3 ms·

I don't think it was duct-tape repairs. They had their own fitters and turners onboard who could make replacement parts, presumably of the same quality as the o

I don't think it was duct-tape repairs. They had their own fitters and turners onboard who could make replacement parts, presumably of the same quality as the originals. I guess, back then, more stuff was just bits of metal that could be made by anybody.

mschuster91 5y ago
> I guess, back then, more stuff was just bits of metal that could be made by anybody. There's a reason the good old AK-47 - a design from 1946! - is still used on battlefields and insurgencies worldwide: it is easy to manufacture (so easy that there have been a number of both legal and illegal clones), easy to repair and to find spare parts for, it can take a lot of abuse before it jams up or breaks so hard you need to do an extensive rework and your average rookie doesn't need much training other than "this is target, pull trigger until target dead". Modern weapons may be more accurate (e.g. G36) or have more firepower... a result of more strict tolerances and way more components, at the cost of reliability. Large weaponry, from your average car over tanks to capital ships, is even worse.
- dingaling 5y ago
  > There's a reason the good old AK-47 - a design from 1946! Not a great example. After a number of tweaks to try to simplify production it was eventually accepted that the original design wasn't conducive to mass-scale manufacturing. So it was redesigned from scratch as the AKM, which entered service in 1959. It used simple metal stampings instead of a milled receiver. So the vast,vast majority of AK patterns you see on the news are actually AKM derivatives since very few countries ( Finland, Israel, Yugoslavia ) could justify using the original 47 design.
  - webmaven 5y ago
    > So the vast,vast majority of AK patterns you see on the news are actually AKM derivatives since very few countries ( Finland, Israel, Yugoslavia ) could justify using the original 47 design. Israel's derivatives (the Galil family) diverge enough from the AK-47 that it is difficult to completely exclude the AKM as a source of inspiration. Although the design was derived from the Finish RK62 (itself derived from the Polish version of the AK-47), The first Galil prototypes actually used stamped parts like the AKM before (mostly) switching to milled parts. OTOH, the very earliest models of AK-47 also had stamped receivers, so there's that.
- spiritplumber 5y ago
  Obligatory Nicholas Cage speech. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H99XlWQ9KsA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H99XlWQ9KsA
ethbr0 5y ago
I have no doubt of the skill and efficacy. Military mechanics or technicians with enough time on their hands could effect equal or better repairs. But they probably wouldn't be to spec. Does that matter when it's a Bradley AC unit? Probably notsomuch. Does that matter when it's a capacitor matched to the expected interval between service overhauls? Or when it's a component downstream of that capacitor on the next repair? It doesn't take much for equipment to drift out of spec, and then you've got a collection of custom one-offs. So, balance -- somewhere in the middle.

mschuster91 5y ago

> I guess, back then, more stuff was just bits of metal that could be made by anybody. There's a reason the good old AK-47 - a design from 1946! - is still used on battlefields and insurgencies worldwide: it is easy to manufacture (so easy that there have been a number of both legal and illegal clones), easy to repair and to find spare parts for, it can take a lot of abuse before it jams up or breaks so hard you need to do an extensive rework and your average rookie doesn't need much training other than "this is target, pull trigger until target dead". Modern weapons may be more accurate (e.g. G36) or have more firepower... a result of more strict tolerances and way more components, at the cost of reliability. Large weaponry, from your average car over tanks to capital ships, is even worse.

dingaling 5y ago
> There's a reason the good old AK-47 - a design from 1946! Not a great example. After a number of tweaks to try to simplify production it was eventually accepted that the original design wasn't conducive to mass-scale manufacturing. So it was redesigned from scratch as the AKM, which entered service in 1959. It used simple metal stampings instead of a milled receiver. So the vast,vast majority of AK patterns you see on the news are actually AKM derivatives since very few countries ( Finland, Israel, Yugoslavia ) could justify using the original 47 design.
- webmaven 5y ago
  > So the vast,vast majority of AK patterns you see on the news are actually AKM derivatives since very few countries ( Finland, Israel, Yugoslavia ) could justify using the original 47 design. Israel's derivatives (the Galil family) diverge enough from the AK-47 that it is difficult to completely exclude the AKM as a source of inspiration. Although the design was derived from the Finish RK62 (itself derived from the Polish version of the AK-47), The first Galil prototypes actually used stamped parts like the AKM before (mostly) switching to milled parts. OTOH, the very earliest models of AK-47 also had stamped receivers, so there's that.
spiritplumber 5y ago
Obligatory Nicholas Cage speech. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H99XlWQ9KsA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H99XlWQ9KsA

ethbr0 5y ago

I have no doubt of the skill and efficacy. Military mechanics or technicians with enough time on their hands could effect equal or better repairs. But they probably wouldn't be to spec. Does that matter when it's a Bradley AC unit? Probably notsomuch. Does that matter when it's a capacitor matched to the expected interval between service overhauls? Or when it's a component downstream of that capacitor on the next repair? It doesn't take much for equipment to drift out of spec, and then you've got a collection of custom one-offs. So, balance -- somewhere in the middle.