Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Battle of Aachen

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

Closed as Promoted - Cam ^(Chat) 23:07, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Battle of Aachen

This is probably the most difficult article I've worked on for a long while; it was a challenge to piece all the information from so many sources. I wanted to get this done before tomorrow, since I will be going to class between 8AM and 3:30PM, and then working between 4:15 and 9PM. Besides, I just started my 19-unit semester today and my time for Wikipedia is going to decrease sharply. This article is also simultaneously opting for a GA-review. Thanks. JonCatalán^(Talk) 00:23, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Also, there will be an order of battle created for this article, as well. JonCatalán^(Talk) 00:27, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This is a really good article. A lot of work has gone into it and it shows. Some comments:

On 17 September 1944, in a bid to open the Belgian port of Antwerp to facilitate the shipment of supplies to Allied armies in France, American, British and Polish forces launched Operation Market Garden. That wasn't the objective of Market-Garden. Market-Garden was intended to cross the Rhine and facilitate an advance on the Ruhr.
Field Marshal Walter Model: You haven't said who he was. Therefore readers won't know if his divisions were those opposing Eisenhower or Bradley.
Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower decided that their next target would be the occupation of the Ruhr, the heartland of Germany's industrial capabilities. General George S. Patton's Third Army was given the task of occupying the French region of Lorraine. General Courtney Hodges's First Army was ordered to breakthrough the front near the German city of Aachen. This isn't wrong, but is very misleading. Eisenhower ordered First Army to cross the Rhine near Frankfurt while Third Army crossed near Mannheim. The intermediate objectives were set by Bradley.
A reader might also easily be confused into thinking that Hodges and Patton were four-star generals like Eisenhower. They weren't. How about expressing ranks in full the first time?
155 millimeters (6.1 in) artillery guns I think you mean 155 mm Long Toms? (I don't think weapon calibres should be converted.)
The slow advance came to a halt in late September due to the lack of fuel and ammunition created by the supply problem and by the diversion of resources in favor of Operation Market Garden in Holland. No, the advance came to a halt due to German resistance. The diversion of resources to Market-Garden amounted to two airborne divisions, four truck companies, and the IX Troop Carrier Command. Resources were dived equally between First and Third armies by Bradley.
153 metric tons (169 short tons) of explosives Are you absolutely certain? Short tons were rarely used for ammunition. Normally a wartime report of X tons of ammunition means measurement tons which were 40 cubic feet. If it is weight, it should be long tons. (Stupid imperial system.)

Hawkeye7 (talk) 02:30, 18 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Some responses.

You're right, that one of the objectives was to cross the Lower Rhine, but the objective relative to this article was really to open Antwerp (whether or not it was a "secondary objective". Although, I will add that it was also to cross the Lower Rhine.
This article isn't really interested in the crossing of the Rhine, since this would happen after the Ardennes offensive, really. It's more interested in operations up to Aachen, which was the battle for Fort Dryant and Patton's drive to Metz, and then the First Army's attempt to open the Aachen Corridor. So, it's not really misleading; it just doesn't go off topic by discussing events which would only take place after the battle.
I clarified that Eisenhower was a four-star general.
Weapon calibers have to be converted per MoS. It doesn't make any sense not to (and there isn't an reason not to).
I think you are misinterpreting what it's saying. Even sources written from the German perspective "blame" the Allied supply problem for allowing the Germans to build up forces in the Siegfried Line to provide that resistance. That's talking more about the Allied advance through France, which stopped as a result of the supply problem (lack of ammunition and fuel). I know it's not a problem of the source (Ambrose), since every other source I used also discusses the same problems.
The point is not to provide a measurement that was used to measure ammunition; it's to allow a reader not familiar with metric tons to compare it with a more familiar unit (short tuns).

JonCatalán^(Talk) 04:04, 18 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Support Hawkeye7 (talk) 08:28, 18 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comments This is a good article, but it's wording needs to be tightened a bit. My specific comments which you may, or may not, wish to consider are:
- I found the first para of the introduction a bit confusing as it jumps into the first events of the battle rather than providing a brief summary of the entire article as MOS:BEGIN recommends. The rest of the introduction is good though.
- "By September 1944 the Western Allies had reached the German border" - this is a bit misleading given that they still needed to push through Belgium and the Netherlands to reach the entire length of the German border - it may be better to say "By September 1944 the Western Allies had reached the French-German border"
- The quote that the Siegfried Line was "undoubtedly the most formidable man-made defense ever contrived" seems to be hyperbole and should probably be removed. Many other sources state that the line was not a particularly strong barrier in 1944, if ever - for instance, Max Hastings writes that the "fortifications were not inherently strong" (Armageddon, pg 80) and the Oxford Companion to World War II states that "from 1940 to 1944 the line was neglected and much of its armament removed" (pg 995).
- The first para in the 'Comparison of forces' section seems to be out of place given that it discusses the city's symbolic importance while the rest of the section is about the forces which participated in the battle - this para should probably be in the previous section.
- Does the caliber of 155mm guns need to be converted to '6.1 in'? This seems a bit odd in this context given that the guns were designated '155mm' weapons by the US Army and I don't believe that anyone called them 6.1 inch guns
- I suspect that 'the Western Allies' First Army' should be 'the United States First Army' Nick-D (talk) 05:47, 24 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment No issues reported concerning external links or disambig links. Well done. TomStar81 (Talk) 00:01, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment
- File:Aachen.jpg needs an author or an "unknown"
- File:Kriegsgefangene.jpg also needs author information

Other than that, images look good. Cam ^(Chat) 01:20, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Support.

"It wasn't rare for half of a unit's replacements" You might want to rephrase this as "It was not unusual (perhaps common instead) for half of new replacements..."
It could use a copy-edit, I noticed a couple places with misplaced commas and other minor stylistic errors. Nothing big enough to keep it from getting A-Class, but it has room for improvement there.
The Aftermath section could use some work - it is rather short compared to the rest of the article and deals mostly with casualties, and only has three sentences about future actions, including only Hurtgen Forest. Did it have any political effects, being the first German city captured? Did it ever become a major Allied base?

It looks good and there weren't any major issues, but a copy-edit and expansion of the Aftermath might improve it a bit. – Joe Nu tter 14:52, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Support with a few comments:
- Instead of Fighting around Aachen would actually begin as early as September… maybe you could say Fighting around Aachen actually began in mid-September… since it did start then.
- The phrase … with many personnel lacking more than ten days of infantry training … comes across like a double negative. Maybe something like … many personnel had fewer than ten days of infantry training ….
- I'd combine the single-sentence paragraph beginning However, what the Germans lacked in quality … with the previous paragraph.
- I'd replace oftentimes with often. The word oftentimes comes across as very colloquial.
- How about …and one company lost 87 combatants in an hour. instead of …and one company lost as many as 87 combatants in an hour.?
- I'd recommend the "upright" tag for portrait-orientation images. This will help alleviate "sandwiching" in the "Fight for the city: 13–21 October" section
I echo Joe N's comment about a technical copy-edit, but see nothing that keeps this from being A-Class material. — Bellhalla (talk) 22:17, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Also, from look ing at another ACR, I see that units like 1st SS Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler, should be partially italicized, like 1st SS Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler — Bellhalla (talk) 23:15, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.