What if USSR and Israel alliances did not died.

My not-very-informed understanding is that Soviet/Russian fighter fuselages are mostly up to Western standards (at least before this latest stealth generation), and their radars and fire control are surprisingly decent as well, but that it's the engines which really hold them back. They're just not built to anything like the same tolerances as Western engines, which means lower output and frequent maintenance / rebuilds.

Still, I don't see why Israel would be stuck with Soviet aircraft even if it was aligned with the USSR. Israel is rich enough to purchase e.g. French or German planes, while it could benefit from Soviet subsidies to its tank forces. Israel did very well IOTL with often very meh Western tanks, and might do even better early on with more and better Soviet tanks.
 
I think it took a long time for the Soviets to get past the WW2 design philosophy of advanced weapons as disposable. The average life of a fighter in WW2 was 80 hours, so why bother building in much quality. Similarly a T34s engine was shagged in 500 hours, if it lasted that long send it back to the factory for rebuilding, but if it was destroyed all those extra minutes machining or metal for a stronger engine alloy were wasted. In WW2 western tanks sent to the Soviets in lend lease, with their 2000 hour engines, were used for training.

I know that Eastern Europeans manufactured Soviet designed tanks to far higher standards to make them last longer from at least the 60s. The same applies to combat aircraft as well.
 
stewacide, Israel was not wealthy enough to engage in substantial purchases from France or Germany during the 1950s or 1960s and I can not see Moscow subsidizing Israeli purchases of weapons from members of the NATO alliance.

What kind of message would that send about Soviet arms exports to potential customers?
 
A Soviet Israeli Alliance? Hmm..

General Secretary Shransky.png

From Time magazine April 7, 1986

L'Chaim, Comrade!
Beyond pogroms and persecution of the past. Soviet Jews, led by a young firebrand General Secretary, set a new course in Moscow.

An advisor to a 19th century Czar of Russia was quoted as saying, "The Jews. Russia can't live with them, but can't survive without them."
The Rodina has tried to live without them for centuries. Through the pogroms of the 19th century up to the Russian revolution, all the way through the the purges of Lenin and Stalin.

But still, Jews in Russia and later the USSR and throughout Europe continued to survive and thrive in the technical apparatus of their societies, even as they sought to return to what the people consider their ancestoral homeland in Palestine. A homeland granted in 1948.

Even with the establishment of the State of Israel, Jews in the Soviet Union built their own niche in the political and scientific machinery of the Soviet state. The ascent into power was accelerated by the sudden death of Joseph Stalin during the 1941 German invasion of the Soviet Union, which caused a power vaccuum in Soviet leadership. An untried Vycheslav Molotov took control, but he was surrounded by a group of heady technocrats and military specialists. Many of those technocrats built the modern industrial and scientific USSR. And most of them would have emigrated to Israel if the Soviet Union had stayed Stalinist.

Instead, through Bulganin, Kruschev, Kosygin, even during the ill-fated rule of Leonid Brezhnev,and through the uncertain periods of Andropov, and Chernenko, this proud, tough, technical inner circle ran the country. At the same time, openly celebrated their faith and radically changed Soviet socialism.

In 1985, one of their own rose to the seat of General Secretary of the Communist Party: Anatoly Borisovich Shcharansky.
At age 37, Shcharansky is the youngest Soviet Premier in history and by many accounts the most learned man to take the reigns, and the most needed perhaps amid the situation the world.
With President Reagan calling for a serious push for peace in the Middle East, the Soviet Union could not sit on the sidelines, especially with a burgeoning, vocal lobby in the Soviet Union seeking closer relations with an Israel now seen as a sister nation. Also at hand is a project closest to the heart of the General Secretary, who began his adult life as a mathematician and computer engineer for the USSR's nuclear weapon programs. Shcharansky has said that his prime objective is what he called "A serious, rational, definitive reduce in nuclear arms in the world, and a real effort toward a lasting peace."

General Secretary Shransky.png
 
Even if Soviet export hardware was relatively-shitty; the Israelis would still be able to do wonders with them - remember in OTL they modified a LOT of their hardware they got from other countries. I can easily see pimped-out T-series tanks going around doing good against hypothetical arabs with 'western' hardware (british or french madel the british weren't very pro israeli and were friendly to the arabs in that time). Also a USSR/Israel alliance guarantees a less antisemitism in the USSR and an easier/quicker immigration of Soviet Jews to Israel....which strengthens it more.
 

Old Airman

Banned
there's no guarantee that an Israel with Soviet weapons won't get curb-stomped by more well-equipped Arab armies.
You can be real sure of that. IOTL Israel operated Soviet equipment (Tiran tanks were in IDF arsenals until mid-1990s) as successfully as Western one. However, it does not surprise me that no one of resident "weapon experts" is aware of that :)

Speaking about TL as a whole, I don't see a single POD leading to "pro-Soviet Israel", it have to be a number of small changes. IOTL Israel's pro-Western alignment was a result of very calculated decision made by very Socialist leadership. To put it bluntly, USSR didn't have enough candies to buy Israel's sympathies with, but American Jewish community did (funds from American government came much later, at least 2 decades after Israel came into being). And not-so-quiet antisemitic campaign raging into USSR at this time certainly did not help. So, make USSR not as ravaged by WWII, kill Soviet antisemitic campaign, make West a bit more antisemitic (easy enough, just continue "Jewish Communism" association and make pro-Israel fundraising as suspect as pro-Sudanese fundraising in today's America), and you have it.
 
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