Talk:German submarine U-36 (1936)/GA1

GA Review
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I shall be reviewing this article against the Good Article criteria, following its nomination for Good Article status. AustralianRupert (talk) 06:08, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Progression

 * Version of the article when originally reviewed:
 * Version of the article when review was closed:

Technical review

 * Disambiguations: None found:
 * Linkrot: No issues found:
 * Alt text: Images do not have alt text. It is not a GA requirement to have this, so it is just a suggestion that you add it in.

Criteria

 * It is reasonably well written.
 * a (prose): b (MoS):
 * I feel that the lead needs to be expanded a little bit to provide some context. Currently the lead is not clear about the submarine being lost in action during the war;
 * I have tweaked this myself, please check that you are happy with it. AustralianRupert (talk) 03:42, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
 * in the lead you have "built for service in World War II". I think this should be reworded. When the boat was launched, while it might have been assumed war was coming it wasn't known necessarily that the boat would serve in World War II. Thus, I suggest rewording thusly: "German submarine U-36 was a Type VIIA U-boat of the German Kriegsmarine which served during World War II";
 * Reworded.-- White Shadows It's a wonderful life 15:57, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Can you please check this one again? It doesn't seem to have been changed when I view the article . AustralianRupert (talk) 03:13, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I have tweaked this myself. Can you please check that you are happy with it. AustralianRupert (talk) 03:42, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
 * endashes are required in year ranges in the References;
 * Added.-- White Shadows Nobody said it was easy 00:42, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
 * spaces are needed for the endashes in infobox, e.g. "16 December 1936–31 October 1938" should be "16 December 1936 & ndash; 31 October 1938";
 * Fixed-- White Shadows Nobody said it was easy 00:38, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
 * the See also section should go above Notes/Refs per WP:LAYOUT;
 * Done.-- White Shadows It's a wonderful life 16:11, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I'd suggest breaking the Design section into two paragraphs, I think the logical split would be before the details about the armament;
 * Split :)-- White Shadows Nobody said it was easy 00:45, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
 * while its not necessarily a GA requirement, I'd suggest converting the book citations to Philbin to short citations per WP:CITESHORT (e.g. Philbin 1994, p. 95) and just including the full bibliographic details once in the Bibliography (currently you have the full details twice, which seems like overdoing it to me).
 * Done.-- White Shadows Nobody said it was easy 00:54, 8 August 2010 (UTC)


 * It is factually accurate and verifiable.
 * a (references): b (citations to reliable sources):  c (OR):
 * I don't believe that there is any original research and the references appear to be reliable sources to me (no action required);
 * the details in the Raiding career section should be cited, are you able to add citations to the table? I suggest that it could be done similar to the way you did it in the infobox;
 * Done.-- White Shadows Nobody said it was easy 14:37, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
 * in the service history section, you state that the first patrol began in August and went to the end of September and that it was during this patrol that the U-boat sank the two vessels listed, however, this link indicates that the first sailing took place between 31 August to 6 September and concluded with no sinkings. Then it states that it was on U-36's second sailing (7 to 30 Sept 1939) that the sinkings occured and finally that it was on its third sailing that it was sunk. Can you please clarify?
 * That first sailing was just to move her to her new home base. I've not added it in as a result as such a section in it would be about 1-2 lines at the most. I have fixed the issue with the dates though.-- White Shadows Nobody said it was easy 14:44, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I have tweaked the first patrol section to clarify this. Also by adding mention to this it expands the article a little, which I think is necessary given that the service history was not very long (compared to say U-30, which was the other GA I worked with you on). Please check that you agree with this addition. AustralianRupert (talk) 06:14, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
 * this link seems to indicate that the boat sunk three ships in its first active patrol/second sailing (Truro, Silesia and Algeria), but you only discuss two: . Another link, claims that the Algeria was captured (which is also confirmed by Clay Blair on p. 96 per below), and that on 28 September the U-boat was responsible for mining a fourth vessel, the Solaas. Can you please clarify?
 * I have added in this information. Can you please check that you agree with these additions? AustralianRupert (talk) 06:43, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
 * have you got any more sources, another paper one for instance? Could some citations be added to the work that is in the Bibliography perhaps (Sharpe)?
 * one reference that you might consider adding is Clay Blair's book Hitler's U-boat War: The Hunters, 1939–1942. This has some more information about the plans involving U-36 just prior to the war on p. 56 (as well as some minor mentions on pp. 40, 44). He also discusses the first North Sea patrols in some detail (pp. 94–97) including mentioning an incident in which the British submarine Seahorse fired three torpedos at U-36 but missed. As per above, on p. 96 Blair talks about the Algeria being captured and escorted back to Germany as a war prize at the end of U-36's second patrol. Finally, on p. 121 Blair briefly discusses the loss of U-36 on its third sailing, providing the Salmon's captain's name as "E.O Bickford", and stating that the submarine also sunk two light cruisers during the same patrol, the Leipzig and Nurnberg which were covering a destroyer minelaying force;
 * Also Stephen Roskill's book The Navy at War 1939–1945 mentions the sinking of U-36 in a paragraph (albeit from a British perspective), but this might prove useful in expanding the ref base;
 * I have added this myself, please check that you agree with what I've written. AustralianRupert (talk) 06:14, 21 August 2010 (UTC)


 * It is broad in its coverage.
 * a (major aspects): b (focused):
 * in the Construction section it might not hurt to explain, albeit briefly, what Plan Z was and why the construction of these U-boats were in violation of the treaty;
 * Not really needed, and might unbalance article. AustralianRupert (talk) 06:43, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
 * are there any details of pre-war service? You mention it briefly in the lead, but then don't add it in the Service history section;
 * This would be great if it were available, but I'm not sure that it is. So I'm happy to leave it as a suggestion for possible improvement later. AustralianRupert (talk)
 * could some mention of the ships that were sunk (names, GRT, etc) be added to the Service history section?
 * Added. AustralianRupert (talk) 06:43, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
 * is there any more detail about the sinking of U-36? It currently only takes up a sentence (please see above for some sources that mention it);
 * what is the fate of the wreck? Was it located, is it considered a wargrave, etc.?


 * It follows the neutral point of view policy.
 * a (fair representation): b (all significant views):
 * This seems fine to me (no action required).


 * It is stable.
 * No edit wars etc.:
 * The article is not subject to an edit war (no action required).


 * It contains images, where possible, to illustrate the topic.
 * a (tagged and captioned): b (Is illustrated with appropriate images):  c (non-free images have fair use rationales):  d public domain pictures appropriately demonstrate why they are public domain':
 * Images are present, they are appropriate and are correctly licenced (no action required).


 * Overall:
 * a Pass/Fail:
 * There are a few things that I feel need to be done to bring this article up to GA status, however, I do not feel that these warrant a quick fail as I believe that they are able to be achieved within a suitable timeframe (which is negotiable). As such I will place it on hold to see what changes are made before deciding upon the outcome. I'm prepared to accept any reasonable explainations of my concerns, and any changes will be taken into consideration, of course. Good work so far.
 * Please feel free to annotate on this page how you have addressed each of the concerns, either by responding on a new line below the comment or by placing the ✅ tags beside them, so I know where you are up to. AustralianRupert (talk) 07:23, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I have made a couple of changes to address my concerns above. I'm fairly happy with the article now. Before I pass it for GA, though, could you please check that you agree with what I've done? Cheers. AustralianRupert (talk) 06:43, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Rather than commenting 20 times on every edit that you made, I'll just tel you here that I do agree with everything that you've done. Thank you very much. As for the fate of the submarine as well as her pre-war service, I'll try to find what I can on her sinking but as for pre-1 September 1939, my guess is that she simply went on a few practice patrols to train her crew but I'm not entirely certain as to what operations (if any) that she conducted prior to the beginning of the war.-- White Shadows Nobody said it was easy 19:52, 22 August 2010 (UTC)