will have welcome party for them at Yellowknife. Do you really think we have hope in hell to rebuff Russia?
ReplyDeleteHowever, I don't see any reason for them to invade us. Yes there could be dispute over resources in the Northern waters but I don't see any war coming. Harpo and company are just hyping it up to divert attention from other problems that Canada faces. I am more afraid of Cons than Russia.
I could see the Americans wanting to oust Russia from Canadian territory but I'm not sure that would amount to "defending" us. We're simply too valuable a prize for us to be naive about any other nation's altruism toward Canada.
ReplyDeleteThe author just proved him self to have absolutely no understanding of how interdiction and recon missions are structured.
ReplyDeleteThe-95s are probing for electronic information, radio traffic and estimations of reaction time etc. While the air frame may be old the electronics equipment is very up to date.
They also do no operate alone by any stretch.
Also the Tu-95 is roughly the same age as the U2 and not much older then the SR-71.
Also please show me what other Russian Recon Aircraft has the range to conduct operations inside Canadian air space.
It isn't like the Russians have made claims about the Tu-160 penetrating US and Canadian airspace recently.. oh wait..
Stunning ignorance
Thanks, Anon, but you're full of shit. Were the Russians ever to decide to attack us it would be a saturation attack with their latest, long-range cruise missiles launched well outside Canadian airspace.
ReplyDeleteAnd if Canada is left with a maximum ready force of about 40 F-35s (probably 20 would be a push), saturating our defences would be child's play.