Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/No. 410 Squadron RCAF

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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No. 410 Squadron RCAF

• Closed as not promoted - Abraham, B.S. (talk) 05:09, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

I believe this article is of great quality and that it meets all prerequisites for A-Class. I have brought it up from a large paragraph and Stub class to where it is now. I have fixed a lot of the previous problems with it, and added much more content. TARTARUS ^talk 19:55, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

• Featured article candidates/No. 410 Squadron RCAF/archive1

Comment - in the article, you have used Second World War, World War II and World War Two. PLease choose one and use that throughout. As this is a Canadian article, the former is probably the best as it is the typical British/Commonwealth usage. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 22:02, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Done so, my good sir. TARTARUS ^talk 00:36, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

• Comments Support This is a pretty good article, and I can tell a lot of work went into it. There are some minor prose issues/etc. that will need to be massaged a bit before I'll support.
  • In the lead section, it mentions the first combat sortie for the Squadron. A little more detail would be nice (i.e., where was it, what did the pilot do, etc. Maybe something along the lines of "When Currie flew his Defiant over the English Channel, searching for German bombers" or whatever it was). Also, is the plane he flew a Boulton Paul Defiant? If so, it should be linked.
    •  Done
  • Is there a date for the sighting by Curry and Rose of the V-2?
    •  Done
  • I'm not so fond of the wording in this line: "The squadron trains the most people a year". Perhaps something like "military personnel" or "pilots" instead of "people". It would also be helpful if some statistics could be provided (i.e., 75% of all CF-18 pilots received their training with the 410)
    •  Done
  • "and what pilots must endure to become fighter pilots." - "pilots" is a bit repetitive. Perhaps switch out the first one with either "trainees" or "airmen" or similar.
    •  Done
  • In the "D-Day" section, it notes that 18 of the 22 squadron's aircraft were available for operations. I'm assuming the other 4 were down due to periodic maintenance/etc., but can this be clarified?
    •  Done
  • "Thirty-one times No. 410's Mosquitoes brought down their opponent and damaged or destroyed three more" - the wording is a little vague (i.e., it could be construed that there were 31 separate engagements that may have involved more than one German plane)
    •  Done
  • The quote from Currie irt the V2 sighting needs to be cited (if it's not in the citation at the end of the paragraph)
    •  Done
  • "In the middle of the month of December, under dreadful weather conditions, the Germans launched a surprise offensive on the Ardennes, also using the Luftwaffe, which caught many squadrons off guard. " - this sentence is a bit too long. It should be split, and perhaps the role of the Luftwaffe should be explained a little more (i.e., the same weather restrictions that grounded Allied planes affected the Luftwaffe as well)
    •  Done
• That's all I've got for now. I've got to run off to RL, but later on I'll review the rest of the article. Cheers! Parsecboy (talk) 16:02, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
• The rest:
  • "It was used as a trainer aircraft that was easy to use"" - repetitive and not really encyclopedic

 Done

• • In the "Post War" section, RAAF and SAAF need to be linked
    •  Done
  • In the operational training section, it repeats "fighter pilot" twice in a sentence. Perhaps replace one with "cadets" or similar to avoid repetition.
    •  Done
  • I'm not sure the "Future" section really belongs in the article. It discusses an issue larger than the 410 Squadron, and is mostly speculation. I would suggest axing it, but if others disagree, that's fine.
    •  Done
  • "The first seven courses the squadron ran were six month full-squadron courses" - When?
    •  Done

• Images:
  • File:Dornier Do217E.jpg has a fair use claim for this article. I'm pretty sure that File:Do 217E-2 NAN15Jul43.jpg would invalidate the "irreplaceable" aspect required for fair use.
    •  Done
  • You'll want to shift some of the images to the left, for some balance.
    •  Done
• That looks like all for me. Get these minor issues ironed out, and I'll be happy to support. Nice work on this article! Parsecboy (talk) 18:50, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Everything looks good now, moving to support. Great work! Parsecboy (talk) 22:22, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose Sorry, but this still doesn't meet the criteria. My comments against the criteria are:
  • A1: Fail: Not all material is cited, and [1], [2] and [3] don't seem to be reliable sources as they're all self-published websites
    • Being checked: see here
  • A2: Fail: The article goes into much too much detail on some topics (there's no need to name all the airmen involved in actions and doing so causes the narrative to frequently bog down and makes the article difficult to read), there's no coverage at all of the squadron's ground crew and the article is mainly limited to the high-points of the squadron's existence. I also don't think that the 'Aircraft' section is necessary as this is generic coverage of aircraft which are better described in their own articles. The repeated references to the squadron's first 'official' sortie are unclear - had there been 'unoffical' sorties before this? The coverage of the squadron's current badge seems out of place in the 'formation' section as it appears to have been adopted after the war.
  • A3: Pass, though the 'Post-Second World War' section seems to be much too short compared with the blow-by-blow coverage of WW2 and could perhaps be integrated with the 'Current' section.
  • A4: Fail: Generally OK, but the lead needs a comprehensive copy edit
  • A5: Pass, though it's a shame that there are no photos of 410 Squadron. Nick-D (talk) 04:43, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose on criterion A1 - (review is of this version)
  • In addition to the concerns above...
  • What makes [4] reliable? It appears to be self-published: "this is a private website and the author has no official connection with the RAF or the Ministry of Defence".
  • I have the same concerns with [5].
  • Page numbers are needed for references 44 through 46.
  • Query: is reference #40 using an endash? I can't tell. —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 01:48, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose

• " The first official sortie occurred on the night of 4 June 1942, near RAF Drem, when the first twelve crews of the Beaufighter had been assessed and marked as qualified had gone up, but although this was just a familiarization flight, two scrambles occurred, but were uneventful." Maybe I'm being stupid, but that doesn't make much sense to me.
• "In May 1942 these were removed from service to have the Bristol Beaufighters be introduced" Awkward.
• "although there are other claims that the top-scoring night-fighter unit is actually No. 409 Squadron RCAF, on the basis that there were many victories quickly counted up during 1943." What is this supposed to mean, that some people think that 410 was overcredited in 1943? Please clarify.
• "Although the Squadron moved three times in 1942, it was relocated four times in 1943 and later, five times in 1944." Why although, why would past moves prevent future moves?
• "Since D-Day the Cougars had destroyed twelve enemy bombers. It was another five days before the squadron scored another kill." Makes absolutely no sense in context, a date would be nice?
• "This was done using the Luftwaffe, which caught many squadrons off guard, as the conditions that affected them, would in turn affect the Luftwaffe" First of all, this is badly worded and awkward, second, it implies that the offensive was only aerial while in fact only part of it was.
• Many possible links are not made. Please work on this per WP:BTW.
• "Edinger was vectored to a Ju 87, which Edinger then fired upon." Who is Edinger and why do we care about a random shoot-down he made?
• The Battle of the Bulge and the end of the war section has bad flow and does not go in chronological order, making it very confusing and hard to follow.
• The table with their awards is confusing. None of the awards are linked, and the additional information section is awkward, unclear, and I believe that some of the links are misleading.
• You say several times, including in the infobox, that it was active 1941-64, but you say that it was deactivated at the end of WWII and reactivated in 1946 later in the article...which is right?
• Please move some images to the left for balace.

Because of these and the other reasons detailed above, I am opposing until they are fully resolved. – Joe N 00:25, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose Parts of the prose are very choppy, and I am therefore of the opinion that the article would greatly benifit from a copyedit. Additionally, one external link has been identified as suspicious. Please check the external link, and if nessicary remove it. TomStar81 (Talk) 01:04, 9 April 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.