Combat aircraft

Tu-160

Tu-160

Tu-22M3

Su-34/Su-27SM3

Il-78

Olenegorsk

Krymsk

Engels

The fi nale of this bombing campaign was an

audacious raid by a pair of Tu-160s on November 20

in Syria, before returning to Engels

after a  ight of about 13,000km (8,078

miles) and a  ight time of 16 hours and

20 minutes.

This impressive strike caught Britain

and other NATO allies somewhat o

guard. A rather bemused Royal Air Force

press spokesman in London initially

laughed at the idea when questioned by

reporters about the raid.

At the conclusion of this series of

missions on November 20, the Russian

Ministry of Defense issued statistics

for the short campaign. It said that

101 cruise missiles had been  red by

all participants, including 18 from

naval vessels in the Caspian and

Mediterranean Seas. It’s worth noting

that up to 12 ALCMs can be carried by

a Tu-160. With the unguided bombs

dropped by the Tu-22M3s factored in,

the total of ordnance dropped came to

around 1,400 tons. It marked the biggest

operation by Long-Range Aviation

since WW2.

It suggested that e orts spearheaded

by Lt Gen Anatoly Zhikharev to

rejuvenate his force had made

considerable progress, albeit from

a fairly low starting point. Equally

important had been the ability of the

Russians to marry the operations with

an information operation to not only

project  repower onto targets in Syria,

but to reap political and diplomatic

bene ts from the bombing campaign

both at home and abroad.

‘Backfire’ action

The next phase of the Russian strategic

bombing e ort focused on the besieged

Syrian city of Deir ez-Zor in the east of

the country. Syrian troops and 100,000

civilians had been trapped in the city by

thousands of IS  ghters since early 2014

started to issue orders to his military

commanders for a series of further

strikes in full view of the cameras, live on

Russian television. Over four days, the

Russian bombers repeatedly returned

to targets over Syria, with the Tu-22M3s

continuing their bombing and the larger

Tu-95s and Tu-160s  ring volleys of

cruise missiles. The lighter attack aircraft

forward-deployed in Syria also surged

their e orts.

The  nale of this bombing campaign

was an audacious raid by a pair of

Tu-160s on November 20. Having

departed from their home base at

Engels they ‘pit-stopped’ at the naval

aviation base at Olenegorsk. They then

circled Europe in a counter-clockwise

direction, around the west coast of

Ireland and through the Straits of

Gibraltar, to  re cruise missiles from

the eastern Mediterranean at targets

Top: Tu-22M3s

fl ew Syrian

missions

forward-deployed

from their home

stations.

Dmitriy Pichugin

Above: A map of

the bomber routes

on the November

20, 2015, raids.

Right: Armorers

load FAB-500-62

1,102lb (500kg)

unguided bombs

into a Tu-22M3’s

main weapons

bay. The Syria

missions saw

the ‘Backfi res’

carrying the

weapons

internally instead

of on external

racks.

Dmitriy Pichugin

Mozdok

http://www.combataircraft.net // March 2018 47

44-51 Russian Bombers C.indd 47 19/01/2018 15:09