US Spy Plane Intercepted by Russian Jet over Black Sea

Discussion in 'Warfare / Military' started by Jazz, Jul 5, 2019.

  1. Doug1943

    Doug1943 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Ok, I've started to look at the link you have given me here. Thanks. And also the links that it has.
    My favorite item so far is this:
     
  2. Doug1943

    Doug1943 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    The Zimmerman Telegram was an act of fundamental stupidity -- even if Mexico had been a potential belligerent, but more importantly, because she was not. Mr Zimmerman probably looked at a map, looked in an Atlas for population figures, read a bit of history about the Mexican-American war, and figured Mexico was a Latin Austria. What a fool. But it shows how the actual unfolding of history depends on the accidents of individual personality and capacity.

    I know little about what historians have written about the American decision to get involved in WWI, but surely, Mr Wilson was anticipating FDR by 20 years ... believing it was time for the US to enter on to the world stage?
     
  3. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

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    Thank you, I was going to comment on that myself.

    And yes, the US and other NATO aircraft have long patrolled the Black Sea. Just as the Soviets have long patrolled the Gulf of Mexico.

    And it is the Black Sea. Not much of interest really ever occurs there. Since the end of WWII it is where WP and NATO did maneuver games with each other, generally flying by the coasts of the other and seeing what they could of equipment and readiness.

    It is not like say the Caspian Sea. The Black Sea is largely shared between Russia and Turkey. This is why for things of critical military importance to the Soviets-Russia, they used the Caspian Sea. The development and testing of Ekranoplans for example, that was all done in the Caspian Sea (and in the 1960s one earned the nickname of the "Caspian Sea Monster").

    [​IMG]

    The only reason things like this raise eyebrows is that we went almost 20 years without such things happening. Now both sides are looking at each other once again, and people are acting like it is the end of the world.
     
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  4. Dayton3

    Dayton3 Well-Known Member

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    He was. Ironically, President Wilson wanted the U.S. to have a seat at the peace conference so he could structure a peace (especially a League of Nations) that would prevent all future major wars.

    But to have a seat at the peace conference, the United States had to be a major combatant in the Great War whenever it ended.

    Ironic that what Wilson saw as his greatest triumph and one of histories great triumphs actually helped cause a much more devastating war just a generation later.
     
  5. Doug1943

    Doug1943 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Thanks for this. It makes sense. It's understandable that FDR got us into WWII -- he really had no choice. And it's understandable that the Cold War unfolded the way it did. But why, why, why get into WWI? The British and French got to divide up Turkey's Middle East possessions. We got nothing.
     
  6. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

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    Are you even aware that the US and Mexico were basically in an undeclared war up until 1917?

    The idea of Mexico attacking the US is not really silly at all, if you look at the conditions at the time.

    The Zimmermann Telegram was sent in January 1917. That is barely a year after the Mexican attack on Columbus, New Mexico. A battle that caused the deaths of 15 US civilians and most of the town burned to the ground. The US response was the Pancho Villa Expedition, led by General Pershing. Over 10,000 US soldiers patrolling along (and sometimes crossing) the border between the US and Mexico.

    At that time period, we were actually amazingly close to yet another US-Mexican War the 3rd or 4th in half a century). It was largely the fear inside the Mexican Government of that telegram going public that caused them to completely distance themselves from it, and pull back all the revolutionaries that had been preying across the border.

    What happened is that Germany confused the "turning a blind eye" that the Mexican Revolutionary Government had been doing with the border revolutionaries like Villa with an actual desire to attempt to regain territory lost half a century earlier. Mexico found the border region a place to essentially exile problematical individuals. They could chant their slogans and raise a few hundred bandits and raid the US or Mexican towns and largely nobody cared. They were away from Mexican City and other areas of importance. But when the US responded with cavalry, armored cars and aircraft, Mexico started to take the situation more seriously.

    A series of setbacks and losses for Villa finally broke the back of the bandit. From 1916 to 1920 both the US and Mexican governments were trying to capture him. Mexico mostly because while he was popular, he was getting dangerously close to causing the US to rise up yet again and invade Mexico. The US occupation of Veracruz (April - November 1914) was only a few years in the past by this point.
     
  7. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

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    Actually, we gained a lot.

    Primarily, it finally put an end to the US-UK tensions that had existed for over 150 years and had only started to die down since 1899.

    It also started a rapid increase from largely agricultural nation to the industrial powerhouse that it became 2 decades later.

    It was also the first major conflict fought outside of the US itself. This was to set the pattern to be followed for the next century, where the US would try to do all of it's fighting overseas and not inside their own borders (not counting minor skirmishes).

    It also saw for the first time huge numbers of women serving inside the armed forces. A model to be followed again during WWII, and shortly after that adapted permanently.

    The US at that time did not need any more territory. Not only were they still adapting to acquisition of the Canal Zone, there was also Hawaii (1898). And Wake, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines in 1899. Samoa in 1900. And finally in 1917 the purchase of the Danish West Indies for $25 million and being renamed to the American Virgin Islands.

    We were already working hard to absorb huge amounts of land scattered from the Pacific to the Atlantic. The last thing we needed was even more overseas territory.

    The only territory of note that the US might have even been interested in was maybe German Samoa. But that was occupied by New Zealand in 1914, and they occupied it until they declared their independence in 1962.
     
  8. Doug1943

    Doug1943 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I can't believe that, without going to war, we would have remained an agricultural nation. The other two positive gains -- make the British happy, women in industry -- again, are things that should have best been left to the natural course of events.
     
  9. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

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    We were never an agricultural nation. What we have always been is a mercantilist nation.

    From the very beginning this was the reason the colonies were set up. And when we became independent this continued. It was not food, it was raw materials and finished goods that we traded in. And for over a century and a half primarily by our own traders, on our own ships. And by the latter half of the 19th century, more and more finished goods were being shipped overseas, not just the raw product. Cloth instead of cotton, shoes and jackets instead of leather.

    This is obvious when you look at the effect that Cyrus McCormick had on agriculture. Less people needed to work the soil, more available to work raw materials into finished products. The same with Elias Howe and cotton. More and more the cotton started to go from field to gin straight to plants to make thread and yarn. Then to another plant that made cloth.
     
  10. Doug1943

    Doug1943 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Okay, sounds reasonable to me, and doesn't clash with very dim memories I have from the course in economic history I did fifty or more years ago.
    I was responding to this sentence, referring to our entry into WWI
     
  11. Up On the Governor

    Up On the Governor Well-Known Member

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    That’s not how air intercepts work. You can run an intercept to VID and it not be hostile. We do it a lot if other methods of interrogation don’t work.

    Yes, I realize the posts are old but I haven’t been around and this misunderstanding of basic principles irks me.
     
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  12. Jazz

    Jazz Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Thanks for your comment. Never mind it coming a little late, it is never too late to set things right!! Of course, I don't have the faintest idea.
     
  13. Up On the Governor

    Up On the Governor Well-Known Member

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    There are a lot of times we can’t determine what something is so we’ll run what’s called an intercept to visually ID it. A lot of times it’s foreign or just not communicating (the most basic way I will explain it) properly through other means. Intercepts are not hostile in general. Hell, with Noble Eagle intercepts have been run on Cessnas.

    Where he gets the .25 miles is beyond me. I’m guessing it’s arbitrary. He mentioned boats too so maybe they can do something with .25 miles but that makes absolutely no sense in the air theater.
     
    Last edited: Aug 22, 2019
  14. Jazz

    Jazz Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    0.25 miles are about 400 meters. That I can visualize... it's about the distance from my house to the school. In the spring of 1945 it happened twice to me that a very low flying aircraft came over the forest right at me. The first time, I think, was a German plane, I could see the pilots smiling at me. But the second time the British were so bold and flew around by daylight. I was on my way home from school. Instinctively I threw myself down the grassy embankment. Luckily, they didn't shoot me, but kept going over the meadow and the river. In both instances there were no more than a few meters between me and the airplanes. At least that's what it seemed to me.
     
  15. Up On the Governor

    Up On the Governor Well-Known Member

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    That sounds like an incredible experience. Where did you grow up, if you don’t mind me asking?

    We use nautical miles in the air, so .25 miles is about 1,500’. We fly much closer to each other if we’re part of the same group but that’s starting to get into an uncomfortable zone.
     
  16. Jazz

    Jazz Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Well, where could I possibly have grown up but in Germany! I am the little sister of three older brothers who all went to war, only two came back.
    I hope you are young enough now not to have been one of those pilots who bombed our cities to smithereens! Or perhaps were the one who flew over me!!! Wow, that would be something... to now, at the end of my life meet a bomber pilot from WW!!
    Actually, I just remember, one of my daughters interviewed one of the Canadian bombers. We called him the "Berlin Bomber". He told her, he had no regrets. Those pilots were more concerned about themselves to make it back to base in one piece.
    A few years ago I read a book by a British RAF helper, "Our Mornings May Never Come". That was an interesting read for me, being from the other side.
    My parents lived near the harbor city of Kiel, and my Dad and I would stand outside at night during an alarm and watch the bombers by the hundreds fly overhead, and then it didn't take long the sky would turn red. My mother was too scared to watch, she sat on the bench in the kitchen with a little suitcase, ready to run.
    We use nautical miles in the air, so .25 miles is about 1,500’. We fly much closer to each other if we’re part of the same group but that’s starting to get into an uncomfortable zone.[/QUOTE]Yes, I can imagine!! You have to have nerves of steel not to get nervous. Are you a pilot? A bomber pilot?
    I now live in Canada and love our "Snowbirds"! They are some awesome team when they perform their acrobatic stunts for show...


    How close do you think they are to each other? Much less than 0.25 miles?
     
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  17. Up On the Governor

    Up On the Governor Well-Known Member

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    Yes, I can imagine!! You have to have nerves of steel not to get nervous. Are you a pilot? A bomber pilot?
    I now live in Canada and love our "Snowbirds"! They are some awesome team when they perform their acrobatic stunts for show...


    How close do you think they are to each other? Much less than 0.25 miles?[/QUOTE]I love the Snowbirds. Seen them a few times. I’m a fighter pilot. Spent my most of my time in F-15s (both C and E models). We fly in close formation called “fingertip” which you just kedp the wingman off the edge of your wing. It’s tight and within 5’.
     
  18. Jazz

    Jazz Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I love the Snowbirds. Seen them a few times. I’m a fighter pilot. Spent my most of my time in F-15s (both C and E models). We fly in close formation called “fingertip” which you just keep the wingman off the edge of your wing. It’s tight and within 5’.[/QUOTE]Only 5 ft. between the airplanes? That is only possible with modern computerized instruments.
    So, you are a fighter pilot, meaning you fight enemy planes? Or do you shoot the enemy on the ground?
    Towards the end of the war I was able to watch an air fight between a German pilot and a British pilot over the next field from our house. It looked like the German was going after the British, but then the one turned around and then I saw one pilot parachute from his plane. Yeah, we thought, that is the "Tommy", but later that evening we got word it was the German who got shot down.
    Did you ever got shot down and had to jump?
     
  19. Up On the Governor

    Up On the Governor Well-Known Member

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    Not that close, your time is spent looking outside not in. It’s all part of training and using known visual references.

    We do both air and ground missions but in today’s conflicts there is not a whole lot of air-to-air fighting. Even if it comes to that it’s nothing like the engagements in WW2. Fortunately I have never bailed out. It’s not a common occurrence.
     
  20. Eleuthera

    Eleuthera Well-Known Member Donor

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  21. Up On the Governor

    Up On the Governor Well-Known Member

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  22. Jazz

    Jazz Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Yes, training must be intense and thorough, I imagine. One wrong move and kaboom!!
    What could your "known visual references" be?
    What a feeling it must be high up in the air in a dinky little metal tin... being so helpless and vulnerable. It must have been a queasy feeling when you first started?

    Shooting people on the ground, I witnessed that, too, as a child in 1945. The German army was fleeing up to Denmark and drove along the highway near our village. We woke up one morning to the roar of engines and the constant ratt tatt tatt. Down into the cellar I went with my mother and the refugee lady and her 2-year old son. It didn't take long and my Dad arrived from his workshop: "What are you doing down there?? Come on up and look at the show!" I immediately went with my Dad up to the attic. Through the opened hay door we could see the spectacle... low-flying airplanes were shooting at the German Wehrmacht in their trucks and cars. Smoke rose up in many spots. I felt sorry for the German soldiers. They were pinned on the road like sitting ducks. The only shelter they had were the chestnut trees on both sides, but the leaves were barely out. Today, that would be classified as a war crime!

    Well, I might as well finish this story: The following year our teacher took us across that highway to a large meadow with lots of daisies (Gaensebluemchen), which we were supposed to pick for medicine. I started right near the entrance gate to the meadow. I saw something brown sticking out of the soil. Looking closely, I recognized the fingers of folded hands!!
    That was one of the murdered soldiers from the previous spring. His comrades must have been in a hurry to bury him, or they had no proper shovel. It turned out this soldier was from Westphalia. His wife came and had him removed and brought home.
    All the while my parents had no sign where our two remaining boys were - either dead or alive and taken prisoner. From the one brother we hadn't heard since the summer of 1944 on the East Front.
    Pardon me, children, for getting way off topic. I'm getting old and reminiscent.:grandma:
     
  23. Up On the Governor

    Up On the Governor Well-Known Member

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    Yeah, there is the potential for an accident but it’s so ingrained in training that it becomes second nature. You just use parts of the other aircraft to lineup to explain it without a familiarity of design. Just as an example with the F-15, if you line up the two vertical stabilizers you know you’re at the proper distance.

    That’s an intense story. My great grandparents were in the Soviet Union during WW2 and they have some interesting stories. We’re Central Asian so not much fighting but more to do with the war effort support.
     
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  24. Eleuthera

    Eleuthera Well-Known Member Donor

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    Early after it happened there were a few of the players making comments about the incident. All that was quickly suppressed in favor of the "faulty throttle" explanation instead of the "waiting for Obama to land" explanation.

    Faulty throttle explanation reminds me of the "naked wires in the fuel tank" explanation offered for TWA800.

    No other 747 ever had such a problem, and no other F-16 has had such a problem.

    I'm going with the story that was suppressed by the Pentagon, every time.
     
  25. Up On the Governor

    Up On the Governor Well-Known Member

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    Obama was at the stadium so they weren’t waiting for him to land. No one would starve their jet of fuel just to do a flyover at an Academy football game. If you believe that I have a bridge for sale.

    His ejection occurred in the terminal area. If he were low on fuel he would have diverted to any piece of pavement closer, but being an experienced Thunderbirds pilot he would not be in an emergency fuel situation unless something catastrophic like a blizzard forced diverts over 100s of miles.

    Throttle malfunctions are most definitely a thing. We have a section in our emergency procedures for a few instances. I don’t know about the F-16’s procedures but I am sure it’s worse for them being single engine. Our throttles work via cables that can break and bind. The electrical control devices can give uncommanded power. There are 100 things that can go wrong with just one small part of a system.

    In this case, his gate was stuck in the down position. Ours you lift up and then over the hump to OFF but I guess Vipers are different. If he was fast on speeds and chopped it back to IDLE, but the gate was depressed and it went back to OFF while on final, then that’s a scary situation for someone with only one engine. Flying an approach means he’d be below the recommended ejection altitude and without delay he punched. It’s what most guys would do.

    But yeah, disregard all procedure and logic to live in a world of conspiracy.
     

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