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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 User:Ian Rose 00:37, 17 February 2013 [1].

Battle of the Bismarck Sea

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Nominator(s): Hawkeye7 (talk) 01:31, 13 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

A perennial favourite for "On this Day.." on 2 March (six times!). I am hoping that we have have it as Today's Featured Article on the 70th Anniversary of the battle on 2 March 2013. One problem: it isn't a Featured Article! Let's see about that... Hawkeye7 (talk) 01:31, 13 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sources and images - spotchecks not done

Nikkimaria (talk) 03:41, 13 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments. As always, feel free to revert my copyediting. Please check the edit summaries. - Dank (push to talk)

Comments by Cwmhiraeth - It states in the WikiCup rules "You must declare your WikiCup participation if you review another WikiCup participant's FAC" so I hereby declare it!

My first impression was of a very well-written article and much of the prose flows easily along. A few minor comments:
  • "Nonetheless, the convoy succeeded in reaching Lae on 7 January and landing the troops, only to join in Okabe's defeat in the Battle of Wau." - To someone like me who knows little on this subject, this sentence is not self-explanatory.
  • "In the South West Pacific, the primary mission of the Allied bomber force was interdiction of Japanese supply lines, especially the sea lanes" - "interdiction" seems a curious word to use here.
  • "But the results of the effort against the January convoy were very disappointing." - Maybe join this sentence with the previous one so that you don't have a sentence starting with "but".
    • Rephrased to In the South West Pacific, a conventional strategic bombing campaign was out of the question because industrial targets in Japan were well beyond the range of even the largest strategic bombers operating from bases in Australia and New Guinea, so the primary mission of the Allied bomber force was interdiction of Japanese supply lines, especially the sea lanes. The results of the effort against the January convoy were therefore very disappointing. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:10, 24 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • A number of places are mentioned in the article ( Rabaul, Lae, Finschhafen etc). It would be nice to have a map showing their locations as an aid to understanding the account. The present maps are low resolution, in Japanese and limited to Japanese vessel movements. Ideally the map would show where the American air bases were located, where the convoy was when attacked etc. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 11:08, 24 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Quick comment -- I don't know yet if I'll review in detail and therefore recuse myself from delegate duties but, hedging my bets, I did spot one thing at a quick glance: Joe Hewitt's involvement (as No. 9 Group commander after Garing had done the RAAF planning and departed) either needs to be cited in the infobox or mentioned in the main body and cited there. You might want to check if any other data in the infobox isn't cited elsewhere... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 07:41, 29 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • I have added a bit about the command arrangements in New Guinea, thereby mentioning Joe Hewitt. I'm not sure about the rules regarding delegates and reviews, but in the past the delegates have sometimes made copius comments. Hawkeye7 (talk) 09:07, 29 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Support Comments by Sturmvogel_66

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  • I'm a WikiCup partipant so take these with a grain of salt.
    • For those who don't know, Sturmvogel is leading Wikicup by a country mile. I don't think this article is eligible; all the work on it was done last year. I nommed it because the anniversary of the battle is coming up. Hawkeye7 (talk) 07:33, 1 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overlinked Rabaul, New Guinea, Wewak, Imperial General Headquarters, RAAF, Fifth Air Force, Lae, Madang
  • What were these Japanese high speed transports? The link goes to US converted destroyers, but did the Japanese do the same sort of thing?
  • This plan was acknowledged to be risky, because Allied air power in the area was strong. The comma here looks to be unnecessary.
  • Should these two sentences be combined or connected? The XVIII Army staff gave the operation a 50–50 chance of success. They held war games that predicted losses of four out of ten transports, and between 30 and 40 aircraft.
  • Link aircraft carrier, fighter group, magazine, landing craft and autocannon for 20 mm cannon
  • Were Pappy's modifications tied to this battle or were they just serendipitous? Dates here would be helpful
  • The chronology of the Allied tactics section doesn't flow well. We start with poor results from the January attack, review weaponry modifications and skip-bombing tactics, presumably both already in practice and then review the available Allied air units. I'd have to think more for a suggestion on how exactly to fix this, but it does need fixing.
  • What kind of tonnage are you talking about for the Japanese transports? GRT, DWT? And what are the cubic meters for? I've never seen them used for any ship in all my readings.
    • Per the link, GRT. This is a unit of volume. For example, the Japanese transport Aiyo Maru was 2,746 tons (GRT) but 4,331 tons (DWT). The former is used, as it is what appears in all the sources. Hawkeye7 (talk) 07:33, 1 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • Tell the reader up front that these are GRT. Just like you tell xe that a given ship is a destroyer or whatever; don't make xe work for it. I presume that you're converting from GRT to derive the cubic meters, but why? It seems pointless and I've never seen any source do it when dealing with wartime merchantmen or convoys. The GRT is normally all that's given.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 07:50, 10 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • This seem kind of redundant unless there were naval troops involved: army troops
  • Because of the conditional "if" at the start of the sentence, shouldn't "maximised" be "would maximise"? If the ships turned to face them, the standard procedure in case of a torpedo attack, the Beaufighters maximised the damage they inflicted on the ships' anti-aircraft guns, bridges and crews in strafing
  • This seems a bit awkward: Tokitsukaze was also hit and fatally damaged, and later sank
  • Howabout adding "also" in front of "collided"? The destroyer Arashio was hit, and collided with the transport Nojima, disabling her
  • This reads oddly, but it may just be the difference between US and BritEng handling of collective nouns: One band of 18 landed on Kiriwina, where it was captured by PT-114

--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 03:21, 1 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support: I reviewed this when it was at A-class a while back. I've checked the changes since then and made a few tweaks today (please check you are happy with those). I believe this meets the criteria. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 09:34, 13 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delegate comment -- Given we have a non-MilHist review along with project support, I'm satisfied the article's pretty well ready to promote but, before that, under Allied intelligence you state that Hewitt "instructed" Whitehead. Is this the right word? Makes it sound like Hewitt was Whitehead's superior... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 02:10, 17 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It was Kenney. Got changed in the copyediting somewhere. Hawkeye7 (talk) 04:05, 17 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Glad I asked... ;-) Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 04:10, 17 February 2013 (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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