From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: * X-Spam-Status: No, score=1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_50,INVALID_DATE autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,75d76a46174cdcee X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 1995-01-04 19:05:17 PST Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Path: nntp.gmd.de!newsserver.jvnc.net!jvnc.net!news From: Alexy Khrabrov Subject: Re: Soviet Union and Ada are similar Message-ID: Sender: news@tigger.jvnc.net (Zee News Genie) Organization: JvNCnet Date: Thu, 5 Jan 1995 00:04:17 GMT Date: 1995-01-05T00:04:17+00:00 List-Id: In article 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 ``Age Quod Agis'' (Do what you're doing.)