This is the height of Russian motorcycle technology, and darn near the height of Russian technology, period. Note the resemblance to a 1930s BMW? Yup, they’re still building clones, with some improvements. Like the British Lucas auto electrical plant that reputedly the Germans never bombed because they considered Lucas an ally, Urals were designed for 40 MPH cruising because that’s as fast as they could safely travel on Russian “roads” and their owners admit they’re unreliable at any speed.
The Russian’s trucks aren’t any better, heck they’re even finally retiring their clones of the 1930s Diamond T’s we gave them in WW2 for the Kamaz, a 1970s Ford design.
About now some wise guy or gal is going to pipe up about Kamaz’s Dakar winning truck, the only Russian anything to be competitive in any kind of racing on this planet or any other. That Kamaz has a Cummins engine via China, a ZF transmission out of Europe, and the cab looks to have similar origins.
Now you’re probably getting the general drift now that a Russian military campaign is a slow motion series of breakdowns, and you’re right- As were seeing in a plethora of social media of hapless Russian troops and their trucks and tanks motionless all over the roads while being humiliated by unarmed Ukrainian old ladies. Their aircraft aren’t any better, and there’s a reason why their early jets and ours looked similar. Dictatorships stifle creativity, and the designers who offered Russia better designs probably long ago were disappeared to Siberia.
In contrast, especially when not occupied by Nazi Germany or Communist Russia, the nations of Central Europe like the Ukraine have a long history of creativity in the arts and sciences. The VW Beetle and ingenious Tatras were Hungarian and Czechoslovakian designs that were stolen by the Nazis…
And the Ukrainians…
Built by Ukrainians to piggyback a later scuttled Russian Space Shuttle, the Antonov An-225 went on to become the world’s premiere “super load” cargo plane that’s lifted loads of up to 250 tons and set several world records. This Ukranian feat is even more remarkable because there is no fleet of An-225s for backup, there being only a single complete An-225! Read up on this amazing aircraft: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonov_An-225_Mriya
As I’m writing, it’s been confirmed that Putin’s cowardly Russian invaders destroyed the unarmed sole Antonov An-225 parked on the ground at a Ukraine airport… Putin, you’re gonna pay for this!
GearheadGrrrl 