I found this reddit answer especially interesting, as it turns out it's the opposite of what you would expect. Soviet submarines were big on automation, had small crews (Alfa-class submarine – 30 people, vs 130 in a Virginia-class sub), and used lots of innovative design to make them quieter (sometimes redundantly – they were assuming the US would match Soviet capabilities in some aspects of sub detection, but that <i>still</i> hasn't happened). What is more, they were much, much safer (in terms of crew survivability) and harder to sink, with a double hull design (as opposed to American single hull).<p>Part of the reason this worked this way was that the USSR had a number of fiercely competing design bureaus, while the US had a very centralized process with a very domineering research head. Quoting a Soviet designer: "We had competition in submarine design. You (with Rickover) had Stalinism!"<p>It's interesting how different this was from their aircraft design philosophy: <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/WarCollege/comments/9abbo3/what_were_some_of_the_different_design/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reddit.com/r/WarCollege/comments/9abbo3/what_wer...</a>.