Tupolev Tu-22M Backfire

WatcherZero said:
Hand held SAM wouldnt be able to reach a Backfires cruising altitude. The flat spin is indicative of asymmetric thrust so the loss of an engine, however pilots should have been able to compensate if it was a mechanical failure, engine failures were common in the pre-modernisation TU-22 due to poor construction quality of engines and airframes.
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And it was at cruising altitude...while approaching an airbase in Stavropol...with wings extended?

Also Tu-22M isn't a "modernization", it's an entirely new aircraft, named only for bureaucratic reasons to try to sell a brand new product as a "improved" version of an older one. Tu-22 is less than irrelevant to the conversation.

The plane looks like it suffered an engine failure, either from FOD or internal stress, and at some point went into a flat spin. Perhaps the giant shooting flames coming out of the aircraft contributed something to the tail's control surfaces not working? A missile would not do this unless it was hit during its landing leg or something, and it was a very small missile. Even then it would be unusual and be visible due to contrail.

The claim by Ukraine of the "shoot down" with an S-200 is incredible in the most literal sense.

An S-200 would have disintegrated far larger portions of the plane, while a short range missile would have been visible in the photographic evidence, and neither is the case. The plane crashed due to some sort of technical malfunction, then. I'd much sooner believe a wrench was left inside or a hose worked itself loose than the HUR had anything to do with the crash at all.

It is quite literally the HUR's job to claim every single Russian system lost is their work, except when it is actually their work, duh.
 
I'm wondering what's more embarrassing, the probable shoot-down by an outdated anti-aircraft system, or the crash caused by a wrench being forgotten, or the ground crew once again not doing a clean job?
 
Kat Tsun said:
And it was at cruising altitude...while approaching an airbase in Stavropol...with wings extended?

Also Tu-22M isn't a "modernization", it's an entirely new aircraft, named only for bureaucratic reasons to try to sell a brand new product as a "improved" version of an older one. Tu-22 is less than irrelevant to the conversation.
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There were only 9 vanilla Tu-22 built before they moved on to the Tu-22M, with several iterations M1-M4 but when we are talking about modernised Tu-22M we are talking about the current version in service, modernised M3 the Russians call the Tu-22M3M.

The NK-32 engine refitted onto the Tu-22M3M has the same thrust as the NK-25 on the earlier versions but is noticeably more compact and 5% lighter.
 
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Harry64 said:
I'm wondering what's more embarrassing, the probable shoot-down by an outdated anti-aircraft system, or the crash caused by a wrench being forgotten, or the ground crew once again not doing a clean job?
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Losing a bomber is embarassing.. but, a healthy human mind should not just take any information "as is" Especially in wartime tho. Unless well.. making memes. But i dont make memes.

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Like does anyone already speculate where is likely the launch site for the SAM's ? Ukrainian 308 km claim is only make sense with launch site from which one can work on the range. I make myself a diagram well i speculated launch site somewhere in Zaphorizia. As it's deep within Ukrainian front, while if one put it on the front as what they did with their S-300's, Ruskies seems to have no problem at all nicking the site whenever they want.

Now if we take 308 km claim as the F-pole where it's the distance where the target got hit, as you can see the Tu-22M can be hit in any part of the red ring. Black is the possible route which maybe Mozdok where Russians put Tu-22M3 for Syrian mission, maybe they using it again. The crash site is in Bogomolov, Stavropol Krai. The launch range is probably 370 km.

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The problem i see is that whether it's realistic for an aircraft that just take 217 Kg worth of fury from 5V28 missile, to still able to fly some 100-200 km from the place it probably got hit into wheer it crashed ? Why it cant divert to Rostov on Don or maybe Millerovo ? It's clearly hasnt lost control at that time until the fateful fire on Bogomolov. Or why does it not crash on Azov sea ? Or anywhere near Rostov on Don.

Siberia air 1812 tho I'm not sure if it can be compared as it's also shot down well within the parameter of S-200 system but it crashed on sea, and thus, wreckage got carried over by the sea current.

Or if it's claimed to hit during returning well because, that would means the Tu-22M3 is an opening target or rear-chase.. where our S-200 only have some 150 km range against such target. Ukrainian claim become even harder to reconcile, but that's if one actually care about kinematics. Or maybe a magical upgrade that can add extra 300 km flight range to the missile as if i read Fleeman's missile design properly, flight range requirement for a tailchase is much greater compared to the head on target or in this case some 1.25 times the head on range or some 855 km.

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Harry64 said:
I'm wondering what's more embarrassing, the probable shoot-down by an outdated anti-aircraft system, or the crash caused by a wrench being forgotten, or the ground crew once again not doing a clean job?
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"Probable"?

S-200 would have destroyed the aircraft. It would not be intact. It would be in pieces falling across a fairly wide debris field. Buk may shred a wing, but also would result in a wide debris field, as was the case with the B737-200ER MH17, which is a much larger aircraft than the Tu-22M.

Yet this plane is fully intact. Perhaps it was hit by a MANPADS during landing? Most likely it had an internal malfunction, which could be anything at all, from FOD, to a fuel or oil line spraying inside the aircraft and igniting.

Mid-air breakup happens to the best air forces. So do mid-air engine failures. So what.
 
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snne said:
is it due to an unsuccessful missile ejection, or something? The bombers usually stay away from Ukranian AD's reach and launch salvos of CMs, and i can't image their fighters going on a suicide mission inside Russia and not get intercepted instantly.
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Probably an engine fire, IMO. The ZSU claims responsibility but given the speed of the aircraft and the position of the damage it is hard to imagine this was an S200 hit.
 
Josh_TN said:
Probably an engine fire, IMO. The ZSU claims responsibility but given the speed of the aircraft and the position of the damage it is hard to imagine this was an S200 hit.
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Even in the most ideal conditions the S200 still doesn't have the reach; and even if we bite, how are they suppose to guide the missile anyway? I get that they need to present more victories to their audience as as the situation gets more and more dire but this sort of crap just delegitimizes some of the Ukranian war effort and propaganda. The same applies to targeting civilian targets inside Russia, no matter how evil the enemy is.
 
Josh_TN said:
Probably an engine fire, IMO. The ZSU claims responsibility but given the speed of the aircraft and the position of the damage it is hard to imagine this was an S200 hit.
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I'm not sure really. An S-200 hit is certainly a stretch given the question of how they guide it and also how they hide it, since it's 35ft long. There's the possibility that these Tu-22M3Ms had got too used to flying the exact same path and that was noted, as was the case with the F-117 in Serbia. That would somewhat mitigate some of the need for guidance. However still a stretch.

Engine fire is certainly what we can see but can a simple engine fire induce a flat spin and complete loss of control, even if two engines were out? It's a very long aircraft, and a bomber, so it should tend to be very stable in flight, so that's also a stretch. The safer move would have been to point the aircraft out to sea if they didn't feel they could land safely and then bail over the coast.

In summary, it's puzzling.
 
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WatcherZero said:
There were only 9 vanilla Tu-22 built before they moved on to the Tu-22M, with several iterations M1-M4 but when we are talking about modernised Tu-22M we are talking about the current version in service, modernised M3 the Russians call the Tu-22M3M.
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You've got this wrong. There were more than 300 Tu-22 (NATO: Blinder) built in quite a few versions.

The Tu-22M (NATO: Backfire) is a totally different plane, only pretending to be an update of the original Tu-22 for political/bureaucratic reasons. There were 9 baseline Tu-22M(0) and then various updates to that, culminating in the Tu-22M3 and a bunch of abortive updates. There may be a handful of Tu22M3M but not many, as it was only going into flight testing around 2020.
 
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The Tu-22 (NATO Blinder A to E) was a different aircraft to the Tu-22 (Backfire) with over 300 being built.
The Tu-22M (Initially called the MO then retrospectively called the M0) pre-series prototype had 9 built, then there was the Tu-22M1 which entered service with again 9 built (NATO Backfire-A) which changed engine to improve performance, then the serial production version was the Tu-22M2 (NATO Backfire-B) which had a totally redesigned rear fuselage and different wings to the earlier Tu-22 of which 211 were built. Hence me saying only 9 vanilla were produced.

Tu22M3M first flew in Dec 2019, and was to enter service in 2021. In part its a resurrection of the Tu-22M4 which began development in 1983, was completed in 1990 but cancelled in 1991 of which only one example was completed as it has the same engine and intakes transplant but its also porting across newer avionics from the Tu-160. 30 modernisations to M3M were planned to be performed out of around 60 surviving Tu-22M3 (though the actual amount still serviceable may be around 45)

 
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WatcherZero said:
Tu-22M2 (NATO Backfire-B) which had a totally redesigned rear fuselage and different wings to the earlier Tu-22 of which 211 were built. Hence me saying only 9 vanilla were produced.
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The problem is that you keep saying Tu-22 when you mean Tu-22M. Those are two totally different things.

As a historical note, there was a period when NATO referred to Backfire as Tu-26. It was a totally incorrect designation but avoided some confusion. I think it was one of the START treaty discussions when the Russians outed it as the Tu-22M and confused the heck out of Western observers for a while.
 
TomS said:
The problem is that you keep saying Tu-22 when you mean Tu-22M. Those are two totally different things.

As a historical note, there was a period when NATO referred to Backfire as Tu-26. It was a totally incorrect designation but avoided some confusion. I think it was one of the START treaty discussions when the Russians outed it as the Tu-22M and confused the heck out of Western observers for a while.
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It wasnt NATO, Tu-26 was a rumoured internal Soviet designation (before allegedly switching to Tu-22M either to attempt to disguise that it was a different aircraft though NATO already knew of both it and its prototypes existence and weren't fooled forcing the removal of aerial refuelling capability as otherwise it would count in their strategic bomber numbers, or as a means of getting it through the Soviet bean counters by claiming it was just more orders for an existing aircraft rather than a new development) but no ones ever been able to evidence it. An early competing design for the Tu-22M was called the Sukhoi T-4 though of which four were built. It didnt have swing-wings but did have an articulated drooping nose ala Concorde/Tu-144.
 
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WatcherZero said:
It wasnt NATO, Tu-26 was a rumoured internal Soviet designation but no ones ever been able to evidence it.
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I'm not sure what you mean by "It wasn't NATO." Certainly NATO member nations were using the Tu-26 designation, sometimes into the 1980s. The Russians used Tu-22M in the SALT-2 negotiations (late 1970s onward), but some Western analysts thought this was a deception to hide the fact that this was a totally new aircraft, which is why you see Tu-26 used for so long.
 
bobthemonkey said:
Suspect lax Russian operational security meant crews have been flying the same routes night after night, giving the Ukrainians the precise when and where for the missile to be to maximise the probability of a hit.
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That's been evidence for the last 2 years, how else do you get MANPADS in position to ambush helicopters?



stealthflanker said:
and who will provide correction to the INS drift ? It's still a long flight even with 4300 km speed of the 5V28 missile.
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? That's about 1.2km/sec. If your INS is so bad it's drifting that much over a 4min20sec flight, you need to take your INS designers out and shoot them.
 
Josh_TN said:
AIM-260 does not even exist in the US arsenal yet.
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Not to mention that modern AAMs require close integration between the launch platform radar and the missile. Ukraine doesn't have any suitable aircraft with radar that could integrate with an advanced US AAM like AIM-260.
 
TomS said:
Not to mention that modern AAMs require close integration between the launch platform radar and the missile. Ukraine doesn't have any suitable aircraft with radar that could integrate with an advanced US AAM like AIM-260.
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I think this is the point folk around the internet are alluding to. If the Ukrainians cannot do it, who is doing it for them?

Without evidence, the Russians cannot just confront the USA or EU etc.
 
Foo Fighter said:
I think this is the point folk around the internet are alluding to. If the Ukrainians cannot do it, who is doing it for them?

Without evidence, the Russians cannot just confront the USA or EU etc.
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Without evidence, we have no reason to believe that the Tu-22M in question was even shot down, much less by an AAM, much less by some brand new super AAM, and absolutely not by a covert US aircraft.
 
TomS said:
Without evidence, we have no reason to believe that the Tu-22M in question was even shot down, much less by an AAM, much less by some brand new super AAM, and absolutely not by a covert US aircraft.
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Or by Neutral Particle Beam in orbit, absolutely no reason to believe that you hear.
 
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If a single engine failure causes the loss of a large aircraft then that's an even bigger problem that a shootdown.
 
Given how tightly packed the aircraft is.. well 1 engine failure can easily cascaded to another subsystem. That's for Russians to figure
 
stealthflanker said:
Yours ? Well unfortunately, this DCS virtual pilots group are notorious for doing that. There even a reddit thread about them.
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I don't care, really...much. From the looks of it in the game they appear to have started with an AIM-120 rather than an ESSM. I'm curious how much more they'd have got out of starting with the 10" motor though.
 

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