Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/News/December 2016/Articles


 * Northampton War Memorial (HJ Mitchell) :Officially known as the Town and County War Memorial, this a First World War memorial in  the county of Northamptonshire in central England. It is one of several memorials designed by architect Sir Edwin Lutyens, part of a series that nominator Harry Mitchell is aiming to bring to Featured Article status in coming months.


 * O. G. S. Crawford (Midnightblueowl) : Crawford was a British archaeologist who specialised in prehistoric Britain, as well as ancient Sudan. He is also known for his pioneering work in aerial archaeology. Born in Bombay, British India, he was, according to colleagues, "a cantankerous and irritable individual", but has been widely acclaimed for his contributions to British archaeology, and his photographic records were still in use at the beginning of this century.


 * Seri Rambai (Singora) : This article is about a 17th-century Dutch cannon displayed at Fort Cornwallis in George Town, capital of the Malaysian state of Penang. Quoting the Sunday Times, Singora noted in his nomination statement that "Cannons don't often have names, but the Seri Rambai ... is something rather special". It is not only the largest bronze gun in Malaysia, but a fertility symbol and the focus of legends and prophecy.


 * SMS Mecklenburg (Parsecboy) : The latest in Parsecboy's series of German capital ships, Mecklenburg was a pre-dreadnought battleship that had a fairly uneventful service history between 1903 and 1920; she was used as a floating prison from 1916 until early 1918. This is part of the Battleships of Germany featured topic, and passed both GAN and ACR before achieving FA status.

As well as November's promotions, this gallery includes some featured pictures that were missed over the last couple of months


 * Mark XIV bomb sight (Maury Markowitz) : Maury's latest A-class article describes a bomb sight used by the Royal Air Force during World War II. While not as well remembered as the American Norden sight, the Mark XIV was Bomber Command's primary bomb sight for much of the air war over Germany, equipping the thousands of heavy bombers that grew to dominate the UK's air fleet. It continued to be upgraded following the war, and remained in service until 1965.


 * Rogožarski IK-3 (Peacemaker67) : Continuing Peacemaker67's series of articles on Yugoslav aircraft of World War II, this article covers a Yugoslav-designed monoplane fighter. While the IK-3 was considered to be superior to the main German fighter type, the Me 109, only twelve had been completed by the time of the Axis invasion in April 1941. As Peacemaker noted in his nomination statement, "The aircraft and their pilots gave a good account of themselves during the fighting, but were overwhelmed by the numbers of German aircraft and the expertise of the German pilots". The Ikarus S-49 fighter was developed from the IK-3 after the war and produced in large numbers.


 * Battle of Isurava (AustralianRupert) : The Battle of Isurava is one of the best-known engagements in Australian military history. It was the first major battle of the hard-fought Kokoda Track campaign of 1942, and involved Australian and Japanese forces facing off in incredibly rugged terrain. The battle ended in victory for the Japanese, but it was long believed by Australians to have been a defensive success against a much larger force. Recent research has found that the two forces were of roughly equal size, leading to a reevaluation of the battle.


 * Al-Mu'tadid (Constantine) : Constantine describes the subject of this article as "one of the most (and virtually the last) capable Abbasid caliphs, whose life was spent very much on campaign, but who also presided over a transformative period in domestic government and the fortunes of the Abbasid state". Al-Mu'tadid was the caliph from 892 until his death in 902, with his power being reliant on close relations with the army. Despite his military and governance successes, al-Mu'tadid's reign was ultimately too short to effect a lasting reversal of the Caliphate's fortunes. Constantine has been working on this article since 2013.


 * Royal Yugoslav Navy (Peacemaker67) : As a prominent part of his work on the Royal Yugoslav Navy, Peacemaker has developed the central article on the force to A-class status. The Navy was raised in 1921, initially equipped with a few former Austro-Hungarian vessels. It gained a small number of more modern ships during the inter-war period, but saw little combat before surrendering when the country was invaded in April 1941. It was disestablished in 1945 and some of its surviving vessels were transferred to the new Yugoslav Navy.


 * List of Indian Coast Guard directors general (Krishna Chaitanya Velaga) : The first of Krishna's three entries is a comprehensive list of the commanders of the paramilitary Indian Coast Guard. Most of the 22 individuals served in the role for around two years, but several have had quite short tenures.


 * List of Param Vir Chakra recipients (Krishna Chaitanya Velaga) : This article lists the recipients of India's highest military decoration awarded for valour or self-sacrifice in the presence of the enemy. The medal has been awarded twenty-one times, including fourteen posthumous awards; sixteen were awarded for action in Indo-Pakistani conflicts, and two for action in peacekeeping operations. All but one of the recipients were members of the Indian Army.


 * List of National Defence Academy alumni (Krishna Chaitanya Velaga) : Krishna's third entry is a list of notable graduates of the Indian Armed Forces' joint services academy. The graduates include 28 service chiefs of staff, three Param Vir Chakra recipients and eleven Ashoka Chakra recipients.


 * Operation Paravane (Nick-D) : Operation Paravane was the last in a series of air attacks on the German battleship Tirpitz that were conducted while she was based at Kaafjord, Norway, in 1944. The raid was a complex affair, and involved both of Royal Air Force's elite heavy bomber squadrons. Staging through a bed-bug ridden base in a remote area of northern Russia, the bombers only managed a single hit on the battleship but this proved sufficient to end her seagoing career. Nick developed this article to follow up on three articles he has brought to FA standard on the Royal Navy raids against Kaafjord during 1944.


 * Orjen-class torpedo boat (Peacemaker67) : The Orjen-class comprised eight German-built motor torpedo boats produced for Yugoslavia in the late 1930s. Two escaped during the Axis invasion of that country in April 1941 and saw service with the Allies, but the rest were captured and put into service by the Italians. They were used as the basis for another class of 60-tonne Italian MTBs. Four were captured by the Germans in September 1943 and served for over a year before being sunk or scuttled in Greece during the German withdrawal.


 * K-25 (Hawkeye7) : Continuing Hawkeye7's efforts on the Manhattan Project, this article covers the vast facility constructed at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to produce enriched uranium for atomic bombs. Upon completion in 1944, the K-25 gaseous diffusion plant was the world's largest building and more than 25,000 workers were involved in its construction. The K-25 facility remained in operation until 1985, and is currently being demolished.