BlairWitch749
Banned
I disagree. The idea of "crude, simple, replaceable" tanks to be used in a war involving full industrial mobilization was what drove the Soviets to keep building T-55 variants into the 1970's. It was predicated on basically re-fighting Operation Bagration in Western Europe. An industrialized nation was building tanks to be run by farmers and built by collective farm girls- which is absurd in the 1970's. Look at Soviet education. For all their faults, Soviet schools turned out great math and science students. They had good talent and a fair industrial base. Sure, they would have had to make shortcuts, and they were used to doing so, but if they saw "The Threat" differently, they could have fielded a force of better than OTL quality.
As time went on, they did plan for more of a "come-as-you-are" war, but equipment production was inflexible, mandated by the Soviet military-industrial complex, and tied to a doctrine which was deep-set in the military.
When they finally realized very very late in the game that quality does beat quantity they produced some pretty impressive pieces of kit, but even then their system had the final word, and promptly collapsed.
I look at the idea of bargration in western europe as unrealistic because someone somewhere is going to pull the nuke trigger and render it mute. the tanks get used in third world conflicts and sold to third world clients hence they should be stupid simple to operation because for the most part (except for actions against Israel) they are not usually coming up against the superior quality western tanks