Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Requests: Difference between revisions

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• Battle of Mons Lactarius Overhauled of an article with no inline citations. Added sources, inline citations, expanded lead and main body as well adding two figures. Assess for B-class. Any comments are welcomed. Thank you. A.Cython (talk) 02:49, 20 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  I’ve made a few grammar changes, otherwise I think good but the final aftermath section is lacking a paragraph citation. LeChatiliers Pupper (talk) 22:42, 21 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  oh and on style I would just check,

  Is it fine to switch between Gothic and ostrogoths?

  more seriously did the franks conquer italy? I mean latter with the Carolingian sure I always thought this was the lombards immediately in the aftermath. That isnt mentioned at all and the whole sentence at the end is quite confusing. Some wikilinks at least to specify what si being referred to would be clear and if it is the Carolingians I would simply not, and instead find source that discuss the gothic wars -> lombards. LeChatiliers Pupper (talk) 22:51, 21 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I noted a few problems while trying to find the meaning of a phrase now eliminated from the article about what was done with Teias’ head. You cite Sylvänne for the proposition that the Goths were only allowed to leave Italy with the money they had with them but Hodgkin says they took all their moveable property. Again, the section about Teia being attacked with “throwing spears” (no need to pipe javelins here, IMO), does not agree with Hodgkins, who says the attack in question was with arrows and the specific reason for one (not multiple) change of shields was because of the weight of the arrows on Teias’ original shield. I think you’ve done an excellent job with the article. I’ve upgraded it from a stub to a start, but there are still problems with B1 and B2. Lineagegeek (talk) 23:52, 21 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Lineagegeek & @LeChatiliers Pupper thank you so much for your comments. I am not an expert on Byzantine topics so I try to follow the available sources to the best of my understanding, which does not say much 🙂 . Your comments are indeed helping me to elevate the article further. I will briefly address your comments and what I have done in the article.

• “Gothic or ostrogoths”: there are other goths, e.g., Visigoths, but in the article we only mention ostrogoths, so could simplify after specifying it once in the main text. I made the changes in the article.
• “did the franks conquered italy” My understanding the franks had at the time an army waiting for an opportunity to strike the byzantines/romans, which they did right after the battle of Mons Lactarius. They wanted to conquer Italy for themselves and to do so they needed to remove the byzantine/roman army from the picture, but they were defeated early and then dispersed (not much of a conquest). After this the remaining cities allied with the Goths fall one by one with the last one being Verona in 561. This is the why I had the info about the Goths’ request to the Franks for an alliance, because only after the defeat of the Frankish army Byzantines had time to focus on topics other than battles. I expanded on this at the end to make it more clear. I also added a couple citations to deal with your comment about paragraph citation. The Lombards arrival in Italy came 20 year later, while the franks’ encounter was a couple years with the battle, which makes it more relevant.
• “moveable property” issue: My understanding, it meant whatever the Goths had on/with them at the time, but not allowed for example to go and pick Totila‘s hoard located in Cumae. But I see the problem that you raised, it excludes, e.g., wagons, which they had with them. I went back to the primary source which provided the following: they begged that the Romans concede to them a peaceful withdrawal, not begrudging them a reasonable settlement, but presenting them, in fact, with their own money as travelling funds, that money, namely, which each of them had previously deposited in the fortresses of Italy. Procopius does not mention movable property, I guess most valuable movable property the Goths had was the gold that they had deposited. I rewrote it the particular statement.
• Arrows vs javelin vs shortspear/spear: Good catch, somehow I did not even realize. By arrow, he might have meant projectile, because the battle was fought in phalanx formation, also the primary source (see below) mentions that he was killed by a “ἀκοντίῳ” which translate to a spear or javelin. But then again the Byzantines under Belisarius made extensive use of bows against the Goths. The majority of the sources mention javelin or spear. Some quotes with added emphasis, other do not offer details:
  • (Primary source) Procopius And he continued fighting in this manner for the third part of the day, and at the end of that time his shield had twelve spears stuck in it and he was no longer able to move it where he wished and repel his assailants. So he eagerly called one of his bodyguards without leaving his post so much as a finger’s breadth nor giving ground nor allowing the enemy to advance, nor even turning round and covering his back with his shield, nor, in fact, did he even turn sidewise, but as if fastened to the ground he stood there, shield in hand, killing with his right hand and parrying with his left and calling out the name of the bodyguard. And the guard was now at his side with the shield, and Teias immediately sought to take this in exchange for the one weighed down with spears. But while he was doing so his chest became exposed for a brief instant of time, and it chanced that at that moment he was hit by a javelin and died instantly from the wound.
  • Donathan Taylor 2016 With great battlefield skill, Teias resisted all attacks against his person throughout the morning, but was finally killed in the early afternoon by an enemy javelin.
  • Ilkka Syvänne 2021 When too many spears stuck in his shield, he exchanged it with one of his followers. This movement forwards and backwards continued for the third part of the day. When twelve dorata (spears) were stuck in Teias’s shield, he called by name one of his bodyguards to come to his side so that they could change their shields. At that moment, Teias’s chest became exposed long enough for a Roman javelin to find its mark and kill him instantly.

I added a note to clarify. Let me know if this was sufficient. A.Cython (talk) 03:49, 22 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That all seems fine but,

So broadly I still have a problem with the clarity of the aftermath,

“Only a thousand Goths managed to escape under the leadership of Indulf and resisted until 555″

yet later we hear about notable cities falling in 555 yes but also 561 and this are said to be Goth cities.

Does 555 before only refer to Indulf? The phrasing its a bit off.

Lothar and Buccelin, wikilinks? LeChatiliers Pupper (talk) 08:42, 22 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank for your comment, this statement was from the original text, if I remember correct, and as everything else changed I kind of forgot to update it as well. I rewrote it in a way to address your concern. I also added a source to support the new statement as it provided a little more information. It should be easy to verify as Google Books provides a preview for the relevant pages (at least for me). Let me know your thoughts. A.Cython (talk) 15:46, 22 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You’ve addressed my concerns, and as I can see, those of LeC P as well, so B.

• List of military electronics of the United States and its two subpages A–G and M–Z — This list has been rated CL and has seen significant growth in all the BL criteria areas over the last year. Please review for BL-Class rating. Thank you. — TadgStirkland⁴⁰¹(Tadg^Talk–Email) 01:07, 21 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  You have done a large amount of good work on these articles. However, they are still all CL class. There is only one citation in the List of military electronics of the United States. It is not clear whether all of the entries in all of the sections are supported by that one citation. As in the two sub-pages, each entry in a section needs to have a citation. A human assessor (but not the bot) will accept a citation in the section title or table as in the sub-pages if all the entries are supported by the one citation. It may be just as easy in this case to add the citation to all of the entries since there are not many in each section.

  There are entries in the sub-pages that do not have citations. The entries in each table have various sources so it appears those entries cannot be supported by a single entry in a section or table title. I noted that you had mentioned this very issue in a talk page comment some time ago where you indicated that you would remove such entries if others could not enter the sources. I realize you did major work but did not necessarily add those entries and may not have sources available to you to support them. So you were giving other interested users some time to make up the deficiency.

  I began to carefully review the A-G page after I noticed a missing citations Up to the table AN/APN – Airborne Radar Navigation Systems, the following entries do not have citations: AN/ALE-50, AN/ALQ-218, AN/ALQ-249, AN/ALQ-260 , AN/APG-47, AN/APG-48, AN/APG-51, AN/APG-53, AN/APG-59, AN/APG-61, AN/APG-64, AN/APG-67, AN/APG-68, AN/APG-69, AN/APG-78, AN/APG-79, AN/APG-80, AN/APG-81, AN/APG-83, AN/APG-84, AN/APG-85.

  At this point I left the A-G page and began to review the M-Z page. Near the beginning there was an entry: AN/MPN-3. I must assume that there are other such entries without citations in both articles.

  I recommend that you add citations to the main list article and review the two sub-pages with no citations for certain entries and add citations or delete the entries if you want the lists to be assessed as BL class.

  I have spent considerable time making this review. I think if I spent additional time to identify all the missing citations, that would not be a useful exercise. I also think it might not be fair to other users who are waiting for assessments for the backlog reduction drive during this month or for review of the monthly contest entries since I am one of the coordinators or experienced users most likely to review these entries.

  I will not remove this request for at least a few days in case someone else might want to pick this up. After my comment here, I doubt that anyone will take up the review until it is clear that changes have been made on the article. It would probably be best for us to remove this entry and ask you to resubmit it, in whole or for each page, after you have worked on them. I will do that if you ask. Otherwise, you can place a reply asking for a further assessment if this remains and I or another assessor is likely to see it soon and make a further review.

  If you think that my evaluation is incorrect, you can point that out to me with your reasons or can feel free to appeal to another coordinator, emeritus coordination or former coordinator who is still an active user. Donner60 (talk) 05:03, 23 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  @Donner60, thank you very much for the complimentary tone and the advice. I’ll work on it more, and don’t mind if you remove it from the request list here. I do have one parting question, though. You mentioned that each entry on the mail list page required a citation, but each entry only serves as a wikilink to the specified table on the subpage. At the top of the list, the citation provided only refers to the summary of how the JETDS nomenclature is used. Does that really require citation on each entry below? — TadgStirkland⁴⁰¹(Tadg^Talk–Email) 06:26, 23 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Good question. Lists laid out like this usually would require a citation in the section title or one for each entry. This set-up with just links prompts me to do a little more investigation to see if I can find a definitive guideline or an example for this layout as a list. One question might be: could this be considered a disambiguation page which would not require citations. On the other hand, that type of page does not get a rating and would not have a detailed introduction. So the analogy might not work and I tend to think that is not a proper comparison. I’ll get back to you about what I find as soon as I can. Donner60 (talk) 06:47, 23 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  @TadgStirkland401: I will remove this thread when you have seen it. I will continue the discussion about the main article on your talk page when I have more to add to this comment. I did spend some time researching the general guidelines for citations and lists (including lists of lists), looking at the military history project academy guidelines for B class assessments (which differ on a few points, at least one being more strict) and looking at some CL and BL military history articles. This was a good way to become confused enough that I cannot yet give what I think is a definitive answer. At least, I cannot yet give a good explanation for why the various pieces of information lead me to a certain conclusion. In short, taken together I think the various guidelines, are somewhat vague on what is needed for citations for a B assessment on this type of article. So I need to think about this and go back over the various guideline pages, which may take a few days. I even may ask another coordinator or former coordinator about my eventual interpretation. I will say that I think the main article is indeed a list and not a disambiguation or other type of page. Thanks for your patience. Donner60 (talk) 05:12, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Thanks, @Donner60… I’ve started removing entries, storing them offline for future research. I’ll keep an eye on my talk page for any more advice. Thank you for your help. — TadgStirkland⁴⁰¹(Tadg^Talk–Email) 14:26, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Ajax-class ironclad, a class of unsuccessful Victorian battleships. simongraham (talk) 09:46, 25 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  It is an interesting article. It is rather close for B class but it needs a little more work:

  Launched in 1879, Agamemnon disrupted the flow of ships through the Suez Canal not clear what this means. Initially, I thought it was attacking foreign ships at the Canal. I had to read the main text to understand. Perhaps mention at the beginning of the lead that the ship(s) underperformed and then provide an example. Otherwise the event in Suez may not needed in the lead beyond the characterization of not being great ships.

  Reworded.

  Adding a figure would help the article, e.g., schematic

  Not sure what this has to do with B-class criteria, but added.

  Make sure that in the Bibliography every source is used in the text, otherwise move it to a section of “Further reading” (Hint: Friedman)

  Removed.

  Link to WikiCommons perhaps can be under “External links” with the “inline” option

  As above, but changed.

  Typically I like quotes as it can provides valuable context. The concluding quote they were “two of the most unsatisfactory battleships ever built for the Royal Navy.”, however, appear problematic as it injects the author’s unfiltered opinion. You can use the reference to support the statement that the ships underperformed.

  Added another reputable naval historian and moved to contextualize.

  @A.Cython: Thank you for this review. Please take a look at the changes and see if there is anything else you would like changed. simongraham (talk) 23:17, 26 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  B-class A.Cython (talk) 03:35, 27 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Ultra Fast Attack Craft – Adding up more citations/information and a table to show the UFACs in Sri Lanka and Maldives. Finishing it up, hopefully soon. Ominae (talk) 08:05, 26 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  So first up, Series IV is an empty header, then the Sri Lankan service is very sparse considering the number of boats and how they are described as being workhorses against the LTTE. There isnt a wikilink to the civil war, there probably should be.

  So I would say its referenced fine but is missing a little bit for coverage. Il assess as C class and leave this open if you want. LeChatiliers Pupper (talk) 12:21, 26 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  oh and the Epicos 2016 – Special focus Sri Lanka should probably indicate authorship in the citation within the reference section. LeChatiliers Pupper (talk) 12:23, 26 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  The first and last parts of what you mentioned are done. TBH, for the Sri Lankan service, it’s a bit sparse considering the info provided by Sri Lankan media (eg they don’t always mention the hull names). Otherwise, I’ll see if the “Sri Lankan service” can be expanded on. I’m doing the ship’s chart as I still needed to put more references, though I’m beat and I’ll continue tomorrow. Ominae (talk) 14:19, 26 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  take your time dont get burnt out, this can stay open or be resubmitted any time! LeChatiliers Pupper (talk) 11:22, 27 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Please also check the military history assessment backlog for articles needing assessment.