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by hapless
79 days ago
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Chaika was not a copy of a Packard. (They certainly admired the Packard bodywork, but Soviet industry was in no way ready to clone a Packard sedan) Tu-144 was not a copy of the Concorde. (Convergent evolution is not the same as copying a design!) The Soviets did clone a lot of DEC gear but I don't think SM-1, specifically, was a DEC clone. (In this lastmost case, the Soviets were left cloning computer equipment because it was forbidden to export to COMECON states) |
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Another example I forgot: the first Soviet nuke was directly copied from the stolen Fat Man design. Of course later they did novel stuff, especially the fusion designs of Sacharov et al.
It is well known that KGB got hold of the Concorde blueprints, so yeah, not a direct copy but certainly a lot of influence in that design. Again. the details like engine performance made the difference: apparently Tu144 had to continuously use afterburners to stay supersonic. It was also quite unreliable---I've heard that towards its end of life it was just flying cargo and airmail.