Interestingly, the Germans fought the Russians in Ukraine on at least one battlefield that Napoleon also did. I don’t remember which, but the German commander mentioned the historical significance of the field when he addressed his troops before battle.
I think so, but hindsight is 20/20. Had we not yoked ourselves with them as allies of convenience, they would not be where they are today. They wouldn’t have gotten nuclear weapons, or not as quickly, and perhaps the same with jets.
I used to say that China doesn’t have any cool shit that they didn’t reverse engineer, buy, or steal the designs for. And while that is less true than it was 20 years ago, its an interesting idea to apply to Russia. Off the top of my head:
. The Maxim was purchased from the West.
. The early tanks were supplied by Britain.
. There was a combined/joint tank school shared with Germany. It appears that the Germans pulled more teaching weight there than the Russians.
. DC3s were provided by the US.
. Jet aircraft and plans were captured from the Nazis.
. I’m sure the captured scientists helped with The Bomb.
. The AK47 was almost certainly inspired by the Sturmgewehr, even though the internal design is unrelated. The form and technology was related. I believe it was mechanically closer to American designs. Wonder where they got those.
. MANPADS were developed from Stingers they bought from Pashtuns via Pakistan
. AAMs have frequently mirrored US ones. We can assume UXO in Viet Nam was involved in the developments. Randall Cunningham, and probably others, were known to shoot AAMs at trucks on their way back to base. He is credited with destroying one, but what happened to the misses?
. A ground-launched advanced missile was purchased by Russia from someone in the Middle East recently after it landed mostly intact after being fired by Israel or the US; I don’t recall the details.
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