[Milsurplus] Question about EMP

[David Stinson]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <scottjohnson1 at cox.net>
Subject: Re: [Milsurplus] Question about EMP


>...This fanciful notion that the Russians held on to tubes for EMP reasons
is pure hogwash, they simply didn't have the technology at hand to produce
good low noise devices.  They lagged the west by 8-10 years....

Don't want to gainsay you, Scott, as you have first-hand on the
"stashed gear" thing, but I was on the Kersarge project ('86? '87?)
when the Russkies brought one of their "toys" over here for us to pop.
Many of the things they brought looked like they came right
out of "The Flintstones," but their critical diagnostic gear
was built to a very high standard and eclipsed ours in some ways.
The Russians are very pragmatic.
I think how far "behind" they were in any given device depended on
their requirements and how much money they were willing to spend
(read: "invest in stealing the docs ;-).
They might have a VTVM that looked like Marconi used it,
but their storage scopes would snag pulses and products
ours wouldn't even see.  When our guys first told them
the upper response of our 'scopes, the Russians laughed
(I'm sure we could have matched them- we just didn't then).
D.S.

P.S. Being a twenty-something at the time, raised on John Wayne
     and expecting a soulless bunch of Red Army cave men
     and Gestapo-esk political commissars,
     my first impression was:
     "Gosh; they seem OK.  They even look like us...."
     Oh, to be young again ;-).