[ARC5] Soviet B-29 and PC Madness

[Mike Everette]

I, not Mike Morrow, was the one who wrote about the stories of copied battle damage patches and green-white paint inside the Tu-4.  

Guess where I read of this?  In the book, "Soviet Superfortress" which was originally published in Russia and republished in the West by (I think, will have to pull out my book) Osprey.  It was authored by two Russians.

The fact is that we should never underestimate anyone, least of all a potential enemy... look where that got us with the Japanese!  However, it is a fact that much Western technology has been stolen and copied by the Soviets (and the their heirs, the Russians) -- How about the Konkordski?  How about all the spacecraft docking technology we gave them in the 1970s?  And the fact that much Soviet avionics technology, even into the 1980s and beyond, was based directly upon US WW2 technology (darn fine stuff, right?) speaks for itself.  The Soviets used a derivative of the SCR-522 in aircraft at least as late as the MiG-25, perhaps later.  And it was still crystal controlled, too.  No synthesizers.

If you want to read a fascinating tale of technology-transfer (theft?) which may rewrite history, check out "Japan's Secret War," a book which chronicles the Japanese nuclear program -- yes, they had one!  (Be sure you get the updated second edition which has even more information and citations.)  And they MAY have actually tested a nuclear weapon in North Korea, a day or two after Nagasaki... but the Russians were coming in the front while the Japs were trying to get the weapons out the back.  Could it be... that the Russians got as much, maybe more, nuclear technology from the Japs as they allegedly stole from the US?  Hmm, hmm, HMMMMMMMMMM.......

But the politically correct view of things has the US continuing to "make it up" to the totally innocent Japanese, over Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  

And political correctness would have us NEVER assume that ANY potential enemy would "steal" anything from us.

But back to the Japanese... much of what was alleged to be "copied" from US technology during WW2 was actually BUILT UNDER LICENSE in Japan... licenses sold to the Japanese by American companies.  Douglas Aircraft licensed Japanese production of the DC-3; and after the surrender, some Jap DC-3s were repainted into American colors/insignia and used by US forces.  Hamilton Standard propellors... Pratt & Whitney engines... Kollsman and Fairchild instruments... there are many, many other instances.  And let's not forget that Chance Vought Aircraft sold the Japanese a prototype of their very advanced V-143 monoplane fighter (with retracting landing gear) after the US Navy turned up its nose at the plane, believing that only BIPLANES could satisfactorily operate from carriers... this occured, coincidentally?  I think not! -- about the same time as the Japanese Zero was being designed.  Hmmm, hmmm, double-HMMMMMMMMM.  The Zero was the first Jap fighter with
 retractable gear; its immediate predecessor the A5M "Claude" was a fixed-gear monoplane -- the world's first monoplane carrier fighter, in fact.

When the first Jap Zero was captured in 1942 by US forces in the Aleutians, its propellor was damaged... but before it was later test flown by US pilots, a US Hamilton-Standard prop was found to be a bolt-on fit.  I have seen pictures of Japanese radial engines with the Pratt & Whitney logo affixed to the crankcases, but Japanese characters surround the logo.  I don't read Japanese; but it is alleged that the characters spell out "Dependable Engines" -- which happens to be the P&W slogan.

I realize that the Russkis aren't stupid... far from it.  They beat us into space, didn't they?  But they also put their pants on one leg at a time, just like we do.

And, they make mistakes.  They have to deal with the idiocy of their system, just like we have to do with ours.  The idiocies may be coming from different angles, for different reasons -- Uncle Joe Stalin WAS NOT TO BE TRIFLED WITH; look how many millions of his own people he murdered just because they disagreed with him, i.e were not "politically correct" by Uncle Joe's standards  -- but the idiocies are there on both sides.

We SHOULD be able to think outside the Political Correctness box, or we're going to end up fighting the same idiocies as Stalin perpetrated before it's over.

I'm th'u playin' now.  And that's all I have to say 'bout that.

73

Mike
W4DSE