3 ms·

>Soviet equipment was always cheaper to maintain, and since they are our primary rivals, we can keep up just by importing their stuff instead of wasting money d

by ergo98 16y ago

>Soviet equipment was always cheaper to maintain, and since they are our primary rivals, we can keep up just by importing their stuff instead of wasting money designing our own. The US has virtually always been a generation ahead of Soviet/Russia military technology. There was a mythology about Soviet military prowess during the cold war that was based more on lubricating incredible military spends ("Better checkbox that new project because of that dominant new Soviet fighter") more than it was based on reality.

philwelch 16y ago
That's always been the difference though--American equipment is more advanced but with tighter tolerances and harder to maintain, Soviet equipment is less advanced but more fault tolerant and easier to maintain. So you end up with stuff like the M16 jamming in Vietnam or the Apache completely crippled by sandy conditions in Iraq.
- Maktab 16y ago
  This may be true for basic equipment like assault rifles, but I haven't seen any indication that more complex equipment like fighter aircraft are cheaper to maintain or more reliable in Soviet/Russian guise. As a case in point, I've spoken to some people involved in a project to re-engine the South African Air Force's Mirage F1AZ fighter aircraft with the Russian Klimov RD-33 engine as used in the MiG-29. Technically, the project was a success as all the technical obstacles were overcome and aircraft's performance figures improved significantly, but the project was scuppered in the end by Klimov's apparent inability to get the engine's reliability and ease of maintenance to anywhere close to that of the aging Snecma Atar 09K50s originally fitted to the aircraft. The conclusion in the end was that if the SA Air Force wanted to go ahead with the project it would need to stockpile a large quantity of spare engines and other parts and swap them out frequently, something that introduced enough cost and difficulty to negate the performance gains that would've been achieved, so the project was shelved. The SA Air Force has remained wary of Russian military equipment ever since. When the time came to order a new fighter it decided on the cheap to maintain JAS-39C/D Gripen from Saab in Sweden despite having received an attractive price on new MiG-29s.

by ergo98 16y ago

philwelch 16y ago

That's always been the difference though--American equipment is more advanced but with tighter tolerances and harder to maintain, Soviet equipment is less advanced but more fault tolerant and easier to maintain. So you end up with stuff like the M16 jamming in Vietnam or the Apache completely crippled by sandy conditions in Iraq.

Maktab 16y ago
This may be true for basic equipment like assault rifles, but I haven't seen any indication that more complex equipment like fighter aircraft are cheaper to maintain or more reliable in Soviet/Russian guise. As a case in point, I've spoken to some people involved in a project to re-engine the South African Air Force's Mirage F1AZ fighter aircraft with the Russian Klimov RD-33 engine as used in the MiG-29. Technically, the project was a success as all the technical obstacles were overcome and aircraft's performance figures improved significantly, but the project was scuppered in the end by Klimov's apparent inability to get the engine's reliability and ease of maintenance to anywhere close to that of the aging Snecma Atar 09K50s originally fitted to the aircraft. The conclusion in the end was that if the SA Air Force wanted to go ahead with the project it would need to stockpile a large quantity of spare engines and other parts and swap them out frequently, something that introduced enough cost and difficulty to negate the performance gains that would've been achieved, so the project was shelved. The SA Air Force has remained wary of Russian military equipment ever since. When the time came to order a new fighter it decided on the cheap to maintain JAS-39C/D Gripen from Saab in Sweden despite having received an attractive price on new MiG-29s.