Soviet Cold War Overflights of United States

[edwest4]

Are there any recent books or articles about this? I read a quote from Eisenhower that he would consider such an overflight an act of war. Sorry, I don't have the reference to hand.




Thanks in advance,
Ed

 

[Sferrin]

Do you mean military or "civilian"?

 

[edwest4]

This is only speculation on my part but is it possible the Russians had an aircraft like the U-2 to do the same photo-recon our's did? And wasn't the U-2 classified as civilian as part of its cover?




Ed

 

[Steve Pace]

U in U-2 means Utility. If Russia had overflown the U.S., I strongly believe their aircraft would have been shot down.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

When Gary Power's U-2 was shot down over the USSR, Beriev was initially tasked with copying the it under the S-13 designation. However, it was abandoned.

Later on, the D-21 drone was cloned by Tupolev under the Voron program. It was also abandoned.

The Soviet Union went with satellite overflights.

No secret Soviet aircraft flying over the USA, Ed.

 

[edwest4]

Ok. It just seems to me this would be something the Russians would try.




Ed

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

For tactical reconnaissance they had a plethora of manned and unmanned systems. Strategic reconnaissance was different however.

 

[quellish]

Ok. It just seems to me this would be something the Russians would try.




Ed

For the US, overhead reconnaissance was essential during the cold war. There was simply no other way to monitor the Soviet Union and it's military. In contrast, the US (and western europe, etc) was very, very open. In the US you can walk up to the fence at Pt. Mugu or Nellis AFB and watch planes take off and land all day. You can drive right up to a Minuteman silo, and the press is extremely open about everything. If anything, it's hard to keep a good secret in the US. For those reasons, the Soviets really never had the same needs for collection platforms that the US did. The US had aircraft like the U-2 and spacecraft like the KH-11 to monitor the Soviets, while the Soviets could get as much information as they needed from Time and Aviation Week. The US needed those platforms to be able to plan for war, while the Soviets could use Rand McNally for their strategic planning.

So there really was never much of a need for a "Soviet U-2".

 

[SOC]

The Russians have made a lot of reconnaissance overflights of the US under the Open Skies program.

 

[edwest4]

Thank you, everyone, for your replies.





Ed

 

[Avimimus]

U in U-2 means Utility. If Russia had overflown the U.S., I strongly believe their aircraft would have been shot down.

Well, the Russian U-2 was essentially invisble to radar. It could also glide for long periods with its engine off as a form of acoustic stealth ...so who knows...

 

[Kosmos929]

When I was in tech school in the U.S. Air Force in late 1976 one of the instructors told a story of an incident that supposedly occurred in Washington State around the time of the first "oil crisis" c. 1973.

There was an AC&W radar site in Washington State, on the coast, near an area with a large number of oil storage facilities. The site began to get telephone calls reporting a large aircraft flying low in the area with no running lights. The site could see nothing on the radar. Some of the guys went outside to see if they could see anything, which they could not. Suddenly, a Tu-16 flew, at very low level, directly over the dome, heading out to sea. Finally, the target was observed by the radar about 40 miles out, climbing away. By then it was too late for an interception.

I don't know if this really happened, but it sounds plausible and was a good story.

 

[Jemiba]

Avimimus is quite right, the mentioned tactic used by the sovite U-2 (or Po-2
as it was desgnated, too) was feared by the german troops and I think, later in
Korea, by the UN/US troops, too.
And this photo (from Wiki) shows, that not even tank stops would have been a
problem. Just landing somewhere in the open, walking with the jerrycan to the
next gas station and then ready for the next stage. And who would have thought
of a soviet aircraft, if a rattling biplane was flying overhead ? ;D

 

[edwest4]

When I was in tech school in the U.S. Air Force in late 1976 one of the instructors told a story of an incident that supposedly occurred in Washington State around the time of the first "oil crisis" c. 1973.

There was an AC&W radar site in Washington State, on the coast, near an area with a large number of oil storage facilities. The site began to get telephone calls reporting a large aircraft flying low in the area with no running lights. The site could see nothing on the radar. Some of the guys went outside to see if they could see anything, which they could not. Suddenly, a Tu-16 flew, at very low level, directly over the dome, heading out to sea. Finally, the target was observed by the radar about 40 miles out, climbing away. By then it was too late for an interception.

I don't know if this really happened, but it sounds plausible and was a good story.

I would be annoyed if my instructor simply told good stories. It does sound plausible. I've run across a story about some overflights in North Carolina. This one will remain in my list of plausibles. Heck, they're still declassifying material from World War II.




Thanks,
Ed