Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Operation Coburg

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.

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Battle of Bien Hoa (1968)

Promoted --Eurocopter (talk) 15:47, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Nominator(s): Anotherclown (talk)

I am nominating this article for A-Class review on the suggestion of another user. All constructive comments welcome of course. Anotherclown (talk) 08:38, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

A1. Not Mostly Met, needs to say if VWP / PAVN / PLAF secondary sources in English exist or not: ausvets is not RS for military history. The citation is not appropriate for a web citation.(actioned by date: 04:27, 30 September 2009 (UTC)) Regimental histories of 273R, 274R, unknown bn of 84A Rocket Regiment, and Dong Nai R do not appear to have been sought out (you should comment on your major secondary sources attempts to access this material, ie, their complaints that they couldn't, or that the units don't have official histories.

Ausvets is only used once and in conjunction with another source. Point taken about the NVA/VC histories. Anotherclown (talk) 07:28, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

A2. Not Met: Your nomenclature is biased, OPFOR should be identified with own nomenclature at first use of the standard English nomenclature. (actioned by date: 04:27, 30 September 2009 (UTC)) Giap was not paramount in the DRVN leadership at this stage, I suggest you look into the recent scholarship on intraparty squabbling and the key thought behind "General offensive, general uprising" strategy (Its not Giap). Your prelude fails to give OPFOR's order of battle and Bien Hoa's political, strategic or operational importance for OPFOR. Your core narrative of Australia's experience in the Battle of Bien Hoa is factually accurate, neutral, focused. My concern is with neglect, and a bias-by-ommission. Additionally your Prelude narrative does not come up to contemporary scholarship regarding DRVN politics and strategy. Prose is consistently and worryingly biased towards an RAR / RVN / US-led alliance point of view, ie, "Ominously, they would be operating ..." The issue here is the prose's voice appears to come from RAR. Prose voice should be neutralised.

Working on the prose voice. Anotherclown (talk) 07:28, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Have added mention of the role of General Nguyen Chi Thanh. Anotherclown (talk) 10:02, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

It's easy enough to say that he was in command of the Tet Offensive. The inner workings of a secret communist party can be hard to discern. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 06:27, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Actually the inner party life over the General offensive general uprising is fairly well known and documented in peer reviewed academic journals. That the editors mischaracterised Giaps role in the conduct of such a well documented DRVN policy choice and offensive speaks against their decision not to include mention of OPFOR accounts and leads me to suspect they never bothered to look. Fifelfoo (talk) 06:48, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

A3. Met: Structure appears appropriate.

A4. Met: Not met: See concern about prose-voice POV. Basic issues with military terminology, "Tet was a tactical disaster for the communists". Really? Using tactics to describe a series of interlinked operations and a strategic gambit? I'm willing to accept this as a difference in opinion / characterisation that reasonable people would have.

Are you saying that Tet was not a heavy military defeat for the VC/NV? Sure the Western public and politicians got freaked out but from a raw military position, the communists lost YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 06:33, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Of course Tet was a defeat, measured against intended outcomes and force preservation. It was tactically successful, see the seizure of Hue. It was operational insanity and strategically desperate. If the article is characterising this as a tactical failure there is an issue with the editors' capacities for summarising military history at a conceptual level. Fifelfoo (talk) 06:48, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, interesting. I'd have said that Tet was a tactical defeat for the Viet Cong, but a strategic victory for them also. Certainly that is how it is taught at RMC-D, or at least how it was taught when I was there. The reasoning for this is that tactically it was a defeat as the battles were lost militarily (i.e. on the ground and in terms of strict losses v. gains), but strategically it was a victory because of the overarching effect it had on the home front, politics and military planning in the US and Australia and perceptions in the media, etc. This is where the terms 'tactical' and 'strategic' take on broader conceptions than the basic 'tactical' meaning what to do in a single military situation and 'strategic' (as in a conflict-wide plan). As such, I feel that you are probably being a bit harsh in your criticism of the editor's ability to summarise military history, however, I hasten to add that we were both at RMC at the same time and as such my own conceptions of the many ways in which these terms can be used is probably coloured in the same way as his own. — AustralianRupert (talk) 13:31, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

No worries. I'm assessing tactical success in terms of achieving many immediate missions, maintaining unit cohesion in complex and radically changed operations, and having a capacity to assert their operational goals: are small units successful in completing or attempting missions assigned. (I suspect here RMC-D had a different opinion on the expendable nature of their infantry assets to the NLF in 1968). I'm assessing strategic against the aims of the general offensive / general uprising (which, admittedly, were for the people of Saigon to seize power after being inspired...), or against the general strategic aim of reunification under VWP control.

A5. NotMostly Met: Diagram map of lines of communication / bases would be an appropriate addition, and is wanting. Fifelfoo (talk) 13:42, 22 September 2009 (UTC) I Support this article moving forward to A. Fifelfoo (talk) 10:32, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Have a map of sorts now, but not quite what we're after as it is of the main Tet attacks. Am currently attempting to draw one of AOs Uniontown and Columbus myself, but at this stage it is a wooful effort. Will not upload unless I can somehow make it look less like something drawn by a monkey with a crayon between his teeth. Anotherclown (talk) 21:55, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm impressed with the article. The problems highlighted are, with the exception of the PLAF/PAVN military histories, small and resolvable. The issue of access to Vietnamese accounts of the battle is a major concern. If such accounts are unavailable, the military histories referenced in creating the article should discuss the absence of availability. Fifelfoo (talk) 12:50, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

• Comments: There are no dab links, external links all work and alt text is present according to the Featured article tools. — AustralianRupert (talk) 13:57, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
• Comments This is an impressive article which provides a highly detailed, well written and well referenced account of the battle. However, I think that it needs some more work to reach A class:
  • The introduction is a bit short

Have expanded introduction. Anotherclown (talk) 21:55, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

• • I agree that the article is told almost exclusively from an Australian POV. This may be difficult to avoid given the relative availability of sources, but more should be done to explain what the Communist forces in the area were doing and what their experiences were.

Have added (a little) to NVA/VC forces and their objectives. Anotherclown (talk) 10:02, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

• • The number of fair use images may be excessive
  • The article would benefit from a copy edit by an editor with a fresh pair of eyes (nothing is seriously wrong, it just needs tightening and some typos fixed)
  • I agree that maps would be invaluable
  • The para on the strategic effects of the Tet Offensive seems unnecessary given that this was only one battle in it. The para's focus on the American public also seems out of place - what was its impact on the Australian public? Nick-D (talk) 07:44, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Now added a bit on the effect of Tet in Australia. Anotherclown (talk) 07:28, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Copyedited YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 07:05, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Having written the article and chosen the name Battle of Bien Hoa, I'm now a bit concerned that this isn't really reflective of the subject. In many ways this article focusses on the Australian component of the battle, namely Operation Coburg. 1ATF operated in conjunction with an American brigade to defend the Long Binh-Bien Hoa complex and occupied the western AO (AO Columbus), while the Americans occupied AO Uniontown around Long Binh and the airbase itself. By my own admission this article largely ignores the activities of the US 199th Infantry Brigade and all casualty figures etc are for Operation Coburg only. As such I am proposing to move the article to Operation Coburg. A larger article, perhaps named Battle of Long Binh-Bien Hoa or something similar is really needed to cover the overall battle and can be written at a latter date. Any objections? Anotherclown (talk) 06:33, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

I am also currently rewritting this article off line to take care of some of the outstanding concerns above and will put it onto the mainspace shortly. Unfortunately I do not feel that I can get this one over the line for A class though. Thank you all for your comments and helping to improve this article nonetheless. Cheers. Anotherclown (talk) 06:33, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Just waiting for an Admin to delete the previous redirect page at Operation Coburg so I can move this article accross. Can anyone help? Anotherclown (talk) 15:42, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Done, thank you. Anotherclown (talk) 21:55, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Ack. I think that moving the article as you did makes sense. I see no reason why the article named Operation Coburg couldn't make it to A class, but that might be for another time if you were inclined to try again some time. — AustralianRupert (talk) 12:11, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Still concerned about nomenclature (I can go over Coburg myself to do that), and attempts to seek PLAF / PAVN / NLF sources (more significant, would like at least something on their unavailability, or that P/P/N didn't esteem the operation, or "No mention of Coburg / Bien Hoa exists in the English translation of the official history." Those two cleared, I'd support. Still wish we had a map of the operation, even if generated by an editor relatively unskilled in map-making. Points, lines, movement? Still generally pleased with the excellence of the article. Fifelfoo (talk) 14:37, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

My apologies, I have now added ref to DRVN (and RVN). I have been thinking about how to do this for a while so as not to make it too confusing for readers (i.e. using Democratic Republic of Vietnam and Republic of Vietnam and then north and south etc). Anyway let me know what you think. Anotherclown (talk) 08:13, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

I will go over the sources again to try to come up with a solution to your concern about Vietnamese sources etc. Anotherclown (talk) 08:13, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

If they don't exist there isn't any need to say so. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 02:58, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Saying so in Talk:, or here would be sufficient. Fifelfoo (talk) 04:27, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

I have endevoured to add more PAVN sources but it seems that not much is readily available in English. I have added a reference to the PAVN Official history now, although it is not much. To be exact the books coverage of the battle consists of no more than 2 lines. Quote - "The 5th Division atacked the Bien Hoa air base, the Long Binh warehouse complex, and the headquaters of the U.S. [2nd] Field Force." Unquote. Equally a search of the Australian War Memorial library reveals no histories for the PAVN units that took part (273, 274 Regiments, the Dong Nai Regiment etc). A quick search of Google doesn't reveal anything to me - but I'm not really an expert on its use for academic research. I have also gone through the sources used to date and cannot locate much. Even the Australian Official histories, which have a fairly impressive academic pedigree, have little in the way of PAVN/Vietnamese sources. I suspect that the reason for the limited coverage is that this battle was in many ways fairly insignificant from PAVN perspective, as the main attacks during Tet really took place in Saigon, Hue and other places.Anotherclown (talk) 09:57, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

• Support YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 03:56, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
• Support: most of the concerns raised above appear to have been covered off on. — AustralianRupert (talk) 11:22, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

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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.