Now I'm being pedantic as it's relevant.
I'll just take your word for this part but these articles don't back that up.
Neither article says this, but sticking with the
realcleardefense article, it says the pilots wanted the radios for voice comms and then mentions it can also do encryption and cites a
Russian article. The relevant part of the russian article is
| Article quote | Yandex Translation |
|---|
| Отметим, что ранее В частности, летчиков не устраивала работа аварийной радиостанции Р-855, которой не хватает мощности для голосовой связи. Они просили заменить ее на Р187 П "Азарт", которая обладает способностью зашифровывать переговоры. | It should be noted that earlier, In particular, the pilots were not satisfied with the work of the R-855 emergency radio station, which does not have enough power for voice communication. They asked to replace it with P187 P "Azart", which has the ability to encrypt negotiations. |
So now what's being said is Russia is using a radio, the R-187-P (
US Army training material on it), which is a radio that relies on 3G/4G for encryption and the pilots of Su-24s and Su-25s want it for that encryption. 3G/4G don't work very well in the sky and probably not at supersonic speeds. The Army training info just says it's encrypted as well, no requirements listed.
So either this is not the radio involved with the system that doesn't work or it is but it's the single most retarded military radio ever made, relying on mobile frequencies to encrypt comms used by other bands.
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Personally I think there's been a lot of false info out there, intentional and unintentional, and this is lumped in with that. I think the language barrier and eagerness to laugh at Russians, as they're hilariously hypersensitive about this stuff, has led to people being quick to believe hilarious foibles without any desire to verify it because verification requires translations and context which aren't readily available.
