What is your opinion of the translation?Well based on my personal experience There is no such thing as new invention out of the blue very rare Most of the engineering work is improvement of the previous model. You need so called "go by" or reference
They certainly know the front side of the submarine since they have been reverse engineering the Soviet Sub
But Nuclear power plant is different than the Diesel So room and equipment lay out is the first thing that they has to tackle
The idea here is to minimize and simplified piping , wiring and ducting. Ease of access and maintenance .Logical work flow. in short efficiency. Here where the model play an important role
I think it is not a toy but plastic model so it is not detail but give you the outline and partition of the sub. They have an idea how to partition the sub and where the major equipment will be located but they are not sure They need a reference
The model become their reference. so yes I believe what he said and it only make sense
Long time ago I read about it in a book by American analyst about first Chinese submarine and He said the same thing
That doesn't sound outrageous. Before the advance of PC and cheap 3 D model software that is how engineer built power plant of refinery. When I was summer student my job is to update plastic model As they design a plant.The first order of the day is to layout the major equipment then they revise and updated the model as well. The operation, engineer, often consult the model and keep changing it. they have to check for interference and better efficiency . It very difficult to visualize 3 D from 2 D drawing and prevent a lot of headache
It is outdated now they used 3 D model now
Doesn't the Chinese version say that they had already figured out the arrangement or design before they got hand on the model?
The article (in Chinese) said "玩具模型" and your translation was rightly "toy model". If I am supposed to take the article seriously, I would also take its own wording seriously, that is a "toy".
Not only the story of toy model being suspicious (the rest of the article and as a whole is pretty believable), but the whole idea of US actually produced and sold such (useful for engineering reference) toy modeled after their (and world) first nuclear sub in an open market is more than suspicious IMO. I would believe it when someone shows me something like that.