Comparisons of Soviet and U.S. Technology

Abstract

The military sector of Soviet R and D may be more efficient than the civilian sector; and in some respects, particularly in aircraft development, the Soviet military R and D system appears to be more efficient than U.S. military R and D. One consequence is that the USSR seems capable of generating more system options at lower costs and presumably with less risk than the U.S. in the present system acquisition environment. A second finding of this study is embodied in the demonstration that the extent of Soviet technological advancement can be ascertained for one specialized regime of military technology--turbine engines, in this instance--and the methodology developed in that demonstration can be applied to several areas of technology. Even if there is uncertainty about some of the underlying data, military goods and services should be expressed in terms that uniformly reflect Soviet rather than U.S. manufacturing methods and input quantities.

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jun 01, 1973
Accession Number
AD0771004

Entities

People

  • Robert Perry

Organizations

  • RAND Corporation

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Acquisition
  • Air Force
  • Aircraft Industry
  • Aircrafts
  • Airframes
  • Engineering
  • Fighter Aircraft
  • Industrial Plants
  • Military Aircraft
  • Military Budgets
  • Organizational Structure
  • Space Systems
  • Transport Aircraft
  • Turbines
  • Turbofan Engines
  • United States
  • Ussr

Readers

  • East Asian Political and Security Studies within the Soviet Union
  • Economics
  • Systems Analysis and Design