Russian Attack Planes Buzz US Destroyer off Polish Coast

[MilesN]

Everything went normally, American radars calculated the speed of the approaching target. And suddenly all the screens went blank. “Aegis” was not working any more, and the rockets could not get target information.

If true - that is an attack by Russia on the ship - an electronic attack, but still an attack.

By extension, wouldn't that be an act of war on Russia's part, and a casus belli for us?

Yes and no.

Let's assume ECM suite worked perfectly, completely shutting down all electronics aboard (by the way, pilot very well CAN tell if trial run was succesful - I'm 100% certain Cook's CO gave the order to have Su-24 locked in targeting systems just to be safe - and there is a warning systems about being lit up by radar aboard any combat jet. So, if target lock all of a sudden break the instant ECM suite came online - it mean that ECM worked.)

You have several problems with that scenario going from formal casus belli (which it "probably" is (I don t recall any treaties forbidding such kind of attack since they were written well before possibility of such an attack was even cocnieved, and ECM is NOT a weapon per se - it destroys nothing - neither materiel nor personnell) into actual state of war:
1. You have to disclose entirety of the incident. No big deal except
2. Once you disclose it, you have to convince people that they need to go to war with nuclear superpower which aside from nukes and a lot of conventional firepower has an ability to disable combat (supposedly most failsafe one) electronics at a whim. Esp. considering that tiny ECM pod mounted on a jet put not so small destroyer at the mercy of the said jet. Prospects of anything bigger (say, Krasukha-4) coming into play? Entire positional regions turned off? It's mobile, so it could be infiltrated into US, so... cities hit by something akin to EMP, only controllabe and mobile in event of war?

Bottom line, given how throughly digitized US military (and civilian) functions are, disclosure would scare bejeezus out of population and would most likely lead to nuclear exchange in very short order, since nukes would be (seemingly) only thing left between US mainland and invading hordes of Russians (thanks, fearmongering MSM), whose military are way less digitized.
Since Russia seems unwilling to use its ECM edge en masse (and avoiding development of appropriate ECCM is surely one of the reasons) and only reminds US that it has said edge from time to time, it is a formal casus belli but one which is untransferrable into real war bar nuclear one and that is not in the best interest of each side.

 

[joe1971]

We should send some F22's and lock up every damn Russian plane in the sky. "we'll we where only conducting training exercises" "It's not our fault there were there, we have a right to train where we're located"

 

[Worldwatcher]

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdHBsWXaHN8[/youtube]

 

[bblock1210]

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdHBsWXaHN8[/youtube]

"Nah, he would've fired by now. I think he just wants to piss us off. "

Which I think is applicable with these guys buzzing our ship.

 

[jayfeather31]

Oh, by the way, this is our reaction right now.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/us-could-have-shot-down-russian-jet-that-buzzed-destroyer-kerry/ar-BBrN72g?ocid=spartanntp

 

[Garv]

So...COULD we have shot down these jets? With their ECM, and our weapons jammed, What could we have done to shoot them down? Do we have countermeasures to countermeasure their countermeasures....? How does that work?

The article in the post above said they could have shot it down. How true is this?

 

[Worldwatcher]

Forgive me if i'm incorrect, but I think the ECM story is from a couple of years ago when a Russian jet buzzed a ship in the Black Sea. If the ECM's were going wouldn't that shut down the helicopter waiting to take off that was idling on the deck?

 

[jayfeather31]

So...COULD we have shot down these jets? With their ECM, and our weapons jammed, What could we have done to shoot them down? Do we have countermeasures to countermeasure their countermeasures....? How does that work?

The article in the post above said they could have shot it down. How true is this?

Countermeasureception?

 

[matty1053]

Oh, by the way, this is our reaction right now.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/us-could-have-shot-down-russian-jet-that-buzzed-destroyer-kerry/ar-BBrN72g?ocid=spartanntp

Then shoot it down next time. They are going to wait until they bomb our carriers/Ships? Imagine if the US did this to russians...

 

[Missileman]

I don't know if we had a carrier up there but we should have launched some fighters from the Baltics or something once the SU-24s came off the Kalingrad coast(approx 70 miles away) to get them out of there. This is what we would have done in the 1980s once aircraft broke a certain mileage point.

I don't know what is worse, the fact that the administration has some many rules when it comes to the "rules of engagement" that the Commander's hands are tied or the fact that this administration has told our military that Russia is no threat and treat this "fly by" as if it was from an Air Show!!

What do you think would happen if we sent some F/A-18s to do a flyby over Murmansk or an airbase in Kalingrad. They would scramble their aircraft to get ours out of there.

 

[Ben Dhyani]

Wow, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) released Insane Footage earlier today showing an Incident which happened on September 23rd, during a Professional and Routine Interception of Two Russian Tu-95MS “Bear” Strategic Bombers that had entered the Alaskan Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ), by a Pair of U.S. Air Force F-16C Multirole Fighters; during which a Su-35 that was escorting the Russian Bombers, began behaving Eraticly and nearly Collided with one of the F-16s.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1840967640531009583

 

[Torch]

Ha! Thats the job. We would do and do do (?) that thing to them.

Your job as a fighter escort is to stay between the customer and the threat. It’s not a big thing. Some people used to dump fuel on the pass whilst the wing man came by with his can lit. Now that is entertainment and certainly worth the price of admission.