Why did Britain come off worse from WW2 than the Soviets?

I strongly disagree with the notion that Britain came off worse than USSR; it patently did not. What the USSR was able to accomplish despite the costs paid (including the self-inflicted ones) is a separate discussion.
 
As far as living standards go, I'll bet that even the somewhat threadbare, rationing UK of the late 40s was a lot better place to live for the average citizen than the Soviet Union was. As a dictatorship, the Soviet Union could ignore living standards and focus on keeping a large military in a way that the UK could not.
 
Or were the result of extreme caution in case I am wrong.

Well, you are wrong. Soviet weapon systems were on average no more or less capable then their Western counterparts. We can say this with confidence because the Cold War is over and we can examine their 1980s technology and compare it to our own 1980s technology. All the way until the end of the USSR, Soviet weapons technology remained competitive with the western world.
 
Well, you are wrong. Soviet weapon systems were on average no more or less capable then their Western counterparts. We can say this with confidence because the Cold War is over and we can examine their 1980s technology and compare it to our own 1980s technology. All the way until the end of the USSR, Soviet weapons technology remained competitive with the western world.

Not in submarines, for one area.
Electronics, for another.
Their RVs for warheads nowhere near as accurate.
 
Not in submarines, for one area.

They were getting there. The increasing quietness of Soviet subs throughout the 80s caused quite some concern among NATO ASW specialists.

Electronics, for another.

They outfitted their tanks with things like night-fighting gear and laser range finders before NATO did. There was a difference in quality, of course, but it was not remotely a war winning one. Not even battle winning... engagement-winning at best.

That goes for most of the tech-gaps, really. Sure, some Soviet tankists are liable to get caught in a unfavorable night ambush. And some NATO tank crews will probably have a metaphorical pants-wetting moment when their rounds get deflected by the Soviets latest ERA (that discovery after the wall came down set off some hasty upgrades to NATO ammunition, I'll tell you what). But the generals on either side aren't going to notice it amidst the slaughter.

Their RVs for warheads nowhere near as accurate.

Uh... the Minuteman-III's warheads had a CEP of 200 meters. The variants of the RT-23/SS-24 and UR-100/SS-19 had CEPs ranging from 500 to 150 meters. Not a significant difference with multi-hundred kiloton warheads unless your hitting some really hardened targets, which the somewhat higher yields of the Soviet warheads make-up for.
 
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