Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Battle of Taejon/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by SandyGeorgia 11:33, 9 April 2010 [1].

Battle of Taejon

Battle of Taejon (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Nominator(s): —Ed!(talk) 20:39, 10 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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I am nominating this for featured article because it has passed a MilHist A-Class Review, and I believe it can become Featured as well. —Ed!(talk) 20:39, 10 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Review by Charles Edward

  • References needed
    • "Advance elements of the 24th Infantry Division were badly defeated in the Battle of Osan on July 5, during the first battle between American and North Korean forces"
    • "The three regiments were below strength due to heavy losses; after the previous two weeks of fighting, the 21st Infantry had 1,100 men left, having suffered 1,433 casualties thus far in the conflict. "
    • "The 34th Infantry had only 2,020 and the 19th had 2,276, placing the division's total strength at 11,400. "
    • "B Battery was attacked by 400 North Koreans, but an advance of South Korean horse cavalry spared the battery heavy losses, allowing it to make an organized retreat."
    • "It was put under the command of Major General John H. Church in the absence of Dean. After three weeks of fighting, the division had suffered almost 30 percent casualties, with 2,400 men missing."
    • "Although the force was badly defeated militarily, the 24th Infantry Division accomplished its mission of delaying North Korean forces from advancing until July 20" - needs ref, but if that was the goal of the 24th, you should probably mention that up front.
  • Prose
    • "The 24th Infantry Division was also suffering..." - unneeded "also"
    • "The division also had no tanks to defend with..." - unneeded "also"
    • "The North Korean 2nd Infantry Division was ordered to attack from Chongju against the American right flank, but it was slow to move and was too late to participate in the battle. Instead, the North Korean 3rd Division was ordered to attack from the north, against the flank. The North Korean 4th Division would attack across the Kum River from the east and south, in order to envelop Taejon and the US 24th Infantry Division with it.[9] Eventually they would also be supported by elements of the North Korean 105th Armored Division.[10]" - This paragraph is a little tricky. You need to make it clear you are talking about the battle plan by noting that.
    • "At 0300 on July 16" - this will be somewhat confusing to reader unfamiliar with military time. I suggest converting such instances to standard time formatting.
      • I tried to do that to prevent confusion in the article, my other FA used military time without a problem.
    • "Regardless, the 34th Infantry Division soldiers had repeatedly attempted to hold lines of ground, but were repeatedly overwhelmed by numerically superior North Korean forces" - suggest change the second "repeatedly" to "consistently" or "continually".
  • General
    • Throughout the article it is not really clear what the strategic point of the battle was. I suggest adding that to the background section. Why were the Americans trying to hold that position? Why were the Koreans trying to capture it? There is alot of detail about the actions of the battle, but this aspect is missing.
    • "North Korean forces continued to infiltrate the city disguised as farmers and the remaining elements of the 24th Infantry Division were pushed back block-by-block." - that is a little vague. Where they sneaking in disguised to spy on them, or carry out suicide attacks, or just what? Being pushed back block by block sounds like a military engagement between units.
  • Images

Overall a very good article. Those issues are relatively minor. Address them and I will be glad to support! :) Good job! —Charles Edward (Talk | Contribs) 17:20, 22 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I believe I have responded to all of your suggestions. —Ed!(talk) 04:19, 24 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support this very worthy article. Great work! —Charles Edward (Talk | Contribs) 12:16, 24 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments:
    • images are all appropriately licensed, no dab links, alt text present (no action required);
    • are there any Korean sources that might be able shed some light on casualties? Jim101 might be able to help, have you talked to him about it? — AustralianRupert (talk) 23:52, 29 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • I've been working closely with Jim101 working on a lot of Korean War topics, and his sources don't mention anything about exact numbers just as mine don't. There was a lot of confusion at this phase in the war because of a lack of communications equipment and high casualties on the American side, so most sources I have a hold of say the North Korean casualties "can't be estimated." —Ed!(talk) 02:32, 30 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • In the Background section, this sentence seems to be missing something: "Losses in earlier fighting reduced artillery two battalions." (I think it is missing the word "to");
    • In the Background section, I think "Far east" is incorrectly capitalised. I think it should be "Far East" as both words are part of the noun, which is in this case a proper noun (I suggest just piping it to the correct capitalisation);
    • In the Background section, I think "combat ready" should be hyphenated as "combat-ready";
    • In the Background section, this sentence is missing something: "Taejon was major South Korean city 100 miles (160 km) south" (I think it is missing the word "a", as in a major South Korean city);
    • In the Second North Korean attack section, I think "regiments" should be capitalised as "Regiments" in this sentence: "The division's 19th and 34th regiments";
    • In the Taejon falls section, "North Korean 105th Armored Division" is overlinked (it is already linked above in the First North Korean attack section).

— AustralianRupert (talk) 13:53, 30 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

  • "the 24th Infantry Division of the Eighth United States Army, headquartered in Japan, was the closest combat-ready division' I wasn't really combat ready at all.
  • 'Originally below strength on their deployment, heavy losses in the preceding two weeks had reduced their numbers further. The 21st Infantry had 1,100 men left, having suffered 1,433 casualties." You don't say what the establishment strength of the regiments and the division was, leaving the reader unable to determine how under strength it was.
  • "The division had no tanks: Its new M26 Pershing and older M4A3 Sherman tanks were still en route." Its -> its
  • A-Battery -> A Battery and B-battery -> B Battery Hyphens are not normal here.
  • "and suffered 650 casualties of the 3,401 men committed there" of -> among
  • "the Eighth Army Commander, General Walton Walker" walker was only a lieutenant general at the time
  • "After three weeks of fighting, the Division had suffered almost 30 percent casualties, with 2,400 men missing." So there were 922 men killed and 228 wounded and about 2,400 missing?
  • "The Division went on reserve status while it rested and rebuilt," on reserve status -> into reserve
  • 'the first unit of the division back into action, the 19th Infantry Regiment, did not move to the front lines of the Pusan Perimeter until August 1" That was just over a week - not very long at all.
  • What type of guns was the 63rd Field Artillery Battalion equipped with?

Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:54, 1 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think I have responded to all of your concerns. —Ed!(talk) 14:34, 2 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support: all my concerns have been addressed. Hawkeye7 (talk) 19:25, 2 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments
    • "The first two Medals of Honor for the Korean War " should be mentioned in the lede.
    • The 3.5-inch bazookas were newly-made and newly-arrived; the unit had very few. Dean found only two, separately: one, which had only one round, and later a second, which was better-equipped. The account in Fehrenbach pp. 98-9 is quite riveting.
    • I'm not sure the first para of the Aftermath section captures the plight of the 24th fully, see Fehrenbach p. 101, "After seventeen days"... • Ling.Nut 06:48, 3 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Currently Leaning Oppose, though I could be persuaded that I am wrong. I am late to the party here, and have only read several passages of Fehrenbach (see comments above). Fehrenbach makes very, very little of the numerical difference between the forces, explicitly saying on p.  88, "The 24th was on the brink of disaster, and not because of the enemy's numbers." The problem was that the American forces were distressingly under-equipped (especially in communications, but also in every other way, apparently) and the command situation was also woeful. The losses among commanders were high to begin with, and mounted as time went on. Those left in command were under-trained (and again, under-equipped, it seems due to budget cuts) to do so... It also seems that every regiment had only two battalions (I only see this mentioned with respect to one regiment in the article, but I could be wrong), and no one had been trained to operate under these conditions... essentially, the US military screwed up, and screwed up badly. All of these facts are kinda mentioned in the article, but I'm not sure that they are presented clearly or strongly enough. The Wikipedia article really seems to me to read as though it was all a case of numerical inferiority...In short, I don't think the cause(s) of the American tactical defeats were explored clearly enough... .while I'm at it, the strategic and tactical importance of Taejon (Fehrenbach p. 88) does not seem well-presented here (though it is true that the main strategic outcome, delaying the North Koreans until a Pusan perimeter could be completed, was presented very clearly). I'm open to the possibility that all of the above is Fehrenbach's POV; am looking forward to exploring other sources. • Ling.Nut 07:32, 3 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Just a caution that it may not be wise to use one source's opinion to hold against this article. According to the current leading Korean War expert Prof. Allan R. Millett, Fehrenbach's book belongs to a genre of books that only examine the American military weakness during the Korean War, and according to the principle of aging source, Fehrenbach's book, which is published in the 1960s, is superseded by newer works such as by Bevin Alexander in the 1980s and David Halberstam in 2007. If you are looking for a complete combat analysis of the battle, Fehrenbach's scope is not as comprehensive as the works of Colonel Roy Appleman of the US Army. Jim101 (talk) 21:57, 3 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for helping me with that! Now, can you tell me two things: 1) why did we get our butts kicked, and 2) where is this summarized in the lede and clearly explained (or at least fully addressed) in the article? I'm also wondering where you got 20,000 troops in the infobpx, but that is less important.Tks • Ling.Nut 01:50, 4 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
1) I've tried to emphasize in the article how little the importance of the tactical defeat was. The American forces never really were planning or expecting to win at Taejon - the goal was to delay the North Koreans as much as possible. I've expanded the background section and lead to include a little more about the lack of equipment and training by American forces but as Jim said, other sources corroborate the story that it wasn't equipment alone that lost the fight. American forces were also untrained, undisciplined, outnumbered and defending a city that could be attacked from three sides at once, but they didn't "lose" the fight per se, their mission was a delaying action and they were able to hold the area as long as their commanders had originally ordered them to. As for the infobox, I amended it to be more specific to Fehrenbach's troop estimate (two divisions of 11,000 each operating at 60 to 80 percent strength) but neither he nor any other source estimates more numbers for the large contingent of forces from a third division (the 105th Armored) present at the fight. —Ed!(talk) 18:18, 4 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • In response to the deep Army cuts ordered by President Truman, the Army suspended the draft. It decided to keep the same number of divisions active (seven infantry, two airborne and one armoured) but to reduce their subunits and non-divisional components. There was no Army-wide method of doing this, but in MacArthur's Far East Command (FEC) all four divisions inactivated the third battalions and tank companies of their infantry regiments, the third battery of their field artillery battalions, two companies in each tank battalion, and two batteries in the antiaircraft battalions. There was one exception: the 24th Infantry, being made up of buffalo soldiers, was kept at three battalions due to the Army's racial segregation policy. It was planned to inactivate one of the four divisions in 1950. Elsewhere, the division in Germany and the 2nd and 3rd Infantry and 2nd Armored Divisions in ZI were maintained with their full organisation but with all components at reduced strength. The 11th Airborne Division had only two regiments. The 82nd Airborne Division was the only division in the Army at full strength. Because they were manned by volunteers, and they were at full strength, the remaining battalions in FEC were well-trained. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:07, 4 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Is there a source location for that? Every source, US government and scholarly alike, corroborates that the 24th had undergone reductions by the time the Korean War broke out. In fact, the 7th Infantry Division lost most of its compliment to reinforce the other three divisions moving into Korea at this time. —Ed!(talk) 01:07, 5 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
OK. I made two wikilinks to add some depth to the whole issue of being under-equipped because of cutbacks. If the article were stand-alone I'd want refs/cites, but this is Wikipedia, and I'm OK with just links in a background section. So now, why were they so under-trained? Were they raw recruits or... what? PLUS I see the point above about the whole action being just a delaying action, but Dean had to order airstrikes on his own equipment more than once. Surely that isn't standard procedure (to say the least). So... they were getting their butts kicked... Hate to do this, but is there any ref that says the top brass knew they were ending lambs to the slaughter? Fehrenbach (I know, outdated) seems to attribute it to a mild form of arrogance or tunnel-vision. • Ling.Nut 04:46, 5 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I've added a sentence to the background that more directly states that (cited by ref 2). I only have one source saying directly that the men of the 24th were sacrificial lambs, is it then inferred to be true? Also, I added more to explain that indeed most of the US soldiers were raw recruits. —Ed!(talk) 05:06, 5 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • We can't infer anything, Ed. We must be extremely diligent about keeping the article text that we add strictly within the scope of statements licensed by reliable sources. Controversial statements can't be accepted (or rejected) based on the word of a single source. My "lambs to the slaughter" comment was just for the sake of this discussion... In other words, in the case of a controversial statement, if e make it at all we need to find the three or four or so most reliable sources available, and try to distill their input onto the page, very carefully citing it. But back all this up. What do the best available sources actually say about all this?• Ling.Nut 05:44, 5 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • See above, and please note that I went to page 52 of Alexander's "The first war we lost" and it does not say what you have it saying in note 2a: "However the division would be trading land and casualties for time during the next few battles." I suppose it implies this, but it certainly does not imply it strongly enough to warrant a cite to this page of this book. This, unfortunately, is a problem. Are there more problems of a similar nature? • Ling.Nut 08:24, 5 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm just cutting that sentence out. None of my sources say it directly then. If you can find a source that says it clearly enough to warrant a cite let me know. —Ed!(talk) 16:56, 5 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Please note that I have removed the "Currently Leaning" from my Oppose. I just don't think this article does an excellent job of communicating the battle of Taejon to our readers. Although I think you can be proud of how far you have taken it so far, I think it needs more work. For example, this map is pretty much incomprehensible. An incomprehensible map is merely a decoration. (Someone like User:Sémhur could help...there's a far better map on p. 95 of Alexander). I'm not sure the under-equipped nature of the units are explained well (though of course the fact is presented), I'm not sure the geographic aspect(s) of the battle(s) are explained well, etc. • Ling.Nut 09:09, 5 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Absolutely every word I have said is completely actionable. Fix the maps. Rewrite to reflect your sources and explain the situation. Your response puzzles me. I'm sorry to +O, but I think it's just not ready. • Ling.Nut 15:39, 5 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Is there something specific about the map that is confusing? It honestly makes sense to me. As for "the situation," I am trying very hard to change every specific thing you are mentioning but if I am not doing so correctly please let me know exactly what graphs are not correct. The problem is I don't see what specific details are missing that aren't given plenty of context in this article and its links. —Ed!(talk) 16:56, 5 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      A Compromise: Just my idea on how to address those concerns. Working with Prof. Millett's recommendations, just using sources which are aimed to criticize the armed forces, such as books by Fehrenbach and Alexander, may lend undue weights to certain details. I suggest use the established combat analysis, such as the book South to the Naktong, North to the Yalu and Policy and Direction - The First Year to measure just how important the cutbacks were to this battle or whether the US got its ass "kicked or not". As for confusing maps, I suggest a new section in the article just on describing the locations like this example here. Now this section could be the hardest section to find footnotes for, but in my experience it can go a long way on resolving confusions. Jim101 (talk) 23:03, 5 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • I'm OK with using sources that are less critical; I just think the whole issue has to be explored in-depth. I didn't walk away from the article thinking, "Oh, I learned about the combat-readiness of the equipment and men in the Battle of Taejon." As for the maps....the legend is seriously too tiny to read. If I have to spend 5 minutes leaning forward and squinting, the map is useless... The first line looks like... 5somethingsomething positioned somethingsomething night june something. Other lines no better. There is no easy way to distinguish between NK, SK & US forces — colors would be nice, and the units should be visually distinct. They all look like little envelopes. What's that... boat-looking thing.. moving away from the lowest envelope, near the lower left corner of the map? Nothing is labeled! I also didn't get a sense that I could match the text up with the map — more help in this respect would be nice. Etc. • Ling.Nut 23:46, 5 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • I have substantially expanded the article, specifically with more detail about the state of the forces involved for both sides, in the "Forces involved" section. Much of the article, including the aftermath, has been expanded with additional information on the battle and the loss for American forces. Is this satisfactory? As for the maps, I am taking them off of the article while I attempt to create clearer maps. —Ed!(talk) 03:40, 6 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Your zeal is commendable. I left a query re the image here. I'll look at the article text later... • Ling.Nut 07:06, 6 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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