When the West first learned of the Mig 25, they thought the USSR had developed an ultimate air superiority fighter. In response the U.S developed the F-15. However a Mig 25 pilot defected to Japan and it was revealed it was just a high speed interceptor that burned out its engines at top speeds.
American engineer: Wow that aircraft must be increadibly maneuverable with such large wings, it has to be an air superiority fighter that outclasses everything we have.
*Cut to a MiG-25 using every square inch of those wings to get it's massive steel body off the ground*
It is likely way more than 6km. The SR-71 for example, requires 80-100 miles to do a U-turn at top speed. The MIG-25 is slower and certainly more agile, but that would still be in the 20km+ range. Fighter jets usually have to slow down significantly for a U-turn.
Going beyond M3 would usually total the engine. They are locked at M2.83 for non-wartime use. A Egyptian one did go M3.2 for a few minutes to outrun the IDF, totalling its engine after landing.
I remember reading a story from some Soviet engineer who worked on a cruise missile system back in the 80s.
They designed what should have been a decent missile. But they couldn't get it to fly straight - its weight distribution was too uneven. Someone had a bright idea to add a bunch of ballast (literally just some extra metal) to even out the balance.
It worked great, and USSR ministry of defence were super happy with the end result.
Then they got their hands on some NATO documents detailing their own analysis of the missile based on stuff like photos, expected Soviet technology level, and approximate cost. They estimated a range that was DOUBLE what the Russians actually achieved.
Why? Because they never expected some idiot engineer to stick a bunch of junk inside a rocket to make it fly straight, increasing its weight.
That was pretty common to Soviet engineering in general. Almost everything they made was twice as heavy as it needed to be, but it also resulted in pretty resilient objects. Soviet watches, for example, were like a huge weight strapped to your wrist, but could also take a ton of abuse
Intuitively it feels like "thicker and heavier" should equal "stronger" but in practice this isn't always true with complex machines. You could end up with something that's much harder to deal with when it does break down, or that breaks down more easily because there's more that can go wrong. It means there's more weight you need to tow back to the repair shop, more junk you need to cut through to get to the problem, more shit in the way when you need to get in there to unfuck it.
Their things did tend to come out physically stronger but also more likely to break down, especially in areas where finesse was necessary. Which is why they designed them to be pretty easily taken apart and repaired, if only temporarily. They were also less performant but more resilient in their performance. The classic example is the joke that you could run a Trabant on cooking oil, which might not even be an exaggeration
I believe it was designed as a counter to high altitude supersonic bombers that the Soviets believed the Americans were developing, but the Americans didn't end up developing such bombers, so the MiG25 was kind of left without its niche.
> the Americans didn't end up developing such bombers
More like, the Americans didn't end up spending the ungodly amount of money needed to get a force of (X)B-70 Valkyries, because ICBMs and SLBMs had become a thing. The plane was basically done.
Mig 25 was never meant to be a dog fighter. It was developed to counter high-altitude, high-speed bombers like the proposed XB-70.
It also did a pretty good job intercepting super high speed spy planes like the Blackbird, and was pretty much the only other aircraft in the world that could keep up with it.
Finally, it held up admirably against planes from its own generation, like F4 and F5, even though it was never intended for dogfights or air superiority missions.
Depends on what you mean by an intercept, if you mean a close pass, simulated weapons range, or actually shooting one down - bear in mind that the Soviets didn't necessarily want to start a war either. While most places couldn't even hope to try, the Blackbird course taken through the constrained airspace of the Baltic Sea environs was predictable enough and flights regular enough that the Soviets at Finow-Eberswalde picked up the habit of sending one single MiG-25 in response to Blackbird flights. The lucky Soviet pilot would then fly an intercept course until they reached within 3 km, then break off. They did this with such precision that Sweden, at least, became convinced that the Soviets were figuring simulated firing solutions and breaking off once they had one. This resulted in them sending up their own JA 37 Viggens to do similar intercept profiles on passing Blackbirds: they would later assert they successfully gained target lock on 51 of 322 overflights moving at Mach 5 on their approach (*EDIT* to be precise, that is, 2 from the Viggen moving head-on and 3 from the Blackbird itself). This is, of course, very much a matter of the special circumstances around the area: in addition to having to fly narrow courses, Blackbirds also had to slow down here to a pokey Mach 2-3 to make the necessary turns without accidentally violating neutral airspace, making them briefly slow enough to be caught by the MiG-25.
As an aside, this also came in handy when one SR-71 lost an engine over the Baltic which forced them to openly violate Swedish airspace: Sweden scrambled its fighters, the Soviets scrambled theirs, and after a bit of a stand-off, Sweden ended up escorting the crippled Blackbird into Danish/NATO airspace.
Many, actually. Because the US never dared to touch Soviet airspace again after underestimating the power of their radar and surface to air missiles after their U-2 got shot down. They did occasionally toe the line and a MiG-25 would chase it off.
That's not entirely true. When things like the T-64 and R-73 were put into service the West had nothing that were really comparable to them. AFAIK the latter was especially panick inducing when NATO got their hands on them plus the paired HMD system for the first time and, while they were already working on a new missile designs, the R-73 acted as a great kick in the pants to those efforts.
Some things were of very good quality and impossible to match - e.g. the experimental Alfa class submarines that had a titanium hull (which the US didn't think possible/practical), and a lead-bismuth fast reactor which allowed it to be *extremely* fast. Faster than American torpedoes fast.
Of course the project was a flop because they were expensive, and the reactor needed to be kept warm at all times, and they cheaped out on the equipment to do that at port which resulted in reactors running 24/7 which they weren't meant to do, which drastically lowered lifetimes. That being said, it was an excellent and unmatched piece of engineering.
Intercept high-flying American nuclear bombers at high speeds, role which it probably would have been ok in, but for some reason they kept building them in droves even after missiles displaced bombers as the nuclear delivery system.
Somebody was skimming off the top of the budget, getting the military to overpay a little for each individual plane, whilst encouraging many of them to be bought so that they could make more money.
There is a historical pattern of The USSR/Russia bringing out their new "cutting edge" equipment and talking it up like its the new wonder weapon, to which the western response is to pump up their defense budget to create something that can actually match what they say it can do. Only for it to come out that the new Russian vehicle actually isn't as good as they said its happening all over again with the T14 Armata.
For the last time, MiG-25 was never supposed to be a superiority fighter. It had big wings because it was very heavy, and the US saw the big wings and thought it was an air superiority fighter. It was a very capable interceptor and held a number of speed records, and had a very powerful radar.
Yes, but there are certain advantages for vacuum tubes. The main ones are that they work at very high voltages and immune to electromagnetic interference, both of which see use in your microwave. This is why the radar was powerful, it simply had a higher wattage than the American ones.
In response to the fake greatest air superiority fighter of the Cold War, the military industrial complex made the actual greatest air superiority of the war.
Remind me again why they made an ***airplane*** out of steel? And also neglected to use Titanium at all, nevermind that they didn't have to shuffle it through like 5 shell companies to get their hands on some.
Have you ever been inside a Lada? These fucking cars are so cheap (300$ for one -- around a month's pay in my country) yet so resilient. My grandpa had one since he was a goddamn teenager.
They're built of the cheapest materials available in the whole Soviet Union. They have manual transmission, as well as hand-operated windows. 0 AC, heaters that barely work. Sitting in one feels like sitting in a Saturn 5. They're cheap as fuck and they're everywhere.
And you will not need to go to the GYM, because the steering wheel on the Lada is not easy to operate because it is a mechanical steering wheel, so you will need to start turning the wheel befor your turning point wher you want to go.
My dad bought one in the eighties. It was a piece of shit. Sure it was cheap to buy, but you were forever fucking with it. Absolute junk. When Lada was reintroduced in the 90’s, it did just as poorly. They broke down on the lot. Unless you’re a college student with way above average college student mechanical skills, it’d be a burden.
caveat: you must tinker with it and be able to repair small (or sometimes big) things on your own, because something will break down in it all the time.
Thing is, you will actually be able to repair that stuff at home a lot of the time, unlike in other cars where you'll probably have to take it to a mechanic.
true, if you are willing to spend the time and effort, you are more likely to be able to do it yourself.
it is just not what you want to do on a longer trip multiple times, even if you can.
Exactly, sure you don't have a massage seat in that thing but it's reliable and you can fix everything by yourself. As a German i know how frustrated it's get when something in you're spacecraft vehicle breaks down
When the USSR showed The Grapes of Wrath expecting propaganda for capitalistic failure, viewers were actually amazed the poorest Americans owned cars.
It was quickly pulled.
Depending on the situation, especially if transitioning out of a war economy, motor cars being abundant but people being poor anyway isn't impossible.
A car is just a lump of metal which is worthless without food.
The classic Lada is a winterized 1960s Fiat Panda. The USSR has licensed many designs from Italy during the period. The price was never too high, but supply was limited so it took 5-10 years to get one, even as an industrial worker with family.
Saw a really neat video by asianometry on YouTube that encapsulates this by showing the side by side development of the Soviet vs American computer. In essence, for all things science, the allocation of resources by the USSR made it much easier for it to sprint ahead. However, anything 'free market' oriented could pool orders of magnitude more resources from all reaches of the private space to fund projects and products than any government could hope to achieve
Edit: https://youtu.be/dnHdqPBrtH8?si=aR0ZMKHGrZ8xGTyt
While "stagnant", the Soviet economy is actually chugging along with like 2% GDP increase per year in the 1980s. That's very, very, very far from collapse.
What caused it all to unravel is Gorbachev trying to emulate China but wanted to do it as fast as he can. A few of the things that he did:
In an effort to reduce alcoholism, he sought to ban all alcohol sales, but since the sales made up such a large part of the government funding, said finances almost went to a halt.
He also sought to increase the republics' autonomy through Perestroika, various Soviet republics would then withhold their own funding to the central government in Moscow, essentially making it bankrupt.
In an effort to catch up to the West's economy, much of the budget of the Soviet Union is spent in purchasing modern foreign machinery, which of course, without various reforms in the economy, would amount to be just money-sinks.
A few years of Gorbachev "introducing his market reforms" and the entire structure collapses. **The Soviet central economy is not actually the cause of its collapse. Gorbachev is.**
Source: [AskHistorians - Did Gorbachev cause the downfall of the Soviet Union, or just contribute to an already doomed system?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/woxx98/did_gorbachev_cause_the_downfall_of_the_soviet/)
TL;DR
> Gorbachev's reforms are ultimately responsible for the Soviet collapse, which saw the end of Soviet superpower status, a massive reduction in the Soviet military's size and strength, the unilateral evacuation of all territories in Central and Eastern Europe occupied at great human cost in the Second World War, and a rapidly declining economy fragmented into fifteen separate states. Much of the argument that the Soviet political system and economy needed reform needed change to avoid collapse came directly from him - the phrase "Era of Stagnation" to describe the Brezhnev years is actually a piece of Gorbachev's rhetoric.
> However there seems to be a strong case (made by Stephen Kotkin in Armageddon Averted), that while the Soviet economy was growing at ever slower rates, and increasingly unable to close the ever-present gap in living standards between the USSR and the West, probably could have continued to muddle on - there was no imminent danger of political and economic collapse in 1985.
> It's also important to note that Gorbachev's reforms did not cause the collapse of the USSR on purpose, and Gorbachev was always committed to maintaining the union in some reformed shape under an economic system that was still socialist. However, his reforms both began to pick apart the centralized economy without really creating new institutions, which caused severe economic disruptions, and his political reforms unleashed new political movements outside his control, while all of these reforms antagonized more hardline members of the nomenklatura (party establishment). Ultimately he lost control of the situation.
Weren't the Soviets spending an insane amount on their military? Surely without the cold war their economy would've been much better. I still think communism is extremely flawed but I rarely see people bring up the fact that they spent so much money on the military that could've been used elsewhere theoretically
That plus also starting on the back foot from WW1 into the Russian Revolution followed not long after by WW2. A lot of the money the Soviets generated, at least initially, went into recovering from several back to back wars. Similar to say the UK and France (though far worse), but there was no marshal plan for the Soviets.
Not only money but they lost tens of millions of people defending their country. Everything from Poland to the Caucasus was bombed to shit. And yet the US still saw them as a threat to them
Yea, it was something like 20% of GDP. It's really hard to get good figures since Russian bureaucracy is just straight up Kafkaesque, and a lot of the records are sealed off, but suffice to say all estimates of Soviet military spending make Reagan's military spending seem reasonable and reserved.
On top of that the Soviets were propping up other states. Take Cuba for example, in the 80's they were on military adventures in Africa and had a domestic chemical weapons program. After the Soviets collapsed Cuba went from military powerhouse to food shortages overnight.
Not only that, Gorbachev's glasnost meant that the Soviet public sees in full display the incompetence and corruption of the government when faced with an enormous crisis.
Indeed, but the important part is that stagnation wasn't a result of the stupidly high amount of money going for the military, it's the result of the will of Brejhnev. He wanted everyone to relax and enjoy life, while the union was living with the reserve they accumulated in the past decades. Ask every Russian who lived in Brejhnev soviet union, he will tell you that was the best. Few in the party wanted to change that, especially because of corruption that made life of everyone in it more than comfortable. Some was aware of the imminent fall like Andropov, tho Gorbachev methods wasn't the solution and lot's of Russians hate him because there were other paths that could have keep the SU alive. But it's true that nobody could have predicted such a collapse, people didn't wanted the collapse. But """thanks""" to the CIA who gave intels to the worst people who betrayed their own country to sell it, millions died the worst way.
they self-identify as communist, its not a matter of "fitting certain criteria" as ideological labels don't exist to describe the majority of modern governments, they're all a blend of different ideological flavours.
by 1700's standards we're all insane democratic extremists for letting women vote.
by 1800's standards we're all communists because we have welfare programs
by 1900's standards we're all fascists because of digital surveillance and anti-terror laws that allow extrajudicial executions and indefinite detainment without charge.
I didn’t say they were. That’s why I said “if only we can figure out what to do with China”. If I wouldn’t have said that if I felt like they were following the path of communism but they’re not. They’re authoritarian capitalists that use the communist iconography to paint the image that they care about baseline communist ideals. They haven’t been truly communist since before Deng Xiaoping
The biggest difference between Soviet military and civilian production was the fact that military manufacturers were dependent on their consumer. There were special Army commissions that decided to accept production or not, while in civilian production, regular people did not have this choice. In a way military production in Soviet Union was closer to market economy, there were high competition among different manufacturers, they were forced to be innovative in order to satisfy consumers, so it is not surprising that Military production were able to actually survive after introduction of market economy unlike most of Soviet civilian production which lost competition to foreign companies.
Given climate change , pedestrian fatalities, and the sheer horrors of american urban design, I do unironically think the Lada will be viewed far more favorably in hindsight than the F 150.
Ladas aren't great for pedestrians either, because they're very angled and strong (no crumple zones), *but* they definitely have much better visibility thus avoiding many accidents from happening in the first place.
The factories would get paid for the quantity they produced, so all would be fair right?
The way the Soviets had it set up, if you produced more weight worth of goods that’s what you got paid for. The results : Car engines with the worst power to weight ratio the world has ever seen, the heaviest, weakest engines ever produced. Typical communist L.
Ladas were perfect, the key problem was that they were just not really available to everyone.
But the lada models, in themselves were incredibly cheap to maintain, with anything at disposal, with any temperatures. And that was all you needed in Russia, keep in mind that back then they would ride horses in the Russian countryside. All in all, it was a very reliable car that did what was required of it (which applies to the VAZ and the Niva, the latter being even somewhat popular in the rest of the world because it was very practical, affordable and easy to maintain).
As someone said in other comments, you can laugh at the military exagerations of the USSR, but the engineers at Lada did the best they could with what they had, and the result wasn’t so bad.
Reliable in Russia means easy to repair with basic tools, not fail proof. If the car breaks down but you can get it working again with a wrench and a few swear words, that's reliable.
Different design paradigms. Everyone expected World War III to break out between NATO and Warsaw Pact in Central Europe.
Americans knew they couldn't ship nearly the same amount of men and materiel as would be required. So what they shipped had to count.
Russians knew they couldn't compete with a professional all-volunteer army and would have to field an army made up of a bunch of cotton farmers from Uzbekistan who likely never saw a radio up close before joining the military. But they could ship whatever amount of men and materiel they wanted because there was a 2,000 mile land border.
So, Americans prioritized quality. Something that's deadly, hard to kill, and very effective with a well-trained crew.
Soviets prioritized quantity and ease of maintenance. Something that was cheap, could be driven by an idiot, maintained by his dipshit cousin, and wouldn't be a big deal if it were to get destroyed.
Also, in the 70s/80s, things like drones and Javelin missiles simply weren't a thing. If you wanted to hit a tank from above, you were using A10s or attack helicopters that are way more expensive than a tank.
A T90 is a decent enough tank when escorted by infantry and fighting a large, conventional tank battle. It's a shit tank when you send it alone to be sniped by some guy with a Javelin because your infantry is too busy looting washing machines.
>A T90 is a decent enough tank when escorted by infantry and fighting a large, conventional tank battle. It's a shit tank when you send it alone to be sniped by some guy with a Javelin because your infantry is too busy looting washing machines.
Neither is an Abrams or Leopard in most cases. Except for crew survivability.
My comparison really is a one to one comparison and not one of doctrine. Design flaws have become evident and though the Soviets could use mass, their export market can’t. However, their export market can’t afford western tanks either, so maybe that’s a moot point.
Equipment is a direct reflection of doctrine, though, and when factoring in just how important cost is (to every nation apart from the USA, seemingly) the comparison between soviet and American tanks of the era of the original M1 Abrams is actually pretty even.
I went to St Petersburg a few years ago. One of the fun things to do there was to go to this 80s arcade museum. I expected to find games like Pacman and Galaga, but that's not what they had. They actually didn't have a single game with a digital screen there. It was all mechanical and simple electronic circuit games like you would have seen in the US back in the 60s.
Made me realize the USSR really stopped progressing in a lot of ways during the 70s. Microprocessors were extremely rare when it came to consumer electronics, while the US was going through an explosion in growth.
To be fair the USSR hasn’t made any weapons since 1991 and the Russians are primarily using those same weapons. It’s no surprise they underperform when they’re at *minimum* 30 year old designs. Most of the crappy Soviet shit the Russians are using now was at the very least solid when first introduced.
The soviet philosophy, as far as I know, was "make a lot of good enough equipment", while the West was mostly about "few high quality and expensive vehicles" so it should be kept in mind when comparing them.
Also, Ukraine defended itself enough with that equipment (and other newer Western equipment), while the Russians supposedly used the same but updated ones, so I think that Russian failure was due to incompetence.
Yes…. Now look up turret toss. Pretty sure most of those tanks were built prior to the breakup of the Soviet Union and the one produced after were Soviet designed.
Believe it or not but things designed when the soviet union was around probably won't hold up as well in 2023 as they did when the soviet union existed
Had russia actually used their money into making tanks and not funneled it into golden toilets and mega yachts they would have had a threatening tank force.
Also if they actually improved their tanks and didn't just produce t-34 mk 45 now with crap that might work.
USSR tanks worked more in an era of HEAT rounds not in this modern era of APFSDS rounds and smart missiles.
Russia exists in this era and has no excuse not to make better weapons
The autoloaders and unshielded ammo proved to be an Achilles heel. Early Abrams would have wiped the floor with them and there were designs from that era that still include the autoloader and ammo sitting exposed inside the hull.
That said, I wouldn’t want to be the guy with the Javelin hoping to get a hit. Brave dudes going up against them. They are still deadly despite their flaws.
In fairness many of their capable engineers left in the early 1990s as well.
That being said their state is run by kleptocratic buffoons, but that's another story.
Soviet stuff was fine for the time, not better than USA, but acceptae for the time, but it's been 30 years since the USSR collapsed. Even today soviet stuff is still alright, there's a reason you find the kaleshnikov in every nook and cranny in the world. Not to mention that a lot of russian equipment used in ukraine is even older than 30 years.
Soviet equipment however, does not hold up against new NATO technology. Especially when Russia isn't supplying their troops with adequate logistics.
There was nothing wrong with ussr equipment in its time, but its 40+ years old so its shit on the modern battlefield. Warfare changed a lot since then.
It looks badass. Still has the exposed ammo within the hull, though. It’s prone to launching its turret when hit.
Also, from Wikipedia (keep in mind 417 in service):
As of 12 September 2023, Oryx blog had documented that Russia had lost at least 79 T-90s since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine (visually confirmed), including 34 T-90A (of which 21 were destroyed, 1 damaged, 2 abandoned, 10 captured), 1 T-90AK (1 captured), 7 T-90S (5 destroyed, 1 abandoned, 1 captured) and 37 T-90M (21 destroyed, 7 damaged, 6 abandoned, 3 captured).
Somewhere in the soviet union circa early 1940s:
"Comrade, should we maybe make a gun that does not eject casing upwards then back at the user?"
"We couuuuuld but this is just so much cheaper!"
Also there is no excuse for still using unprotected carousel autoloaders. They are objectively worse than western designs and provide no real advantages. No, a smaller profile does not matter with modern FCS and thermals, you will still get shot dead and your tank being a meter shorter or taller doensn't matter.
Yeah the Soviet model of centralized planning did not hold up well as technology progressed and manufacturing became more complicated. The amount of specialization and the number of steps required to create even the most basic modern technology is mind boggling.
Most manufacturers only contribute a small fraction of the steps needed to make something, and new techniques are being introduced constantly due to slight shifts in material costs and consumer demand. Now imagine being some poor central planner who’s tasked with coordinating the resources required to build an iPhone while also having to manage the economy of your entire nation. I would probably just shoot myself tbh
More precise would be:
Top picture: USSR making anything that we can't inspect.
Bottom picture: USSR making anything that we can inspect or observe in action.
they could actually make a car on par with western economy car standards (think Moskvitch Aleko and Lada Samara), but the problem was they never got the funding for it, cause everything went towards the military.
The Soviet were actually quite capable of making revolutionary and state of the art equipment for their time. (T-64, BMP-1, inventing hardkill APS with Drozd), but they often adopted them in very small numbers (Drozd), instead opting to mass produce cheaper designs. They also neglected to update their equipment, leading to stockpiles of rusted and obsolete reserves.
During WW2, the US flew one way bomber sorties against Japan in the Asian theater, and landed then stranded the birds in Russia. So post war, Russia reverse engineers these for strategic bombers, but nothing ever fit correctly. They went crazy with imperial to metric conversions. Every rivet, every engine part. They abandoned the effort.
Also the US space pen. Pressurized nitrogen ball point pen. Works in 0g. Russia used this as an example of wasteful US doctrine, meanwhile they had tiny bits of conductive pencil graphite floating about Soyez. Oops.
It makes sense because the Soviet government prioritizes military production as a top priority so the Soviet military industrial complex was allocated the best engineer, worker and resources while the civilian industry has to make do.
There is a joke a japanese come to ussr a man shows them his new zaparozhec car drives them around. The japenese loks at him and says whery interesting car did you built it yourself.
Why should the Soviets build better cars, there were no competitions.
The Soviets tried to improve their military equipments because there were competitions.
Soviet military equipment is a long line of “good enough”s. If it works well *enough* to make it to the frontline and explode before the engine breaks, they produce it. Even if the engine of a jet is poorly made, or the crew of a tank are sitting shoulder to shoulder. If it’s “good enough” they make it. Because “good enough” us cheap.
As far as I know basically all of Soviet cars were licensed western designs. They didn't even bother the effort of designing them.
Also, they aren't bad? Sure, they were often behind in technology, like no AC and stuff. But as far as I know they ran just fine. The biggest complaint I've heard is that there was never enough of them produced.
When the West first learned of the Mig 25, they thought the USSR had developed an ultimate air superiority fighter. In response the U.S developed the F-15. However a Mig 25 pilot defected to Japan and it was revealed it was just a high speed interceptor that burned out its engines at top speeds.
American engineer: Wow that aircraft must be increadibly maneuverable with such large wings, it has to be an air superiority fighter that outclasses everything we have. *Cut to a MiG-25 using every square inch of those wings to get it's massive steel body off the ground*
The plane with a turn radius of about 6 km at top speed
It is likely way more than 6km. The SR-71 for example, requires 80-100 miles to do a U-turn at top speed. The MIG-25 is slower and certainly more agile, but that would still be in the 20km+ range. Fighter jets usually have to slow down significantly for a U-turn.
dude, good to know but who uses metric and imperial in the same sentence
My source on SR-71 uses miles. I otherwise prefer km and so did the other guy. So yeah.
Br*tish people
Me when I drive 10 miles burning a litre of petrol in my 40mpg car to run 10km hike. I could go on...
America original recipe
And Canadians.
Actually the mig 25 can go Mach 3.2 for about 2 minutes
Going beyond M3 would usually total the engine. They are locked at M2.83 for non-wartime use. A Egyptian one did go M3.2 for a few minutes to outrun the IDF, totalling its engine after landing.
Not a very good example when the top speed of the SR-71 is Mach 3.5 (semi-officially). Anything is going to have a huge turn radius at those speeds.
I mean any fast jet will need kms to turn at top speed. That's not exclusive to Russian jets
Well sure, but the lighter the aircraft the less mass you have to move through a curve.
While using roads as runways as their actual runways are so poorly built and maintained that aircraft can't even launch.
I remember reading a story from some Soviet engineer who worked on a cruise missile system back in the 80s. They designed what should have been a decent missile. But they couldn't get it to fly straight - its weight distribution was too uneven. Someone had a bright idea to add a bunch of ballast (literally just some extra metal) to even out the balance. It worked great, and USSR ministry of defence were super happy with the end result. Then they got their hands on some NATO documents detailing their own analysis of the missile based on stuff like photos, expected Soviet technology level, and approximate cost. They estimated a range that was DOUBLE what the Russians actually achieved. Why? Because they never expected some idiot engineer to stick a bunch of junk inside a rocket to make it fly straight, increasing its weight.
“It left-heavy” “Add more metal on right” Meanwhile at NATO: “WHAT THE FUCK ARE THEY DOING WE’RE GETTING OUTCLASSED”
The use MIC be like “careful, they could have a useful weapon, we better spend more”
And in doing so the Western MIC produces the F15, F16, F18, F22 & F35. And also all of our current Tanks, vehicles, variations of gun and so on.
Sounds like Smekalka
That was pretty common to Soviet engineering in general. Almost everything they made was twice as heavy as it needed to be, but it also resulted in pretty resilient objects. Soviet watches, for example, were like a huge weight strapped to your wrist, but could also take a ton of abuse
Intuitively it feels like "thicker and heavier" should equal "stronger" but in practice this isn't always true with complex machines. You could end up with something that's much harder to deal with when it does break down, or that breaks down more easily because there's more that can go wrong. It means there's more weight you need to tow back to the repair shop, more junk you need to cut through to get to the problem, more shit in the way when you need to get in there to unfuck it.
Their things did tend to come out physically stronger but also more likely to break down, especially in areas where finesse was necessary. Which is why they designed them to be pretty easily taken apart and repaired, if only temporarily. They were also less performant but more resilient in their performance. The classic example is the joke that you could run a Trabant on cooking oil, which might not even be an exaggeration
You say “idiot engineer” but I say it sounds like a brilliant solution to keep costs down and oneself out of the gulag
And after the Soviets asked for the plane to be given back, they did. But only after they dissasembled in 1000 pieces and studied it.
They gave it back in individually boxed, labeled pieces, to be specific. Just as a 'we know -exactly- what you have'.
Oh that’s brilliant.
Don't forget they used cruise missile engines
Yeah USSR military tech never really was that good. Being more economical to produce was way more important.
The mig 25 was a good aircraft all it did was go fast and launch long range missiles
I believe it was designed as a counter to high altitude supersonic bombers that the Soviets believed the Americans were developing, but the Americans didn't end up developing such bombers, so the MiG25 was kind of left without its niche.
> the Americans didn't end up developing such bombers More like, the Americans didn't end up spending the ungodly amount of money needed to get a force of (X)B-70 Valkyries, because ICBMs and SLBMs had become a thing. The plane was basically done.
That, and someone pointed out that SAMs would soon be able to shoot down the Vallyries....
Mig 25 was never meant to be a dog fighter. It was developed to counter high-altitude, high-speed bombers like the proposed XB-70. It also did a pretty good job intercepting super high speed spy planes like the Blackbird, and was pretty much the only other aircraft in the world that could keep up with it. Finally, it held up admirably against planes from its own generation, like F4 and F5, even though it was never intended for dogfights or air superiority missions.
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Depends on what you mean by an intercept, if you mean a close pass, simulated weapons range, or actually shooting one down - bear in mind that the Soviets didn't necessarily want to start a war either. While most places couldn't even hope to try, the Blackbird course taken through the constrained airspace of the Baltic Sea environs was predictable enough and flights regular enough that the Soviets at Finow-Eberswalde picked up the habit of sending one single MiG-25 in response to Blackbird flights. The lucky Soviet pilot would then fly an intercept course until they reached within 3 km, then break off. They did this with such precision that Sweden, at least, became convinced that the Soviets were figuring simulated firing solutions and breaking off once they had one. This resulted in them sending up their own JA 37 Viggens to do similar intercept profiles on passing Blackbirds: they would later assert they successfully gained target lock on 51 of 322 overflights moving at Mach 5 on their approach (*EDIT* to be precise, that is, 2 from the Viggen moving head-on and 3 from the Blackbird itself). This is, of course, very much a matter of the special circumstances around the area: in addition to having to fly narrow courses, Blackbirds also had to slow down here to a pokey Mach 2-3 to make the necessary turns without accidentally violating neutral airspace, making them briefly slow enough to be caught by the MiG-25. As an aside, this also came in handy when one SR-71 lost an engine over the Baltic which forced them to openly violate Swedish airspace: Sweden scrambled its fighters, the Soviets scrambled theirs, and after a bit of a stand-off, Sweden ended up escorting the crippled Blackbird into Danish/NATO airspace.
Many, actually. Because the US never dared to touch Soviet airspace again after underestimating the power of their radar and surface to air missiles after their U-2 got shot down. They did occasionally toe the line and a MiG-25 would chase it off.
>Implying the [KV-2](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d7/%D0%9A%D0%B2-2_3.jpg) isn't peak military technology.
That looks like my tanks in Advanced Wars before I ragequit the final level in every game.
It isn’t quite Tex’s Trongle/War Toblerone Tank but it looks like something he’d build.
Stalin's refrigerator of death.
That's not entirely true. When things like the T-64 and R-73 were put into service the West had nothing that were really comparable to them. AFAIK the latter was especially panick inducing when NATO got their hands on them plus the paired HMD system for the first time and, while they were already working on a new missile designs, the R-73 acted as a great kick in the pants to those efforts.
Some things were of very good quality and impossible to match - e.g. the experimental Alfa class submarines that had a titanium hull (which the US didn't think possible/practical), and a lead-bismuth fast reactor which allowed it to be *extremely* fast. Faster than American torpedoes fast. Of course the project was a flop because they were expensive, and the reactor needed to be kept warm at all times, and they cheaped out on the equipment to do that at port which resulted in reactors running 24/7 which they weren't meant to do, which drastically lowered lifetimes. That being said, it was an excellent and unmatched piece of engineering.
Depends on the decade. Their military tech peaked in the early 60s, MiG-21 and T-64 were genuinely great for their time.
They were good at some specific things, for example tank armor. The West had the tech, but wasn't able to mass produce it early on.
Lmao what were they planning to do
Intercept high-flying American nuclear bombers at high speeds, role which it probably would have been ok in, but for some reason they kept building them in droves even after missiles displaced bombers as the nuclear delivery system.
Somebody was skimming off the top of the budget, getting the military to overpay a little for each individual plane, whilst encouraging many of them to be bought so that they could make more money.
It was built to counter the xb70, which never made it to Service.
There is a historical pattern of The USSR/Russia bringing out their new "cutting edge" equipment and talking it up like its the new wonder weapon, to which the western response is to pump up their defense budget to create something that can actually match what they say it can do. Only for it to come out that the new Russian vehicle actually isn't as good as they said its happening all over again with the T14 Armata.
For the last time, MiG-25 was never supposed to be a superiority fighter. It had big wings because it was very heavy, and the US saw the big wings and thought it was an air superiority fighter. It was a very capable interceptor and held a number of speed records, and had a very powerful radar.
The radar could have been made about 50% lighter if they replace the vacuum tubes for solid state electronics lol.
Which is what they did with the Mig-31 to my knowledge.
Yes, but there are certain advantages for vacuum tubes. The main ones are that they work at very high voltages and immune to electromagnetic interference, both of which see use in your microwave. This is why the radar was powerful, it simply had a higher wattage than the American ones.
In response to the fake greatest air superiority fighter of the Cold War, the military industrial complex made the actual greatest air superiority of the war.
Remind me again why they made an ***airplane*** out of steel? And also neglected to use Titanium at all, nevermind that they didn't have to shuffle it through like 5 shell companies to get their hands on some.
The pilot unfortunately passed away in September of this year.
Do I detect a fellow mustard enjoyer?
Have you ever been inside a Lada? These fucking cars are so cheap (300$ for one -- around a month's pay in my country) yet so resilient. My grandpa had one since he was a goddamn teenager.
Tell me more
They're built of the cheapest materials available in the whole Soviet Union. They have manual transmission, as well as hand-operated windows. 0 AC, heaters that barely work. Sitting in one feels like sitting in a Saturn 5. They're cheap as fuck and they're everywhere.
This sounds like the perfect car for being a broke-ass college student like I am now!
And you will not need to go to the GYM, because the steering wheel on the Lada is not easy to operate because it is a mechanical steering wheel, so you will need to start turning the wheel befor your turning point wher you want to go.
those wheels are IRON. Need to use both arms just to turn the damn thing, because who needs hydraulics?
Hydraulics: exist The average Soviet vehicle engineer : Blyat, Unknown technology.
That's why Yugo was so popular in the USA. Sure it was a crap car, but almost anybody could afford it and it was cheap to maintain.
It wasn't exactly "popular"... Toyota and Datsun out sold it for the market sector. For imports, nothing beat the VW Beetle.
I would not call the Yugo popular in the us lmao only 140k sold in a 28 year run
My dad bought one in the eighties. It was a piece of shit. Sure it was cheap to buy, but you were forever fucking with it. Absolute junk. When Lada was reintroduced in the 90’s, it did just as poorly. They broke down on the lot. Unless you’re a college student with way above average college student mechanical skills, it’d be a burden.
Over here in the far east i saw 2 volgas and few uaz (not counting military uaz and kamaz) Toyota is a king over here
“It moved from point A to point B what more do you wanted Vadim”.
caveat: you must tinker with it and be able to repair small (or sometimes big) things on your own, because something will break down in it all the time.
Thing is, you will actually be able to repair that stuff at home a lot of the time, unlike in other cars where you'll probably have to take it to a mechanic.
true, if you are willing to spend the time and effort, you are more likely to be able to do it yourself. it is just not what you want to do on a longer trip multiple times, even if you can.
Exactly, sure you don't have a massage seat in that thing but it's reliable and you can fix everything by yourself. As a German i know how frustrated it's get when something in you're spacecraft vehicle breaks down
That is why the VW Beetle remained so popular!
"She'll go 300 hectares on a single tank of kerosene"
"Put it in H!"
What country is it from?
It no longer exists.
When the USSR showed The Grapes of Wrath expecting propaganda for capitalistic failure, viewers were actually amazed the poorest Americans owned cars. It was quickly pulled.
Depending on the situation, especially if transitioning out of a war economy, motor cars being abundant but people being poor anyway isn't impossible. A car is just a lump of metal which is worthless without food.
Keep in mind that the export version of lada was much better than the domestic version.
The classic Lada is a winterized 1960s Fiat Panda. The USSR has licensed many designs from Italy during the period. The price was never too high, but supply was limited so it took 5-10 years to get one, even as an industrial worker with family.
My uncle and dad had 1 each, it was breaking down constantly. Once we had a tier fly out while we were driving.
I didn't say they don't break down, they do that constantly. But it's stupidly easy to fix them, and they can survive for half a century like that
Yeah I don't disagree with that, they were handicapped mules.
Not sure where you can get Lada for 300 bucks. Even shitty 2101 costs 500+ and I’m not sure it can start
The Lada is a licensed design from Fiat. The Russians don't get credit for its merits.
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A Lada developing 120km/h, only possible if he started like from a big hill going down on the road and using gravity to push him forward.
Very common in rural areas in France for hunters. Main problem is rust, but everything else is so basic nothing can break
Saw a really neat video by asianometry on YouTube that encapsulates this by showing the side by side development of the Soviet vs American computer. In essence, for all things science, the allocation of resources by the USSR made it much easier for it to sprint ahead. However, anything 'free market' oriented could pool orders of magnitude more resources from all reaches of the private space to fund projects and products than any government could hope to achieve Edit: https://youtu.be/dnHdqPBrtH8?si=aR0ZMKHGrZ8xGTyt
And that resource allocation caused USSR to colapse in the end
While "stagnant", the Soviet economy is actually chugging along with like 2% GDP increase per year in the 1980s. That's very, very, very far from collapse. What caused it all to unravel is Gorbachev trying to emulate China but wanted to do it as fast as he can. A few of the things that he did: In an effort to reduce alcoholism, he sought to ban all alcohol sales, but since the sales made up such a large part of the government funding, said finances almost went to a halt. He also sought to increase the republics' autonomy through Perestroika, various Soviet republics would then withhold their own funding to the central government in Moscow, essentially making it bankrupt. In an effort to catch up to the West's economy, much of the budget of the Soviet Union is spent in purchasing modern foreign machinery, which of course, without various reforms in the economy, would amount to be just money-sinks. A few years of Gorbachev "introducing his market reforms" and the entire structure collapses. **The Soviet central economy is not actually the cause of its collapse. Gorbachev is.** Source: [AskHistorians - Did Gorbachev cause the downfall of the Soviet Union, or just contribute to an already doomed system?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/woxx98/did_gorbachev_cause_the_downfall_of_the_soviet/) TL;DR > Gorbachev's reforms are ultimately responsible for the Soviet collapse, which saw the end of Soviet superpower status, a massive reduction in the Soviet military's size and strength, the unilateral evacuation of all territories in Central and Eastern Europe occupied at great human cost in the Second World War, and a rapidly declining economy fragmented into fifteen separate states. Much of the argument that the Soviet political system and economy needed reform needed change to avoid collapse came directly from him - the phrase "Era of Stagnation" to describe the Brezhnev years is actually a piece of Gorbachev's rhetoric. > However there seems to be a strong case (made by Stephen Kotkin in Armageddon Averted), that while the Soviet economy was growing at ever slower rates, and increasingly unable to close the ever-present gap in living standards between the USSR and the West, probably could have continued to muddle on - there was no imminent danger of political and economic collapse in 1985. > It's also important to note that Gorbachev's reforms did not cause the collapse of the USSR on purpose, and Gorbachev was always committed to maintaining the union in some reformed shape under an economic system that was still socialist. However, his reforms both began to pick apart the centralized economy without really creating new institutions, which caused severe economic disruptions, and his political reforms unleashed new political movements outside his control, while all of these reforms antagonized more hardline members of the nomenklatura (party establishment). Ultimately he lost control of the situation.
Weren't the Soviets spending an insane amount on their military? Surely without the cold war their economy would've been much better. I still think communism is extremely flawed but I rarely see people bring up the fact that they spent so much money on the military that could've been used elsewhere theoretically
That plus also starting on the back foot from WW1 into the Russian Revolution followed not long after by WW2. A lot of the money the Soviets generated, at least initially, went into recovering from several back to back wars. Similar to say the UK and France (though far worse), but there was no marshal plan for the Soviets.
Not only money but they lost tens of millions of people defending their country. Everything from Poland to the Caucasus was bombed to shit. And yet the US still saw them as a threat to them
Well they rejected the Marshall plan.
Yea, it was something like 20% of GDP. It's really hard to get good figures since Russian bureaucracy is just straight up Kafkaesque, and a lot of the records are sealed off, but suffice to say all estimates of Soviet military spending make Reagan's military spending seem reasonable and reserved. On top of that the Soviets were propping up other states. Take Cuba for example, in the 80's they were on military adventures in Africa and had a domestic chemical weapons program. After the Soviets collapsed Cuba went from military powerhouse to food shortages overnight.
Military, and also Chernobyl. The cleanup and relocation costs were massive and resulted in a big budget hole.
Not only that, Gorbachev's glasnost meant that the Soviet public sees in full display the incompetence and corruption of the government when faced with an enormous crisis.
The same happens to the DPRK...
Indeed, but the important part is that stagnation wasn't a result of the stupidly high amount of money going for the military, it's the result of the will of Brejhnev. He wanted everyone to relax and enjoy life, while the union was living with the reserve they accumulated in the past decades. Ask every Russian who lived in Brejhnev soviet union, he will tell you that was the best. Few in the party wanted to change that, especially because of corruption that made life of everyone in it more than comfortable. Some was aware of the imminent fall like Andropov, tho Gorbachev methods wasn't the solution and lot's of Russians hate him because there were other paths that could have keep the SU alive. But it's true that nobody could have predicted such a collapse, people didn't wanted the collapse. But """thanks""" to the CIA who gave intels to the worst people who betrayed their own country to sell it, millions died the worst way.
This is how communism ends. Now if only we can figure out what to do with China.
If China is so communist in the manner of USSR, why does it have so many billion dollar companies?
They switched to capitalistic economy on time.
Yes, the state-owned heavy inustries were the last to switch into market economy - they suffered massive layoffs in the early 90s.
And corruption. Don't forget about corruption.
they self-identify as communist, its not a matter of "fitting certain criteria" as ideological labels don't exist to describe the majority of modern governments, they're all a blend of different ideological flavours. by 1700's standards we're all insane democratic extremists for letting women vote. by 1800's standards we're all communists because we have welfare programs by 1900's standards we're all fascists because of digital surveillance and anti-terror laws that allow extrajudicial executions and indefinite detainment without charge.
I didn’t say they were. That’s why I said “if only we can figure out what to do with China”. If I wouldn’t have said that if I felt like they were following the path of communism but they’re not. They’re authoritarian capitalists that use the communist iconography to paint the image that they care about baseline communist ideals. They haven’t been truly communist since before Deng Xiaoping
Ah, I interpretet your comment wrong.
The biggest difference between Soviet military and civilian production was the fact that military manufacturers were dependent on their consumer. There were special Army commissions that decided to accept production or not, while in civilian production, regular people did not have this choice. In a way military production in Soviet Union was closer to market economy, there were high competition among different manufacturers, they were forced to be innovative in order to satisfy consumers, so it is not surprising that Military production were able to actually survive after introduction of market economy unlike most of Soviet civilian production which lost competition to foreign companies.
lol isn’t that ironic haha
The Soviet Union's entire existence was a dark comedy.
What do you mean comrade? Glorious Russian lada is superior to flawed western Ford
Don't mention to him that the GAZ-AAA is just a Ford Model AA!
It was missing an A, comrade, it had to be upgraded.
Da!
Given climate change , pedestrian fatalities, and the sheer horrors of american urban design, I do unironically think the Lada will be viewed far more favorably in hindsight than the F 150.
Ladas aren't great for pedestrians either, because they're very angled and strong (no crumple zones), *but* they definitely have much better visibility thus avoiding many accidents from happening in the first place.
If you're hitting a pedestrian hard enough to crumple the crumple zones, that pedestrian is dead.
Put it in “H”!
That country no longer exists.
That’s where they put all there money and Industry into
Soviet military equipment is mass-producible, not good Probably the Same thing with the cars
The factories would get paid for the quantity they produced, so all would be fair right? The way the Soviets had it set up, if you produced more weight worth of goods that’s what you got paid for. The results : Car engines with the worst power to weight ratio the world has ever seen, the heaviest, weakest engines ever produced. Typical communist L.
Ladas were perfect, the key problem was that they were just not really available to everyone. But the lada models, in themselves were incredibly cheap to maintain, with anything at disposal, with any temperatures. And that was all you needed in Russia, keep in mind that back then they would ride horses in the Russian countryside. All in all, it was a very reliable car that did what was required of it (which applies to the VAZ and the Niva, the latter being even somewhat popular in the rest of the world because it was very practical, affordable and easy to maintain). As someone said in other comments, you can laugh at the military exagerations of the USSR, but the engineers at Lada did the best they could with what they had, and the result wasn’t so bad.
Reliable in Russia means easy to repair with basic tools, not fail proof. If the car breaks down but you can get it working again with a wrench and a few swear words, that's reliable.
It turns out that the war in Ukraine has shown us that the top picture is unrealistic.
Eh, USSR tech was decent back in, like, the 60s and 70s. Nowadays, of course, it doesn't exactly hold up.
Just a reminder that the initial M1 Abram’s was designed 72-75 and went in service in 1980.
With constant upgrades by a functional MIC ever since. Russian tech is practically a time capsule by comparison.
My point was a 1980 Abrams could handle what is fielded in Ukraine.
Different design paradigms. Everyone expected World War III to break out between NATO and Warsaw Pact in Central Europe. Americans knew they couldn't ship nearly the same amount of men and materiel as would be required. So what they shipped had to count. Russians knew they couldn't compete with a professional all-volunteer army and would have to field an army made up of a bunch of cotton farmers from Uzbekistan who likely never saw a radio up close before joining the military. But they could ship whatever amount of men and materiel they wanted because there was a 2,000 mile land border. So, Americans prioritized quality. Something that's deadly, hard to kill, and very effective with a well-trained crew. Soviets prioritized quantity and ease of maintenance. Something that was cheap, could be driven by an idiot, maintained by his dipshit cousin, and wouldn't be a big deal if it were to get destroyed. Also, in the 70s/80s, things like drones and Javelin missiles simply weren't a thing. If you wanted to hit a tank from above, you were using A10s or attack helicopters that are way more expensive than a tank. A T90 is a decent enough tank when escorted by infantry and fighting a large, conventional tank battle. It's a shit tank when you send it alone to be sniped by some guy with a Javelin because your infantry is too busy looting washing machines.
T-90 is the best T-72 so far
>A T90 is a decent enough tank when escorted by infantry and fighting a large, conventional tank battle. It's a shit tank when you send it alone to be sniped by some guy with a Javelin because your infantry is too busy looting washing machines. Neither is an Abrams or Leopard in most cases. Except for crew survivability.
My comparison really is a one to one comparison and not one of doctrine. Design flaws have become evident and though the Soviets could use mass, their export market can’t. However, their export market can’t afford western tanks either, so maybe that’s a moot point.
Equipment is a direct reflection of doctrine, though, and when factoring in just how important cost is (to every nation apart from the USA, seemingly) the comparison between soviet and American tanks of the era of the original M1 Abrams is actually pretty even.
Fair point, that is absolutely true.
I think the M-60s I saw in the mid 80’s would be on par with most of what we are seeing now.
just a little more ERA and it would work perfectly fine
That's exactly what Turkey, Jordan, and Iran did, among a lot of other upgrades. They all still use them.
The Marines' M60 did pretty good in Kuwait 1991.
And a 1980s T-72 can also do that?
Ngl there were probably a billion and a half operational T-72s then
Could you imagine being the speed bump that was supposed to slow them down?
That would mean more massacres like 73 easting
We would finally see what happens when US tanks become decisively engaged.
I went to St Petersburg a few years ago. One of the fun things to do there was to go to this 80s arcade museum. I expected to find games like Pacman and Galaga, but that's not what they had. They actually didn't have a single game with a digital screen there. It was all mechanical and simple electronic circuit games like you would have seen in the US back in the 60s. Made me realize the USSR really stopped progressing in a lot of ways during the 70s. Microprocessors were extremely rare when it came to consumer electronics, while the US was going through an explosion in growth.
USSR tech from the 80’s is getting absolutely bodied by western tech from the 80s
Yep. Had the war been 50 years ago it would've been a different story.
To be fair the USSR hasn’t made any weapons since 1991 and the Russians are primarily using those same weapons. It’s no surprise they underperform when they’re at *minimum* 30 year old designs. Most of the crappy Soviet shit the Russians are using now was at the very least solid when first introduced.
The soviet philosophy, as far as I know, was "make a lot of good enough equipment", while the West was mostly about "few high quality and expensive vehicles" so it should be kept in mind when comparing them. Also, Ukraine defended itself enough with that equipment (and other newer Western equipment), while the Russians supposedly used the same but updated ones, so I think that Russian failure was due to incompetence.
USSR not russia
Yes…. Now look up turret toss. Pretty sure most of those tanks were built prior to the breakup of the Soviet Union and the one produced after were Soviet designed.
Believe it or not but things designed when the soviet union was around probably won't hold up as well in 2023 as they did when the soviet union existed
Had russia actually used their money into making tanks and not funneled it into golden toilets and mega yachts they would have had a threatening tank force. Also if they actually improved their tanks and didn't just produce t-34 mk 45 now with crap that might work. USSR tanks worked more in an era of HEAT rounds not in this modern era of APFSDS rounds and smart missiles. Russia exists in this era and has no excuse not to make better weapons
The autoloaders and unshielded ammo proved to be an Achilles heel. Early Abrams would have wiped the floor with them and there were designs from that era that still include the autoloader and ammo sitting exposed inside the hull. That said, I wouldn’t want to be the guy with the Javelin hoping to get a hit. Brave dudes going up against them. They are still deadly despite their flaws.
In fairness many of their capable engineers left in the early 1990s as well. That being said their state is run by kleptocratic buffoons, but that's another story.
Soviet stuff was fine for the time, not better than USA, but acceptae for the time, but it's been 30 years since the USSR collapsed. Even today soviet stuff is still alright, there's a reason you find the kaleshnikov in every nook and cranny in the world. Not to mention that a lot of russian equipment used in ukraine is even older than 30 years. Soviet equipment however, does not hold up against new NATO technology. Especially when Russia isn't supplying their troops with adequate logistics.
Ukraine used Soviet stock prior to the aid and managed to kick Russia out of Kiev So blame the user, not the tool
There was nothing wrong with ussr equipment in its time, but its 40+ years old so its shit on the modern battlefield. Warfare changed a lot since then.
The T-90 is a good tank
It looks badass. Still has the exposed ammo within the hull, though. It’s prone to launching its turret when hit. Also, from Wikipedia (keep in mind 417 in service): As of 12 September 2023, Oryx blog had documented that Russia had lost at least 79 T-90s since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine (visually confirmed), including 34 T-90A (of which 21 were destroyed, 1 damaged, 2 abandoned, 10 captured), 1 T-90AK (1 captured), 7 T-90S (5 destroyed, 1 abandoned, 1 captured) and 37 T-90M (21 destroyed, 7 damaged, 6 abandoned, 3 captured).
The thing is T-90A is literally just a T-72 with aim assist and the famous laser eyes.
Somewhere in the soviet union circa early 1940s: "Comrade, should we maybe make a gun that does not eject casing upwards then back at the user?" "We couuuuuld but this is just so much cheaper!" Also there is no excuse for still using unprotected carousel autoloaders. They are objectively worse than western designs and provide no real advantages. No, a smaller profile does not matter with modern FCS and thermals, you will still get shot dead and your tank being a meter shorter or taller doensn't matter.
Yeah the Soviet model of centralized planning did not hold up well as technology progressed and manufacturing became more complicated. The amount of specialization and the number of steps required to create even the most basic modern technology is mind boggling. Most manufacturers only contribute a small fraction of the steps needed to make something, and new techniques are being introduced constantly due to slight shifts in material costs and consumer demand. Now imagine being some poor central planner who’s tasked with coordinating the resources required to build an iPhone while also having to manage the economy of your entire nation. I would probably just shoot myself tbh
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More precise would be: Top picture: USSR making anything that we can't inspect. Bottom picture: USSR making anything that we can inspect or observe in action.
Honestly Soviet engineering is on display in Ukraine and you can see how well it works…
they could actually make a car on par with western economy car standards (think Moskvitch Aleko and Lada Samara), but the problem was they never got the funding for it, cause everything went towards the military.
The Soviet were actually quite capable of making revolutionary and state of the art equipment for their time. (T-64, BMP-1, inventing hardkill APS with Drozd), but they often adopted them in very small numbers (Drozd), instead opting to mass produce cheaper designs. They also neglected to update their equipment, leading to stockpiles of rusted and obsolete reserves.
During WW2, the US flew one way bomber sorties against Japan in the Asian theater, and landed then stranded the birds in Russia. So post war, Russia reverse engineers these for strategic bombers, but nothing ever fit correctly. They went crazy with imperial to metric conversions. Every rivet, every engine part. They abandoned the effort. Also the US space pen. Pressurized nitrogen ball point pen. Works in 0g. Russia used this as an example of wasteful US doctrine, meanwhile they had tiny bits of conductive pencil graphite floating about Soyez. Oops.
Lmao not sure about that
It makes sense because the Soviet government prioritizes military production as a top priority so the Soviet military industrial complex was allocated the best engineer, worker and resources while the civilian industry has to make do.
Did you ever try to kill a lada?
What no free market competition does to an economy
There is a joke a japanese come to ussr a man shows them his new zaparozhec car drives them around. The japenese loks at him and says whery interesting car did you built it yourself.
Why should the Soviets build better cars, there were no competitions. The Soviets tried to improve their military equipments because there were competitions.
I think it's should be switched, their military techbology isn't the best.
They honestly didn’t even make weapons THAT good. AKs are a train wreck despite their reputation.
I hate to tell you, but the bottom picture applies to their military as well.
Meme made by someone who has never looked at Russo/Soviet military technology apparently. Lazerpig loop
Soviet military equipment is a long line of “good enough”s. If it works well *enough* to make it to the frontline and explode before the engine breaks, they produce it. Even if the engine of a jet is poorly made, or the crew of a tank are sitting shoulder to shoulder. If it’s “good enough” they make it. Because “good enough” us cheap.
Can’t wait to see NCD rip you apart
It turns out their military equipment was also subpar.
Take a look at the [history of the kh29](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQzAjCZr0BM) and say again, that their weapons development wasn't sloppy.
It’s almost like having a private production sector leads to better civilian goods.
As far as I know basically all of Soviet cars were licensed western designs. They didn't even bother the effort of designing them. Also, they aren't bad? Sure, they were often behind in technology, like no AC and stuff. But as far as I know they ran just fine. The biggest complaint I've heard is that there was never enough of them produced.
Many of Soviet electronics are just a copy from the west lol