Re: Soviet Union and Ada are similar

[Alexy Khrabrov <khrabrov@cccc.com (Alexy V. Khrabrov)>]

In article <EACHUS.95Jan3162751@spectre.mitre.org> eachus@spectre.mitre.org (Rob
ert I. Eachus) writes:

           There were a lot of brave French soldiers who died for their
        country in 1940, there were also Free French troops who participated
        in the African campaigns and D-Day.  But that does not mean that the
        French were a significant factor in winning World War II.

           On the other hand, could the Russians have beaten the Germans
        without help?  No.  Could all of the other allies have won without
        American participation?  A much closer call, but I think I just have
        to point to the Battle of the Atlantic to show that American
        participation was required for the British and the Soviet Union to
        survive.  Certainly, if the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom had
        fallen the war would have lasted MUCH longer, but I can't conclude
        that either event would have guaranteed an Axis victory.

I can add that Free French falcons organized an airforce squadron
in the Soviet Union, called `` Normandia-Neman,'' which was equipped
by the superb Soviet fighters, Yak-9s.  On the end of the war, the 
French were allowed to take the planes home as a present, and they
are preserved in perfect shape until now.  Quite real and different
from ``The Hunt for Red October,'' eh?
        I could argue the idea that without help the Soviet Union
couldn't win.  For instance, American military equipment was real
garbage--the Grant tanks worked on gas and were put on fire just like that.
Actually, the western allies didn't match German T VI H Tigers
(moreover T VI B KingTigers) and their 88mm 71-caliber guns till the
very end.  The Russian T-34 won the title of the ``best WW][ tank.''
When Germans caught one, Hitler realized that nothing better can be made
then, and ordered to copy it _literally_, without divergencies!  Alas,
the German manufacturers were unable to reproduce the unique aluminium
components, the engine, and armor technology.  When making T V Panter,
all possible designs were still copied from T 34.  The latter was
the most massively produced tank (more than 40,000).  When first 14 KingTigers
arrived for a battlefield test to the Eastern Front, they _ALL_ were
shot dead from aside by a single T 34.  In the head KingTiger, its
constructor was killed.  And this notwithstanding that T VI B's were
the first equipped with speed reload system, electric gun vent, and
could fire very fast; also their front armor was 180mm vs T 34 ~100
maximum.
        In the end of the war, the Soviet IS-122 tanks were used, with
a 122mm gun.  The Gereman order forbidded any engagement with them.
In fact, all military equipment on the Soviet side was Soviet, except
for the soldiers preferred to use captured German hand machine guns.
(Russian bullet was a bit less, thus it could be used in the German
rifle, while the German bullet didn't fit the Soviet one!)  The planes,
ships, submarines, artillery, communications--all was Soviet and was
much better than its _tested_ foreign counterparts.  However, the
Eastern front conditions were taken into account in these designs
--initially.
        Still there *is* an area were the US significantly helped.
A good deal of transport was American; and it was superb.  My granddad
was an artillery commander, fighting Japan in 1930s, then the whole
WW][ to Prague, then again Japan finally, then in Berlin, in the
joint effort of denazification and restoration.  Coincidentally,
while at Dartmouth, I met an American artillery major, who was in the
denazification commission on the US side!  And my granddad highly
valued the trucks and commanding cars he used in the final stage of
the war.  He even can put several cars, including his jeep, into
the studebecker truck and go West to pursue!
        The B 29 bombers were refueled under Poltava (the city
my granddad freed almost alone; the proofs in the Moscow museum
of the Soviet Army.)  Personally, I value the cooperation, and
I think it's not well known in the both countries.
        Unfortunately, I couldn't find out any confirmed facts
about the cooperation in Ada military development.  I had known
a member of the joint Politbureau-Government commission in the
former Soviet Union, responsible for the software insertion in
the military.  He admitted there was a SU-DoD program specifically
about Ada, but soon after it was approved ``perestroika'' (chaos)
began and the results are unknown (may be secret)?  I think,
in the light of the recent global partnetship between the US and
Russia, it would be interesting to see an Ada insertion in the
Russian military with competent American assistance.  It may
improve reliability and prevent equipment-provoked conflicts.
And also, though it's unthinkable for an US prog pro to assume
that could be anybody better, I'm sure there are gems in the world
of the secret Soviet software; up until know, many things are
revealed, but we didn't hear about _that_.  I realize that to
overcome some hardware deficiencies, there is a lot of ingenious
doubling, mirroring, and perfect speed optimization.  An example
from hydrodynamics: some advanced algorithms were developed
by Moscow physicist to run simulations on a 64K mainframe--faster
than crude force solutions ran on Cray at that time!


        Alexy V. Khrabrov <khrabrov@cccc.com> 
        ``Age Quod Agis'' (Do what you're doing.)