Why Doesn't Russia Just Move Their Bombers? 

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They did. It was on the news tonite. They moved them to a base in the Sino-Siberia region, over 2,000 miles East. Pretty shocking so far away.

Would love you to make a video on North Korean bases, air defences and beach defences. And perhaps some videos explaining their military. Something in depth with aerial photographs like you've been doing recently.

Russia in 2023: we can’t redeploy bombers to the other side of the country since it would complicate logistics too much! US in 1991: Bombs Iraq from Louisiana.

I don't think the Russians believed that an attack on Russia land was a serious possibility. They simply assumed that Ukraine would never dare.

It is worth noting that Russian losses of Air Defense assets in Ukraine resulted in Russia pulling air defense assets away from Russian cities and bases to replenish front line air defense units, and that their response to attacks in Engels and other targets in Russia has been to withdraw AA from Ukraine to restore coverage over Russian cities and strategic assets, which has allowed Ukraine to be more active with their aerial assets over the front lines. The slow usage of their limited long range kamikaze drones may be intended to threaten Russian targets again in the event they try to redeploy AA assets to the front again.

I can't imagine the turmoil, the accusations, the whaling and rending of clothes that would occur if the United States Air Base housing our B-52 and B1 bombers was struck not once but twice by some terrorist organization. Heads would roll, politicians careers would be made or broken on this. In Russia it's just a special rapid unscheduled disassembly operation.

The pictures are not from the day of the attack. That day Engels was covered with clouds which stayed for days and obtaining a satellite imagery was not possible. It’s taken either a few days or a few weeks before that.

I think that Kyiv chose to use those drones because the west didn't send long rage missiles and because they wanted to show the Russians that they are able and willing to hit strategic targets deep into Russia itself

It still amazes me that the only useful objects Russia owns are Soviet leftovers.

Useful content as always

Imho a pressing question is: Why in the world can't the supposedly best air defense in the world defend three airbases against a couple of drones?? Like, they're not even some highly sophisticated drones. We're talking about some rather simple drones which were developed and assembled within a couple of months by Ukraine during wartime. During each attack only a small number was used since Ukraine has only started making them, so there certainly aren't many available.

Ryan Mcbeth sent me. Great video thank you.

whole border area between Ukraine and Russia large, you cannot defend every single inch of airspace

Anther factor would be the face loss of having been forced to give up the use of air bases for fear of attacks, and while the strikes from Ukraine has been embarrassing, the actual losses has not been major, even without believing their official version painting it as nearly nothing.

Great, informative report!

This Content Creator is one of my favorite Channel, very specific & constructive. Kudos to you sir.

I'm guessing a lot of those aircraft that haven't moved are not airworthy. They probably robbed Peter to keep Paul flying

in 1999 I joined the Polish army. this year Poland joined NATO, but what I found was a remnant of the Warsaw Pact. most of the equipment was obsolete, out of order, for one truck, tank, etc. there were several broken ones. in the statistics, of course, they counted as efficient. now let's take the russian army. it's even worse there. a country where everyone cheats everyone else.

the main factor in their reluctance to add more distance is engine wear. They can't produce enough to replace them

The message Ukraine is sending is that Moscow can be hit, too.

Putin: "Shoigu, why didn't you think of this before?" Shoigu: "We planned for the victory parade in Kyiv by March 1st, remember?" Putin: "I swear to God, Shoigu: if I hear that one more time, I'll throw you out the window myself. I know judo!"

You are right about Russian supply side issues but also their older fleet hates the cold. Hard enough to start an engine with those prehistoric firecrackers when the blades are frozen in place. May see more activity when it warms up but they (whatever they call their airforce now) will be to afraid to actually fly most of their toys over Ukraine. Wonder what it is like to be in a Russian former Honda factory trying to figure out how to use a radio microchip to power a........

GREAT REPORT 👍

Great video as always. I have been wondering recently, how many more cruise missiles does Russia have considering expenditure and manufacturing rates? We've been seeing some used that were produced fairly recently

Wear and tear on the airframes with associated maintainance issues.

A none bias analysis is always be factual, more informative and interesting to watch. 😊👍

I wondered exactly this. Now I know. Thanks!

Happy New Years 🎉❤️🌎

Ukraine's limited drone/crusie missile attacks have done one thing and thats force the Russians to put effort, money and man power in to protecting the air base which means it can't be used elswhere. If they can get teams behind the lines to blow up bridges, rail lines, power sub stations and the like they can tie up man power and resources further reduceing Russian abillity to fight.

Tightly packed together aircraft might be ones out of commission, but set up like that to provide a tempting target away from the mission capable aircraft, essentially a decoy.

Perfect example of the 7 P's ‼️ Piss poor planing- Prevents piss poor Performance Pal ‼️ Time to remove the Elephant in the room permanently ‼️

Well it might be that they need repairs to make them fly. Maybe the parts might be hard to find. And they keep looking or find another on another aircraft.

Russia has already send most of the stationed bombers east. That is, if u seen the latest images of Engels base.

Ryan McBeth also does an exelent breakdown

It's easier to put additional AD systems around bases. They didn't need them previously, and now they will add them.

The cost efficiency is insane

my speculation is that a good portion of the bombers are not in state of immediate flight, the russian only moved the good ones away. with the heavy sanctions in place, fixing and preparing these bombers for flight will be very difficult and the situation will only get worse.

they don't make the prettiest of aircraft and missiles, but if it stays together, it's pretty damn effective.

Those fuel trucks looks like the are from the 50'ties.

The wing configuration of that bomber in the top rightat 5:55 doesn't look too healthy ..

I don't get why Russia isn't using the Soviet-era dispersals and shelters anymore, which were pretty much installed on every airbase they have. When you look at Russia's airbases via Google Maps, most of the dispersals and shelters are either removed or in a derelict state. Instead Russia is preferring huge platforms with thightly lined up formations of aircraft, whilst in times of conflict this is very nonsensical to do (as we have seen at Engels), since it makes hitting expensive jets easier than hitting a dartboard at your local pub. Any thoughts on why Russia isn't using dispersals/shelters anymore? I know for example that most of Russia's twin engine jets (like the Su-27) don't fit in the older model shelters for example.

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Great video

Half those planes sitting out there aren’t even airworthy.

Moving the aircraft into antoher base is just not only moving the airplane

Not gonna lie in the age of jets it's really cool to still see propeller craft finding a role

Civilian airports could be used. The point is that cruise missiles are no longer effective as most have been shot down. Ballistic missiles would solve more problems but deliveries from Iran are slow. There’s a lot of train tracks to be rebuilt to ship them.

Even if we ignore the perceived low likelihood of an enemy bomber attack, the expected protection of the anti-air defense systems, and the predicted protection of the armored hangars (beliefs which would all need to be changed before anyone would even think of moving the bombers farther away from the frontlines), there are many problems with the idea "just move them somewhere else": 1, at any given time, only a fraction of the bombers would be in active service, with the other bombers on base getting repairs, undergoing maintenance, or receiving refits, among other things that could make it costly/difficult to get all the planes flight-capable in any kind of short timeframe; 2, bombers require longer/wider runways to take off and land than nearly any other military aircraft, so the number of airports they can use is heavily limited; 3, bombers require large amounts of heavy equipment to maintain/rearm/deploy properly, so even if an airport has a large enough runway to let a bomber land and refuel, that might not be a viable long-term option. 4, relocating the base personnel to follow the bombers can be equally costly/difficult, resulting in either low morale for the experienced troops who just had their lives uprooted or low effectiveness for the new troops who replaced those that couldn't make the move. 5, planes have a limited range they can safely fly on one tank of fuel, so moving the bombers' home airport would change how safely they could reach enemy targets.

Because these forces are strategically placed on airbases that are designated to them, And have special equipment to maintain these massive aircraft, Along with the close situation of parts of the supply line needed to keep them going, Not only that, But the bases are in these locations because they allow quick travel towards potential enemy nations outside of the border.

The surprising part is those bombers can still actually fly to another location.

05:50 yo! That’s my old base!

Great video, as a civilian a lot of these aspects of logistics never really occured to me.

Key to the answer: "most of their former bomber bases are outside of Russia"

What's that ship firing ESSM? Rarely seen such VLS placement...

Range versus fuel capacity.

If they move the bombers to the East, it's going to increase the flight hours drastically. Taking into consideration the Russian mentality to maintenance, I'd say there's a high chance of falling planes in Russia.

Multiple factors need to count to park the bomber: 1. if there is any nearby airbase is suitable to park the bomber (facilities, length if runways, refuelling issue …) 2. if that move will expose your airbase strength (by opponent's intelligence network or military satellites) 3. if it is a necessary move (where Russia is already tight on its budget, personnel, maintenance crews, …) 4. if the bomber is moved, what about its inventory, ammunition (you cannot have the bombers to move all of it) 5. possibility of your bomber will be under attacked based on your own intelligence network and how much you understand about your opponent's tactics. In this case, the Russian military obviously does not have the resources or intelligence to have their precious bombers to be moved to a safer airbase.

Move them to another location . That would be a great idea . But you have to start them first and thats the problem ,their are old. Poorly keep and did I mention they need mechanics of all kinds. Plus spare parts. Does this give you why they just set.

Dun dun dun dun dun dun.. "here comes solid info"

They don't have any bomber crews left to move them. The bomber crews are all being retrained to man Russia's newest T-34 and T-54/55, top-of-the-line tanks from the 1940's and 1950's. Their T-72, T-80, and T-90 models have that explode-on-impact feature such as the 1970's Ford Pinto hatchback and station wagon, which enjoyed similar glory in it's day.

Great descriptive and informative video...thank you!!! The poor old Russians are struggling enough logistically and probably better off taking the chance of an attack taking out some aircraft than the expenditure of packing up and moving the whole shooting match to another base...then add the costs of additional airtime and fuel etc. etc. and it kind of makes sense that the chance is worth taking...whether strategically the wisest idea...is questionable...but so is the whole incursion into Ukraine...so guess that fits in with their train of thought over the last year. No sense to any of it to be honest.

There runway’s look wobbly in some pics

5:00 is there any BDA evidence showing fragments of Tu-141 drones?

Maybe the reason is simpler. What if the planes in question simply don't work? What if the planes in question are not combat ready? That is a possibility.

Even though they aren't admitting it, im pretty sure these recent attacks have been using the new ukranian drone with 1000km range. I also think they waited for the right time to send a message. So that'd explain why Ukraine didn't attack the bases with these drones sooner. The drones a) didn't exist yet and then b) when they did come into service the ukranians waited for the right moment to use them

Could you please do a video on Russian military production capabilities? Thanks!

Well done.

So not that long ago Russia was using drones to strike targets far inside Ukraine ... but they didn't consider that Ukraine would be doing the same thing and so they'd need to disperse their bombers?

its very interesting how nothing changed in russia in 40 years

Its not the Tu-141 Stritz old soviet drone that the ukrainians are using.The Stritz is too big to avoid detection & also the the damage would be greater given its size

It puzzles me that the Russians don't have a series of dispersals around their airfields. These spread out the bomber fleet making it more difficult to hit several in one pass of the airfield.

It's also possible that the objective isn't as much as to destroy the bombers, but to make the Russians deploy additional resources to protect them... Taking some pressure off the front lines. In other words, Doolittle raids...

4:23 Nice of Russia to put a big freaking spinning light on top of their air defense vehicle...may as well put a big sign on it that says, "I'm right here!"

according to international agreements start type spent atom reactors\ installations mines and strategists aviation should be in full view of the satellites of the USA \ RF, therefore b52 b1 lancer submarines, etc. are always in full view of the satellites

What were the condition of these jets prestrike I would suspect closer to end of life perhaps these would be used initially expecting heavy losses and not as important

'it has three types of bombers' yeah, stationary, taking off, and destroyed.

The real question is why Russian SAM has not been able to intercept tu 141.

Well we can send b52s on the same 12+ hr flights hit a target and come back several days a week but again we have the better maintenance crews and experience to do so. It’s not to do so but we also have air stations to land in if something happens. Russia just doesn’t have the capacity or other air stations to do the same. Such a shame.. lol

now we know.. tires!

Why doesn't Russia just take the bombers, and push them somewhere else!

i also wonder: can't they afford simple hangars?

how beautiful that Tu160 is... Best looking bomber of all times.

Russians are practicing a new technique of covering airframes with tires.

The long answer is the complex needs of facilities and crews. The short answer is multiple generations of fetal alcohol syndrome mixed with massive corruption.

I gotta say, the TU 95 is one of my favorite aircraft. If I was a billionaire, I would definitely have bought one before this war. It's just so cool looking, and it's so loud cause of it's counter rotating propulsion system. Disclaimer: I'm rooting for Ukraine to win on this conflict.

Those propellers are definitely an alien technology.

Top level content

Because they can't be trusted to fly too far without bits falling off them. Slava Ukraini.

Russia could very well find out just how Karma can work

You said Russia & preforming maintenance in the same sentence 🤔

According to s400 fan boys, the system even save cancer. They must be fuming right now. 😂

this is the real moral superiority - attacking military airbases for strategic bombers with outdated reconnaissance drones while your enemy attacks critical civilian infrastructure with ballistic/сruise missiles and iranian drones

It's all good. They've got tyres on them now.

The bombers are now used to store truck tires. I'm sure they thought this out and they're very carefully so the heavy tires won't dent the skin of the aircraft.

Ukraine only has a few of these drones. If they had alot, they would have used more already.

US Airforce would decimate this 1970s vintage era russian airforce

i find it funne that the us b52 is a turbo engine from 1955 wile the russian use the tu95 from 1956 and are propellar base lol same year way off opposite direction

Cuz most of them are missing parts I'm sure 😆 🤣 😂 😹 time to rip open some washing machines 😆 🤣 😂 😹

"before Russia adapts"...they still haven't realized the use of hard cover for all the drones, much less adequately defending an air base which is a bit more complex :-) Love the videos and always learn something new