Posted on 02/01/2022 11:30:27 AM PST by RomanSoldier19
ere’s What You Need to Remember: When and if the PAK DA becomes operational, it would put an important arrow in Russia’s quiver—a theoretically very capable stealth bomber.
Most military equipment in Russian arsenals today is legacy Soviet hardware. Russian bombers are no exception. Although some airframes in Russian inventories are quite old, they remain potent thanks to airframe, electronics and radar upgrades, along with improvements in standoff missiles and precision-guided munitions. Here are Russia’s most dangerous bombers.
Tu-95 “Bear”
In 1950, Andrei Tupolev was tasked with designing the Soviet Union’s new long-range heavy bomber, the Tu-95. It was to be able to carry a 24,200-pound payload with a range of nearly 5,000 miles—and thus threaten important targets in the United States.
Tupolev needed to balance speed and performance with range. Jet engines at the time would given a long-range strategic bomber the needed speed, but guzzled fuel, limiting range. Although Tupolev was already a highly successful designer, he tasked a group of German and Austrian aircraft engineers that had been captured after World War II with the design. They designed the most powerful turboprop engine ever made, the venerable KN-12.
Using two sets of contra-rotating propellers, the KN-12 is still used on the Tu-95 today. Although the engines are extremely powerful, the are also incredibly loud. Still, when mission requirements are massive payload rather than stealthiness, the Bear can do the job.
vid
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalinterest.org ...
Pac-man..............................
Untested but rivals?
Okie dokie................................
B-2 is kind of old. Its the one they don’t know about that matters.
With Tweedledum and Tweedledee in charge of our military I don’t think the Russkies need to worry.
.
I grew up as a military brat in Germany during the Cold War.
I was a military nerd and became an Army Officer after joining the Guard in college.
I followed all of the latest info on the Soviet military threat and came away with one observation after the Cold War ended and the USSR dissolved.
The Russians can build some decent high end stuff but they cannot afford to purchase them in any volume. This is true for pretty much all of their stuff. Looks shiny and maybe its even competitive but if you don’t have enough of them they are not “game-changers”.
The Russians can not compete on latest generation tech nor do they have much money for training to use it in comparison to our military. Look at the difference in expenditures and look at the raw numbers of platforms.
We have an entire industry in the US that continually pumps the threat to keep the money flowing.
Vapors have more substance.
The problem with our “military” as you reference is NOT a matter of capability. It is a matter of will.
We “fight” conflicts under the rules of the State Department and left with goals that have little to do with the military.
The core purpose of a military is to impose your will in brutal and overwhelming fashion. Period. It is not to “nation build”, “occupy”, or promote Western values.
It exists to smash our enemies. Our leaders will not allow it to do so.
Just think..... we suffered few casualties in Iraq or Afghanistan until we decided to occupy and impose our values on them. We achieved the initial goals (minus Bin Laden) of smashing them and then it all turned to shit with contractors, occupation, and the money funnel.
What if we had just smashed them, left, and told them to clean it up or we would be back? How many lives would have been saved on both sides? How much wealth would not have been spent? How much better off would we have been?
Hear! Hear!!!
To: GideonOfWarTurkey denied us entry into Northern Iraq during the initial invasion to root out terrorist/al-qaeda from our SOF teams. Its time for a little payback.I've been saying for some time that we should have flattened Iraq's and Afghanistan's infrastructure, killed their leaders, divided the countries along ethinic lines, set the ethnic groups at each other's throats, and walked away.
The take home message is: You F with us, we will track you, personally, down and kill your sorry arse, we will destroy everything you hold dear, and your country will simply cease to exist.
The bonus in this case is Turkey, who wouldn't help us, is rewarded with a newly minted Kurdistan on their border. That Iran also has to deal with a Kurdish homeland on their border is a bonus...
109 posted on 10/15/2007, 9:15:53 AM by null and void (Lib-uh-rulz can't foresee even the clearest consequences to their actions...)
But will the pilots be diverse and inclusive?
Pakistan is another one. We still owe them for hiding Bin Laden all those years.
So some time between 2025 and 2030, Russia will produce a stealth bomber equivalent to our 1980’s B-2. Meanwhile, we have already spooled up production for the B-21 stealth bomber, with at least 2 already completed and more under construction.
They fail to mention they used props on the tu-95 because at the time they couldn’t get jet engines working for the plane. and then imagine the money spent retrofitting them when they did.
ZOOM ZOOM it’s stealth
I agree completely. It’s a matter of will. That was the essence of my comment.
Can someone explain how the B-21 is even useful?
They cost $2 billion per plane. A Falcon 9 can deliver at 50 ton payload anywhere on the planet for $50 million per launch.
What does a plane give over a rocket that can reliably hit a bullseye on a moving barge?
“The Russians can not compete on latest generation tech nor do they have much money for training to use it in comparison to our military.”
This is correct. Even if the Russians obtained all of the plans for our B-21 bomber they don’t have the technical and industrial capability to build one. The Russian tech is generally very tough and resilient but we edge them out when it comes to eking out very fine tolerances from our stuff. You see this evidenced when you find out how modern bombers and fighters have to be coddled when they’re not in the air. The Russian ground crews would never be so careful with their planes.
Which leads to the fact that the current Red Army is no different than the old Red Army in a very critical way: enlisted personnel do not receive the intensive training that USAF ranks receive.
Part of this is a lingering mistrust in the Russian military that wants technical information kept in as few hands and minds as possible...typically officers. And that ends up creating a vicious circle where the kinds of equipment the Russians actually deploy has to be tough and resilient just to survive the treatment they get from their poorly trained ground crews.
This dynamic in their military consequentially limits their ability to field sixth generation aircraft.
On the other side of the equation the USAF now produces such complicated aircraft that even the USA can only afford to buy and deploy a scant few of them.
Seriously, we produce aircraft that often cost more than aircraft carriers when you factor in the full suite of development and support costs. It buys us an edge but it’s the kind of edge that allows the US to conduct short and devastating operations.
But when it comes to prolonged conflict the edge goes to the guy who can get into the air with a ground team whose favorite way to get sensitive equipment to function is to beat on it or else borrow a fuse from a Lada.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.