Talking bollocks thread #2

Isos wrote:

SeigSoloyvov wrote:

PapaDragon wrote:
I hate to play mod here but looks like this place has gone way off topic again.

Can we go back to talking about Boreis?

I really like those subs and I hate when I click on comment links on this tread only to find poop flinging about AShM and Navy size...

In regards to the sub the concept is iffy. Because if you have no intention of hiding the submarines and don't care who knows where they are you can honestly just use ships to do that.

While I don't agree with some of what Peri said, economically speaking it does make little sense to keep those old subs running to have a job you could merely have ships do in it's place if honestly, you do not care about detection

The point of turning a sub into an arsenal ship would be you want it to sneak it's way close and fire a surprise salvo, for this, the Delta's are to old, they are easily found.

I think russia could benefit from some Arenal subs but they need to be able to hide if they plan to do that with subs.

Another thing papa you need to realize the Oscar's that are undergoing modernization. Can fire their missiles at land target and they have around 80, so I mean technically you do have your arsenal ships.

I  agree on your first part about but not about Oscars. If this scenario happens which basically means US/Russia war, Oscars would be used to send massive attacks on carriers, that's what they where build for and the crews is trained for that. Same for Yasens.

An arsenal ship should be a ship designed for this role. Not a ship that was designed for something else.

It was stated these arsenal ships would be attacking third world countries, not the US.....so I responded with that mentality in mind.

Anatoly Karlin: Russia's Technological Backwardness

As much as I hate to admit it, Vann is probably onto something lol.

So yeah, trigger warning and all that. But the author is not a Russophobe, quite the opposite and the article is overall pretty nuanced and fair.

So which of these stories best reflects the real state of Russian science and technology?

The one in which a technologically adept elite are seriously driving the development of things like strong AI and pondering on its world-historical consequences – or the one in which a clique of kleptocrats pay lip service to innovation while skimming off even the modest resources they bother investing into science and technology?

Scientific papers:

The Soviet Union in 1986 produced around 7.6% of the world’s scientific articles. In the wake of the brain drain and financial collapse in the wake of the USSR’s dissolution, this figure plummeted to below 3% by the mid-1990s and below 2% by the mid-2000s. It was only in 2014 that Russia’s relative standing began to recover.

However, with 73,000 articles published in 2016, Russia remains far below the United States (602,000) and China (471,000), as well the bigger European countries like the UK (183,000), Germany (166,000), and France (113,000). As the 13th most scientifically productive country in the world, it is wedged in between South Korea and Brazil. This is true across the board. For instance, even in the sphere where Russia does best, in the Soviet mainstay of “Physics and Astronomy”, it is still only fourth in the world with 23,000 articles, well behind both China (79,000) and the United States (59,000).

Despite modest improvements since 2012, Russia remains a complete minnow, accounting for well less than 1% of elite global scientific research. It is worth noting that it lags China not only absolutely, but in per capita terms as well. In total, Russia produces as much elite level science as does Singapore, Belgium… and the University of Cambridge.

R&D, Personnel and Equipment:

Russia spends a relatively low but far from catastrophic 1.1% of its GDP on R&D, which is similar to the Mediterranean and Visegrad countries.

Many explanations have been proposed as to why Russian science has been in an unending death spiral. Some of the more ideological works cite factors such as the lack of democracy and human rights, and its estrangement from the West – as if Yeltsin’s Russia was a fount of innovation (or democracy, for that matter), while the scientific explosion in modern day China is a mirage (not to mention countless historical counterexamples, e.g. the most scientifically dynamic country in the world prior to World War I was authoritarian Wilhelmine Germany).

No, the real reasons are much more banal: Money, or rather the lack thereof.

Russia’s performance is… rather underwhelming – its measly 0.6% global share of the world’s top 500 supercomputers is equivalent to Switzerland, and lower than that of Sweden, Ireland, and Saudi Arabia.

Nor are the trends anything encouraging. While there was an uptick in Russia’s numbers of top 500 supercomputers to around 2% of the world total around 2010-2011, those figures have been dwindling ever since.

And this next one is just ridiculous. WTF RUSSIA!?!?

According to an exhaustive study of global academic salaries published in 2012, the average Russian academic received 2-4x less money than his equivalents in Visegrad, the Baltics, and even Kazakhstan, and an order of magnitude less than in the developed world.

Finally, it would be amiss not to mention the astounding prevalence of corruption in Russian academia.

The Russian plagiarism detection project Dissernet has found improper borrowing in around 4% of all the dissertations defended in Russia.

However, consider the case of the Ingush. They produced six times fewer scientists per capita than Russians during the less corrupt Soviet period; today, their homeland is the highest unemployment, most subsidized region in Russia. And yet today, they somehow manage to have the highest concentration of postgrads per capita in all of Russia, around 50% more than in second-place Moscow.

Commercialization:

Russia’s performance in patent applications isn’t too bad by global standards – comparable in per capita terms to the UK and France, much higher than in the BRICS minus China.

But you can’t realize ideas without money, and despite growing by leaps and bounds in the past decade, the Russian venture capital industry remains tiny from a global perspective.

In 2016, VC funding in Russia (€295 million) was at the level of Ireland (€367 million) and Finland (€324 million) in absolute terms, though a bit above sluggish and overly bureaucratic Italy (€162 million).

This expresses itself across the entire range of the hi-tech sphere, but we will just focus on one of the most important and “hip” applications.

It accounts for 13 of Europe’s estimated 409 AI startups as of mid-2017…… or just 0.7% of the world’s 1951 total. Russia is once again in the company of countries like Sweden, Finland, and Switzerland, who have less than 10% of its population.

Robotics and Machine Tools:

Russia’s (total!) figures are slightly higher than in Slovenia, but lower than in Slovakia. In per capita terms, the rate of robotization per worker in Russia in Russia hovers between that of India and Iran, and is far behind middle-income industrial countries like Turkey, Brazil, and Mexico, to say nothing of a China fast gallivanting its way up to the levels of its super-automated East Asian peers.

Although they diverge somewhat in their assessments, the underlying picture is clear – only around 500 industrial robots are introduced into Russian industry per year as of 2014, accounting for a dismal 0.25% of the global total. This is about thrice less even than Brazil’s 1,300, and two orders of magnitude lower than in China, where 57,000 were sold in the same year. It is likewise highly unlikely that Russia saw any improvements since 2014, considering that this was when it fell into a two year recession.

As you might expect, the lists of countries that dominate industrial robots and machine tools production – Japan, Korea, the Germanic lands, Italy, and increasingly, China – are highly similar. Russia is not an exception, accounting for just 0.6% of world machine tool production.

The Russian Federation also massively lags even the late USSR. As an autarkic military-industrial empire, the USSR understood the necessity of being able to make the machines that make all the other machines, bequeathing the Russian Federation with 2.8 million machine tools in 1992 upon its dissolution. Since then, that machine tool stock has inexorably depreciated, and as of 2013 constituted just 760,000 pieces, with the average age almost doubling from 12 years to 21 years.

Conclusion, Some Positives and Reasons for Optimism:

Since the end of the USSR, it has become clear that a chasm has opened up in in terms of scientific and technological output between Russia and the developed West.

This video juxtaposing the lumbering Robot Fedor versus the agile Atlas built by Boston Dynamics seems like a good metaphor for what is perhaps the single biggest failure of Putinism in the past 18 years. [Won't even bother linking it, the point is clear enough, and I think many here remember Fedor.]

In comparison, any successes or failures in the Middle Eastern military adventures that pundits and commenters obsess over are basically irrelevant.

The government has a strategic goal to get five of its universities into the global top 100 by 2020, to which end it has lavished significantly greater funding on its 21 most prospective universities. Consequently, academic salaries have greatly improved since 2013, at least in the elite institutions.

There’s no very obvious reasons why Russia can’t succeed more at science. The average IQ relative to British norms is around 97, which might fall significantly short of Germanic and Anglo-Saxon (native!) averages, but isn’t really out of place relative to Mediterranean or East-Central European standards. Moreover, there are signs that Russia continues to enjoy a Flynn Effect, and besides, surely any minor disadvantage with respect to raw IQs is cancelled out by Russia’s traditionally very strong performance in international programming and mathematics contests.

Meanwhile, as regards industry, it is worth pointing out that Russia does consume around 2.7% of the world’s machine tools – it is, after all, the world’s eighth (or so) manufacturing power, not the gas station masquerading as a country of John McCain’s imagination. Infrastructure – roads, rail, airports – has genuinely gotten much better in the past decade, and with post-Soviet inflation finally tamed, Russia looks set for fairly vigorous growth.

But the problems holding Russia back are severe, and possibly intractable.

There remain strong financial and ultimately institutional barriers to unlocking Russia’s scientific potential. Putin and his clique seem to prefer lavishing resources on status-signalling sporting events and white elephants as opposed to serious science and supercomputers. The former burnishes his prestige amongst simple people and provides endless opportunities to siphon away money to his Ozero chums – the latest lunatic project is to built a bridge for $10 billion to Sakhalin and its 500,000 people (a contract won by Arkady Rotenberg – who else?), which is about what the federal government spends on the Ministry of Education in a year – while the latter will only cause political trouble.

Ending corruption within academia would likewise seem a quixotic endeavor. While one can say much more on this topic, consider that PhD’s are no less a status symbol for the Russian elites than Mercedes cars and English boarding schools for their children. High-flyers found to have plagiarized their doctoral dissertations include no less than one in every nine members of the State Duma, and for that matter, Vladimir Putin himself. Waiting for these people to solve the problem of academic fraud is about as realistic as expecting them to solve corruption, or training foxes to guard hen houses. Nor is it possible to imagine a serious response to ethnic nepotism in academia in the land of Article 282, where you can be prosecuted just for arguing that the Caucasian republics should get fewer federal subsidies.

Finally, the absurdly low levels of robotization in industry raise serious questions about Russia’s political economy and its economic future. Why are Russian businesses loth to make serious moves towards automation in industry, even though Russia is, despite everything, a reasonably high IQ and well educated country? Is it because these require big capital investments that they are not willing to risk because of what they perceive as Russia’s environment of legal nihilism? It is correlated with Russian elites being the most apatride of any major civilization?

Now this is not to say that the problem is with the Putin regime and that its removal will improve things. The pro-Western liberal elites are at least as rapacious as the kremlins, no less authoritarian in spirit, and far less patriotic to boot. Although this post was primarily about Russia, feel free to go back through the hyperlinks and study the case of the Ukraine, where liberal “lustrators” have repeatedly won; it might as well be Sub-Saharan Africa so far as advanced science, native hi-tech (as opposed to offshored work), and any sort of capital-intensive manufacturing that wasn’t bequeathed to it by the USSR is concerned. Even the Visegrad and Baltic nations don’t have much to write home about. While most of them – especially, Czechia, Estonia, and Poland – do substantially better than Russia on most of these metrics, they still hugely lag the developed West and have been left behind in the dust by the Chinese juggernaut.

I don’t propose any great over-arching solution to these problems. “More money for RAN, less money for the Rotenbergs” might be a nice slogan, but as they say, the devil is in the details.

However, a solid start would be to look at the statistics and acknowledge that a very big problem exists, which, unresolved, will continue to degrade Russia’s economic, industrial, and eventually military competitiveness.

This isn't the full article, some interesting charts there as well. And I have to add that some of those trends are quite clearly positive, which was a positive surprise for me, it's just that things have began to improve only recently. As an example, Russia's share of the Nature Index was 0.6% as recently as in 2012, and despite all the... events since 2014 (or maybe because of them?), the share had incresed to above 0.8% by the end of 2017.

Isos wrote:

SeigSoloyvov wrote:

kvs wrote:BTW, the so-called "inaccurate" old Soviet missiles are only so because they were not designed for the electronic warfare of later
decades.   Be sure that modern Russian missiles have the latest counter EW technology.   One that Yankistanis are not even aware
of.   Science does not happen on Wall Street.

Sure russian missiles these days modern ones are very accurate, indeed. My statement was the older ones Garry was going on about where inaccurate like most missiles of that era where

They were nuclear armed missile, idem for the torpedos. 1 of them could actually destroy a carrier group if the ships were near the carrier.

the intensity of nuclear weapons is greatly reduced at sea, if you would like a crash course on this. At some point, I can go over the science with you.

I would say if they are underfunding R&D they must have some of the most capable engineers in the world... how many baltic states are making 5th gen stealth fighters and new generation stealth bombers and hypersonic missiles of all types?

And all things being equal I suspect his logic is therefore flawed because it fails a simple common sense test...

Kimppis wrote:Anatoly Karlin: Russia's Technological Backwardness

http://www.unz.com/masthead/#mission-statement

For decades I have spent a couple of hours every morning carefully reading The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and several other major newspapers. But although such a detailed study of the American mainstream media is a necessary condition for remaining informed about our world, it is not sufficient. With the rise of the Internet and the alternative media, every thinking individual has increasingly recognized that there exist enormous lacunae in what our media tells us and disturbing patterns in what is regularly ignored or concealed.

[u]About Anatoly Karlin

te]]I am a blogger, thinker, and businessman in the SF Bay Area. I’m originally from Russia, spent many years in Britain, and studied at U.C. Berkeley.

One of my tenets is that ideologies tend to suck. As such, I hesitate about attaching labels to myself. That said, if it’s really necessary, I suppose “liberal-conservative neoreactionary” would be close enough.

Though I consider myself part of the Orthodox Church, my philosophy and spiritual views are more influenced by digital physics, Gnosticism, and Russian cosmism than anything specifically Judeo-Christian.

Somebody who lives by choice in USA writes "articles like that: Anatoly Karlin: Punishing Putler, seems to be a liberal scum having little ot say about current Russia and his knowledge is based on US media and Russian in 90s. When there was "democratic" governance

GarryB wrote:I would say if they are underfunding R&D they must have some of the most capable engineers in the world... how many baltic states are making 5th gen stealth fighters and new generation stealth bombers and hypersonic missiles of all types?

And all things being equal I suspect his logic is therefore flawed because it fails a simple common sense test...

Well Russia is spending fairly little for funding applied research to "civil" industry. Military part since Putin's get to power was really sufficiently focused and funded judging by results.


Russia seems to lack so called venture capital (VC). Not because is baad but there was not enough push form top in terms of taxes, financial instruments and sources of financing. All those legla, personal changes for Putin's team IMHO are about to make it run in medium term.



Second - markets: you can have best product in the world but you can still bankrupt if you cannot sell it then somebody does same thing on scale, with bigger bigger market. Economy of scale makes product cheaper and seller can invest more in development. Look on microelectronics to have example.


Third increasing % of civilian products in military hi tech companies are to IMHO increase transfer of hi tech to industry.



Why VC and stock exchanges are needed? Generally companies need money to grow. Fast. Borrowing from banks is more efficient then waiting to accumulate on your own. But most effective to scale up your company is VC/Stock exchange. Time is very important factor here. You get late somebody else will take niche for your product. And without strong help for technology companies it wont start. I am no oligarch but as I can see oligarchs form 90s have no idea how to make any technological companies. They stick to whet they've stolen. No risky movements.

BTW, the so-called "inaccurate" old Soviet missiles are only so because they were not designed for the electronic warfare of later
decades.

Accuracy is not related to countermeasures... a sniper rifle does not become inaccurate because the target is wearing body armour.

And the Soviet missiles tended to be used by third parties usually rather a long period after being obsolete in Russian service...

Sure russian missiles these days modern ones are very accurate, indeed. My statement was the older ones Garry was going on about where inaccurate like most missiles of that era where

Hahahaha... nice... I am not biased... all Americans during WWII were cowards, but I am not biased because some new Americans are OK...

So why did the US Navy bother with AEGIS... I mean after all the best Soviet missile at the time on their only aircraft carriers of the time... enormous supersonic monsters... they were inaccurate...  because someone on the internet says they were.

1. You said carrier GROUP meaning all the ships with it, learn English my god.

No I didn't... I can requote what I said here:

You said they had 12 and not 16 missiles and I replied:

Hilarious... you finally actually look up figures and then come with the Soviet missiles were inaccurate really... really?

12 missiles means twelve sunk US ships... they had nothing that could even look like stopping such missiles... except denial.

12 missiles means twelve sunk US ships... go up to the post and read it again... and everything around it... so there is no misunderstanding...

Ah right there "Russian and Soviet equipment and don't really give a shit about american and western weapons" you realize you just proved my entire point,

What entire point?

Russia is bad?

I am not anti Russian but Russians are bad genetically and don't know how to be good or make good things.... etc etc.

I am here because I am interested in Soviet and Russian weapons and military... perhaps we can agree I am in the right place and you really need to think about why you are even here...

I know this garry you never used a gun in combat, never fought in an actual battle, you never served,

Yes, I never murdered anyone for my government, you are right in this case... but the fact that you have gone to third world countries and murdered people whose main crime was defending their own country does that make you an expert on Russian and Soviet weapons?

you never did anything but read shit on the internet and you only read one side...

Actually not being able to read Russian the only side I have read for most of my life was the wrong side... but I learned to pick their deceptions and spin and realised I was being lied to very early on... which is why I don't listen to CNN or the BBC anymore.

your opinion at that point is biased and isn't worth a rat's ass of time...You see Garry when you are biased it makes you blind, it makes you stupid. By your own admission, you told me you don't know about western equipment.

There you go again son... didn't they teach you to read proper on the front line killing all dem gooks... I didn't say I didn't know anything about western shit... I said I wasn't interested in it... the difference would get you killed on the front line if you ever served...  

Now Garry thank you for confirming what I said. Which is you are a fanboy who "expert" opinion comes from internet articles.

I predate the internet... son.  

Western agencies btw? hahaha buddy you dn't know shit about western agencies you just some guy behind his computer screen and you think you know how intelligence agencies function or what they know. Wow, geez arm chair experts never fail to amaze me.

But it was Russian hackers that did it and aren't they fanbois that are arm chair experts sitting behind a computer screen...

After the Faggot remark, now this. Look asshole. You can call the Israeli's whatever the hell you want, HOWEVER they are NOT the only jewish people in the world. When you say jews you are sluring an entire people, I've killed a fuck ton of muslims in my days, do you see me going around saying shit to innocent muslims hell no and sluring their race because of a few fanatics

You can say ISREALI there is literally no reason why you have to say "Jew". I am done with you.

Again western ignorance... there are a shit ton of jews who think the whole idea of Israel is bad and only creates more problems for Jews around the world... are they wrong?

Israel is supposed to be a safe haven... a place where jews are safe from persecution for being jews... and in a sense it is, but in practical terms is a source of a lot of hate directed at all jews and is certainly by no measure safe... more so for non jews actually.

Therefore when I mention jews I prefer to specify the zionist sect, as opposed to the non zionists who actually want peace. again to be clear zionist jews want peace too, but only with all opposition dead... which of course can never happen but they are not smart jews... just good at using force to get what they want.

The amusing thing is that you could be a zionist jew... they have killed a fuck ton of muslims too... they are very good at it... very practised... the west even think it is the muslims fault the zionist jews are killing them... hahaha... Hitler would be jealous... he should have fired Gobbels and hired some jews... if the money was right they probably would have done it...

I hate to play mod here but looks like this place has gone way off topic again.

Good point... will be pruning away the crap shortly.

While I don't agree with some of what Peri said, economically speaking it does make little sense to keep those old subs running to have a job you could merely have ships do in it's place if honestly, you do not care about detection

There are degrees of detection... for Syria or any african or central or south american and most asian countries a sub is a very very difficult target... even a WWII sub...

The point of turning a sub into an arsenal ship would be you want it to sneak it's way close and fire a surprise salvo, for this, the Delta's are to old, they are easily found.

By whom?

Make a list of all the countries able to easily detect a Delta IV class sub 1,000km off their coast... now cross off that list all the countries Russia is not likely going to attack with an arsenal ship... ie UK, US, France, NATO countries, China, Japan, etc and you will find all the countries you wrote down are crossed off...

Another thing papa you need to realize the Oscar's that are undergoing modernization. Can fire their missiles at land target and they have around 80, so I mean technically you do have your arsenal ships.

they aren't arsenal ships... they are anti carrier group ships.

the intensity of nuclear weapons is greatly reduced at sea, if you would like a crash course on this. At some point, I can go over the science with you.

IN the US the likelyhood of a nuclear exchange is low because they don't generally need to resort to nuclear weapons and most nuclear armed missiles have been withdrawn from US navy ships with the obvious exception of SLBMs.

In the Russian Navy a nuclear exchange was expected early... even major SAMs like the SA-N-1 and SA-N-3 had nuclear armed missiles as a standard load out. the classic way to stop a swarm attack BTW... and of course all large surface to surface missiles also had about a quarter of the load with nuke warheads...

The flash burns from an airburst 20Kt warhead would render most vessels nearby rather useless... radar antenna alone don't stand up well to being flash heated to several thousand degrees.

First of all, he does apply it for quality weighting: "But if Russia’s raw research output is nothing to write home about, it diminishes to near irrelevance when adjusted for quality." The language barrier/cultural barries/NATO propaganda arguments also might work to some small extent, but the fact is that China is alrady number 2 and rapidly catching up.

When it comes to IQ, I think Karlin worded it quite weirdly in the article. I guess he just presented it as a potential explanation for Russia's current limitations in technology. I think his general view is that Russia actually has high average IQs and it's a strength for Russia. So really, the difference between China (around 105), Western Europe (around 100) and Russia (97, so really: around 100) is actually quite small and they all have high, first world level IQs. I quote: "There’s no very obvious reasons why Russia can’t succeed more at science." Btw, he has also pointed out quite a few times that it's possible that the "real" Chinese IQs are closer to 100 than 105 because East Asians (Japan, Korea...) seem to be "less curious" or whatever, but it doesn't matter too much, they're high either way. So he's aware of that argument.

And I think he actually agrees that there has not been a lot brain drain since the early to mid-2000s. He obviously doesn't want these problems to be true, so I'll just quote this again:

However, a solid start would be to look at the statistics and acknowledge that a very big problem exists, which, unresolved, will continue to degrade Russia’s economic, industrial, and eventually military competitiveness.

=========================

Garry, he actually mentions that Baltic states are not doing much better. It's interesting actually. Western Europe, Canada, Australia, the US and East Asia seem to be positive outliers. So while countries like Czechia, Spain and Italy have high to very high living standards, they are clearly doing worse in science, for whatever reason.

Naturally the Russian MIC is one of its biggest strengths, while Baltic states and really other Eastern European countries are too small to develop 5th generation fighters. As I also pointed out on the Su-57 thread, the delays, especially if those reports about "two squadrons by mid-20s" turn out to be true, might in all honesty be an indication of those problems that Karlin is talking about.

Russia's total R&D spending in PPP is quite high (like 5th or 6th largest in the world), but its GDP share (slightly above 1%), while actually above the global average, is still lower than in the "West" and East Asia (2%+), and again: that is weirdly the case I think basically everywhere in Southern and Eastern Europe, including Spain and Italy. Why?

=========================

GunshipDemocracy, I think Karlin is actually kind of criticizing The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal there.

He lives in Moscow currently: http://www.unz.com/akarlin/go-back-to-russia/
The only reason he ever lived in the West was the the Soviet collapse and the ensuing brain drain. His parents had to move, because the Russian state couldn't afford to pay them high enough salaries.

That Putler thing is an obvious joke as well, a meme, if you will. "Putler" just basically describes the Western image of Putin. The article itself is really good, IMO, it shows that there's not a lot that the UK (or even the West as a whole) can realistically do to hurt Russia. He's also writing a book called "The Dark Lord of the Kremlin", IIRC, and the whole purpose of the book is to criticize Western elite's and MSM's narrative on Russia. I recommend you read this: http://akarlin.com/2009/07/top-50-russophobe-myths/ (Admittedly the article is a little outdated.)

So Karlin is no Russophobe, very much the opposite in fact. But his views are pretty nuanced and I guess kind of surprising to certain audiences. He describes himself as a "Russian nationalist", and he is going to vote for Zhironovsky. Karlin is no fan of Navalny or Sobchak, don't worry about that. Also liberal in the Russian and especially Russian historical context is not the same thing as in today's West. I think Putin is also quite liberal by Russian and older Western (even going back only 20-30 years) standards.

Also people: no ad hominems, don't shoot the messenger and all that. There are also positives in that article, some quite encouraging trends and reasons for optimism.

Kimppis wrote:First of all, he does apply it for quality weighting: "But if Russia’s raw research output is nothing to write home about, it diminishes to near irrelevance when adjusted for quality." The language barrier/cultural barries/NATO propaganda arguments also might work to some small extent, but the fact is that China is alrady number 2 and rapidly catching up.

When it comes to IQ, I think Karlin worded it quite weirdly in the article. I guess he just presented it as a potential explanation for Russia's current limitations in technology. I think his general view is that Russia actually has high average IQs and it's a strength for Russia. So really, the difference between China (around 105), Western Europe (around 100) and Russia (97, so really: around 100) is actually quite small and they all have high, first world level IQs. I quote: "There’s no very obvious reasons why Russia can’t succeed more at science." Btw, he has also pointed out quite a few times that it's possible that the "real" Chinese IQs are closer to 100 than 105 because East Asians (Japan, Korea...) seem to be "less curious" or whatever, but it doesn't matter too much, they're high either way. So he's aware of that argument.

And I think he actually agrees that there has not been a lot brain drain since the early to mid-2000s. He obviously doesn't want these problems to be true, so I'll just quote this again:

However, a solid start would be to look at the statistics and acknowledge that a very big problem exists, which, unresolved, will continue to degrade Russia’s economic, industrial, and eventually military competitiveness.

=========================

Garry, he actually mentions that Baltic states are not doing much better. It's interesting actually. Western Europe, Canada, Australia, the US and East Asia seem to be positive outliers. So while countries like Czechia, Spain and Italy have high to very high living standards, they are clearly doing worse in science, for whatever reason.

Naturally the Russian MIC is one of its biggest strengths, while Baltic states and really other Eastern European countries are too small to develop 5th generation fighters. As I also pointed out on the Su-57 thread, the delays, especially if those reports about "two squadrons by mid-20s" turn out to be true, might in all honesty be an indication of those problems that Karlin is talking about.

Russia's total R&D spending in PPP is quite high (like 5th or 6th largest in the world), but its GDP share (slightly above 1%), while actually above the global average, is still lower than in the "West" and East Asia (2%+), and again: that is weirdly the case I think basically everywhere in Southern and Eastern Europe, including Spain and Italy. Why?

=========================

GunshipDemocracy, I think Karlin is actually kind of criticizing The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal there.

He lives in Moscow currently: http://www.unz.com/akarlin/go-back-to-russia/
The only reason he ever lived in the West was the the Soviet collapse and the ensuing brain drain. His parents had to move, because the Russian state couldn't afford to pay them high enough salaries.

That Putler thing is an obvious joke as well, a meme, if you will. "Putler" just basically describes the Western image of Putin. The article itself is really good, IMO, it shows that there's not a lot that the UK (or even the West as a whole) can realistically do to hurt Russia. He's also writing a book called "The Dark Lord of the Kremlin", IIRC, and the whole purpose of the book is to criticize Western elite's and MSM's narrative on Russia. I recommend you read this: http://akarlin.com/2009/07/top-50-russophobe-myths/ (Admittedly the article is a little outdated.)

So Karlin is no Russophobe, very much the opposite in fact. But his views are pretty nuanced and I guess kind of surprising to certain audiences. He describes himself as a "Russian nationalist", and he is going to vote for Zhironovsky. Karlin is no fan of Navalny or Sobchak, don't worry about that. Also liberal in the Russian and especially Russian historical context is not the same thing as in today's West. I think Putin is also quite liberal by Russian and older Western (even going back only 20-30 years) standards.

Also people: no ad hominems, don't shoot the messenger and all that. There are also positives in that article, some quite encouraging trends and reasons for optimism.

You are once again making false equialenvences.

Let me ask you a question, one we know you won't be able to answer correctly: how is it, that with the supposed "low R&D", have any connection to the production of Su-57? Especially when, the R&D is already completed?

So where is exactly, is it that is holding Russia back on it's procurement of the Su-57 that ties to the funding of R&D?

And if Russian IQ is less? Then how come Russia has more higher educated people and much more awards in international scientific and mathematic competitions than most other nations?

It seems that Karlin is stating nothing but hot air, and only people with an IQ lower than that of Russians are buying into it. And since he is an LDPR fan if what you say is true (sorry, I don't take your word), I wouldnt take his word for much.

Also, not saying your IQ is low. But let's be real here, KVS is spot on.

I think I said that neither of those are low. Especially IQ. Russia IQs are high, as I said. Su-57 delays potentially indicate some problems: subsystems not being fully ready, problems with mass production. Again: just a possibility, would explain the delays and low production numbers, but who knows... It's the same situation with Armata.

Kimppis wrote:I think I said that neither of those are low. Especially IQ. Russia IQs are high, as I said. Su-57 delays potentially indicate some problems: subsystems not being fully ready, problems with mass production. Again: just a possibility, would explain the delays and low production numbers, but who knows... It's the same situation with Armata.  

Such as what subsystem? If you are making a claim, it's now in your hands to provide details as to what. Otherwise, you sure sound like the British government right now.

NIPP already provided over 20,000 T/R modules to KnAAPO for the radar. The IRST system is similar to that already produced for Su-35, so only thing left is - the engines. Which was obvious. Material production is already there.

There is also no delay with Armata. I think you are mixing it up with Kurganets. Which would make sense and that is because the company who makes Kurganets went bankrupt and is undergoing restructuring before it's merged with uralvagonzavod.

Well, I hope you're right. There have been some delays with Armata already, considering how they hyped it so much years in advance. And no, I'm not saying they were planning to have 2000 of them by 2020. IIRC, Franco agrees, meaning that they wanted atleast hundreds of them (500?), instead of 100. Additionally if those reports about 50 T-14s produced annually turn out to be true. Again: if, a possibility. But we will see.

However, that's not the point, but instead the number of Russian published scientific papers (+ adjusted for quality) and Russian supercomputer, machine tool and industrial robot research and production. Also the not so problematic areas such as R&D spending and salaries.

How is the number of industrial robots so absurdly low? Why doesn't Russia produce more machine tools? Why are there are so few Top 500 supercomputers? Very important stuff.

However, a solid start would be to look at the statistics and acknowledge that a very big problem exists, which, unresolved, will continue to degrade Russia’s economic, industrial, and eventually military competitiveness.

That's all.

The real question should be "how many companies in Russia produce machine tools (joint production and not), vs other countries?

You can't go by these numbers because the question that arises is what are their sources? How many companies and manufacturers were inspected or checked? For all we know, it can be all out of the ass from this guy, which is probably 90% of the case.

Talk is cheap when the story is good.

Most universities in Russia have their own super computer. Does it have to be best of the best? No. That's what we call in the technical world (for us that work in the fields) dick waving. Machine tooling is the legit one to be concerned or looked at cause that matters the most. And there is a reason why Russia produces so many skilled workers saught after around the world.

One area where let's say Germany and US Excel in is developing engineering companies. These are small companies from here or there that engineer for major companies toolings or automated machines. In Russia, it's predominantly large companies who create daughter companies that do joint ventures with existing companies (Chinese, Japanese, German, Cechz, etc). Now it's a cheap but not effective solution and I agree. The good thing is, the authorities are aware of it and majority of investment by ministry of industry and trade has been at tooling companies. But it's also up to the people to also be engaged in this and look to building small engineering companies as well.

Hey, good business pitch to the various MiC industries for their dual use technologies.

Isos wrote:

SeigSoloyvov wrote:

Isos wrote:

SeigSoloyvov wrote:

kvs wrote:BTW, the so-called "inaccurate" old Soviet missiles are only so because they were not designed for the electronic warfare of later
decades.   Be sure that modern Russian missiles have the latest counter EW technology.   One that Yankistanis are not even aware
of.   Science does not happen on Wall Street.

Sure russian missiles these days modern ones are very accurate, indeed. My statement was the older ones Garry was going on about where inaccurate like most missiles of that era where

They were nuclear armed missile, idem for the torpedos. 1 of them could actually destroy a carrier group if the ships were near the carrier.

the intensity of nuclear weapons is greatly reduced at sea, if you would like a crash course on this. At some point, I can go over the science with you.

If the ships are 2 or 3 km around the carrier the blast will probably kill the crew. Once the crew is no more the ship can be considered as destroyed. It would be contaminated by the nuclear blast and nno more usable.

If it is fired above the sea the explosion will be normal. Why would it be reduced ? You mean maybe for torpedo and Under sea explosion ?

In war the ships will be spread out to avoid such things.

The explosion would not be normal even if fired into the air, nukes act different depending on the environment they explode in.

Depends on the ship there, and again the argument isn't valid. I have said it before, once the nuke start flying everyone starts dying. Cities will become targets etc, if this is the fallback argument every time why bother even talking about that since it will always come done too.

"nukes are a coming"

SeigSoloyvov wrote:

In regards to the sub the concept is iffy. Because if you have no intention of hiding the submarines and don't care who knows where they are you can honestly just use ships to do that.

While I don't agree with some of what Peri said, economically speaking it does make little sense to keep those old subs running to have a job you could merely have ships do in it's place if honestly, you do not care about detection

The point of turning a sub into an arsenal ship would be you want it to sneak it's way close and fire a surprise salvo, for this, the Delta's are to old, they are easily found.

I think russia could benefit from some Arenal subs but they need to be able to hide if they plan to do that with subs.

Another thing papa you need to realize the Oscar's that are undergoing modernization. Can fire their missiles at land target and they have around 80, so I mean technically you do have your arsenal ships.

Exactly.

You use subs for a reason: they are quiet and hard to track.

Obviously the meaning is dependent by the scenario: in its own home waters an SSK could and often is more quiet than a nuclear powered sub, because when going full electric it will be quieter and when resorting to use the snorkel to recharge, there will be limited danger to meet an enemy ASW aircraft.

In open sea, or close to enemy's home waters, anything could give away the sub presence.

So using an old nuclear boat is just uneconomical if detection by the enemy is not an issue, it becomes suicidal if the chance to be detected and tracked down is real.

To add more, Deltas are just too old boats, both in terms of technology and hulls' age.

The single Delta III that has been converted into a “mother ship“ is supported mainly with old spare parts readily available.

It is very questionable such parts would be enough to keep running for years to come,  more than one single boat.

The same applies to Delta IV, when they will be replaced as SSBNs, it is likely that one hull, maybe two, will be converted in some special mission boats, exploiting whatever left in the Navy's storehouses to keep it, or them, running some years more.

There are zero chances both for the industry keeping producing spares for such obsolete boats,and the Navy spending huge amount of money to extend hulls' life further and develop a whole array of new systems aimed at replacing the  obsolete ones.

We are speaking of past 2025 when all Delta IVs will be replaced, and by then the younger hull will be more than 35 years old already.

Again, if something similar to the converted Ohio is needed/wanted by the Russisn Navy, my bet is they will experiment with a single Delta IV for some years, to get a detailed set of requirements and capabilities honed and tested, then they will withdrawn the first Boreys from the SSBN's fleet and will convert them.

It won't actually cost much more than trying to rebuild boats 40 years old, it will grant far greater performances and would benefit by a far longer service life.

At the moment what is known it is that in the next 4 years, more or less, 5 955A will join the 3 955 already in service.

After the 955A will be completed, 955B will be finalized and four boats would be built starting from 2023 onwards.

As I see it, Russisn Navy aims to field 12 SSBNs, but if actually they will mantain only 8 SSBNs, around 2030 they will start retiring Yuriy Dolgorukiy from active service, with that boat being just 20 years old, give or take.

To me, it is far more credible that they will invest their money in such boats, than in the Deltas, to get something like a special mission/SSGN Ohio-like class.

It was stated these arsenal ships would be attacking third world countries, not the US.....so I responded with that mentality in mind.

That would be their primary use, though in the case of increasing world tensions and provocations from the west such a vessel could be loaded up with nuclear powered unlimited range cruise missiles and sent to the south pole region to lurk and loiter...

the intensity of nuclear weapons is greatly reduced at sea, if you would like a crash course on this. At some point, I can go over the science with you.

I can tell you the logic now... in the naval field the west is dominant so nuclear weapons are not that necessary for the west... conversely they are a normal part of the weapons options for the Soviet Union and now Russia because a couple of nukes would stop a carrier group in its tracks... even if it does not sink all the vessels or kill all the crew it will make the group useless for its original intended purpose.

On land the opposite was true because magnified estimates of the Soviet forces blown out of any proportion to justify "defence" spending at stupidly high levels, meant that NATO could pretend to be the potential weak force and include nuclear weapons in their standard defence strategy... of course NATO was much more mobile and aggressive than the Warsaw Pact ever was... they simply didn't have the logistics or mobility to take Europe and hold it.... they might have been in Paris in a few weeks, but they would have to fall back soon afterwards, because they didn't have the forces to hold that size of territory let alone sustain an army that far from home... so they planned to use nukes too.

No you are wrong. The intrinsic accuracy of ballistic missiles is very high. It is a NATO propaganda myth that Soviet missiles would
miss the target by miles.

SS was talking about anti ship missiles being unable to hit their targets... referring to all soviet missiles including the supersonic ones which from my memory were never actually used in combat. His claim was that the Kiev class boats had 12 missiles because they needed as many as they could carry because they weren't accurate, and that 12 on its own in a volley would not be effective against a carrier group... not even one boat sunk...

Oops, now I am putting words in his mouth... but who cares... that is what he sounded like he was trying to say... but he is not talking to me now because I don't love the jews like I should of course... because Israel is keeping democracy alive in the middle east... after all the things they have done for us...

The explosion would not be normal even if fired into the air, nukes act different depending on the environment they explode in.

Funny you say that because water is actually more dangerous... water does not compress... apply a shockwave and that shockwave propagates rapidly through the water... a tiny 2Kt nuke can kill subs 4-6km away because that shockwave moves rapidly and when the water applies a force to the side of a submarine... all that is supporting the inside of the sub is air... which compresses easily...

Of course energy does not increase at a level rate... a 20Kt nuke would not destroy subs and ships a 40-60km... that is just silly... but a few air bursts and a few exploding underwater and there wont be much left of even a widely separated carrier group... especially when one of the nukes explodes inside the carrier....

So using an old nuclear boat is just uneconomical if detection by the enemy is not an issue, it becomes suicidal if the chance to be detected and tracked down is real.

You keep saying it is uneconomic... if it is uneconomic why do they use K129 as mothership for minisubs?

The Orenburg is a Delta III sub... Do you think taking out all those missile tubes and fitting that sub out with equipment for launching and retrieving mini subs and other robotic underwater equipment is easier and cheaper than taking out those missile tubes and fitting UKSK tubes instead... most of the rest of the equipment and setup would be fine for long cruises a long way from Russia... that is already what they were designed for anyway.

The single Delta III that has been converted into a “mother ship“ is supported mainly with old spare parts readily available.

Spare parts?

They still have three Delta IIIs in active service and that does not include the Orenburg.., so there are actually four.

The K-64 Podmoskovye has also been converted into a mother sub... reportedly to carry the Losharik mini sub... and as far as I can tell the other 6 Delta IVs are in service all with upgraded Sineva missiles on board.

Now we know they will start to be withdrawn from service as SSBNs soon as the Boreis replace them... so they are going to have some spare hulls... 6 sounds pretty useful... perhaps one to eventually replace the Orenburg as a second mothership with the K64, and the other 4 would be good candidates for arsenal ships.

There are zero chances both for the industry keeping producing spares for such obsolete boats,and the Navy spending huge amount of money to extend hulls' life further and develop a whole array of new systems aimed at replacing the obsolete ones.

They only made 7 Delta IVs... how many "Spare parts" do you think they keep on hand?

Considering the value and purpose of the vessels I would suggest new parts will be made as needed... just as new parts are being made now to make new Borei subs...

We are speaking of past 2025 when all Delta IVs will be replaced, and by then the younger hull will be more than 35 years old already.

We are... so the question is... what would they use for arsenal subs... ex SSBNs would be ideal because they are already designed for long missions with large payloads of missiles... they have the volume and the communications needed... their only problem is that they are not the quietest subs in the sea... with 5,000km range cruise missiles I think that wont be an issue... but against half the navies of the world they could park inside an enemy harbour and still be pretty safe.

Again, if something similar to the converted Ohio is needed/wanted by the Russisn Navy, my bet is they will experiment with a single Delta IV for some years, to get a detailed set of requirements and capabilities honed and tested, then they will withdrawn the first Boreys from the SSBN's fleet and will convert them.

Hilarious... too expensive to use delta ivs... so use boreis instead?

That Toyota is too expensive... buy a Lamborgini.

It won't actually cost much more than trying to rebuild boats 40 years old, it will grant far greater performances and would benefit by a far longer service life.

Using that logic why did they convert a delta iv to be a sub mother ship?

Or for that matter why waste time doing the same with a delta iii?

Surely do one or the other and then wait for the Boreis to get old and use them.

They already rejected the Akulas as too expensive, but they converted one for ballistic missile testing anyway...

As I see it, Russisn Navy aims to field 12 SSBNs, but if actually they will mantain only 8 SSBNs, around 2030 they will start retiring Yuriy Dolgorukiy from active service, with that boat being just 20 years old, give or take.

why would they retire a perfectly good sub?

Right now they have a couple of delta IIIs and 6 delta IVs in service as well as the Boreis... what makes you think they will retire all the deltas when 8 boreis are in service?

Those Sinevas are good missiles... they might have a force of 4 delta IVs and 8 Boreis and the next four Boreis might replace the remaining deltas...

To me, it is far more credible that they will invest their money in such boats, than in the Deltas, to get something like a special mission/SSGN Ohio-like class.

They already have Yasens and will have converted Oscars, so their need for new SSGNs is nonexistent... what they lack are large volume missile ships/boats.

A converted container ship would be less flexible and to easy to spot... 90% of the worlds navies would notice a container ship off their coast... even the UK has trouble spotting enemy subs these days because ASW is neglected and expensive...

By building some arsenal subs it will crank up the costs for NATO countries without costing very much at all... hell, for the first few years it might only have 10-20 missiles on board... no one will know... and those western vessels trying to follow it around the planet wont know either...

kvs wrote:
So Karlin made a "proof by assertion".   What possible metrics of quality would this unqualified clown without a PhD even have in any science field?
There is no way he reads any of these papers.    I am aware of no metrics aside from citation numbers that one could use for quality.  The
problem with citation counts is that Russian journals have smaller readership basis.   In other words, the citation index is biased to total number
of readers and not to quality.

+1

He is worse then moron he is full-liberal, half-intelligent with basic education who pretends to be THE universal expert. Many of Russian works could not be published (Military classified info) or were published in Russian or Russian (scientists who were forced to emigrate after Gorbi fucked up the USSR ) were considered US papers not Russian.

BTW, the IQ scoring is not some sort of physical constant.   It is biased to cultural aspects.   So if someone does not get a movie reference they are
scored lower.   This is utter BS.   I am sure there are geniuses out there who have not seen a single Hollywood movie.    Also the IQ distribution
is rather narrow.

IMHO anybody who considers considers the whole nation as less worth from intelligence point o view falls in nazi category.

@Kimppis:
  Absolutely,  I have no problem with you or your posts.

Kimppis wrote:
So Karlin is no Russophobe, very much the opposite in fact. But his views are pretty nuanced and I guess kind of surprising to certain audiences. He describes himself as a "Russian nationalist", and he is going to vote for Zhironovsky. Karlin is no fan of Navalny or Sobchak, don't worry about that. Also liberal in the Russian and especially Russian historical context is not the same thing as in today's West. I think Putin is also quite liberal by Russian and older Western (even going back only 20-30 years) standards.

Also people: no ad hominems, don't shoot the messenger and all that. There are also positives in that article, some quite encouraging trends and reasons for optimism.

Dont get me wrong, I didnt change much my opinion about Karlin. He mght be no explicit Russophobe but surely he is liberast. This is kind of sicness that could be considered to political and journalistic euthanasia.

miketheterrible wrote:The real question should be "how many companies in Russia produce machine tools (joint production and not), vs other countries?

[]

One area where let's say Germany and US Excel in is developing engineering companies. These are small companies from here or there that engineer for major companies toolings or automated machines. In Russia, it's predominantly large companies who create daughter companies that do joint ventures with existing companies (Chinese, Japanese, German, Cechz, etc).  Now it's a cheap but not effective solution and I agree. The good thing is, the authorities are aware of it and majority of investment by ministry of industry and trade has been at tooling companies.  But it's also up to the people to also be engaged in this and look to building small engineering companies as well.

Hey, good business pitch to the various MiC industries for their dual use technologies.[/quote]

As for machine tooling there has been a huge problem after USSR was killed by Gorbi like traitors. For different reasons it had no priority until 2014. Russian companies are small and can make very advanced tooling machines. IMHO the problem is that Russian market is fairly small. You need large to keep prices competitive. With US pressure on many countries this might be a challenging.

From the other part now there comes era of additive manufacturing. I.e. you wont need machine tooling for substantive manufacturing but focusing on 3D printing might be a shortcrust t to the future.