On 3/14/05 9:15, "Kim Brennan" <kimbrennan@MAC.COM> wrote:

> This reminds me of a tale I heard regarding Russian planes in World War
> II. The russians did an analysis which indicated that their planes only
> last a couple of weeks in combat. So they designed them to only last
> about twice that long, figuring they'd get shot down before they fell
> apart. Probably a myth,

Mostly myth.  The russians finally had the ability to put out aircraft at a
pace faster than they could be shot down by using less precise techniques to
make copies of of US and British designs (with some interesting improvements
as well).  At that point in the war on that front it was down to a game of
numbers.  They did the same on armor.  Throw 20 cheaper items at the one big
expensive german item.  Lose half. Of the half lost lose half the personnel.
Big german item not replaceable and no more troops to replace them either.
10 cheaper produced russian items already replaced with 15 new ones and
fully manned on the way to the front while battle still being fought.  We
did the same thing with liberty ships.  Sink 10 and we had 15 new ones
heading to sea.

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jimt
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