Tu-160 intercepted by danish, norwegian and british fighters

[Frank N. O.]

Two RDAF F-16s were scrambled to intercept a russian Tu-160 Blackjack that was getting close to our borders after norwegian and british airforce fighters had done the same after their radar-stations had noticed the bomber. A danish researcher says the bomber was probably unarmed and was a play of power due to russian elections with Putin trying to show russia is still/again a superpower. I think it's insane.

Frank

[Fabo]

Quite normal I believe, just a normal military flight. Well, with slightly "different" routing, but eh?

[Frank N. O.]

Normal? It sure as heck isn't normal here. The bomber(s) flew at high speed directly towards our borders, and Norway and Britain and only turned at the last second. That's clearly beyond normal border-patrol to my knowledge, especially since Russia has no borders to Denmark and certainly not Great Britain.

Frank

[G-man]

Normal? It sure as heck isn't normal here. The bomber(s) flew at high speed directly towards our borders, and Norway and Britain and only turned at the last second. That's clearly beyond normal border-patrol to my knowledge, especially since Russia has no borders to Denmark and certainly not Great Britain.

Frank

Yep .. normal. It happened on a daily basis during the cold war. The Danish even intercepted me once for getting too close to their airspace. Submarines do it all the time. I remember a Whisky class submarine that washed up on the Norwegian fjords..At the time we called it."Whisky on the rocks"

Of course I dont think this was deliberate.. I believe it was Chucksky, (The russian version of Chuck), just not paying attention to his GPS..

Is that you Chuck?

[Frank N. O.]

Yep .. normal. It happened on a daily basis during the cold war. The Danish even intercepted me once for getting too close to their airspace. Submarines do it all the time. I remember a Whisky class submarine that washed up on the Norwegian fjords..At the time we called it."Whisky on the rocks"

Of course I dont think this was deliberate.. I believe it was Chucksky, (The russian version of Chuck), just not paying attention to his GPS..

Is that you Chuck?

Well that's what the analyzer said too, but the cold war is over. There have been more than 35 cases of such incidents in recent times, that's too many to be coincidence. And when did you get near here and how come you were intercepted?

Frank

[Rooster Cruiser]

With the Russian Government awash in petrodollars, Putin publicly announced last summer the resumption of bomber patrols.  He can afford to let his air force go play like they once did during the Cold War so he lets them.  Keep in mind that those who now are in power in the Kremlin are all former KGB types, and they still have the "Us versus Them" seige mentality.  This is also saber rattling on the part of Putin so he can show his people what a tough guy he is, and help boost Russian patriotism at home.  It shows the Russian people that Russia is still a force that the world cannot ignore, etc. etc., ad nauseum.

I could write a book on how many different countries around the world have pseudo-feudal ruling societies.  Belligerence comes into play when you must show your people you are protecting them from a hypothetical enemy because there are no real enemies.  Without a real enemy, why would a people put up with the burdens imposed by the aristocrats that run a feudal society?  QED.

[Fabo]

Don't want to launch a flame & don't want to lose my friends around her, but that is how I (too) often think about America.

[Rooster Cruiser]

Don't want to launch a flame & don't want to lose my friends around her, but that is how I (too) often think about America.

Don't worry about it Fabo.  Many in the USA recognize this in our own government.  We try and kick them out of office as often as we can (and sometimes we succeed), but the new politicians that get elected are sooner or later co-opted by the ruling establishment.   

[Frank N. O.]

Ok, I guess I was mistaking. Flightsim.no's general aviation forum also discussed the matter and several said the papers just print the same story over and over from time to time which seems to indicate it's a regular thing, but still a weird thing, and it must give some tension and possibly fear.

Frank

[airtac]

Don't want to launch a flame & don't want to lose my friends around her, but that is how I (too) often think about America.

We talking the "Ugly American Syndrome" (like ignorant tourists)?  Or are we talking about world politics, where our elected leaders try (often foolishly) to "help" other countries so that they can also live in a free and prosperous society.
Believe me, there are a lot of Americans who, like myself, would love to stop spending our tax money trying to expand the American influence.   We have an excellent form of government and it works for us but that's not to say it will work for some guy who's living in a mud house just trying to feed his family by herding goats.
If it doesn't directly affect me (like 9/11 attacks) , well, I don't give a rats ass what other countries do.
I probably was too simplistic about my views and have left myself open to attack so go ahead and let her rip--a touch of politics ain't gonna kill anybody

[G-man]

Yep .. normal. It happened on a daily basis during the cold war. The Danish even intercepted me once for getting too close to their airspace. Submarines do it all the time. I remember a Whisky class submarine that washed up on the Norwegian fjords..At the time we called it."Whisky on the rocks"

Of course I dont think this was deliberate.. I believe it was Chucksky, (The russian version of Chuck), just not paying attention to his GPS..

Is that you Chuck?

Well that's what the analyzer said too, but the cold war is over. There have been more than 35 cases of such incidents in recent times, that's too many to be coincidence. And when did you get near here and how come you were intercepted?

Frank

Many years ago---back in the early eighties...Just not paying 100% attenetion and "crept" too close..



And a VERY younger G-man.. T-shirt says "Intant Asshole--Just Add Alcohol"

[Baradium]

Normal? It sure as heck isn't normal here. The bomber(s) flew at high speed directly towards our borders, and Norway and Britain and only turned at the last second. That's clearly beyond normal border-patrol to my knowledge, especially since Russia has no borders to Denmark and certainly not Great Britain.

Frank

Sounds pretty normal to me too.

Putin announced he was resuming doing such runs.   The idea is to test the response time of the other side.   They also regularly do miliary exercises close to borders (the same way the Chinese do mock sea invasions near Taiwan).   The idea is that the "other side" gets complacent with the repeated exercises ad nauseum.  If/when you actually decide to do the attack, you start out doing everything exactly like the exercise... and then turn the exercise (which the other side isn't on guard about becuase they see it so much) into an attack.

This summer Russia had an exercise with more than 50 bear bombers near the border with Alaska.  During the middle of the exercise I believe 5 of them made a beeline towards Alaska, forcing fighters to scramble.   This tells Russia how long it would take to scramble fighters if those 50 bombers *all* made a beeline but with real weapons on board.  Using other methods they will also try to determine how many aircraft *could* scramble (survivability in an attack using numbers).  The Chinese seem very fond of this approach.  Numbers numbers numbers.   They don't care if we can kill 100 of their planes for every one of ours shot down if they have the ability to field 105 planes for every one of ours.

[Fabo]

G-man: Nice T-Shirt, I whink I will make same, just in Slovak And you resemble one actor with me, just can not recall the name 

airtac: I think more about international politics. Like I hve readen about "preventive attack" on Iran today. Can there be anything like "preventive attack" anyway? It is like I don't like the way that type looks around, let's bust him preventively, he might be pickpocket... And still, he just has some eye problems.

[Frank N. O.]

Haha, cool picture G-Man!

Frank

[Baradium]

G-man: Nice T-Shirt, I whink I will make same, just in Slovak And you resemble one actor with me, just can not recall the name 

airtac: I think more about international politics. Like I hve readen about "preventive attack" on Iran today. Can there be anything like "preventive attack" anyway? It is like I don't like the way that type looks around, let's bust him preventively, he might be pickpocket... And still, he just has some eye problems.

Actually, the idea of a preventative (preemptive) attack is well defined and makes sense.

If you know an enemy is building for a set goal that will lead to an encounter, take away their ability to do so.


Think about it this way.   If someone walked up to you and told you they were going to walk across the street, buy a gun, and come back and kill your family (and you believed them) would you let them?     They haven't actually *done* anything yet.

And in this case, the guy has said that and is already *trying* to buy the "gun."


Premptive attacks are meant to prevent much larger losses of life on both sides.   If you're facing an enemy that can kill hundreds of people now but it searching for a way to kill hundreds of thousands or millions...  now is a lot better time to be fighting than later.