A whole lot like bringing a knife to a gun fight.
Like most all ruski mil junk, will work great against UNARMED civilians.
Still LOL about the Navy Subs being able to track this Bear air beater by sound track.
A knife to a gun fight ....yes, it is. That is if you are talking about bringing a fighter against the Bear, at the engagement distances that occur during one of these intercepts. The fighter being the knife, the Bear being the gun!
After all, the Raptor's best missile (the AMRAAM) has a maximum range of 50km to 70 km (lower against a maneuvering target with high ECM). However, the Bear is definitely not a maneuvering target, and let's assume there is no jamming or the like ....thus we are assuming maximum range shot for the AMRAAM, with full pK in terms of its likelihood of hitting the target. Let's also assume a high altitude launch from a supercruising Raptor, which enhances the range of the AMRAAM by, say, 30-45%.
Well, the Bear would be carrying a number (maximum 16) of Raduga KH-55s, each with a range of around 3,000 kilometers, nuclear tipped. At 3,000 kilometers by the time a Raptor or Canadian CF-18 gets close enough the Bear will have launched its missiles a long time back.
You have to remember that the Bear was simply a missile launch platform ....once that was done it was expendable! Anyways, in the event of a nuclear war during the Cold War, there would have been no bases for it to fly back to to land! The moment it took off hot it was a one-way mission!
Too many people think about things in a linear fashion, and that is why on FR for instance it is common to hear how useless the 'Russian junk' is. Most of the people saying that base their statements on the performance of said 'junk' in the hands of third-world forces (e.g. the Yugoslavs, the Afghans, the Iraqis), without considering that were things reversed (e.g. the Iraqis flying F-16As with no real BVR, no jamming, no situational awareness) and the good guys flying, say, SU-30s, the outcome would have been quite different. I generally like to bring out what would occur was India to fly against Pakistan, with India having its SU-30MKIs and Pakistan its F-16A/Bs. It would be a slaughter on the Vipers, but obviously we know the Viper is one of the best fighters out there. You have to look at the enemy.
Anyways, on the junky Bear. It is a missile platform ...by the time it was even visible to the Raptor's AESA (with those props, and the huge RCS of the Bear, it would occur quite quickly) the Bear would have launched ALL of its KH-55s.
Furthermore, with the fact that this interceptions have started to occur often again, after a lull during the 90s when Russia was under the incompetence of Yeltsin plus did not have money flowing in from gas. That means we are getting used again to the Russians flying right next door, where we have the usual game of sending up fighters to take pictures and tell them off. Well, that could make a surprise attack easier ...the only difference is that the Bear would have to rely solely on the 6 Raduga missiles in its internal rotary system, and not have 10 more hanging on its wings. With the fact that they are allowed to get so close ....
Anyways, talking about knife fights, things are not always so linear. Maybe when one day a war needs to be fought against a near-peer adversary those lessons will be learned ....then again, with the US canceling the Raptor, I guess both the Democrats and Republicans (the canceling of the Raptor is shared between both) believe that fighting near-peer adversaries (like China) will never happen, just third-world nations totting Kalashnikovs and boinking camels.
Right?