In the event of any conflict, it wouldn’t be a good idea to try and sail out . . .

Any conflict? I’m not sure. It would be probably a much more stupid idea to stay idle at pier and not provide your group with some badly needed AD. And if this “conflict” doesn’t involve Turkey/all NATO, then what would stop her to set sail to the Med anyway? Besides, all she was doing during the present conflict was to provide air cover for the task force and for the landing operations in Abkhazia, after that she left for Novorossiisk.

Is there any news on what happened to the Georgian air force?

According to my sources, it’s basically dead. 2 helos were destroyed on the ground in Senaki – that’s confirmed. Confirmed is also a Frogfoot shot by a MANPAD near Tsinkhvali. According to unconfirmed reports, at least one Georgian attack helo was downed by a Black Sea Fleet ship (unspecified). Apparently, a Tunguska operator was decorated for bravery, hinting at some close AD action. All other aircraft were destroyed either on ground or by longer range AD once the Russians deployed their SAMs in South Ossetia. Unconfirmed reports signal intense air activity in North Ossetia, including “two-engined heavy fighter jets” flying high and due south. No info as now about the involvement of RusAF interceptors.

The damage to the airbases: ?? Nogovitsin said that they were “very interested” by Senaki and raided it several times. Ask the Russian MoD for details. 😀

An interesting detail from the websphere: an alleged operator of a civilian Georgian radar station near Tbilisi expands in his blog how his radar was hit and how his superior got grilled by the Georgian military prosecutors for having told his guys to b*** off the site prior the attack. The interesting part is the “screenshot” he gives that illustrates the air activity (+decoys?) above Georgia and on the border before the attack:

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The M3 has no recon pod carrying capability so far as I know; do you have a link to where they admit it was a mistake? I’d have said it was a mistake because of the primarily overwater recon function of the MR, but since it does have an ELINT package they probably wanted to find Georgian Buk-M1 batteries.

I understand from Russian sources that the bomber version of the 22M3 can carry an ELINT / photo recon package without any problem, however, I still expect it to be one of the 12 Tu-22M3R built (i.e. mod’ied from the M3 bomber). Deputy Chief of Staff Nogovitsin said the aforementioned to journalists according to an INTERFAX depeche dated 19.09.2008 and timed 16:39 (Moscow time). He also said “we should spend less time on staff wargames and do some tactical exercices more”. The M3R apparently carries a SLR (internal), ELINT systems, an IR imagery system and a photo recce system.

OK, then some news about the mil. situation:

– a russian checkpoint stopped and disarmed what has been reported as “an armed Georgian army unit” of 21 men near Poti. The men were disarmed, arrested, then handed over to the Georgian authorities:

– the Russians also seized US-made Humvees in Poti:

– Russian General Staff admits that the use “of a Tu-22 in Georgia on a recco mission has been a mistake and will be reviewed”. Seems it was not an MR after all, but a “normal” M3 with recce pods. Looks like they traded speed (no need to refuel/re-take-off as for Su-24MRs operating from their bases) for safety.
– Russian TV released some new pictures of dead Georgian T-72s (please the textbook “ambush” location):

BP shutters Georgian pipeline

They didn’t have any choice anyway, did they, since Kazakhstan and Azerbaidjan quitly stopped all shipments last week and the PKK blew up that little terminal in Turkey.

Sounds like the Russian President says one thing but the guy running the show says “Nyet”.

C’mon, let them play the good cop/bad cop game. And besides, regardless what C. Rice says, the 6 (5?) point plan doesn’t mention any timeline for withdrawal. Medvede just said that the withdrawal will “begin” today, not that they will leave immediately. The peace plan also allows Russia to “implement additional security measures”, i.e. they can pretty much do whatever pleases them. And they never told anyone that they will withdraw from Abkhazia/South Ossetia.
My guess is that they will completely withdraw from Georgia proper after finishing off what’s left of the mil. infrastructure (e.g. the Gori base) and deploy a “peacekeeping contingent” of 6000+ in S.O and Abkhazia, together with all the hardware they want and that was denied to them under the previous aggreement (including heavy armour, AD and MLRSs).

No Coaliton forces will be taking any Russian forces on. It really is a daft proposal.
TJ

Of course, any discussion resembling “can force BLUE use kit A against kit B of force RED” is quite pointless when force RED is Russia and BLUE the “coalition of the willing”. I mean, they could as well nuke them.
My answer was about the pure military possibility/practicality of using Typhoon/Brimstone missiles against a Russian-type armoured column. I was actually glad to revert to a topical theme.
Fact is that the Brimstone would be more efficient when fired from a helo. The problem with the Brimstone is that they traded warhead weight/IR firing signature against longer engagement range and longer engine combustion time. I.e. the missile leaves a much lesser IR/visible lightwave signature when its engine is operating, but the specific impulse and the combustion time is then increased: the advantage of a reduced IR signature could be negated if detection systems would be more sensitive, as they would have much more time to detect the launch.
The other problem is the targeting itself: Typhoon does not have as now a real targeting subsystem that would allow the WSO to engage a target at max range. The range of 12 miles given is an ideal range, with targeting provided by J-Stars and the target moving slowly towards the engaging aircraft that flies at optimum speed/altitude. In a real engagement, the Typhoon WSO would not be able to engage its target(s) at ranges exceeding 11 miles at most (cinetic limitations) and probably even less than that (more like 8 miles or so) due to sensor limitations.
That’s basically the same reason why the Russian Frogfoot pilots almost never use Kh-25ML – at the range when an engagement is possible (the only targeting device being the pilot’s eye+laser pointer), it is already possible to use “dumb” rockets.
IMHO the best missile for such kind of engagement is represented by the Hellfire family – nothing has been designed till now that matches the cost/capability ratio of the Hellfire till now.