Russian bomber patrols to reach Mexico

[alhoon]

http://news.yahoo.com/russian-bomber...140508309.html

The gist: Russian air patrols of long range strategic bombers are said to reach the gulf of Mexico. Russia is in talks with Latin America and other countries (including Cyprus, Venezuela, Vietnam and Cuba) about allowing Russian ships to refuel there and perhaps use the bases for their bombers too.
Before you start building your nuclear-resisting shelters: Long-range bombers have been in these area before, but only to participate in various visits. Pentagon and the director of "the European Leadership Network" (no idea what that is) don't see it as a threat and say that Russia has every right to do so, but should do so taking care of safety.

Now: I believe Russia is pushing to make their military more visible. Also for the world to focus and protest and moan about this, where the Russians have the right to do it, and so that the news and people of the West forget about Crimea, that Russia didn't have the right to annex. As in, moving the "political battleground" to something Russia can win.
Well, it didn't seem to work, as NATO and that European Leadership Network don't mind Russia flying all around the world for the lulz.


However of more concern to RUssians themselves should be the actual COST of these adventures. Their economy is crumbling. It's not the time to start flying over the Mexican gulf and near California. It's expensive.

[conon394]

Color me unimpressed by Putin. With oil at ~80-85 dollars if he wants to waste money flying a bunch of relics and a handful of sort of relics - I all in.


The larger question is bases and cash. With oil down and the House of Saud seemily in doing the US a favor for now - how much money does Putin really want to shovel and countries fro access just for dick waving. Also what kind of rights? I mean the US lease of Diego Garcia is one thing but but is Putin likely to get a whole island to himself out the Seychelles, other like Vietnam seem a long shot when their issues are with China and Putin is friendly to China.

[Sphere]

Color me unimpressed by Putin. With oil at ~80-85 dollars if he wants to waste money flying a bunch of relics and a handful of sort of relics - I all in.

The Tu-95 is a capable and majestic aircraft. I will not let its honor be slandered like this.

[Mementomoridc]

The Tu-95 is a capable and beautiful aircraft. I will not let its honor be slandered like this.

Isn't that the one that is so loud US subs were picking it up on sonar lol.

[Sphere]

Isn't that the one that is so loud US subs were picking it up on sonar lol.

I suggest you show a little more respect for the fastest propeller driven aircraft ever built. And yes, its engines are so powerful that the propeller tips travel at supersonic speeds, creating shock-waves which are detectable underwater.

[Mementomoridc]

I suggest you show a little more respect for the fastest propeller driven aircraft ever built. And yes, its engines are so powerful that the propeller tips travel at supersonic speeds, creating shock-waves which are detectable underwater.

I did not say it was not a great piece of engineering, I was just pointing out the fact that as a long range bomber that could be detected from something like 1k+ miles away from a system not even designed to look for it. Made it a weapon system that was going to be a death trap in the age of jets. Think of it like the early US jets wich had no guns, until they modified them they were something no1 wanted to be in.

[Caelifer_1991]

I suggest you show a little more respect for the fastest propeller driven aircraft ever built. And yes, its engines are so powerful that the propeller tips travel at supersonic speeds, creating shock-waves which are detectable underwater.

That must be incredibly inefficient in terms of specific impulse, what with the gigantic levels of wave drag in the transonic region, particularly given the straight profile of the blades and the presumably early development of shock-waves along its outer surface as a result. I imagine that it spends a great deal of time at less than its top speed when lifting any significant cargo, or that it sacrifices a significant amount of its stated maximum range. To be honest, if I had to hazard a guess, and given that the tu-95 was originally designed as a nuclear bomber, I would suggest that the fact that it allows for supersonic flow over the propellers at an inevitably huge decrease in fuel efficiency can be owed to the requirement to cover as much distance as possible after dropping a nuclear warhead, in order to mitigate the aerodynamic shocks that would occur from the corresponding detonation of the nuke. In an age where the deployment of nukes would be the reserve of ballistic missiles, the maximum speed thus becomes something of a technicality. At the time that it was built it was certainly an impressive design, but its still notably outdated at this stage.

[Aanker]

Is this a crash course in how to eliminate international credibility?

Perhaps the better ending to every post would be "Russia will destroy itself", which has been a reliable and cyclic development since at least the 1800s...

[alhoon]

And Russia is still around, despite such cyclic developments, which makes them not really reliable

[Sire Brenshar]

And Russia is still around, despite such cyclic developments, which makes them not really reliable

No it is rather correct - it does indeed destroy itself, not that it 'disappears' so much as it ends up being in this perpetual state of catching up with the western powers after massive state failures.

Its this cycle of centennial total collapses punctuated by smaller generational crises.

[Dromikaites]

And Russia is still around, despite such cyclic developments, which makes them not really reliable

A smaller Russia every time.

[Heathen Hammer]

And Russia is still around, despite such cyclic developments, which makes them not really reliable

Indeed, but it is a common example of globalist bias. Another important detail is that every "failure" in recent Russian history was a result of cooperation with Western powers.

[Himster]

It's obvious that Putin's body has been occupied by the international gay mafia, who are actually inter-dimensional alien ghosts. You see their goal used to be to just turn everyone gay in an attempt to wipe out mankind, but then we invented surrogacy and artificial insemination, so that won't work. So now they're tricking world leaders into being gay and also tricking them into making terrible decisions in international policy to start world war 3 and wipe out mankind that way.

It's the only logical explanation. You know I'm right. Check Putin's Ipad, you'll find lots of inter-dimensional-alien-ghost-gay-porn. I'm telling you.

[Roma_Victrix]

It's obvious that Putin's body has been occupied by the international gay mafia, who are actually inter-dimensional alien ghosts. You see their goal used to be to just turn everyone gay in an attempt to wipe out mankind, but then we invented surrogacy and artificial insemination, so that won't work. So now they're tricking world leaders into being gay and also tricking them into making terrible decisions in international policy to start world war 3 and wipe out mankind that way.

It's the only logical explanation. You know I'm right. Check Putin's Ipad, you'll find lots of inter-dimensional-alien-ghost-gay-porn. I'm telling you.

That would certainly explain a lot of Russia's self-destructive behavior as of late. I'm convinced!

I also shudder at the utter wastefulness of all this macho dick-waving by Putin when that money could have been used to improve Russia's crumbling infrastructure, schools in need of renovation, etc. In the same way that I look at some old and outdated infrastructure in the US and remember the trillions of dollars we spent in Iraq and Afghanistan since the Bush years.

[mrmouth]

This is one giant tantrum on the level of North Korea. Nobody thinks Russia is a global power and nothing is going to change that.

[Mementomoridc]

This is one giant tantrum on the level of North Korea. Nobody thinks Russia is a global power and nothing is going to change that.

Don't tell Putin that

[Roma_Victrix]

This is one giant tantrum on the level of North Korea. Nobody thinks Russia is a global power and nothing is going to change that.

I don't know if I would go that for. So far Russia has not put out a video matching this one below:

[Caelifer_1991]

I don't know if I would go that for. So far Russia has not put out a video matching this one below:

All those broken bricks, there goes half of NK's GDP.

[Roma_Victrix]

All those broken bricks, there goes half of NK's GDP.

You're a mean, incorrigible man, Caelifer. As if they didn't know that? Geez. Talk about rubbing salt into their festering untreated wounds.

Russia has a GDP that is basically neck-and-neck with Italy ($2 trillion USD), so they shouldn't consider smashing too many bricks themselves. For that matter, neither should my country, the US, considering the debt we're in and the deficit we're trying to reduce each fiscal year.

[The Despondent Mind]

As some mentioned before, it seems Russia is and will be stuck forever trying to reach the western powers and miserably failing at it when they are closest.