Talk:British nuclear weapons and the Falklands War

WE 177C

Although Polmar says 177C (he also calls the Coventry a frigate) I believe they were 177A Lyndaship (talk) 06:44, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

Do you have a source? Hawkeye7 (discuss) 07:41, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

Yes, it looks like Polmar was mistaken, and these were W.117As. I've just made this correction. Nick-D (talk) 01:23, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

Sourcing

Great work turning this around so quickly. Three suggestions/comments:

• The article relies quite a bit on Freedman, which isn't a problem in itself, but unless I'm clicking the wrong link, the referenced 1989 RAND document only goes to 33 pages, while most of the cites are to page 60 or thereabouts.
• The assertions in the introduction are quite firm, which feels right because we know it's contentious. The same/similar lines are repeated later with inline citations (although to Freedman page 60), but I wonder if they should be cited in the introduction too? On past experience, visiting editors from less-reliable other-language versions of Wikipedia are remarkably adept at gaming the rules on this Wikipedia, so it would be safer to deflect them at the beginning.
• Finally, perhaps stylistic, you start with the word 'although' and so it reads like you're responding to a conspiracy theory. Would it be stronger to start with something like "There was a debate about the potential use of British nuclear weapons in the Falklands War of 1982." (And then continue with "Although the UK..."). Wiki-Ed (talk) 11:02, 26 May 2024 (UTC)
  • Thanks a lot for these comments. I've just reworked the lead and fixed that Freedman reference - the article references both a short paper he wrote in 1989 and a lengthy book he authored in the 2000s. Nick-D (talk) 11:19, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:British nuclear weapons and the Falklands War/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Nick-D (talk · contribs) 01:42, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

Reviewer: Zawed (talk · contribs) 03:40, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

I will review, comments to follow in due course. Zawed (talk) 03:40, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

Lead

• Britain had ratified the treaty which...: no antecedence for "the treaty", either "a treaty" or the full name
  • Done Nick-D (talk) 10:55, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
• as a contingency for if the war gone badly.: something doesn't read quite right here, I think "if the war had gone badly"?
  • Fixed Nick-D (talk) 10:55, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
• South Atlantic following the invasion initially...: suggest adding "of the Falklands" after invasion.
  • Done Nick-D (talk) 10:55, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Background

Falklands War

• fighting began on 1 May: suggest, just for a little more context, that this was in the form of aerial attacks
  • Done Nick-D (talk) 10:55, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

British nuclear weapons

• The Royal Air Force had 250 WE.177 bombs. The Royal Navy was assigned 43 WE.177A nuclear depth bombs.: two short sentences, suggest making one but also suggest reversing the subject matter so that the RN is mentioned first, to follow on from the RN submarines. Worth mentioning that they were for ASW purposes? Cite 11 would support that.
  • Done Nick-D (talk) 10:55, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Nuclear weapons policies

• No issues identified in this section

Nuclear depth bombs

• Could clarify when the Task Force sailed; it is not clear if the depth bombs were transferred to the RFA ships during transit or not.
  • I'll just need to check sources on this. Nick-D (talk) 10:55, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
    • Between 1 and 7 April - I've added material on this. Nick-D (talk) 06:49, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
• transferred to RFA Fort Austin on 2-3 June.: think that hyphen should be an endash
  • Done Nick-D (talk) 10:55, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

More to follow. Zawed (talk) 10:08, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

• Thanks for these comments Nick-D (talk) 10:55, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Picking this up again.

• one final comment with regard to the Deployment subsection of the Nuclear depth bombs section: While these aircraft formed a key part of the UK's nuclear deterrent force they operated only as conventional bombers. I assume this is in respect of their use in the Falklands conflict, this should be made more explicit.
  • Yep that's right; I've clarified this. Nick-D (talk) 07:30, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

Alleged ballistic missile submarine deployment

• a standard 72 day long patrol: I believe a hyphen should be used here "a standard 72-day long patrol"
  • Done Nick-D (talk) 07:30, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

Aftermath

• It was also alleged that the British had raised nuclear depth charges...: A check on the terminology here, do the sources specifically state "depth charges" here or should that be "depth bombs"?
  • The source says that the allegation was about depth charges rather than bombs. Nick-D (talk) 07:30, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
• The Grove quote in the 3rd paragraph should be directly followed by a citation.
  • Done Nick-D (talk) 07:30, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

Works consulted

• Brown listed but not cited
  • Used now - I added the reference earlier today but had to dash off before I could use it! Nick-D (talk) 06:49, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
• Given there are no page references, shouldn't Polmar be treated as a webpage citation like, e.g. the IWM citations?
  • The US Naval Institute website references this to an issue of its Procedings journal, so I've treated it as a journal article. Nick-D (talk) 06:49, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

Source checks

• I am happy to AGF given nominator's history. Nonetheless, I have done a few checks of the online sources, for sake of completeness.
• In respect of Background, the first paragraph, the fact that the Falklands are a British Overseas Territory isn't supported but the IWM cite from the following paragraph would provide that support.
  • Fixed Nick-D (talk) 07:30, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
• In the British Nuclear Weapons section, where used, the Norris & Kristensen cites in this section generally checks out although I am not seeing explicit support for the statement "...intended to be used against Soviet submarines" although perhaps arguably that is implied given the nature of the weapon.
  • I've removed the reference to 'Soviet' here. Nick-D (talk) 07:30, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
• In the Allegations section, cites 21 and 36 (both Freedman 1989), and 37 (Henley) check out
• In the Aftermath section, cites 10 (Guardian), 40 (SMH), 41 (Freedman 1989) and 25 (Polmar) check out.

Other stuff

• For some reason, the dupe links tool isn't disregarding the first usage of the links in the lead, but regardless, there are definitely a few in the second half of the article, beginning with Royal Air Force in the final paragraph of the deployment section.
  • I think that I've caught these now Nick-D (talk) 08:27, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
• Image tags look OK.

That's my review done of what I found to be an interesting article. Zawed (talk) 04:26, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

Realised I neglected the Earwig copyvio tool; running this against the sources, the most similar (at 15.3%) detected was Polmar but most of that was quotes and specific terms e.g. Treaty of Tlatelolco. The same article popped up when searching against Google. No issue here. Zawed (talk) 07:51, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for this review Nick-D (talk) 08:27, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

This all looks good. I will be passing as GA as I believe that this article meets the necessary criteria. Great work! Cheers, Zawed (talk) 10:02, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

Thank you again Nick-D (talk) 10:17, 17 June 2024 (UTC)