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Originally Posted by Oberon
It kinda reminds me of the space race, the two nations rushing so desperately to out-do each other, and in such rushes mistakes are made by both sides. The problem with the Soviets, that I've found through reading about various Soviet sub accidents is that the level of incompetence in the higher echolons of command was pretty high. Take for example, K-219...Britanov was ordered to put a makeshift crew back onto the sub, even though she was doomed, and try to put her back to port. It would seem in some cases that the machine was worth more than the men...which is a real ass about face way of doing things but it did seem to be Soviet doctrine, at least at higher levels of command...but thankfully, at lower levels common sense prevailed.
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Not so good for morale. However, sometimes I see it as a sign of their paranoia and that they are behind.
Consider this coldly. The sub is EXTREMELY expensive. It is an old Yankee but if it goes down there still aren't that many replacements. The conscripts onboard are cheap to produce and there are countless replacements. Without the additional stress of handling the People of the Nation, a cold calc falls out like this.
To that you add national security considerations. Here's where the overall inferior Russian tech base costs them. Any secrets they have are easier to copy and exploit.
For example, the Soviets in the late 70s built a radar called Soyuz (or was it Istok). It is supposed to be comparable in performance and function to the APG-65. Some say that it was copied to a greater or lesser extent. But the important part of the story is that the Soviet tech base could not mass produce it and they had to revert to older systems. By the time they tried to make something of similar (Zhuk) functionality for mass rather than experimental production, it was over 10 years later and it won't have been available until at least the early 90s even if the USSR hadn't broken up, by which time the US had moved on and had the Cold War still been going on, at least halfway towards F-22s and Active Phased Array Radars - a generational leap. Certainly all the other radars would have been upgraded.
This tech superiority gives the West a confidence. If a 688 or F-18 gets compromised to the Russians, it is really bad news to be sure, but the Russians won't be able to reverse-engineer at least some of the state of the art equipment until another half-generation moves on and the Americans got something better.
The Russians don't have that confidence. The West being ahead in overall tech knows all the major tricks. If there is some minor trick worth copying they could implement it better, fast. For example, if the West wanted to copy the Zaslon phased array, they definitely can, and put a better computer on it while they were at it - improves range and tracking ability.
This raises the relative value of an average Russian military secret versus an average American military secret. This is compared to a lower value of a Russian crewman compared to his American counterpart.
Now add a feeling of paranoia that the West would crush them given a chance. If you think war is imminent every day, the relative value of secrets again goes up and the value of men goes down.
While these factors may not fully justify this attitude, it is something to consider.