Russian provocations; why do we play?

[ShotOne]

There's been what's described as an unprecedented level of Russian military air activity in the Baltic. Without exception these are intercepted resulting in some close calls. Putin orders these flights for internal Russian consumption, to show how tough he is, in standing up to the pernicious West, and distract from his serious economic problems. We oblige him by obediently playing our part. Why do we bother?

[AreOut]

they have intensified flights to Kaliningrad and the shortest route has to skim estonian lithuanian and latvian airspace, I can't see why is that a provocation

I don't know why they fly more now, maybe because fuel is quite cheap these days so why not :)

[Tankertrashnav]

I must admit that on tumbling out of bed at 3 am on a Dragonfly back in the 70s to go and take a couple of F4s from Leuchars up to intercept a Bear north of The Shetlands I used to feel the same. We knew they were there, they knew we knew they were there, they never violated our airspace, so it all seemed a bit of a waste of time. But our seniors and betters thought that we should be seen to react, so ours wasn't to reason why, ours was to do and fly!

Still, got some nice piccies for the logbook out of it, I suppose!

[MightyGem]

We oblige him by obediently playing our part. Why do we bother?
Honour the threat I think is the term.

[ShotOne]

That's an interesting term, mg. But if we simply didn't bother it would be an utter waste of time for them. The flights are launched for a specific political purpose but it's only our response which allows them to achieve it.

[taxydual]

Perhaps, one day the 'specific political purpose' may not be that.

Besides, what would you rather do? Sit in the QRA crewroom watching TV for 24 hours, or go fly. No contest.

[Willard Whyte]

Depends what's on TV...

[Whenurhappy]

And imagine the howls from the media (and not just the Daily Mail). Politicians would not gamble such a risky political strategy; they would be insane to not authorise a response.

Imagine the DM headline and photos 'RAF Top Guns play games* while Russian Bears stalk Britain'. '£100M Typhoon [picture of GR4] grounded because Whitehall Says No'.... followed by the readers' comments, mostly along the lines of 'Time we left the EUSSR and dumped the LIBLABCON traitors. Vote UKIP!' or 'DO we still have an Air Force? Time we got rid of it and gave the Navy ships. Vote UKIP!'. ad naseum

* Uckers, of course

[jonw66]

Just out of interest has anybody who ever left the RAF ever played Uckers since they left.
Have you ever met a civvie who would have the faintest idea what you were talking about if you asked them for a game.
Anyway back to Russia we'd do them at Uckers.
Cheers
Jon

[Courtney Mil]

There may well be a greater purpose to QRA(I) than you seem to suggest.

TTN, sorry we woke you up. Must have been a real drag for you. I never realised that such an important part of the team resented it so much.

[Basil]

Falklands War - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falklands_War)
. . . withdraw the Endurance, Britain's only naval presence in the South Atlantic) sent a signal to the Argentines that Britain was unwilling, and would soon be unable, to defend its territories . .
Perhaps that's the reason.

[rh200]

Honour the threat I think is the term.

Where not on a war footing, unless its good for training, give it the honor it deserves.

Send nothing or the most pathetic aircraft you have. Had the same opinion when they sent ships to Aus.

[Tankertrashnav]

Aww come on Courtney Mil - if we hadnt been doing that it would have been something else, so I didnt resent it all. But surely it must have crossed your mind that we were playing a part in a big game (or did you actually think we were on the front line facing the red menace?)

[Lima Juliet]

Derrrr!

Because aircraft like this one:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b3/Tu-95_Bear_D.jpg/320px-Tu-95_Bear_D.jpg

Likes to snoop on our 'stuff' and aircraft like this one:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/06/Tu-142M-1986-DN-SC-87-03779-front.jpg/320px-Tu-142M-1986-DN-SC-87-03779-front.jpg

Likes to snoop on our V Boats...

Also taking piccies of their aircraft up close enables us to see what new sensors are fitted and what they may be able to detect. There are many variants of the TU95/TU142 and each has a specialised role - check out your search engine to learn more.

Also, the BEARs, BLACKJACKs and BACKFIREs don't have western transponders and so might bump into a civvy airliner as they don't trigger TCAS and their altimetry is in 'metres' rather than feet. So escorting them around in formation in our FIR is important as our transponders are visible. I think there was a serious AIRPROX in the Baltic very recently due to this very fact - don't forget that civvy ATC RADARs mostly rely on transponders and not primary RADAR returns.

Finally, some of the afore mentioned types can carry air to surface missiles (ASMs), nuke tipped, that could be used as a 'first strike' weapon without the type of warning you get from BMEWS at Fylingdales. Wouldn't you want "eyes on" if an adversary was flying in your FIR and within striking distance of your key assets?

Strategy lesson over... :ugh:

LJ

PS. It's certainly not 'playing' and QRA is a deadly serious event for all concerned at the sharp end!

[barnstormer1968]

Ok, now we know why we have QRA. It's all part of a strategy.
That's very re assuring.........as long as the first strike with Russian missiles launched at max range from their aircraft were part of a VERY small attack force :)

I wonder how well our QRA would cope with a small force of say forty Russian aircraft all in individual locations and heights and with fighter escorts and their bombers actually using their ECM stuff and defensive guns?

Of course, being a sneaky first strike the Russians would probably throw in a diversion of something like two civil airliners going off track and not responding to ATC.

After the RAF had launched QRA aircraft to respond to an airliner over Dundee and one over London how many QRA aircraft would be left to incercept and the destroy the forty Bombers and their escorts?

That's the first part of the strategy that might fail, now what about some pesky Russian subs that may also be waiting off shore to launch nukes at us at the same time so we don't get any warning with missile flight times, what is the RAF strategy to counter those?

Don't forget, the subs wouldn't even need to be launching nukes to reduce our response to zero. They could target RAF runways and any type 45s floating about and not on full alert........as it would be a sneak attack.

Going back to the strategy. As long as the Russians send an attack force of one, and as long as they don't launch any missiles until within visual range, and as long as they let the RAF get close enough to take photos (without using the Russian defensive guns) then we are OK :)
The readers of the daily mail only get upset when they hear that a Bomber got within ten miles of our coastline.............as their minds probably think the aircraft would be dropping bombs in the same manner as the RAF did over Germany in WW2 :)

None of the above is to say we don't need QRA. I am sure we do, and that it is perhaps now even more serious and tense at times than it was during the Cold War, but that a call to intercept an airliner would focus the mind a lot more than a bear on a fairly predictable course on a probing mission.

[its the bish]

Uckers is still played a lot in pubs in the Barnstaple area, I think there may even be a local league, wonder if it is a long standing traditional game round there or maybe introduced by the Chivenor lads ?

[MAINJAFAD]

Just out of interest has anybody who ever left the RAF ever played Uckers since they left.

Haven't seen it played since 1989.

[Ogre]

I still play Uckers on an irregular basis, seeing as I have my own board. Several visitors to Chez moi not only know the rules but are be happy to spend an evening consuming alcohol and shouting "split 'em"

[Null Orifice]

I believe it is/was called Euchre (sp?) in pastyland.

If this is the same game as Uckers, then there were many thriving leagues in the pubs and clubs surrounding Chivenor in the 1960s - not sure about today.
Uckers was BIG in the kipper fleet (MR squadrons) in the late 50s: my last experience of that excellent aircrew pastime was at Changi (RAF base, not jail) up to the time of the great East Of Suez withdrawal/downsize/end of the RAF as we knew it.

Sorry for adding to the thread drift.

[MATELO]

I wonder how well our QRA would cope with a small force of say forty Russian aircraft all in individual locations and heights and with fighter escorts and their bombers actually using their ECM stuff and defensive guns?

My dear Chap, you have just described September 1940. Chocks away!

[ShotOne]

Leon, re. "Derrrr!....snooping on our V boats.." In the Baltic?? And the aerial snapping cuts both ways, assuming we can afford new aerials these days. That said, I do take your wider point and don't suggest for one second we wind down our QRA.

The point is though, our sanctions are working. On top of that Putin's main revenue stream, oil, has crashed in price. He is in a tight spot. Cranking up echoes of the cold-war serves only to let him off the hook. The dream result from his point of view would be a midair, the more loss of life the better.

[Wyler]

It's not about 'threats', it's about politics.
The Russians are demonstrating a capability. Our response is for all the reasons Leon gave plus it is also a political statement. 'We know you are there and we will watch'. All the talk of subs and fighter escorts are best left to a Tom Clancy novel. There would be a whole lot of political sniping/posturing before we got to that.
Ukraine May well continue to escalate, we shall see. As to intercepting Russian Bears off our own Islands, we will keep doing it as part of our NATO commitment.
I would not mind betting that Joe Public would rather see the RAF doing this sort of work than dropping bombs in far off deserts, no matter how good the argument. And, let us not forget, the Military is actually run by politicians, NOT Admirals, Generals and Air Marshals.
Regarding intercepting Civil Aircraft, that is part of the UK Anti Terrorism infrastructure and so the two should not be confused.
A final thought: abolish QRA and there would be two main consequences. First you could kiss goodbye to the best part of two Typhoon Sqns, plus the ground based AD C2 systems, as QRA is a core tasking and, second, the political fallout would be considerable. How could Dave and his chums bang the gavel of righteous indignation around the world if he headed a Government that was not even willing, or capable of policing it's own skies and the approaches to it?
Finally, and most importantly, I have not played 'Ukkers' since leaving the RAF.

[Courtney Mil]

Wyler, neither have I. Fancy a game?

TTN, yeah, fair enough.

[Wyler]

Courtney,
Life was so much simpler before 24 hour a day TV......

[AreOut]

"I wonder how well our QRA would cope with a small force of say forty Russian aircraft all in individual locations and heights and with fighter escorts and their bombers actually using their ECM stuff and defensive guns?

Of course, being a sneaky first strike the Russians would probably throw in a diversion of something like two civil airliners going off track and not responding to ATC."

I doubt they would fiddle with that, if they wanted to attack UK out of nowhere they could do it much simpler. EWS won't help much if any against ballistic&cruise missiles, UK will respond with Tridents sooner or later so it really wouldn't make any difference.

[Tankertrashnav]

Uckers in Devon
I believe it is/was called Euchre (sp?) in pastyland.

If this is the same game as Uckers, then there were many thriving leagues in the pubs and clubs surrounding Chivenor in the 1960s - not sure about today.

Bit of confusion there. Euchre is a trick taking card game along the lines of whist, rummy etc, whereas Uckers, as anyone who served in the RAF or Navy knows, is a vicious refinement on the board game of Ludo.

dunno about Devon but Euchre is still very popular in Cornwall - I have a mate who never misses euchre night at his local.

(Btw Devon - pastyland? I did eat a Devon pasty once :yuk:)

Crew rooms were fertile ground for card games. Kirky was the game of choice when on standby, but I havent heard of it since I left the service.

[barnstormer1968]

Areout

That's not playing the game. If we moved straight to end game then QRA isn't needed at all.

[peter we]

they have intensified flights to Kaliningrad and the shortest route has to skim estonian lithuanian and latvian airspace, I can't see why is that a provocation

I don't know why they fly more now, maybe because fuel is quite cheap these days so why not

Its because they are convinced that Nato can be destroyed by a single attack against the Baltics, a land bridge to Kaliningrad will be easy in their eyes, give the their view of Europeans as cowards who are incapable of fighting.

This is how Russians view themselves -

http://www.sondrakistan.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Putin_Bear.jpg

And much like the Germans after the First World War, they have convinced themselves that the Soviet Union didn't lose the Cold War and they want a re match.

The only thing that will stop them is a military defeat.

[AreOut]

todays Russia doesn't have anything to do with Soviet Union, entirely different philosophy and no more communism and pesky small nations...

they are economically cornered now but they have seen worse days, IMHO they can resist the pressure for years

[KenV]

I believe that this thread is based on a misunderstanding. I don't think that what the Russion military is doing are "provocations" any more than the USN crossing Libya's "Line of Death" was a provocation. They are simply exercising their right of passage in international waters and airspace.

[Just This Once...]

I think you misunderstand Ken. There are international treaties that define how aircraft operate. Russia is a signatory to these treaties yet choose to operate some military aircraft in ICAO regulated airspace without talking to ATC and without a transponder.

[ValMORNA]

Wyler,


Life was so much simpler before TV!

[henra]

And much like the Germans after the First World War, they have convinced themselves that the Soviet Union didn't lose the Cold War and they want a re match.

The only thing that will stop them is a military defeat.

Uhummm.
So we better invade them?
Come on, seriously....

Putin's games are internal PR stuff. Former Super Powers have often huge difficulties of letting go, once the glory faded away.
You give him way too much credit py panicking so much.

And btw. Russia is as capitalist as it gets. Compared to that most European states are socialist. Heck, even China which still has a Communist Party is genuinely capitalist in Detail.

[peter we]

Putin's games are internal PR stuff. Former Super Powers have often huge difficulties of letting go, once the glory faded away.
You give him way too much credit py panicking so much.

Why would a president for ife with complete control of the media require PR?

You think invading Ukraine and causing the death of up to 10,000 Russians and Ukrainians is 'internal PR'?

The Russian people don't need convincing by Putin in any case. They want the return of the Russia Empire and they know they can get it. The NATO Nazi's won't be able to stop them. Do you seriously believe that Nato will go nuclear to defend the Baltic's? Because if there is any doubt, nothing will stop Russia.

Poland isn't convinced either, after the Western Betrayal in 1939, promises of military help are give a very skeptical review.


And btw. Russia is as capitalist as it gets. Compared to that most European states are socialist.

Their view of capitalism is whoever has the most weapons can kill and steal the best. Given that their society was formed from a gangster war in the 1990's (after 200 years of dictatorships) its hardly surprising. Al Copone was a capitalist from the same mould as those running Russia today. They don't believe in democracy or the will of the people or any of that bull****. Ukraine still has 2200 Lenin statues, Russia probably tens of thousands, because he is still a hero and rose tinted spectacles makes the Russians yearn for the return of the 'Soviet Union'.

[henra]

Why would a president for ife with complete control of the media require PR?

Elections plus the demonstrations that were ongoing Prior to Crimea?


You think invading Ukraine and causing the death of up to 10,000 Russians and Ukrainians is 'internal PR'?
Your intelligence seems to be better than the different secret services'.
Maybe there is a Job opportunity for you if you have more intell than CIA&al


The Russian people don't need convincing by Putin in any case. They want the return of the Russia Empire
There is probably some truth to it.


The NATO Nazi's won't be able to stop them. Do you seriously believe that Nato will go nuclear to defend the Baltic's? Because if there is any doubt, nothing will stop Russia.
No Need to go nuclear on that one. Conventionally Russia is tiny compared to NATO Overall (not in the Baltic's though).
If anything Russia would have to go nuclear quite quickly in an all out conventional war.
Conventionally they are a regional power, Nuclear they are a Super Power, together with America able to extinct Life on Earth.


Poland isn't convinced either, after the Western Betrayal in 1939, promises of military help are give a very skeptical review.
Baseless. Russia won't invade Poland. Not enough Russians living there to do assymetric warfare (Because that is the way they are fighting as of 2014).


Given that their society was formed from a gangster war in the 1990's (after 200 years of dictatorships) its hardly surprising.
Probably some truth to it.


Al Copone was a capitalist from the same mould as those running Russia today. They don't believe in democracy or the will of the people or any of that bull****.
Agreed.

Ukraine still has 2200 Lenin statues, Russia probably tens of thousands, because he is still a hero and rose tinted spectacles makes the Russians yearn for the return of the 'Soviet Union'.Irrelevant nonsense.

[KenV]

I think you misunderstand Ken. There are international treaties that define how aircraft operate. Russia is a signatory to these treaties yet choose to operate some military aircraft in ICAO regulated airspace without talking to ATC and without a transponder.


Hmmmmm. The Russians are operating in ICAO Class A airspace in this manner? Or another class?

Or more correctly, since we are talking about INTERNATIONAL airspace, are the Russians operating in violation of Annex 2? If so, what provisions of Annex 2 are the Russians allegedly violating? And finally, is Annex 2 even applicable to Russian military aircraft? How about US military aircraft?

[M609]

The RNoAF has released a few pics from recent intercepts

From NRK.no (http://www.nrk.no/nordland/se-forsvarets-egne-bilder-fra-motene-med-russerne-1.12109711?index=0#undefined)