American Secret Projects: Fighters, Bombers and Attack Aircraft 1937-1945

My copy just arrived.

I think production standards may be even better than the Midland Secret Projects books.

280 pages, organisation seems to come closest to British Secret Projects 1935 to 1950 so chapters on USAAF single-engined fighters, twins, light and medium bombers, heavy bombers, attack aircraft, USN fighters, attack aircraft, and maritime patrol/flying boats, with appendices listing projects and requirements. The main organisational difference in comparison with BSP35-50 is stats in blocks inline with the text rather than en masse at chapter end. I think I prefer the new layout. The stats blocks are highlighted in blue, 3 views and other illustrations have a sepia background, it looks smart, though I have mixed feelings on the sepia. I notice a lot of period manufacturers illustrations in addition to the 3-views, which I find really helpful for visualising the look of the different aircraft.

It's not quite true to say there's a design new to me on every page, but it comes close!
Here's the projects listed on the front flap:
Bell Model 1, 3, 4, 11, 13, 16, 22
Fairchild Model 85 twin Ranger-engined fighter
Republic XP-72 production version
Hughes D-2/XP-37/XA-37 and D-5
Curtiss XP-71
Martin 207 Convoy Fighter
Burnelli XBA-1 and BX-AB-3
Douglas Model 9 Flying Wing Bomber
Boeing Model 316/Y1B-20/B-20, Model 322, 333, 333A, 384, 385 heavy bombers
Boeing Model 352, 374, 376, 386, 387, 394, 398, 400 Naval fighters
Curtiss "Cab over engine" Wasp Major fighter
Curtiss SB3C/A-40 (noted as most accurate 3v to date)
Kaiser Fleetwings Model 47 twin engined naval fighter
Martin 180, 181, 183 patrol flying boats

And just flicking through confirms that's only a fraction of the projects covered.
 
Any sample pages available? I intensely dislike graphic gimmicks like coloured backgrounds for pages etc.
 
A few more thoughts after having a couple of weeks to think about what satisfied me and what didn't.

There really were a hell of a lot of designs I'd not come across before or was only vaguely aware of, so on that ground I'm more than satisfied.

But, there are some howlers, such as one of the fighters being described as single-engined, when the side view immediately above it shows it to be a twin (engines in front of and behind the pilot), and worse, it being an inline-twin then makes the remark further on in the paragraph about a compound variant with a jet in the rear fuselage make a lot more sense. And that's not the only error on that level. There's not a lot of them, but enough that it was noticeable. I get the feeling from both this and Japanese Secret Projects 2 that Crecy's sub-editing/line-editing isn't quite as strong as Midland's was.

Having mentioned one of the illustrations, I have to say this may be the best book in the series for illustrations. Whether originals, or redrawn, the 3-views really are gorgeous. and the use of manufacturers illustrations (i.e. action shots as opposed to 3-views) really brings some of the designs to life (especially when a 3-view can leave you a little in the dark as to whether a design is heavily curved, or just slab-sided).

Turning back to the text, one issue is many of these designs are being covered in 50 or 60 words, including major designs such as the B-25. I recognise the tension between covering as many designs as possible and covering them in as much depth as possible, all within a wordcount limit, but that tension is very visible here. I tried to work out what the difference is between this book and the comparable BSP, and I think it's that the British projects all lie within a well understood context of requirements, so they can be read as parts of a whole, but the US requirements just aren't as thoroughly understood, which means the pieces on each design don't have that overall narrative to slip into, which means that you tend to read them as disconnected segments, which focusses you on how short they are. I also got the impression the text spent so much time saying 'well, strictly this is outside our timeline because it's a 1935 design' that it would have been simpler to just start the narrative there - and I think that may actually be the more natural start point for the discussion with the arrival of the B-17 and the P-36. (Admittedly that would have meant yet more words and 3-views to squeeze in).

So some criticisms, but, OTOH, I'd still say this is a must buy if you're interested in WWII period lesser known designs.
 
DWG, I read your recent analysis of "ASP" with great interest. Thanks for taking the time to really dig into the book!

Please drop me a note at acresearcher63@gmail.com. I'd like to give you a bit more background on the book.

Thanks again!

AlanG
 
Hmmm... Yummy!! Can't wait to see this one.

I'm especially curious about the Fairchild 85, the Martin patrol flying boats and Fleetwings Model 47, for which I have only a description as "The Two Squirt Thin Twin"... whatever that was supposed to mean!
 
I have the book since a couple of weeks and took the time to read it twice
to have my impressions balanced..

There must have been a lot of research in this book. It's very well written and the
3-views are clear and detailed with a slight color background. Despite being a life long searcher for
unbuilt aircraftprojects and collector of books and mag's about this subject I found quite a number of unseen projects before.

On the minor side, in my humble opinion, there are much to much photo's of well known production machines and
prototype aircraft. For exemple , the Fisher Eage is presented with 7 photo's often 1/3 of a page..

One can't let the feeling that the author's have more in the pipeline and these pictures were included by the publisher to give more
'flesh' to a first volume and thus save new information for a 2e one. (as mentioned on the backside on the frontflap).

That aside , the book is an excellent product and it deserves a place in the library of every secret projects enthusiast.
Well done gentlemen. Thanks.
 
I can't find this book in Amazon.co.jp stiil now. Why? ???
 
Got my copy this week and only then did I notice the 1 on the cover that was there all along. Reading the Introduction, it could be interpreted that this is Volume 1 chronologically and the 2 earlier ASP volumes are Volumes 2 & 3. Could either Tony or Allan straighten me out on this?
 
Hi All.
Last year Crecy bought the rights off Ian Allan for all Midland Publishing titles, including the Secret Projects series.
ASP: WW2 had originally been written for Ian Allan as the third title in the old Secret Projects series.

However, Crecy has now made it the first in a revised series with the updated American Post War Jet Fighters and Post War Jet Bombers to follow as Volumes 2 and 3 in 2-3 years time. Sorry if this has caused any confusion. British Secret Projects will get the same treatment. All of these titles are now out of print.

Very best wishes, Tony.
Click to expand...
 
No, I'm pretty sure he is disappointed volumes 2 and 3 are the already published postwar books.
 
My copy finally arrived from Amazon US on last Friday. I'm finding it a most interesting read. I'll have more comments after I've had a chance to finish it and then go back for second looks and to see if anything peculiar jumps out at me. The only thing I can say now that I would wish for is for the design specs blocks to include projected engine choice, or choices, too.

5/17 Correction: I was wrong, the blocks do include engines when known.

Having said that, I will second comments that a bit more proof-reading would have helped. The biggest howler that jumped out at me was stating that the Lockheed Hudson was derived from the Lockheed "Electric" rather than "Electra". I would be tempted to blame that one on spell-checking with auto-correct. ::)
 
I found that the combination of relatively lightweight linework on a pale yellow background for the many three-view drawings made them harder to read than they should have been. You need to read this book under a strong reading lamp. But I can't complain about the content.
 
The book was great, but makes me thirst for more that will probably not be available. The authors do not go into great detail on aircraft that went into production, but there are volumes out there that cover it.
They chose 1937 as the beginning as this is when the US started rearming, but they don't really get involved until 1939 or so. Were I to have the dream book, I would have bumped the start date back to 1934 or so, with the cutoff being all metal cantilever monoplanes with retractable gear. What about the genesis of the B-17 andB-18? At least show their competitors. The same with the P-35, P-36, F2A, F4F, etc. You needn't go into detail on the winners. We are mostly interested in the also-rans. Observation aircraft were not mentioned. We don't need anything on the converted civilian lightplanes, but the other stuff would be interesting.
Also, the US seemed to be more serious on training aircraft than other nations. Again, concentrate on the modern stuff, both single and twin engined. As I understand it, North American, Seversky, and Vultee came up with mix n match setups where parts were shared between basic trainers, advanced trainers, fighters, and attack aircraft. This would also lead us into some of the modern products US companies produced that were export only.
Well, you can't have everything. I enjoyed the book, and I am glad I bought it.
 
Hi I know this conversation has not been touched for a time but I need help on finding what plane this might be and i thought you guys would be the best people to ask it to. And I have tried searching in the books under illustrations but there is no information on this bomber so if you know what it is I would appreciate it 185AF246-20A2-4463-AEE4-78C2631B60DA.jpeg
 

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