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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 Hawkeye7 (talk) 11:02, 27 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Operation Storm

[edit]
Nominator(s): Tomobe03 (talk)


I am nominating this article for A-Class review because it recently passed a GA review and I trust it complies with or is close to full compliance with all A-class criteria. Tomobe03 (talk) 20:49, 28 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Support Comments: G'day, I only had a quick look, but will come back and have a longer look when I get a bit more time. I have the following initial comments:

  • "File:Operation storm map.jpg": the source on this is currently listed as Wikipedia. I think that this will need to be changed to the original CIA source, preferably with the page number of the book it came from;
    • Updated sourcing. The map (and all other maps in the book) are supplied in a separate slip-case, but the maps are numbered and accessible through the Library of Congress, with the numbering visible.--Tomobe03 (talk) 12:39, 13 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • there appears to be a mixture of US and British English. For example "kilometre" (British), but "centered" and "maneuvers" (US). Please check for consistency throughout the article;
  • inconsistent time format: compare "5 in the morning" v "16:45" v "5 am" (please make this consistent per MOS:TIME);
  • inconsistent presentation "Second World War" v "World War II";
  • the duplicate link checker tool identifies a few examples of potential overlink: Kordun; Gospic; Korenica; Ogulin; Karlovac; Glina, Croatia; Petrinja; Krvatska Kostajnica; Suna, Sisak-Moslavina County; Saborsko; V Corps (Bosnia and Harzegovina); Vojnic; Una (Sava); Petrova Gora; Bosanski Petrovac; Dubrovnik; Bill Clinton; ethnic cleansing; Kosovo. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 11:30, 13 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • G'day, I've had another look and to be honest I think the prose needs work. Apologies, I had a crack at the Background section, and normally I would try to keep going but I found it quite difficult to understand what was going on so I had to stop. For instance, some things that I am seeing in the Prelude are:
    • " Army of the Republika Srpska (VRS) and the RSK neared the town's capture" --> perhaps " Army of the Republika Srpska (VRS) and the RSK neared the town's centre"? or " Army of the Republika Srpska (VRS) and the RSK closed in on the town"?
    • this seems to raise a few questions rather than answers: "In November 1994, the Siege of Bihać, a battle of the Bosnian War, entered a critical stage as the Bihać was seen as a strategic area, and it was thought that its capture by Serb forces would intensify the war and worsen the division of the United States on one side and France and the United Kingdom on the other, advocating different approaches to the preservation of the area". The Bosnian War? In the last section the war that was being fought was the Croatian War of Independence; did another war break out? It was "thought"? By whom? What does "preservation" mean? Why was it important and why did the US, UK and France have an opinion on it?
      • I tried to add some sort of explanation of the changing attitudes of the three to the war, and explain significance of Bihać to the international community, as well as the UNPROFOR security issue.--Tomobe03 (talk) 14:43, 14 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • "In addition, it was feared that Bihać..." Feared by who?
    • "In a meeting of Croatian and US government and military officials held on 29 November 1994..." Again, it is not clear why the US was involved at this point. You mention the Washington agreement later, but maybe it would make sense to introduce it earlier. AustralianRupert (talk) 10:29, 14 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • I've had a run through the prelude section now, but there were a couple of things I wasn't sure of, so I have marked them with clarification needed tags. Please review these and adjust as necessary;
      • One of the two is addressed now, the other one presents me with a problem. Multiple sources (Avant and Dunigan used in the article, but also Goulet here, p.257, note 13, etc) note the speculation about extent of the MPRI involvement, but they are all vague when attributing those to "many analysts" or "some" or "few" who hold that opinion. Goulet does however also mention "many press reports" as source of the speculation, but a search of the NYT turned up a single [article by Leslie Wayne from 2002 (NYT used as an example as it covered the war quite extensively compared to other foreign newspapers, apart from those in neighbouring countries). That article says "In 1995, MPRI started doing so, teaching the fledgling [Croatian] army military tactics that MPRI executives had developed while on active duty commanding the gulf war invasion." while quoting Lieutenant General Soyster denying that claim. Sekulić (book published in 2000, also used in the article) does not mention MPRI at all, which is odd since the book specifically analyzes the war and Operation Storm from a point of view of a RSK army officer. The claim put forward by Wayne is lately repeated frequently in Serbian media (for instance this report cites MPRI contract for training of officers, but claims that besides that the MPRI supplied Croatia with "sophisticated weapons such as UAVs", and "helped [Croatia] develop plans for Operation Storm, or even developed the plans completely on their own" without going into detail on how did the author come to such a conclusion (except for the officer training bit). What is problematic here for me is that the speculation seems to be well documented, but its attribution is quite vague - and I'm not sure how to handle that. Any suggestion?--Tomobe03 (talk) 15:34, 16 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
        • G'day, I can't load most of those sources from this part of the world, so unfortunately I can't interpret what they are saying, but my advice here would be to change the sentence to something like this: "It has also been speculated in several sources, including an article in the New York Times by Leslie Wayne and various Serbian media reports, that the MPRI may also have provided doctrinal advice, scenario planning and US government satellite information to Croatia, although MPRI and Croatian officials have denied such claims." Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 21:44, 16 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
          • Clarification added and referenced (Wayne article and a Serbian TV report used). I followed a lead found in note 117 of Avant source in the article about an article published in The Observer in 1995 (Invisible US Army defeats Serbs) and found the article (presumably faithfully) archived here. This may arguably be the oldest possible report of such MPRI involvement, but it is equally vague. It states "One Croatian officer said: 'They lecture us on tactics and big war operations on the level of brigades, which is why we needed them for Operation Storm when we took the Krajina. At the beginning of the war, we had no real army. Every man was a hero and thought he could win the war by himself. The Americans taught us to change all that.'" Now, the statement comes off as pure boasting fairly common for the region during the war - both sides often claimed wonderful capabilities of their armies clearly intended to intimidate the opponent, probably the best documented such effort by the HV was display of the SA-10 system at a military parade in Zagreb shortly before Operation Storm. The system was later revealed to be about 10-20% complete and entirely inoperable, but was intended for display and intimidation only [1]. Moreover, it is interesting to see how "they lecture us on tactics" developed to "doctrinal advice and scenario planning". All things said, I trust nothing further need be added to the article about the subject.--Tomobe03 (talk) 11:25, 17 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • also, this isn't grammatically correct but I wasn't sure what was meant, so I left it alone: "After numerous and often uncoordinated development of the plan..." Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 09:44, 16 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ok, I've had a go at the prose and made a few changes. Please check that you are happy with those and adjust as you see fit. A couple more points I couldn't deal with:

Support Comments: Just a few issues:

  • "Serbian: Jugoslovenska Narodna Armija or JNA) [...] the Croatian National Guard (Croatian: Zbor narodne garde or ZNG) [...] the Croatian Army (Croatian: Hrvatska vojska or HV) [...] Army of Republika Srpska (Serbian, Bosnian, Croatian Vojska Republike Srpske or VRS [...] Croatian Defence Council (Croatian: Hrvatsko vijeće obrane or HVO) [...] Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ARBiH) [...] Croatian Air Force (CAF)": Specific language(s) used in the article is/are already specified in the lead. No need for unnecessary repetition. Jugoslovenska Narodna Armija should be italicized. ARBiH and CAF do not have their name in the local language as with the others.
  • "Republic of Serbian Krajina (RSK) [...] Autonomous Province of Western Bosnia (APWB)" Military formations have the local names, but proclaimed states do not. Why?
  • Actually those translations were introduced by a GOCE copyeditor currently having a go at the article, and were not there originally. I'm not sure that those add to the article at all - after all, all of those terms are wikilinked with translations made available over there. Even before your review here, I was seriously considering removing those translations (except of course for the operation Storm itself and any other translation that might be warranted or adding to the article in some other way). Would you recommend such a move?--Tomobe03 (talk) 10:35, 13 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • "which brought in UNPROFOR." should be "which brought in the UNPROFOR."
  • Fixed.
  • "Siege of Bihać, a battle of the Bosnian War,": Too vague, should elaborate a bit on the details and include ARBiH and APWB involvement.
  • I included the ARBiH role in the sentence on the Bihać siege. APWB is mentioned in the orbat section since its role is generally secondary (as an "ally" or entity vitally dependent on the RSK since the previous ARBiH offensive in the pocket. Do you think more is needed or would that be giving it an undue weight?
  • You're right, I missed it. Added now.
  • "the Autonomous Province of Western Bosnia (APWB)—a sliver of land": Recommend "the Fikret Abdić-led Autonomous Province of Western Bosnia (APWB)—a sliver of land" or mention of Abdic during Bihac siege sentence.
  • Fixed per suggestion (copyedited in situ).
  • "Washington Agreement was signed, ending the Croat–Bosniak War": The Croat–Bosniak War isn't previously mentioned. Some context is needed.
  • Noted briefly in the background section - I did not elaborate much as the war is tangentially significant to the battle at hand.
  • "the attack shifted the the HV's and HVO's": Extra "the".
  • "the 99th Brigade, reinforced by the the 143rd Home Guard Regiment's Saborsko Company,": Extra "the".
  • Fixed both instances of extra thes.
  • "The defeat of the RSK led the Serbs in Bosnia to realise that a settlement in Bosnia and Herzegovina must be negotiated as soon as possible": Recommend "Bosnian Serbs" instead.
  • Amended per suggestion.
  • "International reactions to Operation Storm quickly evolved from emotive arguements": Should be "arguments".
  • Yea, that's a typo. Fixed.
  • References: Should be alphabetized. I'd recommend splitting the "other sources" mini section into a "documents" section for UN, ICTY, and US documents and a "reports" section for the HRW reports. The "Narodne novine" works could be split between the two depending on their nature (legal doc or report). Also perhaps remove the unnecessary "retrieved" info.

--◅ PRODUCER (TALK) 22:44, 11 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • The book references are supposed to be alphabetized as is. The other two sections are sorted chronologically. I don't mind alphabetizing them, but what would one use to alphabetize them? Author information is not available everywhere, especially in terms of "other sources".
  • I'm reluctant to break up the "other sources" group further down since none of those would include more than a dozen items or so and I wonder what would be gained that way. It's not that problematic to regroup those, but I'm unsure what would be a "report" and what would constitute a "document" (speeches, ICTY judgements, UNHCR operations profile etc.) - legislation would be easy to distinguish, but where would the UNCRO ref (second from the top in the subsection right now) go? My concerns here are primarily related to possible arbitrary interpretations where should specific refs go, for little gain. I could be wrong on this but I thought to bring this up here before I change anything.--Tomobe03 (talk) 11:05, 13 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Regarding the "retrieved" info - I remembered that in an earlier review of a totally different article that issue came up, but I unfortunately do not remember which article was that or how that was resolved. I don't particularly care for that info (accessdate parameter), but not knowing what to do, I looked up the Battle of Vukovar FA and found the parameter used there. Granted, something may have changed in the criteria or MOS since its promotion - I simply do not know that. If the parameter is not needed at the FAC, I'd be happy to remove it and lighten the article's byte count, otherwise I'd prefer to keep it. Do you know anything specific to that effect?--Tomobe03 (talk) 12:27, 13 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Actually I just consulted the FA you recently successfully co-nominated, and seeing it entered the FAC without those, I'll remove the accessdate parameters shortly (in a single edit to allow reverts if need be).--Tomobe03 (talk) 12:31, 13 March 2013 (UTC) ---- Done now!--Tomobe03 (talk) 12:39, 13 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's up to you. I personally don't link any publishers. Also on the topic of Google book links, I only use them when a preview is available otherwise they're pointless and I amend "&printsec=frontcover" at the end of the urls to direct readers to the front cover rather than Google's summary page. There's no established MOS on that so again it's up to you. --◅ PRODUCER (TALK) 14:59, 13 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Right, I'll leave them as they are for the time being then. I think I've touched upon all the issues you raised so far, except I have to recheck overlinking in the references section once again just to make sure.--Tomobe03 (talk) 15:09, 13 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Changed to support. I had a look at the inline citations and recommend for future editing that you use "{{sfn}}" rather than "{{harvnb}}" as it makes it less tedious since you don't have to manually form reference groups. Regardless, impressive work. Good job. --◅ PRODUCER (TALK) 15:26, 13 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

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  • What are the green arrows on the map in the infobox for? Needs caption in general
  • The green arrows represent advances of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Changed map image to include key. Would another form of caption be preferable?--Tomobe03 (talk) 10:26, 18 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • The key could work if the original image were bigger. Can you ask the uploader for a bigger version? I have to strain to read the key on my 27-inch monitor, which isn't good. If bigger image becomes available, I's suggest adding a caption saying something like Croatian forces (in yellow), Serb forces (in red), etc. Right now, it's useful to see how the attack progressed in general, but not for specific units.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 18:01, 18 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • The Bjelovar corps were included - Capitalize corps and change "were" to "was"
  • Define AOR
  • The abbreviation is already spelled out once in the lede and once more in the orbat section (the 1st instance in the main prose). Do you have something else in mind?--Tomobe03 (talk) 09:55, 18 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

More later.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 21:37, 17 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • So it is. Maybe I only had one section loaded whenever I searched for earlier uses.
  • How do you disable a road? Perhaps demolished, damaged, destroyed?
  • Fixed.
  • This isn't clear: That night, the town of Hrvatska Dubica was evacuated by the RSK troops and the civilian population across the Sava River, which represented the regional border with Croatia. A rephrasing of some sort, perhaps, or maybe rearrange the sentence?
  • This article is massive; I wonder if it shouldn't be broken out into 3 or 4 articles, possibly one per Croatian corps, each with their own map of the sector. You're giving very detailed, low-level, accounts of each day's actions, but I really can't track any of this stuff which I find very aggravating. I think that the appropriate level of detail for this article is X Corps made x progress in this area while RSK counterattacks caused X units to withdraw, etc. Much more general; tracking companies and platoons is not the job of an overall job like this. Take a look at the Battle of Kursk article for one idea as to the proper level of detail for an overall battle article. What we have here, I think, is a bunch of articles that should called Operations of Croatian X Corps during Operation Winter, etc., all lumped into a very good overview. I'm not going to oppose if you decide not to take on the extra work of breaking this article up, but I would strongly urge that you give it serious consideration as the detail is kinda mind-numbing, especially without reference to maps.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 18:01, 18 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm quite reluctant to do that just now, but I was seriously entertaining such an idea - on one hand I'd like to present detailed information (not necessarily in a single article) while on the other I'd prefer greater clarity. I'll take a good look at the example you pointed out (Battle of Kursk) and try to formulate an idea how to approach this. Would you mind if I drop you a line and ask for help then?--Tomobe03 (talk) 18:26, 18 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • CommentsSupport
    • No dab links [2] (no action required).
    • External links check out [3] (no action required).
    • A couple of the maps lack Alt Text [4] so you might consider adding it for consistency (not and ACR requirement though - suggestion only).
    • The Citation Check Tool reveals no issues with reference consolidation (no action required).
    • Images are all PD or licenced and seem appropriate to the article (no action required).
    • The Earwig Tool doesn't seem to be working at the moment - google searches reveal no obvious issues with copyright violation [5] (no action required).
    • Some duplicate links which need to be removed per WP:REPEATLINK:
    • This is awkwardly worded: "It was a decisive victory of the Croatian Army (HV) attacking across a 630-kilometre (390 mi) frontline against the Republic of Serbian Krajina (RSK)." Consider instead something like: "It was a decisive victory for the Croatian Army (HV) which attacked across a 630-kilometre (390 mi) frontage against the Republic of Serbian Krajina (RSK)."
    • "and was declared completed on the evening of 7 August, despite significant mop-up operations against pockets of resistance lasting until 14 August...", consider rewording to "and was declared complete on the evening of 7 August, despite significant mopping-up operations against pockets of resistance lasting until 14 August."
    • "The operation was built up on HV and HVO advances gained during Operation Summer '95 when strategic positions allowing the rapid capture of the RSK capital Knin were made...", consider instead: "The operation built on HV and HVO advances during Operation Summer '95 when strategic positions allowing the rapid capture of the RSK capital Knin were gained..."
    • This is poorly worded and I don't quite know what you mean: "later be cited as a pretext for the Bosnian War." Perhaps reword.
    • "deployed at three main axes of attack..." → "deployed on three main axes of attack..."
    • dates for nights should use a slash (i.e. /) not a dash (i.e. -), per WP:MOSDATE.
    • informal language here: "did not exploit the opportunity to smash the bridgehead." Consider instead "did not exploit the opportunity to destroy the bridgehead."
    • "while the RSK was represented by Colonel Bulat...", rank should be removed following formal introduction at first mention per WP:SURNAME.
    • There is quite a bit of information about CAF involvement in the operation, including numbers and types of aircraft, but little about the Serbians. Is there anything available about what aircraft they operated for example?
      • Looking at it, the information does appear to be missing, but there was little activity by the RSK air force - none to be exact except a helicopter deployment in Velebit area (presented in the text) and VRS air force raid of Kutina (also presented in the text, including aircraft types and results of the raid). I imagine the RSK/VRS air force was used so sparingly mainly because of the NATO no-fly zone enforced over Bosnia and Herzegovina and little SAM cover following US airstrikes coinciding with the beginning of the offensive. In fact it is quite possible that the RSK could not distinguish properly Croatian from NATO aircraft (as the former would approach from Pula AFB in Istria and the latter from Aviano AFB, using very similar if not identical approach routes). None of this can be reliably source though.--Tomobe03 (talk) 15:55, 25 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • Regarding types of aircraft operated by the RSK, the 105th Aviation Brigade represented the entire RSK air force. Even though the wikilinked article claims 12 J-21s, a couple of G-2s and a handful of Gazelle helos and largely antiquated assortment of additional fixed wing craft - the article is generally unreferenced. Marijan cites captured RSK documents confirming absence of MiG-21s, J-22s and G-4s, but not what's actually there (p.286). There's very little reliable information available on actual composition of the 105th Brigade, but I'll have a look and add relevant info.--Tomobe03 (talk) 16:14, 25 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • there are a couple of "when" and "why" tags in the article where additional information is probably required.
      • Addressed. The "why" was impossible to answer using the source, so rephrased, and a date was provided for the "when". In the latter case, "by November 2010" was used instead of "in November 2010" because the source is not quite clear on the change happening in or before November 2010. I'll look into that further though and amend as appropriate.--Tomobe03 (talk) 17:15, 25 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • A lot of references are missing a place of publishing, can these be added? Anotherclown (talk) 02:00, 24 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
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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