Spy Planes: USSR Cold War

[Zardnaar]

From 1957 to the mid 1980's the USA was violating Soviet airspace.

The Soviets knew this but couldn't prove it and kept quiet probably due to having to acknowledge they couldn't deal with them in 1957.

Until 1960 when they managed to shoot a U2 down and parade the pilot around. From the start however Soviet radar could pick them up. Assumptions about being able to fly above radar were incorrect.

Flights continued into the mid 1980's with the SR-71 blackbird. The Soviets developed the Mig 25 as a high altitude interceptor.

They didn't manage to shoot one down but they came close in the mid 80's using 3 of them and the Americans stopped the flights. SR 71 was used around the Kola Peninsula it wasn't used deep into the USSR.

The Soviets also tested NATO's air defenses but always got intercepted so never pushed deep into NATO airspace.

So anyway what does CFC think? The Americans were clearly in the wrong violating Soviet airspace. The Soviets never went to war over it which I think would be a disproportionate response in any event.

But they did manage to shoot at least 1 down. I don't have much sympathy here and shooting them down is a proportional response imho and it's not like the Americans were innocent here. They didn't start a war over Gary Powers capture either.

 

[Kaitzilla]

The US is the world leader in acting righteous in public and shady as hell in the dark.


Satellites with great cameras have replaced spy planes?
I'm not up to date on modern spycraft.

 

[r16]

typical American chest beating on how they are the greatest , except it is nothing of the sort . Because of a 1962 affair during the Cuban crisis , which Americans love to describe like an intrusion of hundreds of miles into Russia due navigation systems failure and never noticed or anything and which might have really started the WW lll as an American U-2 had just been shot down in Cuba , the SR-71 series were never allowed to overfly Russia . Because of the higher tech and whatnot that would have been a windfall . Because Americans also love to remind that their Kodak films went to Moon before they could manage to , because Russians got some from the May Day wreck and it was still better than theirs ... And yes , the Chinese shot down 7 Taiwanese flown U-2s and their pathetic AD system was dangerous enough for SR-71s not to fly over China , too . There was a drone , to be launched from the SR-71 which crashed one during a test launch , so it went to B-52 motherships . Which was operational 3 times , during which one managed to crash in the Soviet Union , useful enough for reverse engineering things .

russians could shoot down the SR-71 like everytime , if it made a worthwhile penetration to bom dachas with Communist bosses inside , with conventional weaponry , helping a transfer of power in Moscow like peacefully . As such every SR-71 operation led to full alerts in the Soviet Airdefence system and general court martial was promised for failure . It was known , and reinforced by the two shootdowns of South Korean airliners , despite the awareness that they were civilian planes . And yeah , ı expect thousands of people hanged in Washington DC if any of this Blackbird business was to happen to US .

 

[Zardnaar]

typical American chest beating on how they are the greatest , except it is nothing of the sort . Because of a 1962 affair during the Cuban crisis , which Americans love to describe like an intrusion of hundreds of miles into Russia due navigation systems failure and never noticed or anything and which might have really started the WW lll as an American U-2 had just been shot down in Cuba , the SR-71 series were never allowed to overfly Russia . Because of the higher tech and whatnot that would have been a windfall . Because Americans also love to remind that their Kodak films went to Moon before they could manage to , because Russians got some from the May Day wreck and it was still better than theirs ... And yes , the Chinese shot down 7 Taiwanese flown U-2s and their pathetic AD system was dangerous enough for SR-71s not to fly over China , too . There was a drone , to be launched from the SR-71 which crashed one during a test launch , so it went to B-52 motherships . Which was operational 3 times , during which one managed to crash in the Soviet Union , useful enough for reverse engineering things .

russians could shoot down the SR-71 like everytime , if it made a worthwhile penetration to bom dachas with Communist bosses inside , with conventional weaponry , helping a transfer of power in Moscow like peacefully . As such every SR-71 operation led to full alerts in the Soviet Airdefence system and general court martial was promised for failure . It was known , and reinforced by the two shootdowns of South Korean airliners , despite the awareness that they were civilian planes . And yeah , ı expect thousands of people hanged in Washington DC if any of this Blackbird business was to happen to US .

They were used to spy on Kola Peninsula. Not sure on the exact flight paths.

 

[Zardnaar]

The US is the world leader in acting righteous in public and shady as hell in the dark.


Satellites with great cameras have replaced spy planes?
I'm not up to date on modern spycraft.

Satellites and drones mostly afaik.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Satellites and drones mostly afaik.

Get ready for cameras the size of a grain of salt!

https://engineering.princeton.edu/news/2021/11/29/researchers-shrink-camera-size-salt-grain

 

[r16]

with Kola you are maybe looking at 50 kilometers distance , beyond Soviet territorial waters . Considering the speed of the thing and the fact that you can't turn ... At exercises Soviet MiG-25s were tracked on Western radar to take the entire Eastern Germany to turn 180 degrees .

 

[Zardnaar]

with Kola you are maybe looking at 50 kilometers distance , beyond Soviet territorial waters . Considering the speed of the thing and the fact that you can't turn ... At exercises Soviet MiG-25s were tracked on Western radar to take the entire Eastern Germany to turn 180 degrees .

Well MiG 25 wasn't designed to dogfight.

Fighters tend to be maneuverable, interceptore flybfast in a straight line and climb rate.

 

[E.man]

The US is the world leader in acting righteous in public and shady as hell in the dark.


Satellites with great cameras have replaced spy planes?
I'm not up to date on modern spycraft.

The NSA operates a long flight orbital reusable spy plane. It looks like a small non crewed space shuttle. The service crew wear full hazmat .

 

[E.man]

Well MiG 25 wasn't designed to dogfight.

Fighters tend to be maneuverable, interceptore flybfast in a straight line and climb rate.

UK Interceptor of the time was the English Electric II.

Fighter/Interceptor distinction is not one made by most ppl.
Similarly any armoured vehicle with a gun on is often referred to as a tank

 

[Zardnaar]

UK Interceptor of the time was the English Electric II.

Fighter/Interceptor distinction is not one made by most ppl.
Similarly any armoured vehicle with a gun on is often referred to as a tank

West didn't have dedicated interceptors as much as Soviets or used fighters.

Soviets alot more worried about bombers than the west.

 

[Broken_Erika]

This was supposed to be Canada's interceptor but it got canned

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_Canada_CF-105_Arrow

 

[r16]

let's try avoiding the usual desire to make Russians can't do anything right kind of threads . When the speed increases the turn radius increases . When one gets the agile F-15 or 22 up to Mach 2.8 something of the MiG-25 , they will not be turning within Berlin , it will still be entire East Germany sort of .

and to say the West didn't have interceptors is kinda wrong considering everything upto F-15 was an interceptor . Which F-15 still is .

 

[amadeus]

Totally justified. Nuts to their airspace.

 

[Zardnaar]

let's try avoiding the usual desire to make Russians can't do anything right kind of threads . When the speed increases the turn radius increases . When one gets the agile F-15 or 22 up to Mach 2.8 something of the MiG-25 , they will not be turning within Berlin , it will still be entire East Germany sort of .

and to say the West didn't have interceptors is kinda wrong considering everything upto F-15 was an interceptor . Which F-15 still is .

West had interceptors but uses multi role fighters for it now.

Most mations don't have US type bombers.

 

[r16]

everything that wasn't directly designed to drop nuclear bombs was first and foremost meant to shoot down those that would carry nuclear bombs ; it was the times . Multirole upto Phantom was an interceptor that was no longer fast enough or was already being replaced by a newer interceptor .

 

[Samson]

Satellites with great cameras have replaced spy planes?

Nah, they just get the subject to use their own cameras these days

Snoops use dating apps to hook sources

Nations running online foreign influence campaigns have turned to dating apps to recruit people privy to sensitive information, according to the director general of the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), the nation's security agency directed against external threats and a key partner in the Five Eyes security alliance.

"In the last two years, thousands of Australians with access to sensitive information have been targeted by foreign spies using social media profiles," revealed ASIO supremo Mike Burgess during his third annual threat assessment address on Wednesday.

Two years ago, such approaches were most often observed on professional social networking platforms. Burgess said ASIO now needs to track the dating apps Tinder, Bumble and Hinge, because foreign spies have started to use them, too. WhatsApp has also been targeted.​

 

[Zardnaar]

let's try avoiding the usual desire to make Russians can't do anything right kind of threads . When the speed increases the turn radius increases . When one gets the agile F-15 or 22 up to Mach 2.8 something of the MiG-25 , they will not be turning within Berlin , it will still be entire East Germany sort of .

and to say the West didn't have interceptors is kinda wrong considering everything upto F-15 was an interceptor . Which F-15 still is .

50's and 60's they did do a lot of things right.

They got left behind with microchips and when the west upgunned tanks with the L7.

70's onwards get can't do things right is where things start going wrong although there's glimpses of that in the 60's.

By the 80"s you see things like stingers, stealth planes and Beka Valley slaughter of Soviet stuff.

Early Vietnam they were still competitive with things like the MiG 21.

 

[r16]

your Stingers , stealth planes and Bekaa Valley slaughters and microchips and everything else at the final analysis are PR work . The impressive Bekaa Valley slaughter did not stop Fitter attacks that caused extensive casualtie at some lsraeli headquarters . To be read only at one fighter "ace's" comments only because we mortals are not to bd informed and whatnot . The Western superiority is only because there hasn't been that great a need to test convictions in the way it should be . Like watching China these days ? Both as in loving the spectacle and girlish talk ...

 

[Zardnaar]

your Stingers , stealth planes and Bekaa Valley slaughters and microchips and everything else at the final analysis are PR work . The impressive Bekaa Valley slaughter did not stop Fitter attacks that caused extensive casualtie at some lsraeli headquarters . To be read only at one fighter "ace's" comments only because we mortals are not to bd informed and whatnot . The Western superiority is only because there hasn't been that great a need to test convictions in the way it should be . Like watching China these days ? Both as in loving the spectacle and girlish talk ...

Wasn't just Beka Valley but a lot of those Arab/Israeli wars.

Soviets stuff wasn't completely useless but there were some very lopsided kill ratios in there.

Soviet quality peaked somewhere between the T-54/55 and the Mig21 or so.

They had reasonably good air defense, anti tank missiles and ground attack planes/helicopters.

But they didn't match microchips in the west or things like fire control, thermal sights and stabilization on tank guns.