Russian Tu-22M3 Backfire Bombers Deploy To Western Iran - Cp6xA5sWcAAxgTI.jpg ...

http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone...rn-iran-report

A group of Russian Tu-22M3 Backfire bombers have supposedly arrived at Hamedan
Air Base in western Iran. Photos (below) show them accompanied by at least one
IL-76 tanker-transport. The Backfires have supposedly been deployed there for
air strikes again ISIS. If these reports prove true, the deployment would be an
unprecedented sign of Iranian-Russian military cooperation, and another
indicator that Russia is far from finished with its use of fixed-wing air power
in the region.

Tu-22M3s have been suddenly active once again over Syria, flying long-range
missions originating from within Russia’s borders and accompanied by
forward-deployed Flanker derivatives once entering Syrian airspace. Basing the
bombers at Hamedan Air Base would cut flight distance and time by nearly two and
a half times when compared with originating sorties out of Russia, thus
drastically increasing Russia’s sortie rates while using the same amount of
aircraft.

Russian bombers have transited Iranian airspace on their way to Syria many times
before. They have even been escorted by Iranian F-14 Tomcats while doing so,
although they have not flown combat sorties out of an Iranian base before.
Backfires have been especially focused on attacking targets in and around
Deir-ez-Zor, an eastern Syrian town along the Euphrates River that has been
under ISIS siege for many months.

The Tu-22M3s do not deliver precision air-to-ground weapons on these sorties,
they use dumb bombs dropped from medium to high altitudes, which puts in
question their effectiveness for counter-ISIS operations and the toll their
strikes take on innocent lives in the process.



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