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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/M15 Halftrack/archive1

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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 archived by Graham Beards via FACBot (talk) 23:33, 14 November 2015 [1].

M15 Halftrack

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Nominator(s): Tomandjerry211 (alt) (talk) 20:23, 21 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about a relatively obscure (well, at least more obscure then the M16) anti-aircraft half-track. It originated from the T28 project, soon evolving into the T28E1. In 1943, it was modified into the M15 and M15A1 models. There were also two 40 mm sporting variants, the M15 "Special" and the M34. Both were just a 40 mm gun mounted on the M15 and they saw service in Korea (the M15 "Special served in the Philippines as well). It was first used in North Africa and was also used in Europe and Korea. I believe this should be featured because it is the widest possible article on the subject using every source available and has been rewritten four times. It also has been past a DYK, a GA, and a MILHIST A-class review. Thank you for any comments you have, Tomandjerry211 (alt) (talk) 20:23, 21 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Questions from John

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Comments by Squeamish Ossifrage

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I'm not generally a military history article reviewer, so forgive my ignorance if I trip over MILHIST established conventions.

  • I'm also confused about the article titling / capitalization. The actual designation for this thing, as I understand it, is the M15 Combination Gun Motor Carriage, which absolutely should be (and is, in the article) capitalized for that reason. I also agree that isn't how the article should be titled because of WP:COMMONNAME. I'm dubious whether designations other than the official one warrant capitalization, or whether "halftrack" or "Halftrack" is more common in the best-quality reviewed sources. Has the Military History Wikiproject approached this question before? It has significant consequences for link styling in addition to article titles.
    • This has been discussed on the talk page. In a Google books search, "M15 Halftrack" was the most popular title in major sources. The capitalization part however, is somewhat divided. At last count there where just a bit more sources using "Halftrack" than "halftrack", but I'm not sure on that.--Tomandjerry211 (alt) (talk) 20:53, 28 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • The lead suggests the M15 has an M6 sighting system; the Development section suggests (I think) that that is true only for the M15A1. Is there any article to link to provide context for "sighting system"?
    • Clarified.
  • While I'm on the topic of that Development section, the below sentence is rather difficult to parse. You may benefit from splitting it up. I presume that the M54 is a new chassis, and that it is the M3 that was replaced? Or was the M54 a replacement for the M42, since the changes are weapons and their mounting configuration?
"A total of 680 M15s were produced in 1943 by White and Autocar before the considerable stress this mount placed on the M3 chassis resulted in its replacement with the M54; it reversed weapon placement, used simpler and lighter air-cooled M2 Brownings, and an M6 sighting system."
  • Likewise, the last bit about the M15 "Special". Is that the same thing as the "T19" or the "M34" (and are those quoted for a reason)? It seems they are, since the "Special" had a 40mm gun, and so did those, but ... perhaps not?
    • Personally, I'm not sure. Most of the sources (Hunnicutt and Zaloga are the first few I checked) stated nothing on how they were different. But they included them as Seperate variants, so I just previously assumed they were different.--Tomandjerry211 (alt) (talk) 20:53, 28 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Under Service history, there's the description "Browning M2 machine gun-equipped M16 MGMCs". Is this meant to be a contrast with the M15? Isn't the M15 also equippment with Browning M2s?
  • Is there anything interesting to say about the deployment of these guns in battles post-Kasserine? Some of the sources I glanced over suggested that there might be more to say here about their role at Normandy, and there's a report where one was used to destroy a train in France that may or may not have sufficient historical impact to be relevant here. It would be nice to be able to have something about what they did in the war, rather than just where they were present.
  • I have no idea what "limited standard" means, but does that part of Service history mean that the "Special" really is something different from the M34?
    • Linked to the nearest article, and for the second query, see the response to your fourth comment.
  • Any information available about whether any of these survive, perhaps as part of the collection at any of various military museums?
    • I would like to, but no RSs stating them.--Tomandjerry211 (alt) (talk) 20:53, 28 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
      • I'm sure there's no formal survey of these things, because that would be too much to ask. Non-RS suggest that there's a half-dozen or so M15A1 at various military museums, mostly in the US. That's a good place to start, because it gives us locations to check in on. Plaques or guide brochures from these facilities are not conventional sources, but they may nevertheless be suitable for use as references. It's obvious that the museum at Fort Lewis has one, because it's sitting on the their lawn and the infobox has a picture of it! That said, I couldn't find anything online to confirm it was there; still, I feel its likely that its presence is verifiable with something. I had better luck with Fort Sill, which has an M15A1 destined for display in the yet-unfinished US Army Air Defense Artillery Museum. This is a suitable source confirming its presence, although I'm sad that a military museum thinks Flash is okay... Obviously, there's no expectation at FAC to hunt all these exhibits down, but if you can get something for 2 or 3 of them, that's sufficient to note that "several surviving M15A1 are in military museums, such as [foo, bar]", staple the references on the end, and call it a day. I'll see if I can find anything else. In addition to the those two, there should be M15A1s at Fort Jackson, Fort Stewart, and the Anniston Army Depot. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 21:28, 28 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
        • Well, I can't find a source for the M15A1 at Fort Jackson that is reliable in and of itself. However, I found photographs of the exhibit of that M15A1, including the informative plaque: here, plaque closeup. That exhibit is a primary source, clearly, but it's hard to argue that a sign describing the exhibit of a vehicle at a US military museum, on a US military base, is not reliable for the purposes of documenting the existence of said vehicle. Indeed, while it doesn't get much use, {{cite plaque}} even exists for precisely this purpose. Especially if there's anything to add from the Fort Lewis Military Museum, that would get us up to three documented examples, and that's enough to make a "several" claim. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 21:53, 28 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Although arguably not a requirement, presenting ISBNs as properly-hyphenated ISBN-13s is best practice. Conversion is easy.
  • Journal sources do not typically require publishers or publication locations, and their inclusion is discouraged.
  • The United States Army Combat Forces Journal citation is incomplete due to the "Google Books trap". That journal provides volume and issue numbers; the scans available on Google Books' snippet view concatenate all the issues of a given volume. Additionally, the article needs its full page range provided (I don't believe this was exclusively on p. 28). Finally, I'm somewhat dubious of the authorship credit here; most articles in this journal have explicit bylines. Snippet view is, as normal, not very cooperative here. You may need to confirm bibliographical information elsewhere.
  • The Popular Mechanics article needs its pagination included in the bibliography. You've got two options here, really. One is to indicate it as |at=front cover, p. 7, or to simply include |p=7 and the front cover mentioned much like it is now, in a parenthetical note. If you opt for the first approach, note that you can make "front cover" an external link in that field (although it's also possible that the metadata people will tell me that's bad...). Either way, you should also include the volume and issue numbers (volume 80, issue 6).
  • You have a ton of Further reading options. In general, I'm not a big fan of large Further reading sections at the FA level. Do these works contain relevant information about the article topic that is not convered by the article text? If so, why is that material not included? If not, how do they benefit the reader?
    • Only left one. That source contained the example with the train blowing up in France (if I am not mistaken).

Overall, I'm neutral here. I'm quite familiar with the difficulties of writing FA-level articles about narrow topics with limited available material. This article is also (unavoidably, really) heavy on dense tech-specs, and so the prose issues stand out to me more sharply than they would in a longer article. I don't think any of my objections are uncorrectable in the FAC timeframe, but I'd like to see things spruced up a bit here before I feel I can consider supporting promotion.

Comments by an IP

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  • Why is the lead not using the convert template?
    • You only used convert templates for first use of a measurement.--Tomandjerry211 (alt) (talk) 20:27, 29 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
      • The use must be consistent. The infobox and the first section use those templates, while the lead isn't? --124.107.75.38 (talk) 16:52, 30 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • United States, US, U.S., all found in the lead. Should be consistent which style to use.
  • "It was equipped with one M1 automatic 37 millimeter (1.5 in) gun and two water-cooled 0.5 inch (12.7 mm)". Not an aficionado. Is this how they are written, or should we switch everything for consistency?

Images are appropriately licensed. Nikkimaria (talk) 15:40, 31 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Sadly, there is no consensus for promotion on this occasion. Graham Beards (talk) 23:33, 14 November 2015 (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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