Talk:Sword of Stalingrad

A fact from Sword of Stalingrad appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 15 June 2009 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that after Winston Churchill handed Joseph Stalin the Sword of Stalingrad (pictured) at the Tehran Conference, a clumsy Soviet general let it slip out of its scabbard?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2009/June.

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Sugestions[edit]

Suggestions for further improvement:

Ref #1 needs a page number.
What makes ref #3 a reliable source?
Who published the websites for refs #3 and 4? (I.e. for 4, the company name)
What is ref #8 trying to reference?
Ref #14: according to the article Op. cit., it should not be used in references; use named references instead.
Everything could use a little more consistency, but that's more WP:GAN than now. If you want to tackle this issue, I'd reccoment using {{cite web}}, {{cite news}} and {{cite book}}. Cheers, —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 05:58, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Royal crest[edit]

I have removed this bit:

Few noticed or cared that the royal crest was in fact upside down.<ref>Andrew Higgins, "Stalingrad blade blunted by time: The sword Churchill gave Stalin is gathering museum dust", 7 November 1993, The Independent, U.K.</ref>

because reference 4 clearly shows the royal arms (not crest) right side up. Ceremonial swords are meant to be carried point up up in the scabbard, and the scabbard is made to be seen in this position.

--Klausok (talk) 06:12, 15 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Very interesting. Thank you for correcting this error.GBS2 (talk) 13:33, 15 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Misleading text[edit]

"Despite this embarrassment, Voroshilov went on to enjoy a long and successful career in the higher Soviet echelon, even having a tank series named after him." This is confusing to me, as it implies his career (and particularly the naming of the KV series of tanks) happened mostly after this, even though the tanks were in service during the war, and were pretty much surpassed by the battle this sword was awarded for even! Gunrun (talk) 08:04, 15 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Carrier of Voroshilov[edit]

Despite this embarrassment, Voroshilov went on to enjoy a long and successful career in the higher Soviet echelon, even having a tank series named after him.

The tank series were named after him before the sword incident you know. And also I think the incidenrt was not cansidered of any importance by Stalin (unlike Western commenters).--Contributions/79.111.113.126 (talk) 10:39, 15 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Gunrun and Contributions/79, many thanks for pointing this out. I have moved the KV tank naming clause to avoid that confusion on precedence.GBS2 (talk) 13:37, 15 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Dropping of the sword[edit]

The story of Voroshilov dropping the sword seems to be mentioned by several sources. However, on footage of the sword presentation it seems that it was Stalin who let the sword slide from the scabbard. See for instance here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMnouHxfVm4. Could it be that the incident was blamed on one of Stalin's subordinates to avoid embarrassment? --Vunzmstr (talk) 09:30, 12 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]