Dirigible Balloons Win the War...

5fish

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What if the Confederacy had created an effective airship during the Civil War... It could have happened the first Airships were originally called dirigible balloons flew in 1852 in France... The word "dirigible," in fact, comes from the French word diriger, meaning "to direct or to steer."


Henri Giffard's steam-powered airship flew in 1852.

1548178681856.png



A little history:
The thought:

In 1784, General Jean Baptiste Marie Meusnier designed an elliptical airship that was about 260 feet (79 meters) long. It was to be powered by three hand-cranked propellers, which required the labor of 80 men. Meusnier's design was never built.

The Action:

In 1850, another Frenchmen, Pierre Jullien of Villejuif, demonstrated a cigar-shaped model airship at the Paris Hippodrome. The airship's rudder, elevator, and gondola were mounted under the front part of the balloon. A clockwork motor that drove two airscrews mounted on either side of a center line propelled the airship. A light wire frame stiffened by a truss maintained the bag's form. Jullien was onto something that another man would leverage.

The moment:

Jules Henri Giffard, a French engineer and inventor, took note of Jullien's design. He built the first full-size airship — a cigar-shaped, non-rigid bag that was 143 feet (44 meters) long and had a capacity of 113,000 cubic feet (3,200 cubic meters). He also built a small 3-horsepower (2.2-kilowatt) steam engine to power a three-bladed propeller. The engine weighed 250 pounds (113 kilograms) and needed a 100-pound (45.4 kilograms) boiler to fire it.

The first flight of Giffard's steam-powered airship took place Sept. 24, 1852 — 51 years before the Wright Brothers’ first flight. Traveling at about 6 miles per hour (10 kilometers/hour), Giffard traveled almost 17 miles (27 kilometers) from the Paris racecourse to Elancourt, near Trappes. The small engine could not overcome the prevailing winds, and Giffard could only manage to turn the airship in slow circles. He did, however, prove that in calm conditions controlled flight was possible.


Here is the kicker the first round trip flight was in 1884 by the French:::

The first flight of La France took place on Aug. 9, 1884. Renard and Krebs landed successfully at the parade ground where they had begun—a flight of 5 miles (8 kilometers) and 23 minutes in which they had been in control throughout. During 1884 and 1885, La France made seven flights. Although the batteries limited its flying range, the airship demonstrated that controlled flight was possible if it had a sufficiently powerful lightweight motor.

https://www.space.com/16623-first-powered-airship.html

As you can see the early creation of airships was before, during and after our Civil war of the 1860's with a little ingenuity the Confederacy could have dominated the air above the battlefields and above the harbors. These Confederate airships could have attacked and bombed from the air shifting the tide of battle and the war in their favor. These Confederate airships could have ended the blockade of the Southern ports allowing commerce to once more flow into and out of the Confederacy. We know from the great wars of the 20th century if you control the air you control the battlefield and the war. The Confederacy should have poured their money and time into airships...

The Confederacy could have been slaved by airpower and steampunk if they had created their own Airship fleet... The technology was there for them. They only had to "seize the day"...
 

5fish

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1548194159719.png





[Q

UOTE="John Hartwell, post: 1971624, member: 5391"]
mkjnhb-jpg.jpg

[/QUOTE]

There a whole story behind Davidson's Artisavis... a con man he was... maybe he is the inventor of steampunk! Its a short artcle and worth a read and laugh... some snippets to wet your imagination...

http://www.beyondthecrater.com/news...-artis-avis-and-a-nineteenth-century-con-man/

Snippets...

By January 1864, Davidson was reduced to appealing to the Quartermaster General’s Office of the Confederate Army, and to the public at large through newspapers. Attempting to capture the imagination of the masses, Davidson published an article in the Richmond Daily Dispatch that Billy Mitchell would have been proud to claim: “let it be supposed that…1,000 of these Birds of Art were stationed at a point five miles distant from a hostile military camp, fortification, or fleet of war vessels; that each Artisavis was supplied with a fifty pound explosive shell, and being started singly, or two or three abreast, going out and dropping those destructive missiles from a point of elevation beyond the reach of the enemy’s guns, then returning to the place of departure and reloading, and thus continuing the movement at the rate of 100 miles per hour. It will be seen that within the period of twelve hours, one hundred and fifty thousand death dealing bombs, could be thus thrown down upon the foe, a force that no defensive art on land, however solid, could withstand even for a single day; while exposed armies and ships would be almost instantly destroyed, without the least chance of escape.”


Snippet...

Davidson had a history as an “aeronautical engineer,” using the terms loosely, a history that far predated the war, a history he avoided. In 1840, he published a Disclosure of the Discovery and Invention, and a Description of the Plan of Construction and Mode of Operation of the Aerostat: or a New Mode of Aerostation. Davidson’s “Aerostat” invention was a “flapping wing machine,” patterned after the American eagle, with an attached hot air balloon. The balloon would lift a “car,” and an operator, seated in the car, would manually flap the attached wings to manage the contraption’s descent.

Snippet...

In response to Davidson’s “invention,” an anonymous “Member of the L.L.B.B.” (Louisville, Kentucky, Literary Brass Band) published a small book, The Great Steam Duck: Or A Concise Description of a Most Useful and Extraordinary Invention for Aerial Navigation. The Steam Duck opened by pointing out an 1833 publication authored by H. Straight, of New York, describing an invention nearly identical to Davidson’s, whose 1840 publication thus represented neither a “discovery” nor anything “new.” The author panned Straight’s/Davidson’s entire concept as impractical, then proceeded to describe a superior flying machine, a “flying duck,” measuring fifteen feet by six feet. The cabin of the Duck would be constructed of a hickory frame, covered in canvas; the wings of whalebone and silk; a steam engine, located in the craw of the beast, powered the wings; and a “scap pipe” was located under the duck’s tail. After describing the design of the “Steam Duck” in explicit detail, the author disavowed the plan and grouped the whole notion with Davidson’s work as impractical fakes. The author had some idea of the many technical advances required before powered, manned flight could be realized.

Snippet...

Wartime descriptions leave little doubt that “Artis Avis” was merely the “Great Steam Duck,” presented as a farce twenty years earlier, with a few cosmetic changes and a trapdoor. Colonel Coward wasn’t the only skeptic; Simms concluded, “I should as soon look for perpetual motion to be invented as for one of Davidson’s birds to rise and fly…I never gave him anything, he received from the Brigade one hundred and twenty seven dollars – pretty liberal patronage for a humbug.” Another soldier’s reminiscence provides insight into the minds of the hundreds of Confederate soldiers who fell prey to Davidson’s presentations: “I didn’t have any money to give, but I was sure anxious to see that man stampede the Yankee army.”
 

rittmeister

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What if the Confederacy had created an effective airship during the Civil War... It could have happened the first Airships were originally called dirigible balloons flew in 1852 in France... The word "dirigible," in fact, comes from the French word diriger, meaning "to direct or to steer."
now you are up to sth. that certainly might have worked for reconnaissance ...

These Confederate airships could have attacked and bombed from the air shifting the tide of battle and the war in their favor. [...] The Confederacy could have been slaved by airpower and steampunk if they had created their own Airship fleet... The technology was there for them. They only had to "seize the day"...
... forget the steampunk and the bombing, though. below you see sl-2* bombing warsaw (1914). try to built such a monster using tredegar technology in 1861. and don't forget a steam engine is a lot heavier than anything the luftschiffertruppe used to propel their airships.

... and btw, alfred wilm invented duraluminium in 1906, so what would tredegar have used - rivetted steal? cast iron? tongue.gif



---

* it obviously wasn't that big as it looks, this is a war probaganda postcard.

this is a photograph (each of the gondolas held several men)



edit to add:

sl-1 (which was smaller) was 131 metres long - sl-2's engines produced 480 hp - good luck steampunking that tongue.gif
 
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rittmeister

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... and btw, alfred wilm invented duraluminium in 1906, so what would tredegar have used - rivetted steal? cast iron? View attachment 1521
okay, johann schütte (german link) used wood for the internal structure - graf zeppelin used duraluminium. the latter showed up with the union, though.

In 1863 Zeppelin took leave to act as an observer for the Union's Army of the Potomac in the American Civil War in Virginia.

pic is from the wiki mentioned
 
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5fish

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okay, johann schütte (german link) used wood for the internal structure -
So this alternative world is okay because the Germans take the lead... ;)

A little creativity and the Confederacy could have been doing behind the line night raids, dropping small explosives from the air in battle or supply lines... observing the union army's movements from afar no hiding now...
 

rittmeister

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So this alternative world is okay because the Germans take the lead... ;)
we kinda did in the real world

A little creativity and the Confederacy could have been doing behind the line night raids, dropping small explosives from the air in battle or supply lines... observing the union army's movements from afar no hiding now...
explosives that go boom when? your airships need to be out of rifle range, right? those airships used hydrogen so being shot at was no fun (as we learned in ww I). or do you propose a helium* plant in the confederacy?

---

* ... hint: helium was discovered by pierre janssen on august 18th, 1868 and hot air just wouldn't cut it, would it?
 

5fish

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* ... hint: helium was discovered by pierre janssen on august 18th, 1868 and hot air just wouldn't cut it, would it?
It is within the scope of possibilities since it was discovered within years of the war...

So we got wood for the frame ....

As early as autumn 1908, he(Johann) constructed his own airship, which was characterized, among other things, by its aerodynamic shape and its wooden frame

WE have Hydrogen, stream, or hot air and clothes and wood .... so we have an airship....
 

rittmeister

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It is within the scope of possibilities since it was discovered within years of the war...

So we got wood for the frame ....

As early as autumn 1908, he(Johann) constructed his own airship, which was characterized, among other things, by its aerodynamic shape and its wooden frame

WE have Hydrogen, stream, or hot air and clothes and wood .... so we have an airship....
you want to read up how helium was discovered and where. knowing it exists does not make an extraction plant, does it?

also the military isn't really fast in adapting to new stuff, is it? how long did they insist on keeping sails as secondary propulsion? they are good in improving stuff they already have after the shooting starts but they always plan for the last war not for the next one. nobody abandoned their cav after world war one as seperate arm within the army. to keep a couple of regiments would have been okay but nearly everybody thought tank warfare was some sort of a one off and invested heavily in horsefodder instead (and they had seen tanks in action, right?)

pick your country; the military will always be a bunch of conservatives who are opsessed with thinking what they could have done better in the last war. new stuff disturbes them. in ww I the brits considered two machineguns per batallion sufficient at first because they

couldn't be used the way they used them in the 'colonies' against 'white' soldiers.

aircraft was supossed to be of not much use but for having a look what enemy groundforces did all day long. dropping explosives and trying to shoot each other with revolvers came from pilots' initiative. after that had started the brass got into high gear, though.

... and here comes cpt rufus mcfish in his brandnew airship dropping bombs onto the yankees. no way! cool.gif


nix fia unguat (bavarian for no offence intented) prost_fish.gif
 

Kirk's Raider's

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you want to read up how helium was discovered and where. knowing it exists does not make an extraction plant, does it?

also the military isn't really fast in adapting to new stuff, is it? how long did they insist on keeping sails as secondary propulsion? they are good in improving stuff they already have after the shooting starts but they always plan for the last war not for the next one. nobody abandoned their cav after world war one as seperate arm within the army. to keep a couple of regiments would have been okay but nearly everybody thought tank warfare was some sort of a one off and invested heavily in horsefodder instead (and they had seen tanks in action, right?)

pick your country; the military will always be a bunch of conservatives who are opsessed with thinking what they could have done better in the last war. new stuff disturbes them. in ww I the brits considered two machineguns per batallion sufficient at first because they

couldn't be used the way they used them in the 'colonies' against 'white' soldiers.

aircraft was supossed to be of not much use but for having a look what enemy groundforces did all day long. dropping explosives and trying to shoot each other with revolvers came from pilots' initiative. after that had started the brass got into high gear, though.

... and here comes cpt rufus mcfish in his brandnew airship dropping bombs onto the yankees. no way! View attachment 1538


nix fia unguat (bavarian for no offence intented) View attachment 1539
To be fair Cavalry was used rather extensively during WWII although more more accurately mounted infantry would be a more accurate term. Especially on the Eastern Front both the Soviet, Italian and German army relied on mounted infantry. There were some actual mounted combat charges by the Soviet and Italian Army . Not sure how it worked out.
There was a pro German Cossack division in Yugoslavia that was effective against Tito's Partisans and the Japanese successfully used Calvery in the Philippines against guerrillas so the brass was not altogether wrong about Cavalry during WWII.
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What if the Confederacy had created an effective airship during the Civil War... It could have happened the first Airships were originally called dirigible balloons flew in 1852 in France... The word "dirigible," in fact, comes from the French word diriger, meaning "to direct or to steer."


Henri Giffard's steam-powered airship flew in 1852.

1548178681856.png



A little history:
The thought:

In 1784, General Jean Baptiste Marie Meusnier designed an elliptical airship that was about 260 feet (79 meters) long. It was to be powered by three hand-cranked propellers, which required the labor of 80 men. Meusnier's design was never built.

The Action:

In 1850, another Frenchmen, Pierre Jullien of Villejuif, demonstrated a cigar-shaped model airship at the Paris Hippodrome. The airship's rudder, elevator, and gondola were mounted under the front part of the balloon. A clockwork motor that drove two airscrews mounted on either side of a center line propelled the airship. A light wire frame stiffened by a truss maintained the bag's form. Jullien was onto something that another man would leverage.

The moment:

Jules Henri Giffard, a French engineer and inventor, took note of Jullien's design. He built the first full-size airship — a cigar-shaped, non-rigid bag that was 143 feet (44 meters) long and had a capacity of 113,000 cubic feet (3,200 cubic meters). He also built a small 3-horsepower (2.2-kilowatt) steam engine to power a three-bladed propeller. The engine weighed 250 pounds (113 kilograms) and needed a 100-pound (45.4 kilograms) boiler to fire it.

The first flight of Giffard's steam-powered airship took place Sept. 24, 1852 — 51 years before the Wright Brothers’ first flight. Traveling at about 6 miles per hour (10 kilometers/hour), Giffard traveled almost 17 miles (27 kilometers) from the Paris racecourse to Elancourt, near Trappes. The small engine could not overcome the prevailing winds, and Giffard could only manage to turn the airship in slow circles. He did, however, prove that in calm conditions controlled flight was possible.


Here is the kicker the first round trip flight was in 1884 by the French:::

The first flight of La France took place on Aug. 9, 1884. Renard and Krebs landed successfully at the parade ground where they had begun—a flight of 5 miles (8 kilometers) and 23 minutes in which they had been in control throughout. During 1884 and 1885, La France made seven flights. Although the batteries limited its flying range, the airship demonstrated that controlled flight was possible if it had a sufficiently powerful lightweight motor.

https://www.space.com/16623-first-powered-airship.html

As you can see the early creation of airships was before, during and after our Civil war of the 1860's with a little ingenuity the Confederacy could have dominated the air above the battlefields and above the harbors. These Confederate airships could have attacked and bombed from the air shifting the tide of battle and the war in their favor. These Confederate airships could have ended the blockade of the Southern ports allowing commerce to once more flow into and out of the Confederacy. We know from the great wars of the 20th century if you control the air you control the battlefield and the war. The Confederacy should have poured their money and time into airships...

The Confederacy could have been slaved by airpower and steampunk if they had created their own Airship fleet... The technology was there for them. They only had to "seize the day"...
If it was possible for the Confederacy to somehow adopt technology then so could the Union.
The Confederacy couldn't even produce ammunition for captured Henry or Spencer Rifles but somehow there supposed to make Torpedo Boats in mass numbers and airships. The Confederacy can't even make a decent artillery fuze.
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rittmeister

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To be fair Cavalry was used rather extensively during WWII although more more accurately mounted infantry would be a more accurate term. Especially on the Eastern Front both the Soviet, Italian and German army relied on mounted infantry. There were some actual mounted combat charges by the Soviet and Italian Army . Not sure how it worked out.
There was a pro German Cossack division in Yugoslavia that was effective against Tito's Partisans and the Japanese successfully used Calvery in the Philippines against guerrillas so the brass was not altogether wrong about Cavalry during WWII.
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i don't deny that, but ...
nobody abandoned their cav after world war one as seperate arm within the army. to keep a couple of regiments would have been okay but nearly everybody thought tank warfare was some sort of a one off and invested heavily in horsefodder instead (and they had seen tanks in action, right?
it really helps to carefully read what others have written

the classical role of the cav was over, there was no way to take a gun emplacement or break up an infantry formation at the point of a sabre any longer. if we take a serious look it was already over after 70/71 at the latest. karl friedrich von steinmetz managed to get the 1st cavalry division more or less destroyed against french infantry armed with the chassepot rifle at gravelotte. the french also had a couple of mitrailleuse but they didn't use them that well. that was 1870 and french cav didn't fare any better against krupp canon. after that everybody used the 43 years until ww I to stock up on cav killing armament. using cav for anything but mounted (aka fast) infantry was a blunder of the highest order and definately not worse the money invested.

one of my ggrandfathers died charging french machineguns in 1914 and more than half his escadron with him.
 

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i don't deny that, but ...


it really helps to carefully read what others have written

the classical role of the cav was over, there was no way to take a gun emplacement or break up an infantry formation at the point of a sabre any longer. if we take a serious look it was already over after 70/71 at the latest. karl friedrich von steinmetz managed to get the 1st cavalry division more or less destroyed against french infantry armed with the chassepot rifle at gravelotte. the french also had a couple of mitrailleuse but they didn't use them that well. that was 1870 and french cav didn't fare any better against krupp canon. after that everybody used the 43 years until ww I to stock up on cav killing armament. using cav for anything but mounted (aka fast) infantry was a blunder of the highest order and definately not worse the money invested.

one of my ggrandfathers died charging french machineguns in 1914 and more than half his escadron with him.
Yet the Calvary managed to survive for quite a while after WWII such has the Rhodesian Grey Scouts and the South West African Territorial Force used mounted units to track SWAPO guerrillas.
The Columbian Army used horses at least until the early 2000's against FARC guerrillas.
In the recent conflict in Dafur camels and horses were used. True mounted units are archaic but horses still can play a role in Counterinsurgency and if gas isn't available horses are the best thing.
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5fish

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How long since Mars had been discovered? How many of us had been there?
You have made our point if my nation and the world wanted us to truly go to Mars we would be on Mars by now. It all about allocating money and resources to achieve a goal that is technically within reach....

What I am showing if the forces in the Civil war had the foresight and put the resources and money toward these technologies I have mentioned. They may have come to fruition decades early they did.

The dirigible balloons tech was available if someone had the foresight to bring them to life in the 1860s...
 

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You have made our point if my nation and the world wanted us to truly go to Mars we would be on Mars by now.
nope, to sent people to Mars would be a joint earth effort eating up the surplus money of earth from at least half a century
 

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You have made our point if my nation and the world wanted us to truly go to Mars we would be on Mars by now. It all about allocating money and resources to achieve a goal that is technically within reach....

What I am showing if the forces in the Civil war had the foresight and put the resources and money toward these technologies I have mentioned. They may have come to fruition decades early they did.

The dirigible balloons tech was available if someone had the foresight to bring them to life in the 1860s...
Dirigible balloons did not play any significant role in the Prussian- French War of 1870. No as @rittmeister pointed out dirigible aircraft were not possible since aluminum was not yet developed.
Again the Confederacy could not even manufacture reliable artillery fuzes, and repeating rifles ammunition now there supposed to be decades ahead of the rest of the world in military technology.
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Again the Confederacy could not even manufacture reliable artillery fuzes, and repeating rifles ammunition now there supposed to be decades ahead of the rest of the world in military technology.
romantic Hero said:
The lack of science, engineering or production capacity can always be supplemented by attitude
won't gonna work
 

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What if the Confederacy had created an effective airship during the Civil War... It could have happened the first Airships were originally called dirigible balloons flew in 1852 in France... The word "dirigible," in fact, comes from the French word diriger, meaning "to direct or to steer."


Henri Giffard's steam-powered airship flew in 1852.

1548178681856.png



A little history:
The thought:

In 1784, General Jean Baptiste Marie Meusnier designed an elliptical airship that was about 260 feet (79 meters) long. It was to be powered by three hand-cranked propellers, which required the labor of 80 men. Meusnier's design was never built.

The Action:

In 1850, another Frenchmen, Pierre Jullien of Villejuif, demonstrated a cigar-shaped model airship at the Paris Hippodrome. The airship's rudder, elevator, and gondola were mounted under the front part of the balloon. A clockwork motor that drove two airscrews mounted on either side of a center line propelled the airship. A light wire frame stiffened by a truss maintained the bag's form. Jullien was onto something that another man would leverage.

The moment:

Jules Henri Giffard, a French engineer and inventor, took note of Jullien's design. He built the first full-size airship — a cigar-shaped, non-rigid bag that was 143 feet (44 meters) long and had a capacity of 113,000 cubic feet (3,200 cubic meters). He also built a small 3-horsepower (2.2-kilowatt) steam engine to power a three-bladed propeller. The engine weighed 250 pounds (113 kilograms) and needed a 100-pound (45.4 kilograms) boiler to fire it.

The first flight of Giffard's steam-powered airship took place Sept. 24, 1852 — 51 years before the Wright Brothers’ first flight. Traveling at about 6 miles per hour (10 kilometers/hour), Giffard traveled almost 17 miles (27 kilometers) from the Paris racecourse to Elancourt, near Trappes. The small engine could not overcome the prevailing winds, and Giffard could only manage to turn the airship in slow circles. He did, however, prove that in calm conditions controlled flight was possible.


Here is the kicker the first round trip flight was in 1884 by the French:::

The first flight of La France took place on Aug. 9, 1884. Renard and Krebs landed successfully at the parade ground where they had begun—a flight of 5 miles (8 kilometers) and 23 minutes in which they had been in control throughout. During 1884 and 1885, La France made seven flights. Although the batteries limited its flying range, the airship demonstrated that controlled flight was possible if it had a sufficiently powerful lightweight motor.

https://www.space.com/16623-first-powered-airship.html

As you can see the early creation of airships was before, during and after our Civil war of the 1860's with a little ingenuity the Confederacy could have dominated the air above the battlefields and above the harbors. These Confederate airships could have attacked and bombed from the air shifting the tide of battle and the war in their favor. These Confederate airships could have ended the blockade of the Southern ports allowing commerce to once more flow into and out of the Confederacy. We know from the great wars of the 20th century if you control the air you control the battlefield and the war. The Confederacy should have poured their money and time into airships...

The Confederacy could have been slaved by airpower and steampunk if they had created their own Airship fleet... The technology was there for them. They only had to "seize the day"...
No the creation of dirigibles was not possible during the ACW. If you actually studied the history of dirigibles you will see that dirigibles were highly dangerous and unreliable aircraft even during WWI 60 years after the ACW. Something like forty percent of the 85 German dirigibles were destroyed in accidents.
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