Talk:Operation Crossbow

General Intelligibility
A person reading this article is confronted with many puzzles and unknowns. The first paragraph is OK but the next, starting "When reconnaissance and intelligence information regarding the V-2 rocket became convincing..." is mysterious. One does not know why there was reconnaissance, etc. or why it was unconvincing before that. A more full explanation of the whole problem is needed. Friendly Person (talk) 02:16, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

No offense, but this article is a mess.--Reedmalloy (talk) 05:47, 27 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I've tagged warning of a better, more expanded, introduction needed.GraemeLeggett (talk) 06:30, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

During WW2 aerial reconnaissance was in part against prospective targets and often followed information sent from an SOE operative who had noticed something unusual, would monitor it and then when they had enough information send it to Britain via clandestine wireless transmissions. This would be analysed in Britain and a request for an over flight made. The "target" would lie some miles beyond the area of interest in this way the NAZI's would not be alerted to the allies interest in a site. The aircraft involved were usually unarmed, high flying and relied upon speed to avoid interception. Most aircraft were unheated and the pilots regularly suffered frost bite. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.244.61.231 (talk) 15:56, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

David Irving
David Irving should not be used as a source. See David Irving -- Evans suggested that in his view, Irving had knowingly used forged documents as sources, and that for this reason, Irving could not be regarded as a historian. Evans' report was the most comprehensive, in-depth examination of Irving's work: "Not one of [Irving's] books, speeches or articles, not one paragraph, not one sentence in any of them, can be taken on trust as an accurate representation of its historical subject. All of them are completely worthless as history, because Irving cannot be trusted anywhere, in any of them, to give a reliable account of what he is talking or writing about. ... if we mean by historian someone who is concerned to discover the truth about the past, and to give as accurate a representation of it as possible, then Irving is not a historian (Holocaust Denial On Trial)." -Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 09:24, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

BIG BEN
Big Ben seems to have been a general code name for the V2 rather than "a project for reconstructing and evaluating captured V-2 equipment". It was used for the project to detect V2 launches using Chain Home radar stations, the code word was passed down the line when a launch was detected. It was also used with Project SILENT MINUTE which was the building a high power VHF jamming transmitter by SIS Section VII. Presumably the call from the CH site was used as a command to turn on the jammer. --jmb (talk) 10:02, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Lead section - too short issue
as per Lead section the lead should summarize the content of the article. The current intro does not do this; it makes no mention of the types of operations (eg aerial or ground), how long the campaign ran for or whether it was overall effective. That some or all this is in the infobox is not useful - the lead should be able to stand alone as a summary. To this end I am restoring the appropriate tag. I think we can address the issue here: that we can agree that the current intro is sufficient, by a expanded intro or by an intermediate solution (a concise form of words containing the requisite content). GraemeLeggett (talk) 14:17, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Judging by the revert of my edit and the hidden-to-editors comment left("TALK PAGE CHECKED"), I might as well have been talking to myself. Is ther any other opinion on the matter?GraemeLeggett (talk) 17:05, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

circular linking issue
Currently the V2 countermeasures section of this article has the V2 article as a main link. on the v2 article the countermeasures section has this article as the main link. GraemeLeggett (talk) 14:45, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

External links modified
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Motivation for Crossbow: London vs. D-Day
I removed the following: "Operation Crossbow was a preliminary operation for Operation Overlord, the allied invasion of Normandy in 1944. ". The dday-overlord page does not seem great. It cites no sources. It says the Germans could, if the V-weapon sites were "operational for the month of June 1944, destroy all the ships of the fleet crossing the Channel as well as the bridgehead forming in Normandy." which I suspect greatly exagerates the effectiveness of the V-weapons. Most importantly, the bombing of V-weapon sites started long before D-Day and was motivated by V-weapon attacks on London. So I have added that to the lede. D-Day may have been an additional motivation to continue crossbow later on. If so perhaps someone could add that, ideally with a better source. Housecarl (talk) 03:12, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Still a mess
15 years have passed and this is still a mess. Relevant background/context is relegated to later sections entitled "V1 countermeasures" etc. Lots of marginalia about never-carried-out attack plans, chance encounters with V2s by some bloke's mate Cupid etc. But not one word in the text about the site shown in the main image, La Coupole/Wizernes. Grant &#124;  Talk  15:52, 11 December 2023 (UTC)
 * All the related articles have their own problems. eg V-1 flying bomb facilities, V-1 and V-2 intelligence GraemeLeggett (talk) 20:48, 11 December 2023 (UTC)