Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/British logistics in the Western Allied invasion of Germany/archive1
- The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.
The article was promoted by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 9 July 2023 [1].
British logistics in the Western Allied invasion of Germany[edit]
The concluding article in the series on British logistics in the campaign in North West Europe in 1944-1945, taking the story down to the conclusion of the war in Europe. (Its American counterpart is still in the works.) For some reason the campaigns of 1945 has not been covered in the literature or the Wikipedia nearly as well as those of 1944. Once again though, I have uncovered some striking images and maps and high quality sources. The article has recently passed an A class review. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 04:01, 13 May 2023 (UTC)
- @Nick-D: I added the extra section you requested in the A class review. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:19, 13 May 2023 (UTC)
Ling[edit]
- Current note 7, Ruppenthal 1953, pp. 475–478: "when the American Operation Cobra broke through the German defences west of Saint-Lô". Perhaps I'm missing something. I don't see it.
- Ruppenthal 1953, p. 475: "Postponed for a week because of unfavorable weather, Operation COBRA as finally launched on 25 July. Following an air bombardment on an unprecedented scale, the heavily reinforced VII Corps (four infantry and two armored divisions) initiated the offensive on a narrow front between Périers and St. Lô... By 31 July the Americans had captured both Granville and Avranches, thus unhinging the enemy’s left flank and opening the door into Brittany." Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:53, 13 May 2023 (UTC)
- Current note 96, Payton-Smith 1971, p. 448: " By this time the system consisted of 1,811 kilometres (1,125 mi) of pipelines and storage tanks with a capacity of 104,770 tonnes (103,120 long tons)" Perhaps I'm missing something. I don't see it. § Lingzhi (talk) 07:58, 13 May 2023 (UTC)
- refs look nice. I request a spot check. § Lingzhi (talk|check refs) 15:19, 31 May 2023 (UTC)
Support from Gog the Mild[edit]
Recusing to review. I had a look at this at ACR and will see what else I can find.
- The caption "Map of Operation Goldflake" will be unenlightening for almost all readers.
- Do you have a suggestion? I realise that it says that on the image but it would be informative to a reader wuith the images turned off. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:18, 13 May 2023 (UTC)
- Maybe 'Map of Operation Goldflake - the transfer of Allied units from Italy to Belgium'?
- Do you have a suggestion? I realise that it says that on the image but it would be informative to a reader wuith the images turned off. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:18, 13 May 2023 (UTC)
- Could we have the OCLC for Stacey? (317352926)
- I remembered tracking it down for one of mine.
- "They were augmented by 1,891 and 1,446 anti-aircraft guns and anti-tank guns." Is that 1,891 AA and AT guns from the 2nd army or 1,891 AA guns?
- "the British Second Army burned 7,600 tonnes (7,500 long tons) of petrol a day". If this is written in UKVar, should that not be 'burnt'?
More to follow. Gog the Mild (talk) 22:30, 13 May 2023 (UTC)
- "A new base was developed around Brussels". As this is the first mention of bases it may be helpful to make that 'A new supply base was developed around Brussels'?
- "Petrol was brought in tankers and over the Operation Pluto pipeline." In the lead you specify that these were from the UK.
- "Eisenhower ordered Montgomery to resume his preparations for Operation Veritable". A date would be helpful.
More to follow. Gog the Mild (talk) 17:22, 14 May 2023 (UTC)
- "a bulk petrol transport company, a petrol depot, a bridge company". The terminology may be correct, but "a petrol depot" sounds more like physical infrastructure than a unit, and is used in that sense elsewhere.
- Optional: Maybe some footnotes explaining what some things were or did? Eg detail issue depot; FIDO.
- Nicholson (1956): The pdf link is broken.
- "where there was 51,000 tonnes (50,000 long tons) of storage capacity. Antwerp had 300,000 tonnes (300,000 long tons) of POL storage". It seems odd that different conversions of the same thing are to different levels of accuracy.
- Tweaked the template to avoid this.
- Could things like section, platoon, company etc be linked at first mention.
- "followed by daily deliveries of 14,000 litres (3,000 imp gal) per day." One of "daily" or "per day" is arguably redundant.
- "he rest returned to the War Office for disposal ... stocks remaining in the RMA were transferred to the control of the War Office." Is this duplication?
- "The 17th and 19th Line of Communications Sub Area". Should "Area" be plural?
- "an additional 1,471 rounds in addition to the". Can anything be done about "an additional ... in addition ..."?
- "Road maintenance was made especially difficult by the winter weather." Personally I would delete "especially".
- "were normally stocked on a commodity basis". Which means?
- "It did not remove the need from road transport entirely though". Should "from" be 'for'?
- "Some of the ammunition that had earlier been dumped was to be made inaccessible by flood waters." Delete "to be"?
- "It would also free transport to support a rapid advance." Possibly a reminder of what "it" is, and why/how would it free transport?
- "18,000 tonnes (18,000 long tons) of POL, 5,100 tonnes (5,000 long tons) of supplies, 30,000 tonnes (30,000 long tons) of engineer stores and 5,500 tonnes (5,400 long tons)". Differing levels of accuracy again.
- What is the "seaborne tail" of an airborne division?
- "the sole class 70 route (ie one capable of carrying loads of up to 70 tonnes (69 long tons))". I had thought that a class 70 route could carry up to 70 long tons. No?
- Yes. Corrected. Actually it is more complicated. During World War I the British came up with this to address the recurring problem of vehicles that were too heavy for bridges they tried to drive over. Rather than ask the troops to do a calculation each time, they had an engineer do it and slap a sign on the bridge. Then they put one on all the vehicles. All you had to do was match them up to see if your vehicle could cross. However other factors come into play when it comes to vehicles, so these were taken into account to produce the NATO Military Load Classification that we have today. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:59, 16 May 2023 (UTC)
- " Each man crossing the Rhine was issued with a 24-hour ration, an emergency ration, a tin of preserved meat, a tin of self-heating soup or cocoa, a packet of biscuits and a tommy cooker with six hexamine tablets." This reads as if the "tin of preserved meat, a tin of self-heating soup or cocoa, a packet of biscuits and a tommy cooker with six hexamine tablets" were in addition to the two rations. Just checking that that is what you wanted to say.
- Yes, in addition to the rations. Tried to make this clearer. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:59, 16 May 2023 (UTC)
- The 24-hour rat pack contained ten hard biscuits, two oatmeal blocks, a meat block, three slabs of chocolate, four boiled lollies, two packets of gum, and two tea-sugar-milk blocks, each capable of brewing a pint of tea using the tommy cooker. So you would share your tea with a mate. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:34, 17 May 2023 (UTC)
- Yes, in addition to the rations. Tried to make this clearer. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:59, 16 May 2023 (UTC)
- "baulk": I thought the usual UK spelling was balk.
- "ammunition that had been pre-loaded on some of the transport that had been allocated by". "that had been ... that had been"?
- "the 1944-1945 harvest". This seems an odd phrase; what gets harvested during winter?
- "21st Army Group organised the effort to get the coal industry working again." Should that be 'The 21st Army Group ...'?
Gog the Mild (talk) 13:19, 17 May 2023 (UTC)
CommentsSupport by PM[edit]
G'day Hawkeye, great to see this series continue. As few comments from me:
- Lead
- suggest "the British and Canadian forces employed mechanisation and materiel to maximum effect during combat operations.
- is there a link that could be used for medium artillery?
- introduce and link Montgomery
- link Second Army and first mention (and unlink second mention) and link Ninth Army
- link engineer and pioneer
More to come. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 06:15, 10 June 2023 (UTC)
- Background
- suggest "Once opened, Antwerp had sufficient port capacity..."
- suggest "and the importation of additional locomotives"
- what civilians were employed by 21st Army Group at the base? Locally employed or British etc?
- The Rhineland Campaign – 6–10 March 1945 map seems oddly placed, given the Background section doesn't really address the Rhineland campaign and is largely focused on the situation at the end of 1944.
- the mention of the US forces placed under Monty's command begs the question of where their logistics came from. Worth mentioning here whether or not the Brits had to provide any logistic support to them, or whether that remained a US responsibility.
More to come. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 01:04, 11 June 2023 (UTC)
- Operation Goldflake
- initial cap for 21st army Group
- it would read better if you introduced the BSD, fd bakeries etc and relevant initialisations, then expanded on each in the same order, using the initialisation after they have been introduced, and continue that for the rest of the para. No need to introduce the initialisations twice.
- suggest reversing the order of the personnel and vehicles accommodation in Marseilles, it would be clearer.
More to come Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 07:19, 12 June 2023 (UTC)
- Development of the LOC
- suggest explaining what bulk and packaged POL are when discussing capacity
- do fn 40 and 39 need to be out of numerical order?
- suggest "a three platoon company" not another, as the others have been converted by this stage.
- suggest explaining where the barges operated. I may have missed this earlier, so perhaps this is not the place, but it needs to be explained at the first point barges are mentioned as a means of transport.
More to come. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 22:56, 12 June 2023 (UTC)
- Operation Veritable
- suggest "including some that
waswere" - I am not sure I understand pepperpot tactics as practiced with AT and AA guns. Both are essentially direct-fire weapons, and what seems to be described here seems to be indirect fire?
- They can be used that way. The idea was simply to generate enough fire. As an aside, somebody in the Australian Army thought that it would be a great idea to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Battle of El Alamein in 1952 by duplicating the pepperpot. According to my father, nine miles of guns were assembled at Puckapunyal, and when they fired, the resulting shock wave blew out windows as far away as Seymour. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 10:09, 15 June 2023 (UTC)
- suggest sticking a nbsp between XXX and Corps, and in general, to avoid line breaks. Same for "No. 167" and similar.
- "which required 64,000 tonnes (63,000 long tons)" of gravel?
- "taken from the formations" which formations?
- suggest moving comma as follows: "No. 167 FMC established by the XXX Corps, which"
- suggest linking Grave, Netherlands and Mook en Middelaar at first mention in the article.
More to come. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 08:14, 15 June 2023 (UTC)
- Operation Plunder
- remind the reader when Antwerp port opened, as this was related quite a long distance above, suggest "With Antwerp open from late September..."
- suggest one of 14 days→margin of 14 days
- already being shipped at the maximum rate? What was the limiting factor? Manufacturing?
- 7.2-inch howitzers
- suggest "two 8-inch howitzers fired 176 rounds"
- suggest "employed forty eight 3.7-inch anti-aircraft guns"
- so the 22,000 US engineers were supporting the British crossing? But logistically supported by the US?
- should Navy be navy when not the Royal navy in full?
- suggest linking pier (architecture) and abutment
- 4,000 tank transporters for 662 tanks? Is that a typo?
- suggest "Meanwhile, the class 40 Bailey pontoon bridge at Xanten" dropping the second comma
- suggest "class 15 Bailey pontoon bridge named/designated "Lambeth"" and similar for the others, as it is a bit confusing, making it seem like it is a Lambeth-class bridge, if you know what I mean?
- suggest "The second class 40 Bailey pontoon bridge" dropping the comma
- suggest "At Rees, steel-piled" inserting a comma
More to come. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 08:59, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
- Beyond the Rhine
- in "grounding artillery and armoured units", this is an odd use of "grounding" IMHO, which is generally used for air units. Could an alternative be used?
- could "and the corps started drawing from it on 9 April" be clearer (assuming it is being used in the plural here)? all three corps etc?
- could fns [100][99] be re-ordered without losing anything?
- wasn't PWX the PW Executive Branch of SHAEF? Perhaps XPW is preferable as an initialisation?
- How odd. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me)
More to come. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 10:55, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
- Post-war
- "Director-General of Civil
aAffairs"? - " Arrangements were made"?
- Outcome
- "He had to do so without incurring excessive casualties in order to" doesn't really follow. Why were limited casualties important to a prominent British role?
- Other comments
- there are a few ndashs needed to replace hyphens in page ranges of the footnotes to (pp=339–340 of Carter & Kann), and an instance of an ndash needed for "1944–1945 agricultural season"
- the OCLC for Ridgway is 1084199521
Otherwise, all good from my perspective. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 19:50, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
- Great stuff, Hawkeye, very pleased to add my support. Excellent article. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 22:45, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
Comment by Askedonty[edit]
Hi; really an article I appreciate - however:
- The sentence "By January 1945, some 90,000 civilians were employed.." needs to be time-shifted back to 1944, otherwise rewrited.
- That same situation was already true at British logistics in the Siegfried Line campaign, so that there the sentence might emerge for 1944.
- It's the two different dates associated with the same data in two different articles that's giving me headaches - if I'm that kind of reader, acceeding the two articles in sequence for whatever reason . That reader needs to know that reading those is not a reserved privilege of the imperturbable ( if I wanted to suggest him that maybe yes it is, I probably would play on the placement of an already - and preferably otherwise in fact as the word could be removed after someone considered it superfluous. ) --Askedonty (talk) 13:45, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
- P.S. Now that I see that the sentence notably features in the lede (in Siegfried.. ) I see it much less of a problem, except that, problematic removals remain possible there too. --Askedonty (talk) 14:30, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
Cheers --Askedonty (talk) 08:24, 10 June 2023 (UTC);
SC[edit]
Placeholder for now. - SchroCat (talk) 13:05, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
- General
- You should have a spin over to ensure you're consistent in your conversions. For half the distances you have 320 kilometres (200 mi) and half you have 400 miles (640 km). Prob best if you have them all the same (your call as to which). Ditton on tonnes / long tons, which swap around a little
- I've done another pass through the conversions and they should all be okay now. Note that the MOS calls for inconsistency: MOS:METRIC:
in non-scientific articles with strong ties to the United Kingdom, the primary units for most quantities are metric or other internationally used units, except that: ... the primary units for distance/length, speed and fuel consumption are miles, miles per hour, and miles per imperial gallon
Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:22, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
- I've done another pass through the conversions and they should all be okay now. Note that the MOS calls for inconsistency: MOS:METRIC:
- Lead
- "Petrol, oil and lubricants (POL)": As POL isn't used again in the lead, you don't need the abbreviation here.
- Ditto for LCM and LCVP
- Background
- "The 21st Army Group (Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery) and consisted of the First Canadian Army (General Harry Crerar) and the Second Army (Lieutenant General Sir Miles Dempsey)." This sentence doesn't make sense to me
- "over the Operation Pluto pipeline": through, rather than over?
- Operation Goldflake
- "It had a supply section and a POL section": needs the full description of petrol, oil and lubricants here and not at the beginning of Development of the line of communications section
Done to the start of Operation Veritable; more to come. - SchroCat (talk) 14:56, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
- Operation Veritable
- "First Canadian Army, which was built up to 449,865 personnel ... its ration strength was 476,193": it's a suggestion rather than anything else, but for the non-military minded, you may want to think about a footnote to explain the difference between "449,865 personnel" and a "ration strength" of 476,193 (either clarifying the terminology, or explaining the 25k difference)
- Already added in the Operation Goldflake section. "At this time the ration strength of the 21st Army Group (which also counts civilians and prisoners of war being fed by the army as well as the troops) was around 1.2 million" Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:22, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
- "corps's" - > corps' (twice)
- "48-hours notice" - > "48-hours' notice"
- Operation Plunder
- United States ... United Kingdom in the first para: per MOS:ACRO1STUSE these should be US and UK respectively
- I don't see that MOS:ACRO1STUSE requires them to be abbreviated at first use, just because it permits it. Gog the Mild (talk) 19:26, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
Done to the end of the war. - SchroCat (talk) 16:11, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
- Post-war
- "Civil affairs supplies": I'm not sure what these are and it's not a common term – maybe an explanation inline or footnote?
- Outcome
That's it. Excellent article and the above are minor niggles in the grand scheme of things: I hope they help. Cheers. - SchroCat (talk) 19:43, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
- Support on prose. I'm no expert on anything military, but from a layman's perspective this covers all I would want to see and more. Nicely explained for the non-expert too. Great work. Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 07:50, 28 June 2023 (UTC)
Image review—pass[edit]
- File:Troopers with a Sherman tank of the Ontario Regiment on a railway flatcar en route from Italy to Northwest Europe.jpg — no evidence of publication prior to 1972 as the license asserts. If it wasn't under crown copyright it would be ok as a photograph created before 1949, but I'm not sure what the copyright status would be if unpublished before 1972.
- Other licensing is ok
(t · c) buidhe 16:58, 5 July 2023 (UTC)
Source review[edit]
Sources are reliable as far as I can tell, not being an expert in the field.
- The title of Donnison (1961) appears to include "1944-1946", per the linked title page.
- The link for Nicholson (1956) takes me to a query page; it's not clear what I would have to do to find the PDF from there.
- Missing a period for Ruppenthal's middle initial for the 1953 source.
- Can we get a publisher location for Inglis (1945)?
-- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:17, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
- Fixes look good; pass. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 20:39, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
- Closing note: This candidate has been promoted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Ian Rose (talk) 20:14, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
- The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.