) to smash their way to the objective (the Ruhr?
The Channel?) they win. Same reason the tanks were only designed for
short lives... who cares, they'll be destroyed before then anyway.

Now, with hindsight that plan worked a lot better in theory than in
practice... but it worked for them in the Great Patriotic War, and the
West was hoping to "be the Germans but win" in a Central Front rematch.


--
When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.
W S Churchill

Paul J. Adam MainBoxatjrwlynch[dot]demon{dot}co(.)uk





That worked okay when the technology wasn't so expensive. Now stuff is so
expensive that it can't be used as cannon fodder.

I suspect the main problem with the Russian engines is that they have the
turbine inlet temp cranked up really high to produce thrust but haven't gotten
around to using advanced metals and ceramics on the blades and vanes in those
areas so they lose efficiency quickly. Reducing TIT would give more life to
the engines but less thrust.

Same issue with the J79 in the 60s and 70s. They smoked like crazy. The TIT
could be turned up but the life of the engines would be reduced significantly.
There was a combuster mod in the 80s that reduced the smoke a great deal.

One thing about flying a "smoker" was that you had far less of a chance of
being mistaken for a MiG. On the other hand you were also MiG bait but with
numerical superiority in the theaters the F-4 operated, the problem wasn't that
significant.