AlternateWars.com - now GeneralStaff.org

RyanC

RyanC

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As you might know; AlternateWars.com has been down since about 10 Jan 2023.

Here's the skinny.

In January 2023; I had to upgrade AW's hosting to the next tier of hosting -- "Business Pro", as my site at that point had grown big enough (50+ GB of files) to require a hosting tier change to continue operations.

Funnily enough; every internet hosting provider changed all their tiered hosting plans around 2020.

My hosting provider then proceeded to botch the hosting transfer to their “Business Pro” level of service. I was literally locked out of my websites cPanel for about a week; and when I tried contacting my provider's online chat; I got "please sir, it takes 5 to 7 days...." then "24-48 more hours..." until I was over the 30 day refund policy for when I bought the 2023 hosting plan for AW.

(I also got "needful" at one point during my chats. I thought that was just a joke, but it's real.)

After waiting waiting and not getting anything, I called it quits and began to migrate away from them.

At this point, I decided to rebrand to GeneralStaff.org – for a simple and prosaic reason. When looking at my web statistics and logs to see where I was referred to/from, I found a common refrain being:

“Is this real? The site is alternatewars.com after all...”
Click to expand...

Plus, over time; my site had become more of a “General Staff Guide” of neat things that were more useful in planning a military operation than providing hypothetical wars.

Currently, I'm slowly working on restoring the SAC Archives -- I've got a LOT more that I never uploaded -- I recently finished PDFing about 60 SACs/ACPs that I scanned back in 2005/2006 but never got around due to them being larger than my scanner -- i.e. each page of a SAC required a top scan and bottom scan; and a 8 page SAC required me to align 16 images to get it to look right.

It took a lot of grunting but I finally did it all that this weekend.

Now I've got an automatic python script to generate the archive pages like so; so that I don't have to manually do everything by hand anymore; other than touchup (see attached)

Now I just have to sort everything and start uploading -- I'm on a 50 GB a month total bandwidth plan for internet access, so...

BUT NEVER FEAR...it will be back-ish.
 

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What's coming Soon[tm]

I found a wire bound black binder in NARA II:

RG 341
ENTRY 172
OFFICE OF THE DEPUTY CS, DEVELOPMENT AIRPLANE BRANCH CORRESP
RE: DEVELOPMENT AND FLIGHT TESTING 1943-50
190/66/22/4...

Specifically Box 39

It had data/pictures on:

XA-26
XA-32
XA-38
XA-39
XA-40
XA-41
XA-42 Mixmastrer
XA-43
XB-19
XB-29
XB-32
XB-35
XB-36
XB-38
XB-39
XB-40
XB-41
XB-42 Mixmaster
XB-44 Superfort
XB-45
XB-46
XB-47 (see attached pic) - 23 Apr 1945 Specs
XB-48
XB-50
XB-51
XF-11 (Hughes)
XF-12 (Republic Rainbow)

A whole host of extra misc stuff found in the book, etc etc.

I pretty much copied the whole thing over several days with a scanner.
 

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Really glad for the update. I was just looking for the old AW site not too long ago and couldn't find it. Figured it had gone the way of all digital things. Happy to be wrong.

And I am one of those who was originally thrown off by the title -- I thought it was hosting an alternate history sort of thing like NationStates. Took some gentle correction here to set me straight.
 
So here's the list of new SACs so far:

The ones prefaced with Tommy at the end are from "TailspinTurtle" Tommy Thomason.

A3D-2 Skywarrior Camb SAC 15-APR-1961
A3D-2 Skywarrior CS 1-OCT-1961
A3D-2 Skywarrior Uncamb SAC 15-APR-1961
AD-1Q Skyraider SAC 1-JUL-1949
AD-1 Skyraider SAC 1-JUL-1949
AD-2Q Skyraider SAC 1-AUG-1949
AD-2 Skyraider SAC 1-AUG-1949
AD-3N Skyraider SAC 1-DEC-1949
AD-3Q Skyraider SAC 1-AUG-1949
AD-3W Skyraider SAC 1-JAN-1950
AD-3 Skyraider SAC 1-AUG-1949
AD-4B Skyraider SAC 1-JUL-1954
AD-4N Skyraider SAC 1-DEC-1949
AD-4W Skyraider SAC 1-JAN-1950
AD-4W Skyraider SAC 1-NOV-1952 Missing Page
AD-4 Skyraider SAC 1-DEC-1949
AD-5S Skyraider SAC 1-MAY-1952
AD-7 Skyraider SAC 15-FEB-1956 Rev 1957
ALT-2 Store SAEC 1-APR 1957
AM-1 Mauler SAC 1-DEC-1948
C-131F SAC 1-JUL-1967 MissingPage
C-2A SAC 1-JUL-1967
D-558-II ACP 1-JUN-1947
D-558-II DWG Bad.png
DE-237 Helicopter Restrictions 18-FEB-1953.png
Douglas Aero 2A Dispenser 1-OCT-1958.png
Douglas Aero 3B Searchlight Sonobuoy 15-MAY-1957.png
Douglas InFlight Fueling Store 300 Gal 10-DEC-1956.png
Douglas InFlight Fueling Store 300 Gal SAEC 15-JAN-1959
F10F-1 Jaguar SAC 1-MAY-1951
F2H-1 Banshee SAC 1-NOV-1949
F2H-2 Banshee SAC 1-NOV-1949 Rev 1952
F4D-1 Skyray AAM-N-7 Sidewinder MSC 1-JUL-1957
F4D-1 Skyray MB-1 Genie MSC 1-JUL-1957
F4D-2 Skyray SAC 1-OCT-1954
F4U-1D Corsair ACP 1-JAN-1945 Inc
F4U-4B Corsair SAC 15-AUG-1948
F4U-4P Corsair SAC 15-AUG-1948
F4U-5N Corsair SAC 1-MAR-1952
F4U-5P Corsair SAC 1-MAR-1952
F4U-5 Corsair SAC 1-MAR-1952
F5D-1 Skylancer J-57-P-14 18-DEC-1956 Tommy
F6F-3 Hellcat ACP 1-NOV-1944 Full
F6F-5E Hellcat ACP 1-NOV-1944 Full
F6F-5N Hellcat ACP 1-NOV-1945 Full
F6F-5 Hellcat ACP 1-JUL-1944 Full
F6F-5 Hellcat SAC 1-OCT-1950
F7F-3N Tigercat ACP 1-MAR-1946 Full
F7F-3N Tigercat CS 15-MAY-1948
F7F-4N Tigercat ACP 1-JAN-1948
F7F-4N Tigercat SAC 1-NOV-1950
F8F-1 -1B Bearcat SAC 1-SEP-1949
F8F-1 Bearcat ACP 1-JUN-1945 Inc
F8F-1 F3M Bearcat ACP 1-JUN-1945 Inc
F8F-2P Bearcat SAC 1-SEP-1949
F9F-2 Panther SAC 1-FEB-1952
F9F-2 Panther SAC 1-FEB-1952 Alt
F9F-3 Panther ACP 1-JAN-1948 Inc
F9F-3 Panther SAC 1-JUL-1949
F9F-4 Panther SAC 1-NOV-1952
FTM108 Ch-10
J2F-2 -3 -4 PD 1-MAY-1943
J2F-2 -3 -4 PD 1-MAY-1943 Alt
J2F-5 PD 1-MAY-1943
J2F-6 ACP 1-JAN-1944 Full
J2F-6 Duck SAC 15-AUG-1948
JD-1 Invader SAC 15-AUG-1948
JRB-1 to 5 Expeditor ACP 1-JAN-1948 Full
JRB-4 Expeditor CS 15-AUG-1948
JRB-4 Expeditor SAC 15-AUG-1948
JRF-1 -1A Goose PD 1-MAY-1943
JRF-4 -5 Goose PD 1-MAY-1943
JRF-5 Goose CS 15-AUG-1948
JRF-5 Goose SAC 15-AUG-1948
JRM-1 Mars ACP 1-NOV-1947 Full
JRM-1 Mars ACP 1-SEP-1944 Inc
JRM-1 Mars CS 15-AUG-1948
LandBasedASW Aircraft NHHC 24-NOV-1982.png
P5M-2 Marlin CS 15-APR-1957
PBJ-1H Mitchell ACP 1-SEP-1944 Inc
PO-1W Warning Star SAC 1-MAR-1950
PO-2W Super Connie SAC 1-NOV-1951
R3D-1 -2 PD JUL-1942
R3D-3 PD JUL-1942
R4D-1 Skytrain PD 18-NOV-1942
R4D-3 Skytrain ACP 1-JUL-1945 Inc
R4D-3 Skytrain PD 1-APR-1943
R4D-3 Skytrain PD 1-APR-1943 Alt
R4D DWG 1-AUG-1945.png
SM-65F SAC Jan-1962
WU-1 SAC 1-JAN-1952
XA2J-1 Drawing.png
XA2J-1 Dwg 1-DEC-1950.png
XA2J-1 Proposal ACP 26-FEB-1948
XA2J-1 SAC 1-APR-1949
XA2J-1 SAC 1-DEC-1950
XA2J-2 SAC 1-APR-1949
XA2J-2 SAC 1-APR-1949 var
XASM-N-7b SMC 15-APR-1961
XBT2C-1 ACP 1-AUG-1945 Full Negative
XBT2D-1 Dauntless II ACP 1-MAY-1945 Full
XBTC-1 PD 1-NOV-1942 Negative
XBTC-2 ACP 1-AUG-1944 Full Neg
XBTC-2 Curve 1.png
XBTC-2 Curve 2.png
XBTC-2 PD 22-DEC-1942 Negative
XBTK-1 ACP 1-JUL-1945 Full
XF15C-1 ACP 1-FEB-1945 Tommy
XF2D-1 ACP 1-JUN-1946 Inc
XF4F-8 Wildcat PD 1-NOV-1942
XF4U-5 Corsair ACP 1-DEC-1945 Full
XF6U-1 Pirate ACP 1-JUN-1946 Inc
XF8F-1 Bearcat Preliminary ACP 17-JUL-1944 Full
XF9F-3 Panther ACP 1-FEB-1948 Very Inc
XFV-1 SAC 1-OCT-1952
XFY-1 SAC 1-SEP-1952
XHRP-1 ACP 1-SEP-1945 Inc
XJR2F-1 ACP 1-AUG-1945 Full
XNQ-1 ACP 1-SEP-1946 Inc
XNQ-1 CS 1-APR-1949
XP5M-1 Marlin ACP 1-JUN-1947 Full
XP5Y-1 ACP 1-OCT-1947 Inc
XP5Y-1 Preliminary ACP 4-FEB-1947 Full
XP6M-1 Sea Master SAC 1-APR-1954

The earliest PDFs were from April 2011; and the raw scans that I had left were from November 2005; so it took me about eighteen years (!!!) to get back and finish the last ones from that research trip.

Why so long?

Because these were mostly "oversized" SACs, that I had to scan with my scanner twice per page (Upper half, bottom half) and then I had to use Paint Shop Pro to stitch them all back together.

But that's done....after a grind session a week or two ago.
 
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Aw, I seem to have missed that site being around.
Thanks for going through the hassle to renew and rebuild.

Hmm ... https://web.archive.org/web/2020022.../SpaceRace/Carrier_AC/C-133_GliderConcept.htm
Ya know, Roden has a quite nice C-133 kit in 1/144 scale. Even has somewhat detailed cockpit.
I got a kit and cut it up for a sci-fi project.
And those,
FIG. 18.12 DRAWING OF C-133 WITH STAGE S-I PIGGY BACK
FIG. 18.13 DRAWING OF C-133 CARRYING STAGE S-I PIGGY BACK (ALTERNATE)
would make interesting models.
 
Has the list of costs for us aircraft from like 1978 to 1989 been uploaded yet, sense I can't seem to find it.
 
southwestforests said:
Aw, I seem to have missed that site being around.
Thanks for going through the hassle to renew and rebuild.

Hmm ... https://web.archive.org/web/2020022.../SpaceRace/Carrier_AC/C-133_GliderConcept.htm
Ya know, Roden has a quite nice C-133 kit in 1/144 scale. Even has somewhat detailed cockpit.
I got a kit and cut it up for a sci-fi project.
And those,
FIG. 18.12 DRAWING OF C-133 WITH STAGE S-I PIGGY BACK
FIG. 18.13 DRAWING OF C-133 CARRYING STAGE S-I PIGGY BACK (ALTERNATE)
would make interesting models.
Click to expand...

S-IB, not S-IC. It is important to add the letter, since Saturn V stage would be 140 tons heavy and 33 ft diameter - poor C-133 would just crumble under the weight. Compared to it, S-IB was kind of feather...
 
Archibald said:
S-IB, not S-IC. It is important to add the letter, since Saturn V stage would be 140 tons heavy and 33 ft diameter - poor C-133 would just crumble under the weight. Compared to it, S-IB was kind of feather...
Click to expand...
Given it is in the paper titled "THE APOLLO "A"/SATURN C-1 LAUNCH VEHICLE SYSTEM (U)" in a subsection titled, "18.3.3.1. Transport of Saturn C-1 Stages by C-133 Aircraft.", I expected no further clarification was required but then maybe only autistic people like me actually go look at the source instead of assuming unfounded things without looking further than the quoted extracts.
 
Gents, I have obtained the motherlode of WWII AAF stats data.


57 different tactical planning charts, totalling about 1,700 pages; organized by type of chart and date of chart.

The 1-JUN-1947 Tactical Planning Characteristics & Performance Chart is quite interesting -- it's kind of halfway to the Standard Aircraft Characteristics we all know and love. You've got the B-35 and B-36 in there; plus an estimate of how much weight a F-85 Goblin took up - 10,000 lbs payload, etc.

All of these came from AFHRA Reel A2092, which is a rather poor quality scan, given the importance of the data.

The scan itself is 3704x3919, which would be good, BUT the actual size of the papers microfilmed is 3616 x 2407; and it was only an 800 MB PDF for 1,732 frames – resulting in an average filesize of about 400kb per image – about 30% JPEG compression – resulting in very badly degraded text/numbers.

Hopefully, we can convince AFHRA to copy all of these in modern high resolution in the future...
 
Archibald said:
S-IB, not S-IC. It is important to add the letter, since Saturn V stage would be 140 tons heavy and 33 ft diameter - poor C-133 would just crumble under the weight. Compared to it, S-IB was kind of feather...
Click to expand...
At the time it was proposed, it wasn't the S-IB. It really was just the S-I stage, before the lightening and other improvements that made the S-IB.
 
RyanC said:
F4U-4B Corsair SAC 15-AUG-1948
F4U-4P Corsair SAC 15-AUG-1948
F4U-5N Corsair SAC 1-MAR-1952
F4U-5P Corsair SAC 1-MAR-1952
F4U-5 Corsair SAC 1-MAR-1952
F5D-1 Skylancer J-57-P-14 18-DEC-1956 Tommy
F6F-3 Hellcat ACP 1-NOV-1944 Full
F6F-5E Hellcat ACP 1-NOV-1944 Full
F6F-5N Hellcat ACP 1-NOV-1945 Full
F6F-5 Hellcat ACP 1-JUL-1944 Full
F6F-5 Hellcat SAC 1-OCT-1950
F7F-3N Tigercat ACP 1-MAR-1946 Full
F7F-3N Tigercat CS 15-MAY-1948
F7F-4N Tigercat ACP 1-JAN-1948
F7F-4N Tigercat SAC 1-NOV-1950
F8F-1 -1B Bearcat SAC 1-SEP-1949
F8F-1 Bearcat ACP 1-JUN-1945 Inc
F8F-1 F3M Bearcat ACP 1-JUN-1945 Inc
F8F-2P Bearcat SAC 1-SEP-1949
Click to expand...
Im very very interested in every one of this ones, waiting like a child for christmas! :)
 
A lot of the quality isn't the best; because a lot of these microfilm reel scans were done in the old days where you:

1.) filled out a form for $30/each per microfilm reel.
2.) sent in your check for that total amount to AFHRA
3.) got actual CDROMs with the PDFs mailed to you.

The settings they used for automated reel scans were atrocious, I think I calculated it at about 50 kb per image.

But it was better than the earlier model, in which you mailed in AFHRA money; got an actual microfilm reel, and then you had to pay someone else to scan it for you if you didn't have microfilm viewing equipment.
 
RyanC said:
But it was better than the earlier model, in which you mailed in AFHRA money; got an actual microfilm reel, and then you had to pay someone else to scan it for you if you didn't have microfilm viewing equipment.
Click to expand...
I'd prefer that. If you pay and get a shitty PDF, that's it, that's the best you can do. If you get a microfilm, you can always find a better scanner. Many libraries have shockingly good microform scanners, available free to use.
 
That only helps to a point. A lot of the microfilms at AFHRA really need to be re-copied from the original source material AFHRA has in their library with:

1.) A high resolution color camera
and
2.) High Resolution UV/IR camera (to capture faded/rubbed away ink)

Because a lot of them are really faded photostats which may have been legible 60 years ago...
 
I did this a few months ago:

British Official Histories of the Second World War

I collected all the official UK histories of WW2 from around the internet; and then travelled to two libraries which had the missing volumes (U of Maryland in College Park and U of Virginia in Charlottesville) and copied them (Oil, Campaign in Burma and Joslyn's Order of Battle series).

They're not really "secret project" related, although

Design and Development of Weapons: Studies in Government and Industrial Organisation (1964)

May count.

The reason I went to the trouble of travelling and copying everything is that the British Official Histories aren't quite as common in the USA and due to UK copyright laws – items published under the auspices of Her/His Majesty's Government fall under Crown Copyright – they cannot be freely disseminated without copyright until fifty (50) years have passed since initial publication.

For much of the UK's official histories, that moment didn't come until 2019, which was fifty years after 1969.

Meanwhile, due to copyright law in the USA regarding Government publications, their equivalent American histories have been freely spread and passed around ever since the internet began to take off in the mid 1990s – for more than thirty years, the American side has been the one told the most to a wider audience – because if you're in an internet debate or googling something, the American histories will pop up in easily downloadable PDF formats or via HTML conversions on official (U.S. Army Center of Military History [CMH]) or unofficial (HyperWar) webpages.

Effectively, the American side has "won by default" until now(ish).
 
Five new AFHRA reels for download this morning:

REEL A2058 - (475.27 MB)
Glider Project Books on Glider Procurement Costs
Glider Project Books on Glider Procurement

REEL A2070 - (521.1 MB)
Case History of R-3350 Aircraft Engine
Case History of Airborne Odograph (used By ELINT Aircraft, Etc)
Case History of R-2600 Aircraft Engine
Case History of S-1 Bombsight And A-5 Automatic Pilot

REEL A2071 - (632.76 MB)
Case History of Airborne Oxygen Generators
Case History of Radar Recording Camera
Case History of Brodie Launching And Landing Device
Case History of Night Glasses (later Night Aerial Gunsight)
Case History of T-5 Mapping Camera
Case History of K-22 Camera
Case History of Aircraft Fire Extinguisher Systems

REEL A2072 - (585.76 MB)
Case History of Turbojet Engine Halford (DeHavilland H-1)
Case History of Fragmentation Bomb Racks
Case History of Fighter Aircraft Bomb Racks And Shackles
Case History of Aerial Night Photography Part I: Photoflash Bomb
Case History of Aerial Night Photography Part II: Flash Photography
Case History of Quick Release Parachutes
Case History of Fighter Aircraft Gunsights

REEL A2082 - (447.41 MB)
Case History of Fuel Injection Program
Case History of Controlled Missiles Project, Felix Missile
Case History of Controlled Missiles Project, Razon Missile
Case History of Controlled Missiles Projects, Azon
Case History of Controlled Missiles Project, Roc Missile
 
I've uploaded the last "case histories" reels to here

Digital Reel Archive

There should now be a complete set of AAF/USAF case histories.

In one case -- Reel A2080; it had to be digitized first, containing:

Case History of Variable Discharge Turbosupercharger (VDT) Engine
Case History of King County Airport (Boeing Field) Seattle, WA
Case History of Sheep Shearling
Case History of Aircraft Hardware Warehousing
 
The original jet parasite-fighter just looked too “busy” with a cramped cockpit jammed on top of a jet engine and a confusing array of Y-ish tail surfaces jumbled at the back.

What if McDonnell-Douglas had abandoned the concept of a separate horizontal tail and just built the XF-85 Goblin with a delta wing?

This question was inspired by small boat designer Phil Bolger’s advice to never build a trimaran shorter than 30 feet and never build a catamaran shorter than 20 feet. I forget Bolger’s exact numbers, but his comments were written around the concept of boats big enough to include a cabin large enough to eat and sleep in over-night. A catamaran hull shorter than 20 feet is simply too narrow to include a cabin large enough to eat and sleep in.
Most of Bolger’s boats were designed to be built by amateurs in their basements. To ease that objective, Bolger’s friend Dynamite Payson published a series of books about “Instant Boats” made of stitched-and-glued plywood.
 

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