Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Operation Goodwood (naval)/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 Laser brain via FACBot (talk) 13:58, 21 June 2015 [1].

Operation Goodwood (naval)[edit]

Nominator(s): Nick-D (talk) 01:38, 15 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Operation Goodwood was one of the British Royal Navy's largest operations of World War II, and one of its most embarrassing failures. A force centred around five aircraft carriers was dispatched in late August 1944 to repeatedly attack the German battleship Tirpitz at her anchorage in northern Norway. However, due to a combination of bad weather and the inadequate performance of the RN's main strike bomber all they achieved was to put a large dent in the roof of one of the battleship's turrets and strike her with another shoddily made bomb which failed to explode. Following the operation, the task of attacking Tirpitz was transferred to the Royal Air Force, which soon put her permanently out of action.

This article is the third and final in the trilogy of articles on RN carrier attacks against Tirpitz during 1944 I've developed (following on from Operation Tungsten and Operation Mascot, both of which have been assessed as FAs). It passed a GA review in July last year and a Military History Wikiproject A-class review in September. It has since been considerably expanded and copy edited, and I'm hopeful that it meets the FA criteria. Thank you in advance for your comments. Nick-D (talk) 01:38, 15 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comments. As always, feel free to revert my copyediting. - Dank (push to talk)

  • Support - I reviewed the article at A-class and my concerns were addressed there. Another read through did not reveal any additional issues. Great work, Nick. Parsecboy (talk) 12:53, 18 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Support Comments

  • The first raid (Operation Planet) was launched on 21 April but cancelled three days "launched" makes me think of aircraft taking off; perhaps "sortied" (with a link to sortie)? Same for the Tiger Claw usage, although perhaps a simple "began" might be appropriate.
    • That's a good point: I've tweaked the wording to "initiated" and "began" Nick-D (talk) 09:36, 25 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Perhaps "failed to" would read better than "did not"
    • I've swapped that in on a few of the occasions - this helps vary the text Nick-D (talk) 09:36, 25 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Link strafe
  • Shorten links to FAA squadrons to just their number after the first time the full title is spelled out. The list in the 2nd para of the Opposing Forces section is a bit monotonous.
    • Not sure about this to be honest - I've already shortened the links a bit, and NAS looks clunky. Leaving out the "Naval Air" bit also isn't consistent with the naming conventions for these units used in sources (just "squadron" is usually only applied to RAF units) Nick-D (talk) 09:36, 25 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
      • In my experience, RN-centric sources use just the number of the squadron, without spelling out Naval Air Squadron or using the abbreviation. I'd only worry about anything other than the number if you had to distinguish between RAF and FAA squadrons in the same article.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 14:43, 25 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
        • From re-checking the sources (and especially David Brown's Carrier Operations in World War II), you're correct and I was wrong; I've made this change Nick-D (talk) 11:32, 26 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Is there a link to Bukta?
  • I don't really think that you describe the flak suppression mission of some of the escorting fighters, so it was a bit of a surprise to read that flak crews had heavy losses.
    • Unfortunately the sources don't describe this in any detail at all. Nick-D (talk) 09:36, 25 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
      • Don't really need the detail, but you should mention a bit about the tactics employed during the attacks where some aircraft were dedicated flak suppressors, while other went straight for the Tirpitz. And talk about sequencing of the attacks, etc., so much as you can reconstruct from the sources.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 14:43, 25 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
      • I've added a bit more than this, but it's still not as detailed as I'd like - the sources barely mention the AA suppression aircraft, with the focus being on the aircraft which targeted Tirpitz (and even then the accounts are pretty brief). I imagine that the fighters used the same tactics as they did in Operation Mascot, with the planes making a single brief but well timed pass over Kaafjord ahead of the bombers, but no-one actually confirms this! Nick-D (talk) 11:32, 26 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Be sure to standardize your use of state/country in the publisher locations in the bibiliography.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 20:52, 24 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Almost forgot, link Fleet Air Arm.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 20:55, 24 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Image check - all OK

Support Comments

  • "German forces suffered the loss of 12 aircraft and damage to seven ships." – per MOS:NUMERAL, 'Comparable quantities should be all spelled out or all in figures'
  • "additional 20-millimetre (0.79 in) cannons, modifying the 150 mm guns so they could be used to attack aircraft, and supplying anti-aircraft shells for her 380-millimetre (15 in) main guns." – seems inconsistent to convert only two of the three measurements
  • "(including 5 armed with a 1,000-pound (450 kg) bomb)" – per MOS:BRACKET nested brackets should be of different types, usually square within round
  • "from altitudes between 5,000 feet (1,500 m) and 4,000 feet (1,200 m)" – doing the conversion as a range might read better, ie {{convert|5000|and|4000|ft|m}} → from altitudes between 5,000 and 4,000 feet (1,500 and 1,200 m)
      • I didn't know you could do that - fixed, and thanks for the tip Nick-D (talk) 11:28, 15 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • "a 1,600-pound armour-piercing weapon" – unit conversion?
    • Fixed
  • "eight fatalities and 18 men wounded" – per MOS:NUMERAL, 'Comparable quantities should be all spelled out or all in figures'
  • "Convoy JW59 completed its journey ... most of its ships ... It had been ... and its" – quite a few it/its in a short span, consider changing one or two to something else (perhaps 'the convoy')
  • "(of which 2 were armed with 1,000-pound bombs)" – unit conversion?
  • "...lack of effective aircraft–the Barracudas were too slow..." – per MOS:QUOTE#Typographic_conformity, dash should be either an unspaced em dash (aircraft—the Barracudas) or a spaced en dash (aircraft – the Barracudas)
  • In the infobox, under Casualties and losses, one side has "aircraft destroyed", the other just "aircraft"

Looking good otherwise - Evad37 [talk] 08:56, 14 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

  • Thanks a lot for your review Nick-D (talk) 11:28, 15 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I'm going to be out of town until this coming Thursday, and not able to monitor this FAC. Nick-D (talk) 10:52, 20 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

refs all formatted okay.
FN 50 - text faithful to source.
Many books I can't see relevant pages on google books, but Brown 2009 is ok.
Mark Llewellyn Evans ref checks out ok.
Zetterling refs check out ok.

Ok, all looks ok source-wise. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 13:07, 21 June 2015 (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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