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The Russians Testing The USAF

We have to get the RCAF to occupy Annette Island again (my dad was stationed there)
 
The RCAF can operate a couple of F18's from Elmendorf with tanker support out of Eilson.
 
Check out the range of modern Russian ALCMs if you want to put this discussion in perspective.
 
One thing our western media fails to report is that quite often, Russia either scrambles or launches aircraft to what it perceives as American aircraft flying too close for comfort.

With a border that close, and airspace that close, both sides launch & scramble aircraft on a regular basis. We scramble to intercept them, which regularly are routine flights, training & familiarity flights, etc etc by Russian air forces. They do the same, when our aircraft are in the air first. Two sides of the same coin.

And while the US has every interest and right to be suspicious of Russian intentions, the Russians feel the same way about the US. So the game continues...


**I do have to wonder, however. With the limited number of combat coded F-22's in the inventory, and a brawl against China coming up most likely, is scrambling them on a regular basis to intercept slow moving bombers and surveillance planes the best use of that resource? I'd imagine F-15's, with all of their upgraded wizardry, would be more than capable?
 
I reckon the Russkies can fire from beyond the max fighter coverage?
The Russian Federation has put a lot of work into the recapitalization of their Long Range Aviation capabilities over the past 10-15 years. Both in terms of platforms (i.e. Tu-95 & Tu-160) as well as the weapons they carry (i.e. Kh-101/102). They have used Syria as an operational proving ground for some of these capabilities, and have also staged LRA out of Venezuela in years past. As for Russian ISR aircraft, you can't really blame them. The US constantly has RJs, EP-3s, and Global Hawks up the asses of Russia, China, Iran, NK, and others. Par for the course.

There's probably one or two members on here that have actually intercepted Russian LRA assets, and would be qualified to speak from the fighter side of things. Due to the strategic nature of the mission set, I'm not sure they'd be able to discuss it in much detail, though.

With that said, in addition to a CF-18 replacement, I think recapitalization of NWS & investments into various forms of missile defence should be high priorities for Canada. You know as well as I do that these are not priorities for 99% of Canadians, so there will need to be outside pressure from the US. IMO, anyways.
 
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