Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/M15 Half-Track

M15 Half-Track[edit]

Nominator(s): Tomandjerry211 (talk)

I am nominating this article for A-Class review because it exceeds all A class criteria and has historical significance. The M15 Half-track has a significance on the Military History project and many editors edit this article. The article also exceeds most of the Featured article criteria and all of the good article criteria. I hope it will become a Featured article. It was a significant part of the United States anti-aircraft vehicles and was very popular with troops. The M15 evolved from the T28E1. It often served along the M16 Half-track in Europe and Korea. It also served in the Korean War. I am giving a big thanks to User:PrimeHunter, User:AustralianRupert, User:GraemeLeggett, and a couple others who helped contribute to my article. Thanks, Tomandjerry211 (talk) 18:45, 3 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comments/suggestions: G'day, thanks for your work on this so far. I don't think that this is up to A-class standards yet, but I have the following suggestions which might help:

the infobox the "in service" date field states "1943-45", but the article also states it served in Korea. If it also served in Korea it would have been in service after 1945 so the date should be adjusted;
for A-class, the lead should be expanded a bit further to summarise the whole article;
the body of the article probably should be expanded to include a discussion of the design, presenting the spcifications that are in the infobox in prose form;
the Operators section should be referenced, and also some explanation of Japan, China and North Korea's use should be added to the Service history section, which seems a bit light at the moment;
the "Further reading" section probably should be retitled as a "Bibliography" as you are specifically citing these works;
the Rickard article probably qualifies as a reliable source for Wiki purposes, as it appears to be written by academics,[1] but are there other works that could be consulted also? For a successful A-class promotion, you need to demonstrate broad research, and currently there are only three sources cited;
depending on the result of this review, for the future, can I suggest taking the article through WP:GAN prior to ACR? There can be big gap between B-class and A-class and going through GAN first can often help;
Good luck with taking the article further. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 21:31, 3 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Follow up comments: good work so far with the changes you have made. I have a few more points:

there appears to inconsistency in the name between the article title (M15 Half Track), the opening sentence (M15 Combination Gun Motor Carriage) and the infobox (M15 Half-track). These should all be the same, presenting the same name as the article;
inconsistency in capitalisation "Half-Track" v. "Half-track"
the references should be consistent in their presentation, e.g. use the same style. For instance, some are using the sfn format, while others are manually formated;
what year/source is "Berndt p. 32" refering to in Reference # 9? 1993 or 1994?
please add ISBNs or OCLC numbers for the works in the Bibliography. These can be be found through [www.worldcat.org Worldcat];
please be consistent about whether you include location of publication or not in the Bibliography;
is there a citation that covers Note 1?
inconsistency: the Design section says they could reach 67 km/h on road, but the infobox says 72 km/h. AustralianRupert (talk) 10:40, 6 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
- Ok, sorry, I just realised that this is also being reviewed at GAN: Talk:M15 half-track/GA1. Its not optimal to have two different-level reviews going on for the same article at the same time. As such, I suggest keeping this ACR on hold until after the GA review has been finalised (passed or failed). I will hold off making further edits, or comments until that has occured. Good luck. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 10:46, 6 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  - Most of the above points have been dealt with during the GAN, so I will post some more follow up points below. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 22:40, 15 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Further follow up: great work taking this through GAN. PM's thorough review has helped to significantly improve this article. I have a few follow up points for A-class: AustralianRupert (talk) 22:40, 15 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

this probably needs parentetical commas or brackets: "The M15 Half-Track officially designated M15 Combination Gun Motor Carriage was a..." (after Track and Carriage); Done
is the crew information mentioned in the body of the article? I see it in the infobox but couldn't find it in the body, unless I missed it... Done
this seems inconsistent: "386 cu in (6,330 cc)" (in the body of the article) v. "6,236 cc (380.5 cu in)" in the infobox Done
this seems inconsistent: "15.8 hp per tonne" (in the body of the article) v. "15.8 hp/pound" in the infobox Done
in the Bibliography, sometimes you use abbreviations for secondary locations of publication, but sometimes you don't, e.g. "WI" v. "New Jersey" Done
there remains inconsistent capitalisation/and hyphenation: for instance compare "M15 Half-Track" (the article's title) with " M3 Half-track" and then also "M3A1 Halftracks" and "M15 Halftrack" Done

Oppose ~~Comments~~

Be sure to put all titles in your bibliography in title case.
Fixed.--Tomandjerry211 (talk) 21:49, 20 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Do you have access to Hunnicutt's Half-Track: A History of American Semi-Tracked Vehicles? That's pretty much the definitive work on these vehicles and needs to be consulted before you send this to FAC.
Added.--Tomandjerry211 (talk) 21:49, 20 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Standardize your use of hyphens in ISBNs and if you're going to use years in your citations.
Done--Tomandjerry211 (talk) 22:53, 10 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Don't format your headers for citations and bibliography with semi-colons: they can't be interpreted by text-to-speech programs and cause problems with visually-impaired readers.
- - Not quite how I meant for you to handle it, but I fixed it for you.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 03:24, 27 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Done--Tomandjerry211 (talk) 22:53, 10 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Fix the formatting for Hunter. It's one volume of a series.
- Done--Tomandjerry211 (talk) 22:53, 10 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  - No, it's not.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 03:24, 27 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    - I thought I did. -- Tomandjerry211 (talk) 12:48, 28 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Do you have any other photos available? I'd really like to see one inside the weapon compartment and some photos of it in action would be nice. While the M16 picture is useful, it would be preferable to get an equivalent photo for the M15.
No other photos are available for now.--Tomandjerry211 (talk) 22:53, 10 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Powered by a White 160AX, 128 hp (95 kW), 386 cu in (6,330 cc),[3][4] 6-cylinder petrol engine with a compression ratio of 6:3:1. It had a maximum road speed of 67.5 km/h (41.9 mph) on a road. It had a power-to-weight ratio of 15.8 hp per tonne. This is awkward.
Fixed--Tomandjerry211 (talk) 12:26, 12 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
- You're still trying to cram too much into a single sentence so split this in half. And, honestly, I'm not sure the compression ratio is worthy of note, but that's just me.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 16:41, 4 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  - Split and fixed.--Tomandjerry211 (talk) 20:57, 12 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
As a US vehicle all measurements except 37 mm need to be in English units, not metric. Also each measurement should only be converted on first use.
Addressed.--Tomandjerry211 (talk) 23:55, 11 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
- - My apologies I didn't make myself clear, all measurements should converted on first use. As an American vehicle, English measurement should just come first.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 03:24, 27 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Watch out for jargon that is unlikely to be familiar to ordinary readers like bogie, leaf spring, wheelbase, etc.
- - Still needs to be done.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 03:24, 27 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    - Linked to their respective articles. -- Tomandjerry211 (talk) 12:48, 28 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
There's no support for your statement about use against ground targets.
Well, Mike Green stated that it was used for ground support targets--Tomandjerry211 (talk) 22:53, 10 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
- - Quite right, my mistake.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 03:24, 27 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The mention of service in Korea needs to be expanded into its own section. With a negligible air threat, how were they used? How were they organized and assigned? When were they introduced? Withdrawn? What battles/campaigns did they participate in? Did they actually shoot down any enemy aircraft? Etc.
No other info on this--Tomandjerry211 (talk) 22:53, 10 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
More once these comments are dealt with.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 22:53, 30 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
- I have a GA Review going on right now and will respond to the comments later. I hope you don't mind. Thanks -- Tomandjerry211 (talk) 22:15, 10 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  - @Tomandjerry211: - are you around to address these or other issues? Parsecboy (talk) 20:02, 12 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    - Yes.--Tomandjerry211 (talk) 20:42, 12 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
      - You've improved this article greatly, so it grieves me that I must oppose on the basis of completeness. The vehicle's Korean War service needs to be expanded to match the WWII coverage and post-war service with other armies, if any, needs to be covered. If this material is added, I don't see any significant issues for the next ACR.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 15:10, 23 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
        @Sturmvogel 66: I would love to keep on expanding this article, but unfortunately I could not find anything else about it's Korean War history anywhere without original research, but I have found content on foreign use from Zaloga ad have added it. Thanks, Tomandjerry211 (talk) 21:30, 23 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
        I wish I knew of a source that covered their service in Korea, but I don't.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 22:32, 23 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
        I found a book that has first-hand accounts and I am working on adding the necessary information.--Tomandjerry211 (talk) 23:59, 23 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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I've done a copy edit and consolidated refs etc. As my points seemed like nitpicks so I just went ahead and did them myself, my edits are here [2]. Anotherclown (talk) 05:20, 18 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]