Talk:Third Battle of Kharkov

Archive 1 (14 June 2006 - 19 May 2008)

Source for/Verification of Casualty figures etc · To an editor · First sentence · Third Battle of Kharkov · Casualties and strength

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Third Battle of Kharkov/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reference to number USSR Divisions is misleading and should be deleted.

A full strength WW2 German-USA-UK division was approx. 20000.

USSR divisions were smaller, and the USSR did not lose anywhere near 52 divisions worth of troops by other armies' standards in the operation.

Best to give USSR casualty numbers without mentioning the term "division".

````NCDane —Preceding unsigned comment added by NCDane (talk • contribs) 04:27, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

As the article points out, many of the Soviet divisions were severely depleted, so if they were at an average strength of only 1500 to 2000 then the figure would seem reasonable. I do take your point about the relative full strength of Soviet divisions, but saying something like '52 division headquarters were destroyed' would seem rather terse.1812ahill (talk) 18:02, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

GA Review - On Hold

This is my first GA Review in a while, so please bear with me! Here are my comments:

1. (a) Well written: Excellent, apart from a few bits and bobs:

1. 'Although the Germans too were understrength' - 'Also' understrength, instead?
2. 'On 19 February, Erich von Manstein took the opportunity to launch his Kharkov counterstroke, using the fresh SS Panzer Corps and two panzer armies.' - Add his rank please

(b) it complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, jargon, words to avoid, fiction, and list incorporation.: Pass!

2 Factually accurate and verifiable:

(a) it provides references to all sources of information, and at minimum contains a section dedicated to the attribution of those sources in accordance with the guide to layout: Pass (b) at minimum, it provides in-line citations from reliable sources for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons; Nearly there, a few comments:

1. 'Throughout 1942 German casualties totaled around 1.9 million personnel,[8] and by the start of 1943 the Wehrmacht was around 470,000 men below full strength, on the Eastern Front.[9] For example, by 23 January only 495 German tanks remained combat ready along the entire length of the German-Soviet front, most of which were older designs such as the Panzer IV and Panzer III.[10] Emboldened by their victory at Stalingrad, the Red Army launched an offensive towards the Donets river, west of the Don,[11] in an effort to destroy German forces in the area.[12]' - Could we have comparative numbers for the personnel and tanks? IE, what are these proportions of - 485 tanks out of how many?
2. 'The success of Manstein's counterattack stunned Stavka into stopping Rokossovsky's offensive.' - 'Stunned' seems a little too OR - can it be changed?

(c) it contains no original research: Pass!

3 Broad in its coverage:

(a) it addresses the main aspects of the topic: Pass! (b) it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail: Pass!

4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without bias: Pass!

5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day-to-day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute: Pass!

6. Illustrated, if possible, by images: Two Image problems:

(a) images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content:

1. Image:Ju_87D_Stukas_over_Russia.jpg has a deprecated image tag
2. Image:Kharkov_Freedom_Square.jpg needs a new tag

(b) images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions: Pass!

So, look at the images, look at some of the prose, and then I think this can be passed! Skinny87 (talk) 19:39, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Alright, all of it should be done except for the comparative value of tanks on the Eastern Front. I don't believe I have a source which mentions what the German Army should have had in terms of mechanization at full strength (as you can tell, information on Germany's order of battle is hard to come by; a lot of German orders of battles were taken by the Soviets and have not been released to the public or given back to this day), but I can keep looking. The image tags have been changed to PD-author tags. JonCatalán<sup>(Talk)</sup> 22:13, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

I put a comparison to how many tanks the Germans fielded in June 1941. JonCatalán<sup>(Talk)</sup> 22:27, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Everything is done, except for the Freedom Square image. There doesn't seem to be enough information on the tag, and it's been tagged by a bot for deletion unless the info is provided. I'm not sure if that's specifically a GA problem, but maybe you could replace it with another image? Skinny87 (talk) 06:34, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Replaced. JonCatalán<sup>(Talk)</sup> 14:13, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

DYK

... that the 1943 German Donbas Operations led to the destruction of 52 Soviet divisions, and the recapture of the cities of Kharkov and Belgorod from the Red Army? added to this page by —Ed 17 for President <sub>Vote for Ed</sub> 15:01, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with Image:Totenkopf-Kursk-01.jpg

The image Image:Totenkopf-Kursk-01.jpg is used in this article under a claim of fair use, but it does not have an adequate explanation for why it meets the requirements for such images when used here. In particular, for each page the image is used on, it must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page. Please check

• That there is a non-free use rationale on the image's description page for the use in this article.
• That this article is linked to from the image description page.

This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. --16:21, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Image changed. JonCatalán<sup>(Talk)</sup> 16:40, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Aftermath: Red Army losses

From the text: "The German Donets Campaign cost the Red Army fifty-two divisions,[85] including around 70,000–80,000 personnel losses. Of these troops lost, an estimated 45,200 were killed or went missing, while another 41,200 were wounded." Adding estimated KIA/MIA and wounded troops yields over 86,000 -- should the first sentence be changed to read "...including around 80,000-90,000 personnel losses."?