Perestroika and Change in Soviet Weapons ... - The Black Vault

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Flaws occurred in determining the prospects for developing armaments,
in the operational-tactical verification of particular models,
and in ensuring that their quaUty and reiablity conformed to modem
requirements.... Under no circumstances must our scientific establishment
and military scientists lose sight of the main objectiveensuring
the high qualy and relabty of armaments and military
hardware" [emphasis added]. 4
VPK chairman Belousov specified as the second point of his program
for defense industry, "special attention should be paid to improving the
reliability and quality of military equipment." 6 The air force commander,
General Batekhin, listed reliability as the first requirement for
improving the country's defense: "About the reliability of the hardware
that the troops are receiving. What we have here is a pretence. We
are hoping that soon these pretensions will be lessened." He noted
that when the producers and developers transfer to khozraschet, profitability
will depend on how the customers evaluate the output, implying
that this evaluation will provide economic levers to influence reliability.
Khozraschet, though, may not be the answer to the reliability problem.
Defense industry is part of the Soviet economic system; despite
all its advantages and the power of the military customer, the endemic
deficiencies of the economy stubbornly seep through the wall erected to
isolate defense, and the seepage may be turning into a flood. In a
frank article describing equipment problems on board a nuclearpowered
missile cruiser, one source of reliability problems was assigned
to the constantly increasing proportion of complicated equipmentespecially
radioelectronics and missile ordnance. "Consequently, the
Navy has to pay more and more" for less and less reliable equipment. 7
The factories continued to ship defective equipment even though the
ship's officers would not sign the acceptance documents. "They receive
money mainly for quantity, for gross output, for fulfillment of the plan,
for the fact that they have 'dispatched' the product." 8 A key guarantor
of quality, the military representative responsible for the shipment of
this equipment, made excuses on behalf of the plant for the poor quality.
In fact, the chief of the team of military representatives admitted
that they acted more as a coarse than a fine filter, and that many
4 D. T. Yamov, "Inczeasing the Return from Military Science," Krasna' Zvadi,
AUgut 14, 1968, pp. 1-2.
Remarks by L Belousov, Moscow Domestic Radio Service, June 28 1969 (FBIS-
SOV-8B-124, June 29, 1969, p. 36).
6OBeyond tU. Sound Barrier," lzntb% Auust 21,1968, p. 3.
7"Bhips and Rubes," KM y Zvueda, May 12, 1990, pp. 1-2 (FBIS-SOV40-120,
June 23, 16, p. 71).