1mo ago

Hungarian Gripen Jets Intercept Russian Warplanes Near Latvia in NATO Baltic Air Policing Mission

Two Hungarian Gripen fighter jets were scrambled on September 25 from Šiauliai Air Base in Lithuania as part of NATO’s Baltic Air Policing mission, NATO Air Command reported on September 25.

The jets intercepted a formation of Russian aircraft—including a Su-30, a Su-35, and three MiG-31s—flying near Latvian airspace.

24 comments

Nice to see Hungary doing a solid for once. 👍
- Seems like these planes were under NATO command, so while Hungary gets credit for participating in NATO, their national government played no role in this specific action
  
  Still they are honoring their NATO commitment, despite they have behaved very pro Russian for years.
  Compared to USA that is very good on Hungary. USA even promised to protect Ukraine when Ukraine gave up their nukes, and Trump has completely abandoned that promise.
The word "scrambled" really irritates me in the context of dispatching jets to intercept something. Always makes it seem like the jets were "scrambled" in an unorganised way or something.
- It's a military term from long before you were born, I think you might just need to get used to it 😁
- I think it works something like this:
  Calm down now, no need for control, everything is under panic.
  But anyways, AFAIK the term describes an unplanned very quick deployment.
- I thought it was some sort of electronic hacking at first. Where the jets electronic systems are being attacked.
- Well relative to how organized militaries typically are, just the sheer beaucracy of it all, it is somewhat unorganized.
is Gripen even a match for a MiG-31?
- Not sure of the reliability, but this article gives some good indicators about just how capable the Gripen is. In close-range dogfighting I'm not sure anyone really knows who'd come out on top, but in controlled environments the Gripen seems to perform impressively well.
So, are these reported incursions by Russia real and not normal? Or is this being spun to justify an escalation by trump to distract from his kiddie diddling?
- Any incursion of a military into another country's territory without that country's permission is considered an attack and therefore very carefully avoided by all militaries.
  If it happens, it is intentional. (At least if it happens for more than a minute or so. In this case, the planes have been flying in the countries' territories for about 10 minutes or so. And that's a long time. And unambiguously intentional.)

24 comments