Talk:Anti-tank dog/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Skinny87 (talk) 17:43, 27 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for a review. I was not the nominator, but wrote most of this article and felt to reply below, just going through the comments and trying to address some for the sake of the article. Materialscientist (talk) 06:57, 30 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

GA review (see here for criteria)

It is reasonably well written.
a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):
'They were actively trained by the Soviet and Russian military forces between 1930–1996 and used in 1941–1942 against German tanks in World War II.' - How do you 'actively' train something, and the move backwards and forwards chronologically is awkward; I'd suggest splitting into pre-war, war and post-war periods.
"intensively" Materialscientist (talk) 06:57, 30 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

'Although the original dog training routine was to leave the bomb and retreat so that the bomb would be detonated by the timer' - What timer? This hasn't been introduced as of yet.
A timer is a basic part of many bomb designs. The lead of this article does not have to explain that. Materialscientist (talk) 06:57, 30 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

'this routine failed and was replaced by the impact detonation procedure which killed the dog in the process' - replace 'the' with 'a'
Replaced. Materialscientist (talk) 06:57, 30 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

wl Iraqi Insurgents
Linked. Materialscientist (talk) 06:57, 30 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

'In 1924, the Revolutionary Military Council of the Soviet Union approved the use of dogs for military purposes, which included a wide range of tasks such as rescue, delivery of first aid, communication, tracking mines and people, assisting in combat, transporting food, medicine and injured soldiers on sledges, and detonation of enemy targets.' - Run-on sentence to a massive degree, needs to be split up.

'The bomb was fastened on the dog and detonated upon contact with the target together with the animal' - Badly worded, sounds like the animal detonated seperately, or had a seperate bomb.
Reworded. Materialscientist (talk) 06:57, 30 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

'Dogs were trained by being kept hungry and their food was placed under tanks, which very quickly taught the dogs to get under them.' - 'Get under them' seems quite awkardly worded.
Reworded. There were several copyedits of this article that mixed up some sentences. Materialscientist (talk) 06:57, 30 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

'The use of anti-tank dogs was escalated during 1941–1942, when every effort was made by the Soviet Army to stop the German advance at the Eastern Front of World War II.' - Eastern Front of World War II' is a very awkard phrase.
Raise this at talk:Eastern Front (World War II) which is the core article for the event - I am fine with any term for it. Materialscientist (talk) 06:57, 30 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

'About 40,000 dogs were deployed for various tasks in the Soviet Army at the Western, South-West, North-West, North, South and Baltic Fronts' - You could probably just say it was used on almost every front, instead of listing them all.
Sure. Materialscientist (talk) 06:57, 30 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

'The first group of anti-tank dogs arrived at the frontline at the end of the summer of 1941 and included 30 dogs and 40 trainers. Their deployment revealed some serious problems.' - Okay, so where and when were they deployed?
Upon arrival. I guess this was phrased to avoid repetition. Materialscientist (talk) 06:57, 30 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

'In the field, the dogs refused to dive under moving tanks. Some persistent dogs ran near the tanks, waiting for them to stop but were shot in the process. Gunfire from the tanks scared away many of the dogs.' - Quite staccato writing here, could flow a lot better.

'A captured German officer later reported that they learned of the anti-tank dog design from the collected killed animals' - 'Collected killed animals' is another odd phrase.
Rmv collected. Materialscientist (talk) 06:57, 30 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

'A massive German propaganda campaign sought to discredit the Soviet Army' - How big is 'massive', as its a vague term.
Rmv massive. Materialscientist (talk) 06:57, 30 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The small paragraph about the diesel engines needs to be integrated into the previous section.

'For example, at the front of the 160th Infantry Division near Glukhov, six dogs had damaged five German tanks; near the airport of Stalingrad, anti-tank dogs destroyed 13 tanks.' - Please either use 'dogs' or 'anti-tank' dogs.
The article focuses specifically on 'anti-tank' dogs, but repeating the term is awkward. Obviously, usual dogs won't damage tanks. Materialscientist (talk) 06:57, 30 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

'An armored vehicles top-mounted machine gun proved ineffective due to the relatively small size of the attackers as the dogs were too low to the ground and because of the dog's speed and the difficulty in spotting them' - Run-on sentence.

'The Japanese Army received about 25,000 dogs from their ally Germany' - Rewording needed here.

'However, training of anti-tank dogs continued until June 1996' - Running after the previous sentence, this makes it seem as if the war continued until June 1996, please rewrite.
Most readers won't think that WWII lasted till 1996. Nevertheless, clarified. Materialscientist (talk) 06:57, 30 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

'Another program was suggested by a Swiss citizen living in Santa Fe, New Mexico. William A. Prestre proposed using large dogs to kill Japanese soldiers.' - Two awkward sentences should be rewritten so his name comes first.
Reworded (this surprising bit was added by someone, but was verifiable). Materialscientist (talk) 06:57, 30 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

'One of the biggest problems encountered was getting Japanese soldiers to train the dogs with as few Japanese soldiers were being captured.' - 'With as few' is a typo and needs to be corrected.
Corrected. Materialscientist (talk) 06:57, 30 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

'This caused protests among Iraqis, even though dogs are treated as an "unclean" animal in the Muslim world, in Islam it is considered sinful to kill animals for reasons other than food.' - This sentence is a run-on, and also is unclear and confused as to what it is saying.
Fixed wrong punctuation. Yes, it can be rewritten in many ways. Materialscientist (talk) 06:57, 30 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It is factually accurate and verifiable.
a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):
'The idea of using dogs as mobile mines was developed in the 1930s, together with the dog-fitting mine design' - This needs expanding upon - who developed the ideas, and why? As the Soviet Union wasn't at war, why was it developed?
There were a few names in some sources, but they are not known even in USSR. Weapons development goes at its own pace, no matter the wars, and Stalin was preparing for wars. Materialscientist (talk) 06:57, 30 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

'German Shepherd Dogs were favored for the program' - Any particular reason?
Strong, easy to train. Added. Materialscientist (talk) 06:57, 30 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

'In 1935, anti-mine dog units were officially included in the Soviet Army' - Very vague, and confusing. What are 'anti-mine dog units' exactly? How did they operate
Dogs and their instructors. Obviously, they included miners, and cooks had experience with dogs. It was extremely difficult to scrap reliable information on this topic, thus there maybe 1000 questions with no or speculative answers. Materialscientist (talk) 06:57, 30 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

'Several leading animal scientists were also involved' - Such as?
Again, there were a few names, but not Googleable to anything. Materialscientist (talk) 06:57, 30 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

'The original idea was for a dog to carry a bomb strapped to its body, and reach a specific static target' - Again, who developed this original idea, this is too vague.
No information here at all. We know this all only because some bits were declassified. Materialscientist (talk) 06:57, 30 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

'A group of dogs practiced for this for six months, but the reports show that no dogs could master the task.' - Where was this, and which reports?
Same answer. Materialscientist (talk) 06:57, 30 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

'This claim was questioned by the Soviets themselves as propaganda, trying to justify the dog training program.' - How could the Soviets have questioned their own sources? You need to be more specific.
Clarified. It meant modern historians. Materialscientist (talk) 06:57, 30 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

'Some went so far as to say that the army did not stop with sacrificing people to the war and went on to slaughter dogs too; those who openly criticised the program were prosecuted by the military police' - Who are these 'some'? And how exactly were they prosecuted?
It is based on a few accounts of complaining soldiers. They were quickly removed by the military police with no details given. Materialscientist (talk) 06:57, 30 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

'Their deployment had little success, mostly due to poor training' - Can you be more specific, why was the training poor?
This refers to the mentioned in the article tank-related problems (wrong tanks used in training and insufficient preparation for the scary fire of a real battle) Materialscientist (talk) 06:57, 30 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

'After millions of dollars were spent, the program was abandoned.' - Can you be more specific on the amount?
No. Materialscientist (talk) 06:57, 30 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Unhappy with the reliability of the majority of the Russian websites, as although I cannot read Russian, the web addresses do not give me confidence that they are reliable sources. To give a few examples, citations 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 11 and 15 seem unreliable, especially since at least one (Soviet Empire] is completely uncited for the given webpage.
Yeah, sourcing is a problem. There should be no doubt on ref. 8 though - it is an internet copy of a book written by professionals, both in military and historical fields. Materialscientist (talk) 07:07, 30 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It is broad in its coverage.
a (major aspects): b (focused):
It follows the neutral point of view policy.
Fair representation without bias:
It is stable.
No edit wars, etc.:
It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.
a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
Overall:
Pass/Fail:

I'm afraid that I am going to have to fail this article at this point. There are a lot of prose problems that needs a heavy copy-edit and rewrite, and much of the writing for specific events and incidents is vague and lacking in detail. I am also unhappy with the sourcing, as the majority of the article is sourced to websites that are either uncited or have urls that seem unreliable due to their titles. This article needs more reliable sourcing, which I reckon exists given the oddness of the subject, and I suspect there could be more information on German counter-measures. Most importantly, apart from better sourcing, is the need to be less vague and give more specific details. If you have any questions, please ask me on my talkpage. Skinny87 (talk) 17:25, 29 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]