Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/British nuclear weapons and the Falklands War/archive1

British nuclear weapons and the Falklands War

Featured article candidates/British nuclear weapons and the Falklands War/archive1

Nominator(s): Nick-D (talk) 00:32, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about an interesting aspect of the 1982 Falklands War. While nuclear weapons were obviously not used, the British warships that were sent to the South Atlantic carried most of the country's nuclear depth bombs, mainly as it would have taken too long to have offloaded them. However, the British government and military did not seriously consider using nuclear weapons and the War Cabinet never wanted the depth bombs sent south. It was reported during and after the war that a British ballistic missile submarine had been sent to menace Argentina but historians have found no evidence that such a deployment took place. Interestingly, it has emerged in recent years that British Prime Minister Thatcher might have been willing to use nuclear weapons if the war had gone disastrously for her. Historians and international relations experts have also discussed why Argentina decided to invade British territory despite the UK being nuclear power and the broader implications of this.

I developed this article to set the record straight after a really bad article on this topic was developed and rightly deleted in May. It's turned out to be a much more complex and interesting topic than I expected, leading to a wide ranging article. The article was assessed as a GA in mid-June and passed a Military History Wikiproject A-class review in August. I have since further expanded and copy edited the article and am hopeful that it meets the FA criteria. Thank you in advance for your comments. Nick-D (talk) 00:32, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

File:Falklands,_Campaign,_(Distances_to_bases)_1982.jpg: source link is dead. Ditto File:HMS_Repulse_(S23)_in_the_Firth_of_Clyde_c1979.jpg
- Fixed both Nick-D (talk) 07:51, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
File:Prime_Minister_Margaret_Thatcher.jpg is quite grainy - is there no better alternative? Nikkimaria (talk) 05:05, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
- It's the best photo we have of her in 1982. There are some better photos for 1981 and 1983, but they're not significantly better. Thanks for these comments. Nick-D (talk) 07:51, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

UC

Very much enjoying the article, as I expected I would given the nominator. Three general pointers so far:

I think the lead currently errs too much towards brevity rather than completeness -- remember that we should be content for readers to stop at the end of it and have picked up as much information as we really need to give them.
Similarly, I think the prose is just slightly too simplistic in places -- it's very clear, but occasionally it almost reads like an introductory school-book that pulls some punches on detail and general polish.
If we can quickly and easily give a piece of information that answers a reader's question, even if it's not strictly relevant (e.g. "who was that person? When did that happen?"), I think we should. Footnotes might help here, if you feel that the flow would be unduly interrupted.

I hope this is helpful. As ever, please do let me know where I've been unclear or unfair, and I'm very happy to disagree on matters of taste (which is most of this review) without any prejudice.

The first sentence (sorry to start so early!) could do with a bit of thought. I don't really like "even though" as WP:WEASEL: most pilots never seriously consider using their ejection seat, even if they have one in the aircraft. Secondly, the word "initially" is slippery -- it could mean anything from "when they were built, years earlier" to "in the opening stages of the conflict".
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher: titles in apposition like this, for politicians, are very American: BrE prefers the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher or Margaret Thatcher, the Prime Minister.
The head of the British military: that was the Queen -- I think we mean the professional head, and I would give his title and name him as Terence Lewin. I'm surprised that we don't get the views (either here or later, except on a related issue) of any other military people -- did Woodward ever express a view, for example, or any of the ships' commanders?
It has been alleged that a British ballistic missile submarine was sent to the South Atlantic to potentially attack Argentina. This has been denied by senior British government figures as well as the commander of the submarine in question: can we therefore name it as Resolution -- and be clearer that this was reported at the time, rather than just post facto?
The British nuclear arsenal did not deter Argentina's invasion of the Falklands on 2 April 1982 due to the commitments the British government had made to not use these weapons.: Hm -- can we know the cause and effect here for sure -- is it impossible that the Argentines considered the British commitment to be unreliable, but also that (e. g.) the missiles wouldn't work, they would be able to intercept them, it was worth the risk, etc etc? Later, we suggest that they were more reassured that the superpowers would stop the British from launching nuclear weapons, which implies that they didn't think Britain's commitment meant all that much.
The Falkland Islands is an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean and a British Overseas Territory. There has been a long-running sovereignty dispute over the islands between Argentina and the British government. : as it's now over forty years later, I would couch this in 1982 terms. Put another way, if the dispute gets settled tomorrow, we shouldn't have to change this sentence.
The British government decided to liberate the Falklands: consider retake as more neutral (from the Argentine perspective, they were de-liberating them).
This campaign was very risky for the British and required the deployment of substantial military forces at a great distance from the UK.: a bit woolly, I think -- we probably should have said how far the Falklands were from the UK earlier, so "a great distance" is both vague and, in an ideal world, unnecessary. Similarly, "substantial military forces" -- by 2024 British standards, yes, but by almost anyone else's it was a pretty small operation, at least initially. Aren't military campaigns inherently risky, especially for the people taking part? Do we mean militarily risky (they might have lost) or politically? I think there's something here, but it would be worth recouching it in terms of what made this campaign more risky than others.
This made the UK the third country to deploy these weapons: after...? I know it's not particularly relevant, but if we're going to make readers ask the question, it seems fair to answer it given that we can do so very quickly.
The Royal Navy's four ballistic missile submarines were equipped with 100 warheads fitted to standard Polaris missiles and 35 fitted to missiles that had been upgraded through the Chevaline programme.: a total of 100 or 100 each? MOS:FIGURES would like "four" in figures for consistency.
Most of the American-owned warheads were assigned to British Army units in Germany.: I think a very brief comment on the British Army of the Rhine and what it was doing in Germany would be useful here.
It was legal for the UK to deploy nuclear weapons to other locations in the South Atlantic Ocean.: from my very limited reading on this topic, it's a tricky question as to whether a given breach of a treaty is technically illegal. Suggest "it would not have breached the treaty...".
Nuclear powered ships: hyphenate as a compound modifier.

More to follow. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 10:42, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Gog the Mild

Placeholder. Please ping ping me once UC starts to run out of steam. Gog the Mild (talk) 12:09, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Source review

Hi Nick-D, my comments:

Add archive URLs for

Refs #2, #5, #11, #23, #28, #30, #49-50, #52, #54, #61; Freedman 1989, Iacono 2022, Polmar 2007? Or you could just run the IA bot and it will archive all these for you. The sites hosting these sources will never go down in all probability, but their URLs may change and prudence never hurts anyways.

Link to Hans M. Kristensen in the biblio, and David Leigh & Ian Cobain in the refs as done for other authors?
Will be doing spotchecks tomorrow. Cheers Matarisvan (talk) 18:45, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]