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The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Article promoted by Iazyges (talk) via MilHistBot (talk) 18:20, 22 October 2021 (UTC) « Return to A-Class review list[reply]

British logistics in the Siegfried Line campaign

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Nominator(s): Hawkeye7 (talk)

British logistics in the Siegfried Line campaign (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

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Although A-Class is completely constipated at the moment, and I already have three articles up for review, I am adding a fourth article. The "Siegfried Line campaign" is not an official designation, but nor is it a Wikipedia one. When the American official historians were preparing their series of works back in 1945, the American official designation for the campaign that came after the breakout and pursuit is "Rhineland", but the historians felt that it covered too many battles, and divided it in two: the Siegfried Line campaign (the actions of the US First and Ninth Armies in the north) and the Lorraine campaign (the actions of the US Third and Seventh Armies in the south). For our purposes, we have them both under the umbrella of the Siegfried Line campaignbox, along with the British and Canadian actions. The British divided the period into four phases: the advance from Brussels to the Nederrijn (Operation Market Garden), the Channel Ports, the Opening of Antwerp (Battle of the Scheldt) and the Ardennes (Battle of the Bulge). This article therefore covers the logistics of the 21st Army Group in the period from September 1944 to January 1945; the earlier period from June to September 1944 has been covered in British logistics in the Normandy campaign, and that leaves the campaigns of 1945 for a future article. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:57, 22 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • Image licensing looks good
  • The length of 12418 words would benefit from some splits or other length reduction.
  • Some sections such as "Organisation", "Antwerp", "Roads", and "Supplies" are extremely long, harming readability. (t · c) buidhe 00:16, 26 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

HF

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I hope to get to this over the next week. Hog Farm Talk 05:36, 19 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • I understand why this has to be split off from the other portions of the drive through Europe due to length reasons, but I'm struggling to figure out the exact boundaries of how this campaign is being defined. It looks like the end of the campaign is being defined as when they started preparing for Operation Veritable, but where it begins is not clear
    The lead says "in the Second World War operations from the end of the pursuit of the German armies from Normandy in mid-September 1944 until the end of January 1945." Hawkeye7 (discuss) 11:16, 24 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • I also find it a little odd that this is named for the Siegfried Line campaign when the Siegfried line is only mentioned once in the body, and in passing. It's just not always clear how the scope of the article is defined
    As I explained above, the campaign is what the American historians decided to call it. MacDonald's The Siegfried Line Campaign volume of the US Army official history covers Market Garden and the Scheldt, as well as Aachen and the Roer. I named the article after our infobox, which was created in 2005. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 11:16, 24 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The two American divisions had seaborne tail" - I like to think that I'm reasonably informed about military terms, but I have no idea what "seaborne tail" means here. Is there a way to rephrase/gloss?
    checkY Error. Should have been no seaborne tails. Provided a link. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 11:16, 24 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Move the link for LST two lines up from the second mention to the first
    checkY Moved up. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 11:16, 24 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • "two large cargo ships and 58 smaller vessels were sunk" - is through the end of the year or just in the 24 December attack mentioned in the previous sentence?
    checkY Added "between September 1944 and March 1945" Hawkeye7 (discuss) 11:16, 24 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The price of a ton of coal at the pithead was 350 Belgian francs (equivalent to US$100 in 2020), but on the black market in Brussels it could fetch 5,000 francs (equivalent to US$1,700 in 2020)" - not sure about the rounding here - the former is a conversion rate of 3.5 francs/dollar, while the latter is roughly 2.9 francs/dollar. Shouldn't these conversions be closer to each other even with rounding?
    checkY By turning off the rounding on the first figure it becomes $118, which gives us a more comparable ratio. I was a bit iffy about this because in wartime there was no trade, so exchange rates were fixed under the Bretton Woods system How realistic that was for Belgium I don't know; Hawkeye7 (discuss) 11:16, 24 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Coal currently sells for USD $133 a ton. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:44, 28 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • "No sooner was this resolved than the German Ardennes offensive interrupted the supply" - this is the Battle of the Bulge, right? If so, maybe a piped link?
    checkY Yes, it's sometimes called the Battle of the Bulge. Linked. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 11:16, 24 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The War Office was therefore obliged to impose quotas on the armies in the field." - why didn't they just restore the prior levels of ammunition production? It seems like artillery ammunition would be a priority
    Britain was fully mobilised, so this could only have been achieved by corresponding cuts to the aircraft industry. See Postan, British War Production, pp. 347-355. You can read about the American experience in an upcoming article. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 11:16, 24 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • "and the surplus Sherman Fireflies were issued to other units, further reducing the unit establishment of Shermans armed with the 75 mm gun" - this may just be a comprehension error, but how did sending the Fireflies elsewhere reduce the unit's establishment of 75 mm gun Shermans, because the Firefly wasn't armed with the 75mm gun
    Correct. The 29th Armoured Brigade was re-equipped with the new Comet tank. The Fireflies turned in were given to other units, where they replaced 75 mm Shermans. So British armoured units equipped with Shermans then had more Fireflies and fewer 75 mm Shermans. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 11:16, 24 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • "By the end of November, the stocks at the RMA were reduced to 176,000 long tons (179,000 t). This included 45,000 long tons (46,000 t) of ammunition, 6,000 long tons (6,100 t) of supplies, 65,000 long tons (66,000 t) of ordnance stores and 60,000 long tons (61,000 t) of engineering stores" - I would have assumed that this was the same thing as the table, but the numbers don't match. And some are higher but the supplies seems to be lower, so it's not just one being a component of the other?
    The numbers don't match. Different sources. Deleted to avoid confusion. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 11:16, 24 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sources look reliable for what they are citing
  • It's a longer article, but I think the length is appropriate here.

Sorry this took so long to get to; was busier with work than expected. Hog Farm Talk 06:18, 24 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Support Hog Farm Talk 19:04, 24 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by AustralianRupert

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Support: G'day, I took a look at this article and have the following suggestions: AustralianRupert (talk)

Added my support now above. Nice work as always, Hawkeye. Thank you for continuing to produce articles that demonstrate the importance of logistics to successful combat operations. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 13:13, 25 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Vami

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  • [...] there were no intact ones upstream as far as Paris partly in due to Royal Air Force (RAF) attacks. "in due to" sounds awkward; is this a British English thing?
    Unsure, but the article on American and British English spelling differences uses the phrase a lot. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:33, 20 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I just did a Ctrl+F on that page for "in due to" and got nothing. Recommend removing the "in". –♠Vami_IV†♠ 20:10, 21 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • whereas under the American logistics was the responsibility of Lieutenant General John C. H. Lee's Communications Zone, Awkward. Recommend nixing "under".
    checkY Re-worded. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:33, 20 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • but moved to Roubaixon the French-Belgian border, on the French-Belgian (Franco-Belgian?).
    checkY No, just a missing space after "Roubaix". Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:33, 20 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • There is a lot of "advance base" and "advanced base". Are they the same thing?
    checkY Yes. Settles on "advanced base". Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:33, 20 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Headquarters Second Army Troops [...] HQ Second Army Troops And what's the difference between HQ Second Army and HQ Second Army Troops? Are they the troops of HQ Second Army? A different body for the Second Army's troops?
    HQ Second Army was Dempsey's Second Army headquarters; HQ Second Army Troops was a headquarters that controlled the large number of (mostly small) units directly assigned to the Second Army. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:33, 20 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • [...] but after operations commenced it was found that the enormous number of army troops units kept this HQ was fully occupied in their administration, and it did have the resources to control an army roadhead as well. The second clause (first highlighted) of this sentence is confusing, and I think the third is missing a "not".
    checkY Correct. Added. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:33, 20 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    This remains: [...] troops units kept this HQ was fully occupied [...] –♠Vami_IV†♠ 16:57, 21 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Market Garden awaits. –♠Vami_IV†♠ 17:08, 20 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Market Garden to Ghent. –♠Vami_IV†♠ 16:58, 21 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - pass

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  • All sources are reliable, and cover the literature on this campaign well
  • Spot checks on how the primary sources (the 21st Army Group post-war reports) have been used in the article show that this usage is OK as it is limited to stating facts.
  • Spot checks of citations selected at random:
  • No issues with close paraphrasing with these spot checks. The text supported by ref 118 is similar to the book's text, but it would be tricky to use other phrasing given that this is a technical sentence.
  • Unlink the second link to L.F. Ellis in the references section
    Unlinked. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:52, 27 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • As a random and unrelated comment, the UK Government, IWM or someone else really needs to digitalise all of the British official history series. The UK seems to now be the only major western ally to not have its Second World War official history online, which is a shame as the quality of it is generally very good and ahead of most of those in the other countries. The breadth of topics covered is particularly valuable.

Overall, pass. Well done consulting such a large range of at times obscure or hard to access sources. Nick-D (talk) 06:49, 27 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by CPA

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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