Simple verses sophisticated

From: LEEnCALIF@aol.com
Date: Sat Mar 04 2000 - 23:48:49 PST


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I guess you could label this a rant, but ever since I started wrenching on
cars with my Dad in his garage some 35 years ago I was impressed by the
functional simplicity of those older vehicles we tinkered on. Vehicles of
the 40's and 50 mostly.

That was then and this is now....and boy has time changed all that! One has
to look pretty hard to find anything remotely simple about todays vehicles,
especially military vehicles which ought to be incredibly simple. It's
almost conspiratorial how complicated our mil-vehs have become, referring to
the United States. Bradley,s, Humvees, etc. they are all extremely
sophisticated things with millions more parts than a grunt in the field would
ever know what to do with!

The Humvee for instance seems incredibly complicated compared to the old
Jeep, but is it that much more mission capable? Aside from costing as much
as 4 Jeeps, it requires special mechanical training over and above the norm
to properly service.
In the design area it's chasis breadth defies understanding. There are a lot
of european mountain roads and city back streets that this thing is not going
to fit!

Awhile back our so-called advanced engineering led to some pretty serious
mission failures. Case in point U.S. helicopters in the Iranian desert...the
Iranian hostage rescue. Those sophisticated turbine engines didn't like the
ultra fine arabian sand and were quickly ruined. Mission scrubbed. There
were more problems, but that is another story. The British had the proper
rugged helo's for the job... so did another half dozen countries, but we were
just a little too naive and too confident with our technology, then again we
did ok with our planes against Iraq. But, I am not talking about jet
fighters... I can understand how technology could make them survivors. I am
talking about something on land with wheels that is suppose to get from point
A to point B that will always be vulnerable to the most basic weapons.

Wondering what is it then, this penchant among mil-veh builders for making
the simple complicated? They can't even write a manual in simple terms... a
spark plug might be called a primary ignition combustion initiator or
something like that! We've all seen the dumb examples. It's like a mass
conspiracy to endulge in verbose pedanticism (too many big words).

Who is to blame? Do you think the manufacturers are the ones who secretly
write the mil-specs so they can charge more? lol Do they make the simple
complicated for the same reasons? Money? Does that make a mil-spec bolt (or
special aircraft toilet seat) at 500% markup work any better than one off the
shelf?

I've wrenched on two British and French military vehicles over the past few
months and they don't seem to share this U.S. compulsion for stupidity in
design. They are by contrast quite the opposite, being basic and functional.
 It was almost a pleasure to work on them when thinking back to the
nightmarish adventures I've had on our U.S. vehicles, requiring uncommonly
specialized wrenches, parts, etc.

To me, refinement should logically mean to gradually make the complicated... s
impler. That a refined part should become less expensive, more effecient and
easier to use. Since when have we in the U.S. ever gone that direction? lol
 

That's my rant... but, am I wrong?



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