I read on a blog:

 

"This game hasn?t been played in a few years. The second bomber was a sniffer; it was taking readings of the electronic transmissions from the Hornets and ships. Navy must be chewing their own liver if the Russians got a lot of readings. They could develop jamming for the air radars."

 

Any truth to this?

I'd say basically yes, at least possibly.  Russian aircraft dedicated to ELINT collection would normally be Il-20 or An-12 variants, but it seems reasonable to me anyway that some ESM equipment could be on the second Tu-95 and collecting some signals from the carrier and its air wing.  Now that I think about it, I think there were some electronic warfare varients of the Tu-95, so if it was one of them then it certainly could collect ELINT to some extent.  However, it's not like they haven't collected plenty in the past and present using other means, so I doubt this is somehow particularly harmful or unique event as far as collecting signals goes.  It's certainly true that it is a very infrequent thing these days to use aircraft in this way.

Does the situation change in regard to level of concern, given that normally russian fighters are the onces doing the buzzing, but not in this case?

If you're not prepared to kill 'em you have to let 'em come and go.  For purposes of debate I will take the side that it is more dangerous, ultimately, to let them go than to stop them.  If of course you can ward them off nonviolently that is fine, but if somebody has to be the bitch, I prefer it not be us.

Then the next group of Tu-95s come shooting in LEGITIMATE retaliation? Remember this was in international waters.

If this is the game and no shooting, let's wake up the old SR-71s, or the U-2s, or Aurora, and have some fun overflying Yamantau Mountain or Novaya Zemyla or the sub pens at Vlad or something they don't like to have snooped on.

Rule set violation. That would be penetrating Russian airspace.

Or I guess we could double our efforts at these interceptor bases if that's what's really eating them.

Thats more reasonable and in proportion to the incident.

For purposes of debate I will take the side that it is more dangerous, ultimately, to let them go than to stop them. 

If this is the game and no shooting, let's wake up the old SR-71s, or the U-2s, or Aurora, and have some fun overflying Yamantau Mountain or Novaya Zemyla or the sub pens at Vlad or something they don't like to have snooped on.

a)  Then you are the aggressor beaking international law, and they would be acting legitimately in defending themselves.  You would be escalating the situation, and would lose international support, which would result in further consequences and move to isolate the USA on the world stage.

b)  Again breaching airspace is escalation.  More to the point, America already has satelites which are vastly more useful.  

They wouldn't DARE!!!1!!!eleven!!!4

Well that's the point, innit?  They are playing these games because they figure WE wouldn't dare.  Putin does not want to go to war.

"D'oh!  Our $3Bn AEGIS just had an upgrade, it said you were a toaster.  Well our ROE says shoot down all unidentified toasters."

Make reparations - send the families a year's supply of vodka. 

IOW accidents happen.  Make it look good like USS Vincennes.  (Does she or doesn't she?  Only her hairdresser knows for sure.)

Have we done anything to China for the EP-3?  Nothing but apologize for failing to avoid their horse$h!t hotdog pilot.  For that matter we never did anything about the Stark.

Literally how did they get so close?  Isn't that what 'interception' means?  Keeping them away?

OK, then, the biter bit.  Fire a missile at them (using low risk electronic modes).  Watch their reactions, sniff THEIR emissions, then about fifty feet away trip the warheads.  Or, get inside their EW OODA look if any and pretend that their jamming, evasion, etc., works - in other words steer away the missiles and make them think they did it.  "Wow, Vlad!  Salt air musta got to the EEPROMs in the Slammers!  Boy is my face red! <hyuk hyuk>  Well, no hard done, eh?  See you at the next Swan Lake."

Seriously - I remember high school (pause for laughter)...there was this kid in my homeroom class for like a year and a half tormenting me.  Verbal only, but I didn't know how to deal with it.  Finally, one day in homeroom he got the notion of poking at my face with his T-square (all sophomores had T-squares for Mechanical Drawing).  A sudden delicious coolness came over me.  He brushed my hair (or was it tapped my glasses) with it one last time, and then I snatched it away from and stared into his eyes smiling politely (or was it grinning madly) while I bent it back and forth until it splintered in two.  I finished up , handed i t back to him and  relaxed in my seat, never taking my eyes off his.  He brewed for a second, I guess, and then like lightning - he turned and raised his hand and shouted "Mistah Hoooooniggggg!"  who was two rows from him and saw everything. 

That's what he said.  "I saw the whole thing.  You're lucky.  I don't know why he waited this long!"

Aside from whining about that T-square (he even had his father write my father, who wrote back with the greatest delight imaginable in support of my actions) for years, he never bothered me again.  Oh, in senior year he wanted to run for some office in Arista or the debate team or whatever - I knew he wouldn;t win.  I promised him my vote if he'd shut up forevermore about the T-square.  I did, he did. 


...Thus endeth the lesson.

Maybe we have to wait a little longer, maybe he's gotta brush somebody's hair.  But sooner or later they need to have their T-square taken away.  Despite my father's mockery, he somehow managed to buy himself a new one, so I'm sure he passed MD.

I have never regretted standing up to bullies.

What did we do for fifty years?  They can byte me.

OK, cooler heads...what is a similar cosmetic bull$h!t provocation we could conduct?

Now I wonder.  This is actually, presumably, the biggest thing they wouldn't like.  I'm sure they'd trade a dozen Backfires and a dozen Bears and their crews to get us to shut them down.  In terms of actual perceived HARM this is the biggest injury we could do them.  Kinda like (not exactly like) recognizing Taiwan in retaliation for the EP-3 incident.

Okay, works for me.  Glad I thought of it.

1- Should the Japanese have shot down the Russian planes that violated Japan's airspace?

 

2-Should our carriers deploy barrage balloons, or do we overfly Russian ship much more than they overfly ours?

 

Thanks, Kent

The point is not to get valuable intel, as you say we have other national technical means.  The point is to annoy Vladimir Putin. and make him cut it out with these provocations.

1. Use the opportunity to feed the sniffer false data, of you could do so..
2. Burn out their electronics, butr that would reveal something you might not want to reveal that you can do to them if you could do it at all.
3. Best option-go passive immediately or use ordinary track/engage and let them listen to emptiness.

Herald.

2. Barrage balloons are a non-starter. There are things they could do to fool the Bears. Going silent is one thing. Changing course is another. It's really a matter of what the Battle Group commander wants to do.

Do we overfly Russian ships? Not that I'm aware of. Mostly because it requires their ships to be underway, which they don't do too much. IIRC, their carrier got underway and did a Med cruise for the first time in like 3 or 4 years.

3. Best option-go passive immediately or use ordinary track/engage and let them listen to emptiness.

Herald.