Template:Did you know nominations/Forward air control operations during the Korean War


 * The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as |this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Cwmhiraeth (talk) 06:27, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Forward air control operations during the Korean War

 * ... that forward air control operations during the Korean War were improvised?


 * ALT1:... that despite experiencing using forward air control operations during the Korean War, the U.S. military could not agree on a common forward air control doctrine between 1946 and 1966?
 * Reviewed: Please await a review. Herbert Grove Dorsey

Created by Georgejdorner (talk). Self-nominated at 20:13, 18 November 2015 (UTC).


 * Without reviewing the article, I'm going to say both these hooks are confusing at least. Why does the first one end in an ellipsis? Is there more to come? And the second one describes a time frame that begins three years before the war itself did. Could it be reworded? Daniel Case (talk) 07:08, 18 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Ellipsis removed, as it is a typographical error. And no, I cannot change the fact that the U.S. military's confusion about forward air control began some four (not three) years prior to the Korean War.Georgejdorner (talk) 15:46, 18 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Indeed (you know you're confused when you started getting confused before the event that confused you even happened ) Maybe we could rename it slightly, adding "era" to the end of the name? Daniel Case (talk) 06:02, 19 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Only if you can first change the source. And I fail to see anything ambiguous or unclear about ALT0.Georgejdorner (talk) 02:40, 20 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I was suggesting that it was the military that was so confused. Daniel Case (talk) 04:20, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, in that instance, you are indeed absolutely correct.Georgejdorner (talk) 17:36, 22 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Symbol redirect vote 4.svg Full review needed. BlueMoonset (talk) 15:55, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

Neither of the proposed hooks appears in the article in that form. Both are obviously sensible conclusions to draw after reading the article, but nowhere does it actually spell out "the U.S. military could not agree on a common forward air control doctrine between 1946 and 1966" or "forward air control operations were improvised". Moreover, the hooks themselves aren't great, in my opinion, which is a shame because the article is really interesting. "It was improvised" doesn't tell the reader much, and "despite" implies a connection between the two clauses (and the second hook is a bit wordy anyway). How about a hook like:
 * Alt 2 "that forward air control operations during the Korean War was divided [or disputed/contested/some other adjective] between airborne and ground-based controllers?" Or
 * Alt 3 "that airborne forward air controllers so dominated the Korean War that ground-based controllers could go three months without calling in a strike?"

Alt 2 would need a sentence to that effect added to the article. Alt 3 is a bit long but it's plucked almost verbatim from the legacy section and I could approve it straight away if you wanted to go with it,. What do you think? HJ Mitchell &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?  15:36, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I have struck ALT0 and ALT2, as I cannot find pinpoint references to support them. "there would be no perceptible moves to settle forward air control doctrine for the U.S. military between 1946 and 1966" is double-cited and proves ALT1. I have struck ALT3 because it is only partially true; in the early mobile warfare stage of the Korean War, airborne controllers had yet to demonstrate such overwhelming utility.Georgejdorner (talk) 18:31, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
 * OK, alt3 could easily be fixed by adding "by the end of" or some such ("so dominated by the end of the Korean War..."), and I'm surprised there aren't references for Alt 2 considering that the debate over the use of airborne or ground-based controllers is a significant part of the article. The sentence you quote for Alt 3 is indeed cited, I spotted that when I did my first review, but the relationship to the Korean War isn't clear considering that the date range in the hook starts four years before the Korean War and finishes 13 years after the armistice. The hook itself is also a bit wordy and takes a moment to parse, partly because the title is wordy (can't be helped) and partly because it uses the term "forward air control operations" twice. HJ Mitchell  &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?  20:02, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I rewrote ALT1 to simplify it, struck it, and relisted the result as ALT4. As I showed above, this hook is supported by a double cite, so I have a valid cite here.
 * ALT4: ... that despite using forward air control operations during the Korean War, the U.S. military could not agree on a common doctrine between 1946 and 1966?
 * Symbol voting keep.svg Well, it check out, I'll give it that. I still think there are much better hooks you could from the article, hooks that are more likely to get readers to click through. But Alt 4 is in the article and properly sourced; the article is new enough, long enough, and actually of very good quality, and I have no major policy concerns. All the sources are offline so I'll accept them in good faith. HJ Mitchell  &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?  22:11, 5 January 2016 (UTC)