Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/A-Class review

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Instructions

Requesting a review

To request the first A-Class review of an article:

1. Please double-check the MILHIST A-class criteria and ensure that the article meets most or all of the five (a good way of ensuring this is to put the article through a good article nomination or a peer review beforehand, although this is not mandatory).
2. If there has been a previous A-Class nomination of the article, before re-nominating the article the old nomination page must be moved to Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Name of nominated article/archive1 to make way for the new nomination page.
3. Add A-Class=current to the {{WPMILHIST}} project banner at the top of the article's talk page (e.g. immediately after the class= or list= field).
4. From there, click on the "currently undergoing" link that appears in the template (below the "Additional information" section header). This will open a page pre-formatted for the discussion of the status of the article.
5. List your reason for nominating the article in the appropriate place, and save the page.
6. Add {{Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Name of nominated article}} at the top of the list of A-Class review requests below.
7. Refresh the article's talk page's cache by following these steps. (This is so that the article's talk page "knows" that the A-class review page has actually been created. It can also be accomplished in the 2010 wikitext editor by opening the page in edit mode and then clicking "save" without changing anything, i.e. making a "null edit". )
8. Consider reviewing another nominated article (or several) to help with any backlog (note: this is not mandatory, but the process does not work unless people are prepared to review. A good rule of thumb is that each nominator should try to review at least three other nominations as that is, in effect, what each nominator is asking for themselves. This should not be construed to imply QPQ).

Restrictions

1. An article may be nominated a second (or third, and so forth) time, either because it failed a prior nomination or because it was demoted and is now ready for re-appraisal. There is no limit on how quickly renominations of failed articles may be made; it is perfectly acceptable to renominate as soon as the outstanding objections from the previous nomination have been satisfied.
2. There are no formal limits to how many articles a single editor can nominate at any one time; however, editors are encouraged to be mindful not to overwhelm the system. A general rule of thumb is no more than three articles per nominator at one time, although it is not a hard-and-fast rule and editors should use their judgement in this regard.
3. An article may not be nominated for an A-Class review and be a Featured article candidate, undergoing a Peer Review, or have a Good article nomination at the same time.

Commenting

The Milhist A-Class standard is deliberately set high, very close to featured article quality. Reviewers should therefore satisfy themselves that the article meets all of the A-Class criteria before supporting a nomination. If needed, a FAQ page is available. As with featured articles, any objections must be "actionable"; that is, capable of rectification.

If you are intending to review an article but not yet ready to post your comments, it is suggested that you add a placeholder comment. This lets other editors know that a review is in progress. This could be done by creating a comment or header such as "Reviewing by Username" followed by your signature. This would be added below the last text on the review page. When you are ready to add comments to the review, strike out the placeholder comment and add your review. For instance, strike out "reviewing" and replace it with "comments" eg:

Comments Reviewing by Username

Add your comments after the heading you have created. Once comments have been addressed by the nominator you may choose to support or oppose the nomination's promotion to A-class by changing the heading:

Support / Oppose Comments reviewing by Username

If you wish to abstain from either decision, you may indicate that your comments have been addressed or not addressed. For instance:

Comments Reviewing by Username addressed / not addressed

This makes it easy for the nominator and closer to identify the status of your review. You may also wish to add a closing statement at the end of your comments. When a nominator addresses a comment, this can be marked as {{done}} or {{resolved}}, or in some other way. This makes it easy to keep track of progress, although it is not mandatory.

Requesting a review to be closed

A nominator may request the review be closed at any time if they wish to withdraw it. This can be done by listing the review at ACRs for closure, or by pinging an uninvolved co-ord. For a review to be closed successfully, however, please ensure that it has been open a minimum of five days, that all reviewers have finalised their reviews and that the review has a minimum of at least three supports, a source review and an image review. The source review should focus on whether the sources used in the article are reliable and of high quality, and in the case of a first-time nominator, spot-checking should also be conducted to confirm that the citations support the content. Once you believe you have addressed any review comments, you may need to contact some of the reviewers to confirm if you have satisfied their concerns.

After A-Class

You may wish to consider taking your article to featured article candidates for review. Before doing so, make sure you have addressed any suggestions that might have been made during the A-class review, that were not considered mandatory for promotion to A-class. It can pay to ask the A-class reviewers to help prepare your article, or you may consider sending it to peer review or to the Guild of Copy Editors for a final copy edit.

Demotion

If an editor feels that any current A-class article no longer meet the standards and may thus need to be considered for demotion (i.e. it needs a re-appraisal) please leave a message for the project coordinators, who will be happy to help.

A-Class review/reappraisal closure instructions for coordinators
	A-Class review		A-Class reappraisal
Closure takes place after minimum of five days	Pass • at least 3 comprehensive supports and • no outstanding criteria-based objections	Fail • less than 3 comprehensive supports or • outstanding criteria-based objections or • no consensus	Keep • clear consensus to keep or • no consensus	Demote • clear consensus to demote
{{WPMILHIST}} on article talk page	• Change A-Class=current to A-Class=pass	• Change A-Class=current to A-Class=fail	• Change A-Class=current to A-Class=kept	• Change A-Class=current to A-Class=demoted • Reassess article and record new class
The MilHistBot will take care of the details. For detailed advice and manual procedure instructions see the full Academy course.

Current reviews

Please add new requests below this line

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Battle of Arkansas Post (1863)

Instructions for nominators and reviewers

Nominator(s): Hog Farm (talk)

Battle of Arkansas Post (1863) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Vicksburg-related, but a bit off the beaten path. In late 1862, Union political general John A. McClernand convinced Lincoln to allow him to recruit troops and then take that force down the Mississippi River to operate against Vicksburg. Neither Grant nor Henry Halleck (the Union general in chief) particularly trusted McClernand, so they engaged in some machinations that resulted in Sherman taking command of McClernand's force and leading it downriver while McClernand was still in Illinois. By the time McClernand is able to rejoin the army, Sherman had already been repulsed at Chickasaw Bayou. Indepedently, Sherman and McClernand had decided to reduce the pesky Confederate position at Arkansas Post, also known as Fort Hindman. There is a meeting with Admiral Porter, who also loathed McClernand, and the force is off up the Arkansas River. The Union forces began landing on January 9, 1863, formed into position the next day, and a combined naval bombardment and land assault occurred on January 11. Surrender flags began to appear over parts of the Confederate line in uncertain and unathorized circumstances, and after a confusing set of events, the Confederates surrendered. Grant did not approve of the operation (although Sherman and Porter later changed his mind) and ordered McClernand back to the Mississippi River. Grant took command from McClernand on January 30, setting the stage for the better known stages of the Vicksburg campaign. Hog Farm _Talk 02:43, 3 January 2025 (UTC) « Return to A-Class review list

Battle of Meligalas

Instructions for nominators and reviewers

Nominator(s): Ashmedai 119 (talk)

Battle of Meligalas (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

This article was translated from Greek Wikipedia, where it is a FA, a while ago from Cplakidas, the undersigned having been the editor who contributed most to its original version. It has passed a GA review, without many critical comments from the reviewer. I am nominating this article for A-Class review, because I think it fulfills the A-Class criteria and I would also greatly appreciate comments by encyclopedia editors who have concerned themselves with military matters, hoping that there will be improvements that will eventually lead the article to being a Featured Article. Ashmedai 119 (talk) 08:59, 2 January 2025 (UTC) « Return to A-Class review list

USS Varuna (1861)

Instructions for nominators and reviewers

Nominator(s): Hog Farm (talk)

USS Varuna (1861) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

My first nomination here since I nominated CSS General Earl Van Dorn back in May. Varuna was being constructed as a merchant ship when the US military bought the unfinished vessel for use on the blockade during the war. At the Battle of Forts Jackson and St. Philip, Varuna got ahead of the other Union ships and was involved in a bloody fight with Governor Moore, a gunboat operated by the state of Louisiana. Governor Moore rammed Varuna twice, and a third blow from another Confederate vessel (sources disagree as to which one) was enough to sink her. Clive Cussler found her remains in the 1980s, by then mostly under the riverbank. Hog Farm _Talk 03:04, 25 December 2024 (UTC) « Return to A-Class review list

AN/APS-20

Instructions for nominators and reviewers

Nominator(s): Simongraham (talk)

AN/APS-20 (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

I am nominating this article for A-Class review because I feel both that it meets the criteria and the topic of radars have insufficient coverage in the encyclopedia. The article passed a GA review some time ago so hopefully it is now ready for promotion. simongraham (talk) 01:37, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

Hawkeye7

Looks fine to me. Some suggestions:

• "At the same time, 31 large Boeing PB-1W aircraft were converted from B-17G Flying Fortresses to become the first land-based aircraft equipped with the radar. They were especially designed to combat the increasing threat of Japanese Kamikaze attacks" Are the Flying Fortresses or the Avengers the ones designed to meet the Kamikazes? The latter seems more likely to me. (Although I checked the details of Project Cadillac II with Airborne Early Warning and Control: A Piece of the Puzzle (pp. 12-13) and it does seem right.) I would separate them, as all the rest of the paragraph is about the Avenger and Cadillac II is already mentioned in the Design and development section above, so maybe you don't need to mention it here at all.
• This source also talks about the limitations of the radar. "The APS-20 gave a bearing to the target, but could not determine the exact altitude of the target, so its radar ‘fix’ was two dimensional. The target might be at low, medium or high altitude... Another limitation of the APS-20 was that it did not perform well over land. The radar could not pick out low flying aircraft from the ‘ground clutter’ of trees, hills and moving land vehicles."
• There is still a dubious-discuss tag
• The aircraft are not listed in alphabetical order - F comes after D
• What were Warning Stars?
• Link authors Norman Friedman and Norman Polmar

Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:50, 31 December 2024 (UTC) « Return to A-Class review list

SMS Berlin

Instructions for nominators and reviewers

Nominator(s): Parsecboy (talk)

SMS Berlin (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

After quite a bit of time away from formal review processes, I'm getting back into it (I think we both know you missed seeing the stream of German warships passing through ACR). Berlin had an interesting career across three German navies, and was one of the few larger ships to survive World War II (though simply as a barracks ship). Thanks for taking the time to review the article! Parsecboy (talk) 12:30, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

HF

I'll review this over the coming week. Hog Farm _Talk 03:10, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

• As a bit of a comprehensiveness check, I've consulted Halpern's A Naval History of World War I and the only information about Berlin in that work is already well-represented in this article (towing the torpedoed Munchen)
• Infobox says she was recommissioned on 1 August 1914 but the body says 17 August 1914. Is the infobox just missing the second digit?
  • Yeah, just a typo
• "when he was briefly replaced by KL Hans Walther" - the rank abbreviation KL is never given its full name in the article
  • Good catch
• " and she was transferred to Wilhelmshaven, where she was decommissioned on 10 June " - had she ever be recommissioned after the 1917 decommissioning?
  • Not until 1922, as far as I'm aware
    • I see what's going on how - I had missed "had decided to reactivate the vessel to serve as a training ship for naval cadets" in the preceding sentence. Hog Farm _Talk 21:01, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
• I would recommend in long place names lists such as "She visited Ponta Delgada, Hamilton, Bermuda, Port au Prince, Haiti, Colón, Venezuela, Puerto Madryn, Argentina, Guayaquil, Ecuador, Callao, Peru, and several ports in Chile, including Valparaiso, Corral, Talcahuano, and Punta Arenas" to consider ending each individual City, Country name with a semicolon instead of a comma, such as Port au Prince, Haiti; - I think this is recommended at time for lists containing indiviudal items with commas within them to make it clearer which sets in the list are individual items
  • Good catch - I wrote this article a few years ago before I knew that was a thing
• The infobox says she was scuttled in 1947, is this an error for 1946 which is what the body and lead have? The article is also in a category for maritime incidents in 1947
  • 1947 is a commonly cited date (presumably originating with Groener, which is also where the claim that she was used to dispose of chemical weapons originated), but Dodson & Cant correct it - apparently when I updated the article with their book a few months ago, I forgot to fix the infobox.

I think that's it from me. Hog Farm _Talk 04:11, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for your review! Parsecboy (talk) 15:23, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Looks good; supporting. Hog Farm _Talk 21:01, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

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Project Pluto

Instructions for nominators and reviewers

Nominator(s): Hawkeye7 (talk)

Project Pluto (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Introducing one of Wikipedia's stranger articles, an artifact of the Golden Age of Mad Science, which ran from roughly 1945 to 1970. It was fun to write. The project aimed to use a nuclear engine in a supersonic cruise missile. It would operate at Mach 3, or around 3,700 kilometres per hour, be invulnerable to interception by contemporary air defenses, and carry up to sixteen with nuclear weapons with yields of up to 10 megatonnes of TNT. What could possible go wrong? Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:21, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

Support from Gog the Mild

Marking a spot. This will probably be a bit episodic. Nudge me if I seem to have forgotten about it. Gog the Mild (talk) 20:11, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

• "The need to maintain supersonic speed ... meant that the reactor had to survive high temperatures and intense radiation." I can see how "The need to maintain supersonic speed at low altitude and in all kinds of weather meant that the reactor had to survive high temperatures and intense radiation" but why should the low altitude and the kind of weather raise the reactor temperature and radiation levels? Similarly in the main article.

  Y Added an explanation. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:19, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Nice.

• The second half of "Development" is probably not in summary enough nor non-technical enough terms for FAC, but it scrapes by my personal ACR threshold.

Down to "Test facilities" and so far it is an excellent read with very little to pick at. Gog the Mild (talk) 20:54, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

• "the binder was burned out by heating them to 820 °C". Either 'binders were' or 'heating it'.

  Y Tweaked to make it clear that we are still talking about the tubes. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:19, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

• "and the air from them used was passed through filters." This is a little unclear, should it be 'the used air from them'?

  Y Changed as suggested. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:19, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

• "were accessible through opening that were normally covered with lead plates". A missing s?

  Y Added 's'. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:19, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

• "It also contained a maintenance service pit and battery charger for locomotive." '... the locomotive[s]' ?

  Y Added 's' Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:19, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

• "Issues that had been ignored in Tory II-A had to be resolved in that of Tory II-C." "that of", what of?

  Y The design. Re-worded. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:19, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

• "the shim rods scrammed". Could we have an in line explanation of scram at first use; it is a specialist usage.

  Y Linked to scram.

Bleh! You wouldn't get away with that at FAC.

• "equivalent to $1,953 million in 2023". Just a thought '$2 bn'?

  Changed to "2,000 million"; is that okay? $2 billion would be trickier with the template. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:19, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

It will do. You don't have to use the converter "in line". You could insert "$2 billion" by hand and keep the same cite.

That's it from me. Gog the Mild (talk) 16:01, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Matarisvan

Hi, ran the IA Bot on the page, will post my comments soon. Matarisvan (talk) 16:37, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

@Matarisvan: - Are you still hoping to review this? It would be the last needed review for this one barring the source review. Hog Farm _Talk 23:29, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

HF - support

I'll try to review this one first and then McCain. Hog Farm _Talk 02:24, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

• Does the R Division stand for "Rocket Division", or does it have some less obvious significance?

  Yes. This was the usual practice at LLNL. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 12:00, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

• "It would carry sixteen nuclear warheads with nuclear weapon yields of up to 10 megatonnes of TNT (42 PJ) each" - I don't think this is quite right. The text of the source reads It could carry more nuclear weapons, and larger weapons if desired, than a Polaris submarine, which has a normal complement of sixteen missiles each with a warhead of under ten megatons. In the source, the count of sixteen missiles appears to be a reference to what was on the Polaris submarine. Our article at Submarine-launched ballistic missile does mention the early US nuclear missile subs carrying sixteen warheads. Elsewhere in the source, it mentions the rockets potentially carrying dozens of smaller nuclear warheads

  You're quite right. Re-worded. (You may also be concerned at how few warheads a submarine has. Fear not! A modern Trident has up to 24 missiles, each carrying up to eight warheads, although fewer are usually carried.) Hawkeye7 (discuss) 12:00, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

• Can it be clarified more what a MW-day is? The MW is megawatt, but I'm struggling to figure out what that would signify? Enough fuel to produce one megawatt of energy continually for a day?

  Yes. It is actually a unit of energy. A million joules per second each day. As the fuel is burned up in the reactor, power generation will fall off. We can offset this effect by ... never mind. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 12:00, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

• "The uranium was in the form of oralloy: uranium enriched to 93.2 percent uranium-235)." - I'm not seeing where the accompanying open parenthesis is

  Deleted. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 12:00, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

• Is it relevant to briefly explain what Tory III would have been?

  My understanding is that Tory III was an improved version, but was still in the design phase when the project was cancelled. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 12:00, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

I think that's it from me. Hog Farm _Talk 03:55, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

Image review

• File:Tory-IIC at Jackass flats.jpg - source link no longer works
• File:Pluto-SLAM.png - source link no longer works and there needs to be some way to verify that this artist's impression is actually accurate

  Added archive links. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 12:00, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

  Except the archive link is for an article from 2021, while this file was uploaded in 2012. It looks like that archived website just took the file from Wikipedia. Also - is there any way to have a source that verifies that the artist's impression is actually an accurate depiction of the missile? Is Greg Goebel who made the image someone who is known in this field? Hog Farm _Talk 17:02, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

  Oops, wrong link; replaced with a different archive reference. I did not add this image to the article. Greg Goebel is a prolific author of books about US bombers and missiles. See [1]. The image looks correct; compare with those at Vought (I think that is where I got the sixteen warheads figure from.) But I have doubts about its copyright status. Replaced with a NASA image. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:07, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

The other images seem fine. Hog Farm _Talk 04:06, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

Support on the content review and pass on the image review. Hog Farm _Talk 23:29, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

Current reassessments

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