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To: yefragetuwrabrumuy
US equipment is just not compatible with it. Russian stuff is also far easier to maintain. For example, the AK-47 has only three field-serviceable parts. Such simplicity is a philosophy with them.

We can't come up with a simple, durable helicopter?

32 posted on 04/06/2013 1:13:07 PM PDT by Drew68
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To: Drew68

There are pluses and minuses to every design strategy.

For instance, Russian tanks were so relatively easy to use, but had such rotten engines, that tank crews would form up in three man groups for training and run around pretending to be using their tanks. From the moment the engine was started, they were only good for some 300 operational hours before the engine needed a complete rebuild.

US helicopters were extremely high tech and deadly, light and fast, but every time they flew they had to get a lot of maintenance, used several minutes of flight pre-checks before the engine was started, and had to have highly trained pilots. This is expensive as all heck.

A Russian helicopter was much like a tank. Heavily armored, simple to fly, and could give and take much abuse of most kinds. Routine maintenance was much less. Pilots were a dime a dozen. A lot cheaper than anything the US produced.

Importantly, Soviet strategy was also weird, because nobody was supposed to do anything until ordered to. The Germans learned in WWII, if a unit commander was killed, the unit would just continue what it had last been ordered to do, unless they were fired on.

In one instance, a German battalion arrived on one side of a river to see a Russian brigade, about 10 times their size on the other side. Realizing the Russians weren’t shooting, the German commander quickly ordered his soldiers to hold their fire. Then he called in an enormous time on target (rounds landing all at once) artillery strike on the other side. Suddenly the entire other bank of the river disappeared in a giant cloud of dust and smoke, punctuated with detonating artillery rounds. They were wiped out.


33 posted on 04/06/2013 1:35:41 PM PDT by yefragetuwrabrumuy (Best WoT news at rantburg.com)
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