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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/British logistics in the Western Allied invasion of Germany/archive1

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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

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Nominator(s): Hawkeye7 (discuss) 04:01, 13 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

@Nick-D: I added the extra section you requested in the A class review. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:19, 13 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Ling

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  • 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)[reply]

Support from Gog the Mild

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Recusing to review. I had a look at this at ACR and will see what else I can find.

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?
    Aaagh no. Rewritten. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:18, 13 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • "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'?
    This is another one of those instances where the native speaker knows what is correct but cannot explain why. Both forms are usually acceptable in UK English, but they are not alternative spellings! They are pronounced very differently. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:18, 13 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

More to follow. Gog the Mild (talk) 22:30, 13 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

More to follow. Gog the Mild (talk) 17:22, 14 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • "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.
    It is a unit, and is only used in that sense in the article. I have added a footnote to describe its function. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:39, 15 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Optional: Maybe some footnotes explaining what some things were or did? Eg detail issue depot; FIDO.
    FIDO has its own article. But added some footnotes about the rest. Thinking about whether this would be better in the body. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:39, 15 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Decided to fold the footnotes in. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:34, 17 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Nicholson (1956): The pdf link is broken.
    Replaced the link. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:39, 15 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • "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.
    Linked. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:39, 15 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • "followed by daily deliveries of 14,000 litres (3,000 imp gal) per day." One of "daily" or "per day" is arguably redundant.
    Redundancy removed. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:39, 15 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • "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?
    Yes. Resolved. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:39, 15 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The 17th and 19th Line of Communications Sub Area". Should "Area" be plural?
    Yes. Corrected. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:39, 15 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • "an additional 1,471 rounds in addition to the". Can anything be done about "an additional ... in addition ..."?
    Re-worded. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:59, 16 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Road maintenance was made especially difficult by the winter weather." Personally I would delete "especially".
    Deleted. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:59, 16 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • "were normally stocked on a commodity basis". Which means?
    Re-worded to clarify that each stocked a particular commodity. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:59, 16 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • "It did not remove the need from road transport entirely though". Should "from" be 'for'?
    Yes. Corrected. Well spotted. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:59, 16 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Some of the ammunition that had earlier been dumped was to be made inaccessible by flood waters." Delete "to be"?
    Deleted. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:59, 16 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • "It would also free transport to support a rapid advance." Possibly a reminder of what "it" is, and why/how would it free transport?
    Expanded on this. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:59, 16 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • "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.
    Fiddled with the rounding. Note that the source uses different levels of precision. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:59, 16 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • What is the "seaborne tail" of an airborne division?
    Logistical support elements that travel by sea and road. Linked, added a few words, per the other article. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:59, 16 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • "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)[reply]
  • " 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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
  • "baulk": I thought the usual UK spelling was balk.
    That is the American spelling. The British spelling is "baulk". Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:59, 16 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • "ammunition that had been pre-loaded on some of the transport that had been allocated by". "that had been ... that had been"?
    Re-worded. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:34, 17 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • "the 1944-1945 harvest". This seems an odd phrase; what gets harvested during winter?
    re-worded, hewing more closely to the source. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:34, 17 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • "21st Army Group organised the effort to get the coal industry working again." Should that be 'The 21st Army Group ...'?
    Yes. Added. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:34, 17 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Gog the Mild (talk) 13:19, 17 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

CommentsSupport by PM

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G'day Hawkeye, great to see this series continue. As few comments from me:

Lead

More to come. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 06:15, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Background

More to come. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 01:04, 11 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Operation Goldflake

More to come Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 07:19, 12 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Development of the LOC
  • suggest explaining what bulk and packaged POL are when discussing capacity
    "Bulk" is defined as being in containers holding at least 450 litres or 400 kilograms. In practice, "packaged" means in jerry cans and 44-gallon drums. Added. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:56, 13 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • do fn 40 and 39 need to be out of numerical order?
    An artefact of the editing process. Reversed the footnotes. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:56, 13 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • suggest "a three platoon company" not another, as the others have been converted by this stage.
    Changed as suggested. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:56, 13 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • 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.
    The details appear in a later paragraph. Simply added that they were used on the canals. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:56, 13 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

More to come. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 22:56, 12 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Operation Veritable

More to come. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 08:14, 15 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Operation Plunder

More to come. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 08:59, 24 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Beyond the Rhine
How odd. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me)

More to come. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 10:55, 24 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Post-war
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?
    Tried to make this clearer. "Excessive casualties could reduce the size of the British force and hence its role and visibility." Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:53, 24 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Other comments

Otherwise, all good from my perspective. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 19:50, 24 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Great stuff, Hawkeye, very pleased to add my support. Excellent article. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 22:45, 24 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Askedonty

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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.
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)[reply]
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)[reply]

Cheers --Askedonty (talk) 08:24, 10 June 2023 (UTC);[reply]

SC

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Placeholder for now. - SchroCat (talk) 13:05, 27 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]
    That's fine - it was just that some lead with km, others with miles, so having them all leading with miles is best. - SchroCat (talk) 07:50, 28 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Lead
Background
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
    Moved up. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:22, 27 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Done to the start of Operation Veritable; more to come. - SchroCat (talk) 14:56, 27 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Operation Veritable
Operation Plunder

Done to the end of the war. - SchroCat (talk) 16:11, 27 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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?
    Linked to the article on the subject. Added a bit about the nature of the civil affairs supplies. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:22, 27 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]

  • 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)[reply]

Image review—pass

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  • 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.
    Bummer. There is a whole series of Crown copyright images of Goldflake [2], but no indication of if or when they were published. Removed the image. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:10, 5 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Other licensing is ok

(t · c) buidhe 16:58, 5 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Source review

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Sources are reliable as far as I can tell, not being an expert in the field.

-- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:17, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Fixes look good; pass. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 20:39, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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