One big difference between Soviet technology and American - the former was designed to be cheap, rugged and to survive a nuclear war. Unlike similar American jets, you can find Mig-25's in private hands today being maintained and flying. It is one of the only private experiences where you can break Mach 2 and get close to 90,000' feet[0]. I love the Mig-25 - like the AK-47 there is something very admirable in a plane…
Soviet jets and technology wasn't really meant to survive a nuclear war. That would have increased complexity and cost. Everything was really designed more around being disposable.
And to accomodate lower quality of available technologies and workforce.
One big difference between Soviet technology and American - the former was designed to be cheap, rugged and to survive a nuclear war. Unlike similar American jets, you can find Mig-25's in private hands today being maintained and flying. It is one of the only private experiences where you can break Mach 2 and get close to 90,000' feet[0]. I love the Mig-25 - like the AK-47 there is something very admirable in a plane…
> Unlike similar American jets, you can find Mig-25's in private hands today being maintained and flying.
One big difference between Soviet technology and American - the former was designed to be cheap, rugged and to survive a nuclear war. Unlike similar American jets, you can find Mig-25's in private hands today being maintained and flying. It is one of the only private experiences where you can break Mach 2 and get close to 90,000' feet[0]. I love the Mig-25 - like the AK-47 there is something very admirable in a plane…
Soviet jets and technology wasn't really meant to survive a nuclear war. That would have increased complexity and cost. Everything was really designed more around being disposable.
...and survive nuclear war. Or at least be capable of doing something useful. Radiation hardening/anti-EMP protection was a great deal.
The factoid about resistance to EMP gets repeated endlessly online and in print, but it doesn't really make sense, and I doubt it's true. EMP damages electrical connections which are: a) long. b) thin. c) far from a ground plane. In more detail: the induced current depends directly on the length of the conductor; a thin is more easily overheated and damaged than a thick one; and conductors running near ground planes…
The difference is that tubes saturate differently and they won't die due to high instantaneous voltages.
Like I said - people say this all the time, but a lot of vacuum tube equipment did die in EMP testing (in the USSR in 1964), and I don't see why vacuum tubes should be less vulnerable than solid state electronics to either short or long pulses (nuclear EMP contains both). A glass vacuum tube will pick up orders of magnitude more interference than a small transistor sitting inside its grounded metal can (and it's weight-prohibitive to build a metal shield around all your vacuum tubes), and the high voltage induced can damage either the vacuum tube itself, or something else inside the device. Unfortunately, very little has been published on this (although we do know that militaries test their modern solid-state devices with EMP, and they generally pass), and any online search produces a deluge of statements to the effect of "vacuum tubes are impervious to EMP" without anything to back that up. If there was ever a direct test of vacuum tubes vs. solid state, that would be very interesting to find.
Hard to believe the Soviets were using vacuum tubes instead of transistors In hindsight, the MiG 25, which the West had been so worried about, turned out to be a ‘paper tiger’. Its massive radar was years behind US models because instead of transistors it used antiquated vacuum tubes (a technology that did, however, make it impervious to electromagnetic pulses from nuclear blasts). The huge engines required so much f…
Something to take note of was that analog systems could drive far more power than solid state systems at that time, especially given the USSR's relative backwardness in solid state electronics. It really is worth noting how montrously powerful that MiG 25's radar is. It could pump out 600kW. Western fighter radars top out in the low 10s of kW. (they went with raw power to burn through jamming). I think the whole EMP…
Analog is not the opposite of solid state. You can build analog systems with solid state components.
> The Soviets had not built the ‘super-fighter’ the Pentagon had feared, says Smithsonian aviation curator Roger Connor, but an inflexible aircraft built to do a very particular job. There is no mention what MiG-25 was designed for. Its task was to intercept nuclear bombers flying over Soviet Union and it did this task pretty well. Because it used steel it was cheap and easy to service. At that time soviets had lot o…
> Its task was to intercept nuclear bombers flying over Soviet Union and it did this task pretty well. Really? It _did_ this task? When that'd happen?
It's possible to validate the performance of a weapons system without needing an actual full-scale nuclear war.
One big difference between Soviet technology and American - the former was designed to be cheap, rugged and to survive a nuclear war. Unlike similar American jets, you can find Mig-25's in private hands today being maintained and flying. It is one of the only private experiences where you can break Mach 2 and get close to 90,000' feet[0]. I love the Mig-25 - like the AK-47 there is something very admirable in a plane…
> Unlike similar American jets, you can find Mig-25's in private hands today being maintained and flying.
The B-52 is fifteen years older than the MiG-25 and is not only still flying, but carrying out combat missions to this day.
> The Soviets had not built the ‘super-fighter’ the Pentagon had feared, says Smithsonian aviation curator Roger Connor, but an inflexible aircraft built to do a very particular job. There is no mention what MiG-25 was designed for. Its task was to intercept nuclear bombers flying over Soviet Union and it did this task pretty well. Because it used steel it was cheap and easy to service. At that time soviets had lot o…
Intercepting a B-52 sounds like just about the easiest job in combat aviation. I always thought the idea that a bomber was going to strike the interior of the USSR was a patently ridiculous idea. Cruise missiles, ballistic missiles I can definitely believe. Maybe the Soviets were afraid that the Americans would revive the B-70 program, but that program had been cancelled long before the MiG-25 ever flew.
> The Soviets had not built the ‘super-fighter’ the Pentagon had feared, says Smithsonian aviation curator Roger Connor, but an inflexible aircraft built to do a very particular job. There is no mention what MiG-25 was designed for. Its task was to intercept nuclear bombers flying over Soviet Union and it did this task pretty well. Because it used steel it was cheap and easy to service. At that time soviets had lot o…
Intercepting a B-52 sounds like just about the easiest job in combat aviation. I always thought the idea that a bomber was going to strike the interior of the USSR was a patently ridiculous idea. Cruise missiles, ballistic missiles I can definitely believe. Maybe the Soviets were afraid that the Americans would revive the B-70 program, but that program had been cancelled long before the MiG-25 ever flew.
> Intercepting a B-52 sounds like just about the easiest job in combat aviation.
The difference is that tubes saturate differently and they won't die due to high instantaneous voltages.
Like I said - people say this all the time, but a lot of vacuum tube equipment did die in EMP testing (in the USSR in 1964), and I don't see why vacuum tubes should be less vulnerable than solid state electronics to either short or long pulses (nuclear EMP contains both). A glass vacuum tube will pick up orders of magnitude more interference than a small transistor sitting inside its grounded metal can (and it's weig…
Transistors of the 1950s and 1960s were particularly vulnerable to high voltages. Modern transistors and ICs have some resistance to high voltage discharges such as static electricity, but back in those days, you could easily destroy entire circuits with your hand. Early transistors were made with materials and processes we would consider sub-standard today, which is particularly significant because they were almost exclusively using bipolars instead of MOSFETs (which are much more durable), and the manufacturers of the 60s could not and did not add protection diodes. ESD control was one reason why certain American companies got so far ahead of the Soviets (and the less-adaptable competition such as Phillips, whose workforce refused to adopt ESD control practices).