Re:A Classic of Soviet Engineering - The Typhoon-class sub
by evgen on Monday August 09, 2010 @12:28PM
(#1588447)
While this was a useful design criteria (make it dead-simple and dependable) it also led to a great deal of over-engineering of many components to provide the level of durability required. The question that is left unasked here is "why?" A part that is twice as large as it needs to be will be dependable and you can create masterfully simplistic designs with them, but it will have more limited capabilities for a given weight/mass. The reasons were two-fold: Soviet manufacturing was not up to the task of delivering consistent quality near the bleeding edge of materials science, and Soviet troops were mostly conscripts who would horribly abuse equipment through poor training and lack of education.
From WWII through the late 70s this strategy served the USSR quite well, but by the 80s their "cheap and simple" approach was leaving them further and further behind. At the low-end of the performance and design spectrum this left them with some very nice tools, but the high-end was owned by the west and in the early to mid 80s an inflection point seems to have been passed where high-end units could completely dominate a particular battlefield.
Re:A Classic of Soviet Engineering - The Typhoon-class sub
by stcredzero on Monday August 09, 2010 @03:11PM
(#1589015)
True, but this is mainly true for so-called "conventional" warfare in Europe. For asymmetrical warfare, especially in parts of the world with less than stellar infrastructure, "cheap and simple" has been much preferred.
I suspect there's at least one valuable analogy applicable to startups here.
Re:A Classic of Soviet Engineering - The Typhoon-class sub
by njharman on Monday August 09, 2010 @01:28PM
(#1588651)
Soviets/successor states led in many instances. Larg(est) helicopters, Larg(est) cargo planes, Larg(est) nuke, hover transports, AFV (BMP series), hypersonic torpedoes, ground effect ships(not deployed), stealth ICBMs (to counter Reagen's Star Wars pipe dream).
They aren't always the inferior that cold-war propaganda has claimed.
The old Soviet defense design houses benefitted tremendously by being the follow-on developers. They could see what US defense contractors did, then figure out how to do it cheaper and more reliably.
That said, the Soviets have had an amazing record of comparable, cheaper, more rugged, more reliable dating from World War II. Where a US cargo plane requires infrastructure, a comparable Soviet cargo plane would be able to land on unpaved airfields and include a manually operated fuel-pump. Where German designers would require over 20 parts for some doo-dad in an artillery piece, the US equipment would accomplish the same functionality in about 3/4ths of the parts, but the Soviets would undercut them by another 3 or 4 parts.
James Dunnigan discusses this in his classic _How to Make War_.
Being the follow-on competitor is actually a great way to avoid overengineering.