Thread by @kamilkazani

Even if we have the blueprints, executing their design may be difficult to impossible. What we lack is the:

1. Material culture
2. Knowledge ecosystem

these blueprints had been created within

They are essentially relics of a lost (alien and incomprehensible) civilisation

https://twitter.com/patoautofagia/status/1704763260350726463

This applies to the seemingly mundane stuff. For example, even though Russian tanks are based on the Soviet blueprints, Russian tank barrels are of lower quality & durability than Soviet ones. Design may be the same, but details of the original production processes are lost

The nearly absolute reliance of the Russian war machine on the imported metal-cutting machines should be considered in the light of the qualified manual labour pool having shrunk and degraded

Implementation of digital control revolutionised the cutting processes so much that they allow to produce components of high precision and tight controls with very little input of qualified labor. For the most part, hastily trained semi-qualified replaceable labor can suffice

This explains a much heavier focus of the Russian war economy on the cutting processes. Cutting equipment allows Russia to execute Soviet designs without the Soviet workforce

(there's also a factor of different economy of scale, but that is for another discussion)