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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) 10 August 2019 [1].


Nominator(s): Nick-D (talk) 11:09, 1 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Operation Obviate was the second-last of a long running series of Allied air attacks on the German battleship Tirpitz during World War II, and took place on 29 October 1944. The battleship had been crippled by an attack several weeks prior, but was targeted again as the Allies had not been able to confirm the extent of the damage and remained concerned that she posed a threat. A force of 39 heavy bombers armed with huge, and very expensive, bombs flew from Scotland to attack Tirpitz in northern Norway, deliberately violating Sweden's neutrality en-route. The operation ended in failure as the battleship was covered by cloud just before the bombers arrived, and while most dropped their bombs no hits were achieved. The aircrews' success in scoring several near misses despite the conditions demonstrated the skills which sent Tirpitz to her end in an almost identical attack two weeks later.

This article forms part of a series I have been working on covering these air attacks, with four articles on earlier raids having been brought to FA status. The article was assessed as a GA in December 2018, and passed a Military History Wikiproject A-class review in March. I have since further expanded the article drawing on new sources, and am hopeful that the FA criteria are met. Thank you in advance for your comments. Nick-D (talk) 11:09, 1 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

CommentsSupport by PM

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I looked at this during the Milhist ACR, and could find precious little to nitpick about then. I have a few comments:

That's all I have. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 11:13, 3 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

Sources review

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  • No spotchecks carried out
  • Formats:
  • According to WorldCat, Random House is the publisher for this edition of Konstam 2018, with "place of publication not identified".
  • Again according to WorldCat, the ISBN link for Zetterling and Tamelander appears to go to a different version of the book. It gives the year as 2011, not 2009. There is a 2009 version here, but it carries a different ISBN
  • No other format issues
  • Quality and reliability: the sources appear to meet all the appropriate criteria ≥or quality and reliability.

Brianboulton (talk) 15:35, 6 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I'm going to be out of town for the next week. I'll follow up on reviews posted during this period when I return. Nick-D (talk) 11:11, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Vanamonde

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A well-written article: I expect my (forthcoming) comments to be brief. Vanamonde (Talk) 17:06, 25 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  • I think the background section could use a sentence or two of bigger picture background; as written, the reader is unaware of what made the Tirpitz such a threat, different from other battleships.
    • The first para of the background section does this, I think? There was nothing particularly special about Tirpitz (modern historians stress that she was a good battleship, but not notably superior to other battleships of her generation) Nick-D (talk) 06:49, 27 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • Well, perhaps she wasn't; but she was certainly perceived to be, wasn't she? In any case, I think this is better now with the other changes you've made.
  • "breaking out into the North Atlantic" is potentially confusing to readers unaware of which navies controlled which regions of the North Atlantic at the time.
  • Is "midget submarine" linkable?
  • In the third sentence of the first paragraph, might it be worth emphasizing that the Tirpitz was tying up major units of the British fleet, preventing them from carrying out other operations (or am I wrong about this)?
  • "the 170-mile (270 km) voyage south" Is it accurate to call the voyage "south"? It's mostly west, surely?
  • Is there any information available on why the "empty" Lancaster was used?
  • A reader might wonder at the German decision not to station fighter aircraft near the Tirpitz; is any explanation available?
    • No source discusses this explictly in the context of this operation. Angus Konstam's book notes that poor coordination between the German Navy and Air Force was the main factor which led to a lack of fighter protection for Tirpitz on every single occasion she was attacked(!). By this stage of the war, the German Air Force was collapsing, so fighter units were likely hard to find as well - the one which was deployed to protect Tirpitz after this attack wasn't really combat-ready (as described in the Operation Catechism article). Nick-D (talk) 05:55, 28 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • Interesting. The point from Konstam that you mention might be worth adding.
  • Similarly, is there any information on why the world's most powerful battleship was used to protect Tromso? In other words, why was Tromso of any significance?
  • The last two paragraphs of "German preparations" strike me as out of place, as they aren't really about German preparations at all. Might they be divided up among the previous sections?
    • I've moved the last para to the section on British preparations, but I think that the second one belongs here: it's about the attitudes of the ship's crew and local civilians ahead of this battle. Nick-D (talk) 07:28, 28 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • Well, the civilians aren't German, and the morale of the crew sounds like something more appropriate to background...but I'm not going to oppose over this.
  • "forward airfields" is a piece of military jargon that could use a link or an explanation
  • The numbers of aircraft from the two squadrons jump around a bit; they go from 18 and 18 to 20 and 20 to 20 and 19.
    • Yes, and no sources explain why. I suspect that what happened was that to ensure that 18 aircraft could be dispatched on the raid, each squadron prepared and deployed 20 to Scotland. All of those which were flyable were then sent, leading to larger than planned numbers of aircraft being involved in the attack. Nick-D (talk) 06:49, 27 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • Okay. Can't do much about a lack of information on an otherwise comprehensive article.
  • If the Lancasters were using a hole in the German radar, any information on how they were detected?
    • I seem to have stuffed up here: I was upgrading this article while writing the Operation Catechism article, and while the bombers were sighted by observation posts in Catechism, they don't seem to have been in Obviate. The reference didn't support this statement, and it's in none of the other works. I've removed this. Nick-D (talk) 05:55, 28 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • The third sentence of the lead strikes me as redundant; can it be removed, or perhaps reworked, to avoid repeating information in a lead that isn't very long?
  • I know the usually infallible Brianboulton already did a source review, but; the locations of publication are somewhat inconsistent in their level of detail; some include province/region/state, some include country, and some just mention the city. I don't particularly care which format is used, but I'd prefer consistency, unless there's a good reason for what you have right now.
    • My understanding is that geographic details beyond the city are needed when it's not a well-known city and/or centre of publishing. Hence, London and Oxford don't need further details while Annapolis does. I've tweaked the details for Plymouth as I don't think that the locations of British regions are well known. Nick-D (talk) 06:49, 27 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • Well, they could be linked, if they're obscure, and left unlinked otherwise...or, if you just used the city, linked every time, which is something I've done before.
  • Also, the unorthodox section title "works consulted" leaves me confused, because they were cited, not just consulted. Are you opposed to the conventional "sources" or "bibliography"?
    • I've used "Works consulted" in a bunch of FAs with no complaints. The advice at MOS:BIB is less than helpful, but discourages using "bibliography" and doesn't strongly recommend an alternative... Nick-D (talk) 06:49, 27 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • I prefer plain old "sources", but it's a minor point.

@Vanamonde93: Thank you very much for your thoughtful review. I've replied above. Nick-D (talk) 10:34, 28 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

CommentsSupport by CPA-5

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That's anything from me. Cheers. CPA-5 (talk) 07:47, 27 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Support Comments by Ian

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Recusing from coord duties to review...

  • Dönitz also expressed hope that retaining the ship in commission would "continue to tie down enemy forces and by her presence ... confound the enemies' intentions".[13][14][15] -- I think it'd be best to cite the final quote to a single source and place the citations relevant to the preceding info before the quote.
  • I've always seen Tait's nickname rendered as "Willie" rather than "Willy" -- is the latter definitely how your source puts it?
  • RAF Sumburgh in the Shetland Islands was selected as the emergency airfield. If any of the bombers were damaged or lacked sufficient fuel to return to the UK, they were to proceed to the Soviet airfields at Vaenga or Yagodnik. -- Calling Suuburgh the emergency airfield sounds a bit odd when the Soviet airfields were apparently also for emergencies -- do we mean Sumburgh was the emergency airfield in the UK?

Will stop there for now but reading well so far as usual. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 12:25, 30 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Ian - I'll follow up on these comments tomorrow. Nick-D (talk) 09:45, 31 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Ian Rose: Thanks again Ian, I've just responded to the above. Nick-D (talk) 10:33, 1 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Resuming, just a couple of relatively minor points following my copyedit...

  • As the Tromsø area was within range of Lancasters flying from northern Scotland if they were fitted with extra fuel tanks and other modifications, this operation would be simpler to conduct than Operation Paravane.[26] Nevertheless, it required a lengthy return flight of 2,252 miles (3,624 km).[25] -- I find "nevertheless", like "however", borderline OR unless the source in FN25 also makes a comparison to Paravane.
  • All of the aircraft selected for the operation were fitted with powerful Rolls-Royce Merlin 24 engines, which were rapidly sourced from maintenance units and airfields across the UK. -- Could we substitute "hurriedly" or "hastily" for "rapidly" and still be true to the source? The former options sound more appropriate given the situation...
    • "hurriedly" works well, and captures what happened better (a series of flights to multiple operational airfields and depots across the UK where these engines were to be had) Nick-D (talk) 10:51, 3 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'll take Nikki's image review and Brian's source check as read. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 09:49, 3 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.