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Old 30th Dec 2008, 16:23
  #18 (permalink)  
ORAC
Ecce Homo! Loquitur...
 
Join Date: Jul 2000
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Mayhap, but they and the plans are all either side has, apart from politicians memoirs of what they say they would have done, and would you believe a politician?

It is a fact that the Russians always intended the Backfire as a tactical aircraft dedicated to army support in the rear area - as used in Georgia. I remember the surprise when the first photographs showing one with all the external bomb shackles surfaced.

The Badgers and Bears under naval control were also dedicated to naval ops. There would never seem to have been the concentration on strategic bomber we expected. In many respects we tended to impose our own strategic goals on the enemy.

A few years after the end of the first Cold War a US SecDef was given a tour of a Blackjack and commented on the lack of a TFR. The Russian general explained that they did not need one, their intended tactics were intended to be a medium level transit followed by a supersonic dash at FL500+ until within stand-off missile range, under cover of massed stand-of jamming.

We, of course, had all our plans with fighters on CAP at around 15K looking low for the low-level penetrators - because that was the tactic our bombers used to defeat radar.....

IIRC the Russian plan to take out the UK, subsequently leaked but I cannot remember where, consisted of a line of 5 Mt bombs down the middle of the North Sea. The subsequent radioactive tidal wave would have taken out all the airfields in East Anglia and up the east coast and just about everything inland up the Pennines.

An unsinkable aircraft carrier perhaps, but a radioactive unusable hulk.

Speaking of which, and apropos the CVF thread - the latest Chinese anti-carrier threat is ASBMs, to which I presume the Russians will also have access. I wonder how successfully a couple of T45s will defend against that threat?
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