Are you talking about the K98?

It's also the reason that they build some of the world's best production machinery. Sure, German equipment may cost 2x American equipment, but it's say 4x more accurate and 3x faster, so that up-front cost differential doesn't matter in a production environment where the ROI of the German machinery is far superior.

This, lol.

True. This is one of the problems of a monoculture. The strongest / best and weakest / worst traits of the culture dominate.

If that's true, ... well, sounds like they don't have a concept for "it only needs to be good enough to do the job with a safety factor, not more. Not less. ps, some poor sap will have to fix it in the field with no special tools."

How very ... rudimentary, and unsophisticated of them.

The romans destroyed rome.

The germanic tribes would never have gotten in if that had not happened.

Stupid romans expanded further than they could ever defend and IMO because they worshipped that dumb false god terminus, they could never give up on border districts without being eternally ticked about it.

That is HIDEOUS and whoever designed that should be embarrassed at making it!

SO ...

Technical elegance is lost on them?

BAD MAN! BAD! BACK IN YOUR CLOSET!

*whacks crazymoose in the nose with a rolled up copy of some stuff by hegel and marx*

When it comes to older Porsche, they couldn't be simpler.

I work at an independent shop and back in the 70s you could tow in your Porsche 356 sports car and you would be out the door in 4-5 hours with your old engine out and a fresh fully rebuilt engine (not the original engine of course) installed ready to drive away.

Even the front and rear windshield glass on a 1965 911 is a direct fit for a 1989.

Super easy cars to work on.

Now this is funny.

Holdover from when there were actually German Craftsmen making things.

I love those watches ! Some of the most beautiful timepieces, just as good as anything to come out of Switzerland (also Germans)

You're right, call SOCOM and about the other 20 countries special forces that use them and tell them they are buying the wrong carbines. Please record that conversation.

Love the geniuses out there.

My pet theory is based on the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, which says that the language we speak affects the way we think.  This is a controversial theory, but it sure seems to explain German engineering.  You see, in German, when you start a sentence, you must know how the sentence ends because the verb goes at the end of the sentence.  However, you can stick an arbitrary number of subordinate clauses into the sentence if it occurs to you en route to the end that more information is required.

For instance, take the sentence, "I went to the store."  In German, using the perfect past participle, this is, "Ich bin zum Kaufhaus gegangen."  Literally, it's "I am to the store went."  But suppose, as you start talking, you realize that you need to explain that you went to the store for your mother.  No worries, we'll just jam it in there!  "Ich bin fuer meiner Mutter zum Kaufhaus gegangen," or, "I am for my mother to the store went."  But as you mention your mother, it occurs to you that you don't want to sound like ein mother's boy, so you should clarify that she has a toothache that has been bothering her for the past week.  "Ich bin fuer meiner Mutter, die hat Zahn dass seit der lezte Woch ihr weh getun haben, zum Kaufhaus gegangen."  In English, this is already a terrific mess: "I am for my mother, who has a tooth that since the last week hurt her has, to the store went."  (It's also a mess in German, but they're used to it.)  But as you're rambling on about your mother's stupid tooth, you remember that there is perhaps some horrid ambiguity around the store in question.  What if the listener doesn't know which store it is?  Gott in Himmel, that cannot be allowed to happen.  So you specify that it's the store that is going to be closed tomorrow for repairs that are badly needed.  "Ich bin fuer meiner Mutter, die hat Zahn dass seit der lezte Woch ihr weh getun haben, zum Kaufhaus dass am Morgen fuer Reparieren oeffnet nicht werden gegangen."  Ready for the English?  "I am for my mother, who has a tooth that since last week hurt her has, to the store that tomorrow for repair opens not will, went."

(Note to actual German speakers: my German is very rusty and I have had viele Bieren.  Fight me.)

Anyway, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis makes a lot of sense out of German engineering.  You begin the design with the understanding of how you're starting, and what it's supposed to accomplish.  You design a part to do this, but engineering being what it is, it doesn't work exactly as planned.  Now this is where an English speaker would stop and start over, but that's because he hasn't been conditioned by his language since before he could control his bowels.  (This is not entirely accurate, as the typical German is potty-trained while still in the womb.)  Someone accustomed to just throwing clauses at a sentence until it finally reaches its conclusion in a fiery explosion of verbs is not about to start over.  No, he's going to add a part.  And that part will get him most of the way there, but there will still be some minor issues.  Not to worry; we can keep adding parts.  

Gunter, ve haf done it!  Ve can add no more parts...ze design ist komplete!

German engineering generally follows a pattern
- It does something incredibly remarkable that other designs can't
- To achieve that, it's VERY complex
- They expect it will never need repaired. That it would break is a foreign concept.  Naturally, it's not made with ease of repairs in mind.
- Insinuating there's something wrong with the design is not a criticism of the invention, but an insult to the inventor.  To say it's faulty is a personal attack.

My last employer bought some pumps from Netzsche. Absurdly complex pumps, but their flow rate relative to the motor size was absolutely absurd.
One arrived with a broken seal. There was a conference call with us in the middle of the night (their time) about it.  It took their tech over 6 hours to replace it. The internals were a damn jigsaw puzzle.

416 maritime mags are well known for their poor spring life and how easy it is to dent them/bend feedlips.

The fancy way of saying what I said

Think complex, act complex

The flexibility of English let's us say say "hit it a hammer, retard". Iterate that vs. German over 8700 years.

One of the  best  examples of  German engineering is the drive set up for the two deck mounted engine cooling fans on a Tiger tank.  The US and British solution would have used a vee belt and pulleys, the Germans used very complex bevel gears and drive arrangement off the engine.  Beautifully engineered but expensive in time and resources, not what was needed in a wartime economy

unglaublich - die wissen nicht was gut ist

you know the saying

Warum soll man es einfach machen wenn es auch kompliziert geht

@Zhukov

German Engineering is the best

in Germany they are trained / Ausbildung in one area

a Plumber will only do plumbing and nothing else

you know for sure they are skilled - especially if they have a Meisterbrief

and when they break it's expensive to replace

I'm dealing with this now.  We have a PLC, German designed, that one piece of equipment it controls should not run unless the piece of equipment downstream is running.   You would think that would simply be one contact in the logic but no it is literally 10 contacts in the rung where a single contact would suffice.

In German, more relative clauses are used and the word to which a relative pronoun refers can be further away. This is simply due to the fact that because of genders and cases, relations are clearer.

But what should be the difference between putting additional thoughts between verb brackets or just putting them at the end?

A small correction:
– original: Ich bin fuer meiner Mutter, die hat Zahn dass seit der lezte Woch ihr weh getun haben, zum Kaufhaus dass am Morgen fuer Reparieren oeffnet nicht werden gegangen.
– corrected: Ich bin fuer meine Mutter, die einen Zahn hat, der ihr seit der letzten Woche wehtut, zum Kaufhaus, das morgen wegen Reperaturen nicht geöffnet ist, gegangen.
– more natural: Ich bin für meine Mutter, der seit letzter Woche ein Zahn wehtut, zum Kaufhaus gegangen, das morgen wegen Reperaturen geschlossen ist.
– English: I am for my mother, who since last week a tooth hurts, to the store went, that tomorrow because of repairs closed is.

But of course the sentence is somewhat contrived.

So, pure race cars with little to no creature comforts vs Corvettes with AC, cruise, power everything, and a killer stereo? The last official attempt by a top of the line Corvette was 2017 - 6 years past - and that mass production car came up 0.9 sec short of the fabulously expensive and limited production 918 Spyder (918 units made) and the pure race car variants of the same year 911 GT3, on which "Sound deadening was almost completely removed, as were the rear seats, rear loud speakers, sunroof, and air conditioning, although automatic air conditioning and CD/radio became no-cost optional add-ons." Yeah, I'm sure the Nurburgring cars had AC. Not. They also had a very special engine based more on the 962 race engine than on the 911 production flat six. The Corvette, not so much.

In short, Porsche records are owned by ultra limited production race cars and homologation specials. Corvette records are held by real mass production cars with creature comforts. You have to drop down to the 2018 911 Turbo S to find a comparable car as far as production volumes and creature comforts, and its base price was $190K. We all know how Porsche option prices are - what's metallic paint these days, $15k? Not gonna bother looking. That Turbo S was beaten by same year Corvettes, but it was at least close.

The HK-416 magazine is an absolute perfect example of German "engineering".

Take something that works extremely well and is inexpensive, and "redesign" it until it doesn't work and is expensive.

Impressive!

The only place HK "maritime" mags work well are in video games and fantasy land.

And yet the Geman guy who installed our automated brew house couldn't understand why we would want to record process data. They built it, and it was automated,  so obviously it could never be improved upon or fail. No need for a data historian.

I don’t want to hear shit about a German car until you’ve worked on a V12 Jaguar

Perhaps true of some here, but I've been there enough times to have forgotten most of them and have done business over long term relationships with some of their biggest companies. And I've also worked on cars on the side for 40+ years of every nationality. Sometimes stereotypes make it into the lexicon because they are reasonably accurate representations of bulk cultural behavior.

As for your Americans stereotype, I watch media and it reliably tells me that Americans are hard-working, socially conscious POCs, about half of whom are LGBTQAVTYUDFTUTE+. Only the handful of cis white males remaining in backward states fit your stereotypes.

Judging by their cars and firearms, they definitely over-engineer things.

LOL! Truth! I had an acquaintance once upon a time who did that. His toolbox looked like a Craftsmen wrench set designed by Salvador Dali of Melting Clocks fame. He had meticulously heated and shaped wrenches to all sorts of bizarre angles to fit into the V-12's many nooks and crannies.

Favorite piece of German engineering is the Bunny Ballista captured bolt gun. Makes dispatching rabbits for the pot a much more humane experience for them.

The VW MKIV platform used on late 90's to mid 2000's Golfs, Beetles and Jettas is pretty straight forward and easy to work on.  

I like older stuff and if it says Made in W. Germany I will pay a premium.  

Same with older American stuff made before they cut corners.  Stuff that was probably designed and made by people who's ancestors came from Germany and that part of the world.

I'm still stuck on the warm beer thing.

This is awesome! Thanks for the explanation and laughs!

I've known a few Germans, but you're the first I've encountered who actually cared what others thought.

Just look in a Hazet catalog for all the specific tools for one model of German car, and not just for say a VW Jetta, it's for a VW Jetta B5 1.8T automatic.

Even the German GF needs a mental adjustment at times.

Yeah they could make functional jet engines in WWII but BWM can't stop leaking valve seals to save their ass.  VW's and Audi's are an electric nightmare of random failures.  German cars are a fucking shit show, I would never own one that wasn't under warranty.

The air head BMW motorcycle was an exception, simple, rugged, easy to maintain.  The old Stihl chain saws were good too.  So not everything out of Germany was a rocket science project.

Dude.

Just.

Dude.

If you're going to make a whole argument based on linguistics. Show some basic knowledge of the languages you are citing.

English has past perfect. German has simple past. He rest just continues on with equally absurd premises, apparently based on not understanding how sentences are formed in either language.

I gave this to the German GF to read....absolutely true!

Because we suck and they hate us?

I have German customers and can confirm.

If it wasn't for an NDA, I could show you a really classic example of a German design vs American design for what is effectively the exact same part.

Just last week my American customer came back and asked how they could make their version of this part even simpler.

They also didn’t think those lesser, officially atheist Slavs in the east could hold out and then come back and defeat them.

A friend of mine with a huge and extensive collection of military surplus guns used to make the joke, "A Russian will make a gun part do three jobs; a German will make three parts do one job."

Good god….Russian has some long words, but that takes the cake.

I unironically use Beckhoff for this