MechanizedOne wrote: miketheterrible wrote:
Covert Sabotage at an airforce base with round the clock patrols, cameras and sensors?
You are aware it isn't easy to just break into a base like that without being noticed, right? They are rather outside living areas so it would be rather easy to spot someone approaching, day or night.
And also dead in middle of Russia too right?
Please guys, stop playing Call of Duty.
Actually in the late eighties/early nineties it was very easy to get to the planes and helicopters of the Soviet/Russian air force and army Aviation. Fences were just concrete poles with some rusty barbed wire with some parts none-existent because people living on the base used it as short cut to walk on/off the base. We did the same and it was possible to get to the Mi-24s and Mi-8s, note down the construction numbers or in case of Mi-8s, open the sealed hatches on the back and read the number on the inside. On Grossenhain (a MiG-27 base) we managed to get unnoticed in the maintenance hangar and note the last five digits in of the construction number in the wheel well.
Within the aircraft spotting community were I came from only Mahlwinkel (Mi-24s and Mi-8s) and Rangsdorf (helicopter maintenance) was considered tricky. Even Sperenberg with the Il-20 and Il-22 det. over there was easy. One of the first pics made in East Germany of this aircraft published in Janes was made at the dispersal were the aircraft was parked. I know, because I stood about 2 meters away from the guy who took the picture. No guard of whatsoever.
Here we got arrested at Sperenberg. After a few hours we were good to go. The guy in the blue jacket took the pic of the ELINT Coot.
It amazes me until this day that they were so relaxed with security. Sometimes you encountered the guard patrol, most of the time they were more interested in our car, cigarettes etc. Even the higher officers. One time we were asked to wait so that some high ranking officers could come to see us. Afraid of being arrested we waited, when they finally arrived they asked, to our amazement, if we could start the car, open the hood and rev the engine. After some chit chat about the car we could go
Noting down the 13 digit numbers indicating type etc at Mahlwinkel in the early morning
I can imagine that with all the camera surveillance and electronic gadgets security is improved.
I was still young back then and thinking back it was a dangerous game that could go wrong. In the years before the shot an US Major who approached some sheds with tanks in it at a training area.
But boy, we had fun back then.