1/ QUICK THEAD that continues the topic of Russia’s dependence on Chinese and imported comments for domestic quadcopter production - additional comments from CAST, one of Russia’s main defense think tanks. More below: https://t.co/j4ll3rf5FR
2/ “The accusations of "copying" are strange enough in themselves, since at the current stage this should be considered rather a plus. The mania of the domestic defense industry for the invention of "unparalleled" products is quite often harmful…”
3/ “…and in many cases copying the best and most developed foreign designs and concepts would be much more profitable. The Chinese themselves, as you know, are not at all shy about this, actively copying everything they can.”
4/ “Therefore, the use of a mass-produced quadcopter common model as a prototype, especially under tight deadlines, if it was, deserves approval, not censure.”
5/ “The main criticism was caused by the "inflated" price of "Dobrynya" drone in comparison with mass-produced Chinese drones in this class. We will only point out that the requirement to produce products at the "Chinese" price in itself is simply not serious.”
6/ “No one can now compete with the Chinese "world factory" in terms of production efficiency. It is precisely because of the low cost of production in China that the industry of the whole world is moving to China, including from the most developed countries.”
7/ “The domestic and foreign markets for Chinese drone manufacturers, and therefore their production volumes, are so colossal that no Russian manufacturer can even dream of them.”
8/ “Wishes for Russian manufacturers to work with Chinese efficiency and cost are a complete utopia. Small-scale (compared to Chinese volumes) production of anything in Russia will always be obviously more expensive than in China.”
9/ “Let us also note that in general there is an unfounded myth about the supposedly low cost of defense products in Russia. In fact, taking into account the fact that the defense industry of the Russian Federation is fully affected by…”
10/ “…all the problems of domestic material production, which is generally inefficient and expensive by world standards, with a narrow market, there can be no talk of any special cheapness of military equipment and weapons in the Russian Federation.”
11/ “Such an anomaly of the relative cheapness of military production existed in the planned economy of the USSR (and then in the form of a "Soviet traces" in the 1990s and early 2000s), but miracles do not happen…”
12/ “…this cheapness was compensated by the high cost, inefficiency and deficits in other sectors of the Soviet economic system that actually subsidized the Soviet defense industry.”
13/ “Today, Almaz-Antey is required to mass-produce such drones in the thousands per month, without interruptions in supply and without significant and long-term external investment in production. "Almaz-Antey" claims that it has already organized all this.”
14/ “Any claims can be made not against Almaz-Antey, but against the highest authorities, who have not been able since the spring to carry out a genuine mobilization of state and private industry for truly mass development and production of small drones.”
15/ “We need hundreds of models of small drones and loitering munitions that could be produced at hundreds of enterprises/firms, selecting the best and most viable samples - just like in the World War 1 when such production could solve the problem of producing artillery shells”
16/ “Any realist should understand that in this case, 99% of manufacturers would have either the drones themselves or their components from the same Aliexpress. Therefore, Almaz-Antey's initiative deserves every possible encouragement, not attacks.” t.me/bmpd_cast/14027
@Aviation_Intel - of possible interest
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