If they are/were so hard to maintain how did the Commies keep them usable? Did they collect them regularly and ship them back to Moscow or did they have an on-site traveling crew? As I said in an earlier post most of our engineering schools are full of Pakistani and Irani students, a few of which I am sure are true believers and would have the skills and training to take care of these things.
"If they are/were so hard to maintain how did the Commies keep them usable? Did they collect them regularly and ship them back to Moscow or did they have an on-site traveling crew? As I said in an earlier post most of our engineering schools are full of Pakistani and Irani students, a few of which I am sure are true believers and would have the skills and training to take care of these things."
Talent isn't the only hurdle. Nazi Germany had talent and money; it couldn't build a working atomic bomb, though.
The larger CCCP warheads were on a 7 year maintenance cycle for their pits and cores. Their explosives were changed out more often than that, as were their wiring and electronics. Triggers require even more frequent replacement than any of that; Be7 has a 53 day half-life and Po-210 has a 140 day half-life.
Po-210 is entirely Manmade. It isn't found anywhere naturally. You need a working nuclear reactor to produce useable amounts of Po-210. A cyclotron can also produce small amounts of it, of course.
But in 140 days, Po-210 is worthless to a bomb.