Posted on 03/16/2009 6:22:29 AM PDT by jmaroneps37
A November 28, 2008 Collins Report prediction seems to becoming true. That essay read: “The Russians have started the push that might come to shove and the heat has been turned up on Barack Obama.
"Because of the sagging price of oil, the Russians have to do something or watch their country slip into anarchy. They need a crisis to move oil prices back up and Cuba is a very handy place to foment one. They are probing Obama for weakness…. but [The Russian’s] real targets were Venezuela and Guantanamo Cuba.
“[Russian President] Medvedev talked with America hater Hugo Chavez, basically as a pot stirrer, … Cuba was his main concern.
“The Castro brothers are sitting on a piece of land that the Russians, now more than ever, find very interesting.” As per www.breitbart.com the Russian Air Force is talking to both Cuba and Venezuela about placing Russian long range bombers in airfields within their borders.
Production cut talk didn’t work
To stay healthy, the Russian economy needs $70.00 plus oil. On March 12 the Russian Oil Ministry floated a rumor it would cut production. The move worked well enough to push crude oil’s price up 11%.
Nevertheless, the market immediately shrugged off Russia’s bluster and oil started falling again March 13. Since talking obviously didn’t work, Russia has moved to a “Cold War” style escalation of tensions. Talking about putting bombers ninety miles from Miami is their next turn of the screw.
If this fails to move the world to crisis mode and thus ramp up prices, they will station their planes in Cuba. This Report predicted that when Obama hands Guantanamo to Castro he will sell it to the Russians. Everything points toward this happening and Obama’s is too naïve to recognize it.
You read it here first.
(Excerpt) Read more at collinsreport.net ...
Comings and goings won’t cause much of an uptick in crude. An incident with one of these bombers might.
Seeing as how it's a prop driven, subsonic bomber; WWII era interceptors?
I'd really like to see it outrun an F-15, or any missile.
If you were Czar Putin, would you waste any time challenging Obama? You, as Putin, need to get oil prices up, keep your people from pulling you out of the Kremlin, and establish Russia as a big power player in the world. What would you do? Push Obama anyway you can. Get the Cubans to tap into America’s coastal shelf for oil, Establish bases in the area, get Getmo out of US hands and into yours, most of all show the world Obama will not help them in any action that Russia doesn’t like. Remember, Putin isn’t a Communist, he’s worse; A Russian Nationalist/Imperialist who want to expand the power of the double headed eagle by any means possible.
Hmmm..OK, six hundred knots isn’t a big deal anymore.
I googled Tu-95. There are many variants, but I agree that its role as a cruise missile launch platform carries the greatest danger to the U.S.
But slow or not, having the Caribbean skies full of these Cold War relics is no recipe for anything but international mischief-making.
That is Putin’s real intent, IMHO.
I wonder how the citizens of Venezuela and Cuba will like being on the losing end of a nuclear target?
But, it seems to me that a cruise missile could theoretically be launched from just about any platform large enough to carry one. A lumbering prop driven bomber would make a nice diversion for other platforms, and it does have a PR appeal to the tin-pot dictators to our south.
“Wake Up America, you elected an impostor.”
America needed to wake up before it elected the impostor. It’s kind of late now. Timing is everything.
“Thursday, March 06, 2008 10:23:30 AM · 47 of 54
Kurchatov324 to Tailgunner Joe
The next thing Putin will do is to send 2 TU-95 Bears flying down the East coast and have them land in Cuba, as they did during the Cold War, then continue their flight to visit their new friend in Venezuela, Loco Chavez.
If you want to have a view of how life was in a Soviet Bear airbase, read “BEAR, Flight to Liberty,” a novel about how the crew of one of those giants planned and effected their escape from the USSR to Canada in August 1976. You can get it from amazon.com or barnesandnoble.com”
So don't be surprised when 2 Bears fly down our East Coast and land in Havana, refuel, and continue to Orchila...
Also, the TU-95 DOES NOT outrun our interceptors. It may be the fastest PROPELLER airplane in the world, but it is still subsonic. All it can do is to have a FASTER response to sudden increases in speed than a jet fighter, for perhaps 1-2 minutes, but after that, once the jet pilot flickers on his afterburners, the jet catches with the BEAR in no time. The rest is history, literally. I should know, I spent years studying the BEARs in order to help write the novel above...
I’ve always thought the Tu-95 was kind of neat. There are youtube videos of engine start, takeoff, and inflight.
(Never flew anything faster than UH-1H Hueys, myself)
But is it true that those contrarotating propellers are so loud that the Bear can be heard even before it is picked up on radar?
;^)
Well, it is PARTIALLY true. According to NATO pilots, they can hear the rumble of the 8 contrarotating propellers while they’re still some 3 miles away from the BEARs. However, they’re picked up on their radars way before that. On the other hand, when the fighter pilots fly right BEHIND or UNDER a Bear, the noise can be clearly heard despite their helmets, the cockpit canopy, and the noise of their own engines. They say it feels like being in front of a disco loudspeaker at full blast, the reverberations can be felt in their chests. For more info on the TU-95 Bear, visit www.bearflighttoliberty.com
I went to bearflighttoliberty.com. Learned a great deal not only about the Tu-95 but what life was like for Bear crewmembers. Geez, creature comforts was the bottom of the list of their priorities.
Have always wondered why the Soviets/Russians made the Bear the mainstay of their fleet instead of a jet bomber.
Of course, they now have the B-1 lookalike.
I remember when Aeroflot began flights to New York. There was the Il-62 and earlier the Tu-114 (wonder what riding in that must have been like for the passengers? I remember inside a TWA Super Constellation you could not hear yourself talk.)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.