"Intercept" is a far cry from "capture" or "shoot down." Russian, Chinese, and American forces intercept each other quite a lot, it just doesn't make the news very often. Each military is always probing and testing each other whether war is imminent or not. It's almost (but not quite) routine.
Follow up comment: Any real intelligence from a war zone (or potential war zone) is gathered by much more sophisticated means such as satellites, drones, sigint, humint (people on the ground), and a host of other means. Sigint alone (interception of radio and computer communications) probably tells the US forces exactly what they need to know. These sorties where there is an interception reveals things like response time, response force, and where radar strengths and weaknesses exist, what type and how many radar installations exist, and so on.
All of these means put together (planes, drones, sigint, humint) create a picture of what is going on. No one source can give an overall picture.
Well for the last 2 weeks a Northrop Guthram Drone under squawk FORTE10 has been baiting the bear by poking at Russia’s international border over the Black Sea.
There has also been another one doing a slightly different poke a kind of catch me if you can at the air space of The Crimea.
And then you have an RAF surveillance plane poking the bear but as it’s the RAF they only work Monday to Thursday and half day Friday.
They swap with a USAF surveillance plane.
The Russians seem to be leaving them to it although a Russian Air Force 737 ( sized) plane did have a look at them earlier this week.
I’ve been watching the flight patterns over the last few months and here’s my conclusion:-
If I was Russia I’d take advantage of the long military weekend and also I hope the U.K. have warned them that all these 17 gun salutes they are currently carrying out are non threatening.?
"Intercept" is a far cry from "capture" or "shoot down." Russian, Chinese, and American forces intercept each other quite a lot, it just doesn't make the news very often. Each military is always probing and testing each other whether war is imminent or not. It's almost (but not quite) routine.
Follow up comment: Any real intelligence from a war zone (or potential war zone) is gathered by much more sophisticated means such as satellites, drones, sigint, humint (people on the ground), and a host of other means. Sigint alone (interception of radio and computer communications) probably tells the US forces exactly what they need to know. These sorties where there is an interception reveals things like response time, response force, and where radar strengths and weaknesses exist, what type and how many radar installations exist, and so on.
All of these means put together (planes, drones, sigint, humint) create a picture of what is going on. No one source can give an overall picture.
Well for the last 2 weeks a Northrop Guthram Drone under squawk FORTE10 has been baiting the bear by poking at Russia’s international border over the Black Sea.
There has also been another one doing a slightly different poke a kind of catch me if you can at the air space of The Crimea.
And then you have an RAF surveillance plane poking the bear but as it’s the RAF they only work Monday to Thursday and half day Friday.
They swap with a USAF surveillance plane.
The Russians seem to be leaving them to it although a Russian Air Force 737 ( sized) plane did have a look at them earlier this week.
I’ve been watching the flight patterns over the last few months and here’s my conclusion:-
If I was Russia I’d take advantage of the long military weekend and also I hope the U.K. have warned them that all these 17 gun salutes they are currently carrying out are non threatening.?
Well that would come from the upper tier tradition of the public school system.
Wednesday afternoon was always blocked off for full on sports rowing and rugby etc.
Not sure whether the woke generation are still allowed to be competitive.?
“Interception” is a non-issue clickbait. Smile, wave, take pictures,