Talk:320 mm Type 98 mortar

320 mm Type 98 mortar was a Warfare good articles nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There may be suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
January 3, 2009	Good article nominee	Not listed

A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on December 30, 2008.

The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that the Japanese Army used 320 mm mortars to frighten American Marines during the Battle of Iwo Jima?

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GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:320 mm mortar/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

GA Review by Binksternet

I will be reviewing this article. Binksternet (talk) 04:12, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

One thing I'd like to see is the word 'spigot' brought into the article, per the NPS.gov article.

Done. Sorta. Could you please elaborate a little? ErikTheBikeMan (talk) 14:34, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think you got it. I just wanted the Japanese WWII weapon defined to be a spigot mortar.

Another is some clarification about which notes go with which references. You have a bibliography with four entries but only three entries in Notes. Two of the notes entries are so short they are cryptic... I would like to see full titles on your Notes. Ditch the wargames biblio reference--it's not being used and it's not accepted as scholarly by the world of historians. Binksternet (talk) 04:30, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Done. ErikTheBikeMan (talk) 14:34, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

How about a units template that translates 675 lbs to kg for metric readers? Binksternet (talk) 04:32, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Done, as well as a template for feet to meters.

Italy is mentioned in the lead, but not afterward. Trim or expand... don't leave it as a teaser. Binksternet (talk) 04:34, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

this US Army article says there were 24 of these monster tubes on Iwo. The article also says the Japanese 1st Artillery Mortar Regiment of the 32d Army operated the equipment. Doesn't mention the 20th Independent. I'd like to see the discrepancy cleared up. Binksternet (talk) 04:45, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See comment below. ErikTheBikeMan (talk) 14:37, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The article's title should be Type 98 320 mm mortar if the only information is about the Japanese weapon. At any rate, the phrase "Type 98" should be worked into the lead. Over at List_of_weapons_of_the_Japanese_Empire_during_World_War_II, the weapon is listed as Type 98 32 cm Spigot Mortar. That entry needs to be folded into this one.

Here's an article that reports 12 320mm tubes on Iwo. The book At the Water's Edge says there were a dozen. I wonder how many there really were? And how many rounds did they have?

That's interesting. Should the US Army article be the one we use or should we state a range? ErikTheBikeMan (talk) 14:37, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going with a range now. 14:37, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Bataan might have had 175 rounds of 32 cm mortar, divided between 24 tubes, according to this page.

This cannon page about South Africa says they had 14 320 mm mortars in 1809.

I would like to know if the 320 mm rounds ever killed Americans on Iwo Jima and, if so, how many and from which units? Where were the mortars aimed? When were they fired? This hyperwar document describes Company E (which battalion?) hearing 320 mm rounds go over their heads in the night to land harmlessly at sea. Hard to believe such a huge round would be wasted.

Here's a book about Marine tank battles and another about Marine battles that describes some 320 mm fire during the battle for Okinawa.

Three modern-day 320 mm mortars appeared in April 1996 in Antwerp on an Iranian freighter according to this story supposedly carried in the Wall Street Journal (Europe).

I'm heading off to a late holiday vacation for a few days but I'll leave this GA Review open so that you guys can work on the points I've brought up. I might have a chance to continue the review during my vacation but I'll certainly check on it on January 5th when I'm back. Binksternet (talk) 05:23, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

While I have absolutly nothing to do with the GA review, I would like to make a few comments. I am currently opposed to giving this article GA status. It fails part 3(a) ofthe criteria as it isn't broad in its coverage. To be concise in my opinion it would have to be strucured as something like this, each section answering the questions I have highlighted:

Developent/Backround – info on backround and development; why was it developed and how? Of course you'd have to mention all countries who have used 320 mil mortars.
Design – how did it work? You would also have tot alk about the differenct ways each one worked in each country.--Patton 123 20:28, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Employment – how was it used and by whom?

Just thought I'd add my two cents. Currently the article isn't worhty of GA IMO.--Patton 123 20:26, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Good points all. As it now stands, it not only fails A-Class; it fails B-Class. It needs a lot of work, but I have been allowing the editors some few days to bring it along if they wish.

It appears most of the article's authors have been picturing in their minds that the article is solely about the Japanese WWII weapon in which case it need only give a nod of recognition to earlier and contemporary uses. If the article is ever to be about ALL 320 mm, 32 cm and 13-inch mortars then it will require yet more expansion. I'm still on vacation (kind of) so I'm still keeping this review open in case someone has the time to greatly expand the article's coverage with a flurry of concentrated work.

I have a question regarding a point of order: If the article's title is changed to Type 98 something or other, will this GAR necessarily be terminated, or would it continued under the new name? Binksternet (talk) 23:54, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This likely won't be finished by January 5th. This review could be closed now. I'll make some changes and renom it once I feel I have addressed all the current issues. ErikTheBikeMan (talk) 04:42, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I will now close the review. Cheers to all who got it this far! Binksternet (talk) 04:56, 3 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ouch

This article has suffered from a case of too many cooks spoiling the broth it seems. I found it today to be in a sorry state of competing statements about all different weapons, when the original DYI, and article, was about a specific Japanese weapon. Instead of simply clipping out the spoiler, every other example of the 320 was put INTO the intro, and now it makes no sense at all.

We need to decide what this article is about: is this about the Japanese WWII weapon, or is it about any 320 mm mortar? Either choice is fine, we just need to select one. I believe that the relatively short length of this article recommends the later choice: we could add in sub-sections for all of the other weapons without making this page too large. That's based on the assumption that the other weapons are similarly or even less famous than this one.

Maury Markowitz (talk) 17:36, 5 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with your assessment that we should go for the latter. ErikTheBikeMan (talk) 15:31, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree—I feel that the relevant parts of the article should be moved to Type 98 320 mm mortar and devoted wholly to the Japanese WWII weapon. Binksternet (talk) 06:07, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I too prefer names that are very specific. However, that will leave very little in the "generic" 320 article. I don't think that's a real problem though. Any objections? Maury Markowitz (talk) 21:58, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to go ahead and remove info about not relating to the Japanese weapon from the intro, since the article doesn't mention them again and seems to be specific to Type 98. I googled for the Italian weapon, but couldn't find anything. Otherwise I'd create a stub for it, but I have no idea what such an article will be called. Mike McGregor (Can) (talk) 04:47, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]