Why the fuss? Don’t I deploy new versions all the time?

Starting with version 1.1.0.2, ordersofbattle.com is running as an ASP.NET MVC website and is no longer a ASP.NET Webforms website.

I first wrote the code for Orders of Battle in 2003-2004 and at the time, the recommended way of write database-driven web-pages in ASP.NET was to use “Webforms”. These were quite complicated and ran on the server and they generated HTML at run-time.

MVC is an industry acronym that stands for “Model-View-Controller”. It is a very popular architecture for websites and is an industry standard.

It divides the logic of the site into 3 parts:

• Model - This represents the data
• View - This represents the display
• Controller - This manages the request when users click on a hyperlink for a new page

In practical terms, MVC makes it a lot easier for me to write new pages and functions for the site from scratch and it means that I can make the site a lot more flexible. MVC does not use webforms at all and the pages are much simpler to write and debug.

Performance-wise, it seems faster than the old webforms architecture as much of the page handling is done at the client level instead of on the webserver. 

I have taken the opportunity to add several new webpages to the site and to add additional queries to make the site much more useful, or so I hope!!

The site now allows users to query data “from both ends”.

For example, in the old site, the only a user could see the location a unit was stationed at was by querying the unit and then displaying the locations for that unit.

Now, the user can query the location first and then see which units were at that location.

I have added similar logic for Awards (in the case of officers), Countries, Provinces, Waves and Theatres; as well as revamping the behaviour of Corps and Forces.

Another big change is that page links only appear underneath a “parent”, i.e. a Unit or a Person, if there is actually data in existence for that link. If there is no data, then no link will appear.

Another major change is that all web-pages, including this one, are now running on a “web-farm” so that there are two, possibly more in the future, web-servers handling all requests in parallel which should help performance and response time.

I will write a post soon describing all the changes in full.

Why is this a problem?

Well the Map References used are not National Grid References. they are Cassini References from a system used by the War Office in the Second World War and are completely different from modern references.

To convert them, you need to find a converter as well as discover which Cassini Square the map reference actually refers to; as in most cases, the soldiers writing the war diary entries did not write the square, just the reference from the map that they had.

To add to the problem, sometimes the references are just wrong or written the wrong way round!

Fortunately for us, we have the internet and there are some very useful tools out there!

First off, we need a list of Cassini squares, which can be found here.

Secondly we need to convert the War Office reference to a National Grid Reference.

The best tool that I have found is at http://www.fieldenmaps.info/cconv/cconv_gb.html .

To use it, input the War Office reference in the section that says “War Office Cassini “WOFO” Grid” and then press Convert. This will update all the other references and you can use the one you want to find the actual location.

I use the National Grid reference which can be found in the section entitled “Great Britain National Grid” and I use the reference with the two letter code at the start.

I find the Ordnance Survey site the most useful as it displays the actual OS map for the National Grid reference provided, but only use the first three numbers of each National Grid reference.

The Ordnance Survey maps can be found here. You can register as a Guest which gives basic functionality or you can subscribe.

Input the National Grid reference and press “Locate” and away you go.

NOTE: You may need trial and error to get the correct Cassini square from the map!

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So, the site theme now matches Tech-CRM and I have fixed the appearence of bullet items in the style sheet of both this blog and tech-crm.com, so it looks a lot better. Using the tech-crm style sheet also fixes the formatting of comments so that is an added bonus.

I also intend to update the links to the right to include the new pages in the website.

Currently I am between contracts so I have to spend quite a lot of time looking for my next piece of work, which is very difficult in the current job market. However, I hope to be back in work soon with a bit of luck.

One of the first priorities after I got home was to organise my accounts for the year for my accountant. This is a non-trivial task as I have hundreds of foreign receipts to organise among other things. I am happy to say that this is all now complete.

On the research front, I have been trying to find time to research 1 Battalion The Algonquin Regiment. Currently, I am up to mid 1943 and I have to push forward through the Battalion’s time in the UK and in North West Europe. Again, this is quite a lot of work as it involves examining hundreds of War Diary photographs and writing up my notes. I feel somewhat guilty because I have been distracted by other issues, but hope to get back up to speed soon.

I have also taken the time to research 27th US Infantry Division, which was a National Guard division from New York State. I have been able to do a good job as I have all 4 volumes of the incredibly well-researched  US Army Order of Battle 1919-1941 by Lt-Col Stephen E Clay which has been a godsend as far as US Army research goes. I just wish someone would do the same for the British Armies for the interwar period. I also had a copy of the Divison’s World War II history by Captain Edmund G Love which was great though rather lacking in appendices! There is also some useful information available on line.

I have also been moving forward on my German divisional research and am now working on the 2nd Mountain Division using Scherzer and Tessin as my primary resources.

I have also been working on enhancing my database with the following data structures to support my research. These are still in development and will be added to the website in due course:

• Locations, Provinces and Countries - this will allow users to query units by Location rather than having to look at each unit first
• Unit Sources - List of main sources used my research for a specific unit
• Unit Components - This will be for German units only and will provide an overview of the Company structure at the Battalion level
• Unit Component Transfers - This will store the transfer of Companies between battalions.

I do not intend to handle “components” in the same way as units because there are way too many of them and most were not moved around and converted in the same way that Battalions and Regiments are. However, they are quite interesting and some did indeed get transfered between parent units.

Finally, I have been working on a new version of the Web Site using a new version of ASP.NET using a new design pattern called MVC (Model-View-Controller). This should make it easier for me to add new features to the web site and will hopefully provide a cleaner design and more user-friendly urls. I am making good progress with it and hope to have it finished in a month or two.

I am also looking at upgrading my version of Wordpress and redesigning this blog as it most definitely needs a new look!!

So, there you are…

As a result of a massive thunderstorm in early June; this site, along with all the other sites and applications on my webserver, went down and despite my best efforts from about 4000 miles away (I was in Hungary), I was unable to restore the site until about 2-3 days ago.

The problem was caused by an error in the management operating system of my Hyper-V Server which stopped it from rebooting successfully. As a result, all the Virtual Machines on that Hyper-V Server could not run and that included both the database and the webserver.

I have now reinstalled the webserver and as you can see, we are now back in business!

I have now installed new UPS systems to hopefully prevent a repeat occurrence and I will soon be a building a new Hyper-V Server box so that I have full physical redundancy.

Please accept my sincerely apologies of the non-availability for almost two months of this site, www.tech-crm.com and www.ordersofbattle.com.

I have made some changes to the database of the Orders of Battle website and as a result the Unit Corps and Unit Force tabs are no longer working because the current version of the website is expecting the deleted column to exist.

I have modified the website source code to account for this, but I cannot deploy it right now because IIS has an issue with a third party dll that my web site uses - although this dll is new and is not in the production version. I am currently editing the code to remove references to this dll and if that solves the problem, then I will be able to deploy a new version of the site.

As a result, research has taken a back seat. However, I have finally finished my research on 1 Battalion The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders of Canada. I still have to complete the input of the Unit History records for 1944-45 but then I will be done. I will finish this once I have fixed the website.

I have also started work on building a new redesign of the site using MVC Architecture in ASP.NET, but this is still in the very early stages as MVC is very new to me, so it will take some time.

I am currently working in Hungary so I do not expect to be doing any photography at the National Archives in Ottawa any time soon, however I have plenty of research material to keep me going.

I know this is a bit late, but I just returned home yesterday from two weeks holiday in Spain which was wonderful.

Regular service to follow soon.

I was able to complete the following units:

• 1 Le Regiment de Montmagny
• 1 Le Regiment de Quebec
• 1 Le Regiment de St Hyacinthe
• 3 Les Fusiliers du Mont-Royal
• 1 The Royal Rifles of Canada
• 1 The Royal Winnipeg Rifles
• 1 The Princess Louise Fusiliers

I was able to make a start on the following units

• 1 Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry
• 4 Canadian Infantry Brigade

So, it was a productive weekend!

Given that Montreal and Ottawa are not too far distant, I was able to renew my acquaintance with the National Archives in Ottawa last weekend and photograph another 15 boxes of War Diaries of various Canadian Battalions.

I was able to finish the following units:

• 1 Battalion The Dufferin and Haldimand Rifles
• 1 Battalion The Alginquin Regiment
• 1 Battalion The Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment
• The Quebec Arsenal protection Company
• 1 Canadian Garrison Battalion (1943)
• 1 Battalion The Edmonton Fusiliers
• 1 Battalion The Brockville Rifles

as well as do some of the following:

• 1 The Calgary Highlanders
• two 1945 Canadian Army Pacific Force Battalions
• several (I will have to check which) Canadian Garrison Battalions from 1945

So, all in all, it was a productive weekend.

On other fronts, I have been rather slack and am still working on interpreting the War Diary of 1 Battalion The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders of Canada (I am now up to December 1944! Slow but sure!).

I have completed 2 Panzer Division and have input the commanders and staff of 3 Panzer Division.

I have completed my coding and database key changes and they are all working well. I am now working on resolving an issue in the replication of Unit History records which has a bit of a glitch. While I am resolving this, I am using SQL Examiner to keep the databases in sync. 

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As I am in Seattle still, I do not have the opportunity to spend time at the National Archives in Ottawa, but I hope that I will be able to return to Ottawa in the not so distant future. In the meantime I have plenty of material to work on.

I am still working on the component units of 2 Panzer Division and hope to be complete soon.

On the UK Regimental front, I am working my way through the battalions of the Durham Light Infantry.

On the US side, I have input some information on 24 and 25 Infantry Divisions, but as they served in the Pacific, I do not have the same level of information as on those divisions that served in North West Europe. 

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