Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/News/December 2018/Articles


 * HMS Erin : HMAS Erin was one of the two battleships being built for the Ottoman Empire when World War I began; they were seized by the British, which may have contributed to the Turkish decision to enter the war. Like almost all of the British dreadnoughts, Erin had an uneventful war, even more so than the others as she was the only British dreadnought not to fire her main armament during the 1916 Battle of Jutland. After the war Erin became a training ship before being sold for scrap in 1922. The article passed an A-class review before its successful featured article candidacy.


 * Demetrius III Eucaerus : Continuing Attar-Aram's series on Seleucid monarchs of Syria, this article looks at an obscure but quite successful king from the latter period of the dynasty.  After a civil war, Demetirus had most of Syria under his control by 87 BC, and had even invaded neighbouring Judea, becoming, in Attar-Aram's words, "one of the last Seleucids of any military reputation". He finished his days in exile following defeat by the Parthians.


 * Western Australian emergency of March 1944 : This article covers a little-remembered incident on the Australian home front during World War II. In March 1944, Allied leadership became concerned that a powerful force of Japanese warships had departed Singapore to attack the Western Australian city of Perth and its port of Fremantle. In response, a large Royal Australian Air Force contingent was dispatched to Western Australia, and local anti-aircraft and coastal defences were placed on high alert. This led to considerable public concern, especially when Perth's air raid sirens were briefly sounded. In reality, only a few Japanese warships were active in the Indian Ocean, and they withdrew after an ineffective raid. Nick took the article through ACR before FAC.


 * Project E : This article was nominated for deletion as a hoax shortly after being created in 2008, but fortunately it survived. It covers a joint project between the United States and the United Kingdom during the Cold War to provide nuclear weapons to the Royal Air Force prior to Britain's own nuclear weapons becoming available. The project was subsequently expanded to facilitate similar arrangements for the British Army of the Rhine, with the American-provided weapons remaining in service until 1992. The article negotiated ACR prior to gaining FA status.


 * James Wood Bush : Continuing their series on Hawaiian veterans of the US Civil War, KAVEBEAR brings us this biography of a Hawaiian-born sailor who joined the US Navy in 1864. He developed chronic laryngitis and spinal injuries during his service, and was left too impoverished to return to Hawaii. After finally returning to the islands in 1877, Bush converted to Mormonism and eventually became a bishop. KAVEBEAR brought the article to A-class status before attempting FAC.


 * List of ironclad warships of Austria-Hungary (Parsecboy and White Shadows) : This article provides a comprehensive listing of all 17 ironclad warships acquired by the Austro-Hungarian Navy between the 1860s and 1880s. The first generation of these ships were built as part of a naval armaments race with Italy, which ended with the Austrian victory in the 1866 Battle of Lissa. Due to funding shortfalls, none of the second generation of ironclads saw significant activity. Parsecboy and White Shadows developed the article as the capstone of a project which has involved raising the articles on all of the ironclads to GA status.


 * 38th Infantry Division Dravska (Peacemaker67) : The latest article in Peacemaker67's series on the Yugoslav order of battle for the invasion of that country in April 1941 covers an infantry division which began forming only shortly before the attack. It proved to be a very short-lived formation, as it surrendered with the rest of the field army it formed part of after six days of fighting.


 * GL Mk. I radar (Maury Markowitz) : The Gun Laying radar, Mark I was an early radar system developed by the British Army to provide range information to anti-aircraft artillery. It was developed during the 1930s and entered service in 1939. It proved successful, and improved variants remained in service until the 1950s. The construction of mesh platforms for the radars in late 1940 used up the UK's entire stock of chicken wire.


 * Soviet cruiser Admiral Oktyabrsky (Kges1901) : In his nomination statement, Kges1901's stated that this ship "served with the Pacific Fleet for a fairly undistinguished twenty years". During this period she often operated in the Pacific, and occasionally ventured into the Indian Ocean. This included operating in the Persian Gulf during the 1991 Gulf War.


 * French battleship Courbet (1911) (Sturmvogel 66) : Courbet had a typical career for a French dreadnought of her generation. Her participation in World War I mostly consisted of swinging around a mooring buoy as she was tasked to prevent a breakout into the Mediterranean by the Austro-Hungarian fleet. During World War II she bombarded Rommel's 7th Panzer Division as it approached Cherbourg then sailed to Britain where she was seized by the British a few weeks later. They used her as a target ship before she was sunk as a breakwater off the Normandy beaches in 1944.


 * SM U-2 (Austria-Hungary) (White Shadows) : Another World War I-era warship, U-2 was Austria-Hungary's second submarine. She was commissioned in 1911 and used as a training submarine. During World War I, U-2 conducted reconnaissance patrols until the end of 1917, and saw out the rest of the war in a training role. After the war she was handed over to Italy, and scrapped.


 * Ottoman conquest of Lesbos (Cplakidas) : The Ottoman conquest of Lesbos in September 1462 was one of the follow-up operations by Mehmed II after the capture of Constantinople in 1453. As an event, it was fairly typical in illustrating the dilemma faced by the many minor rulers in Latin Greece, caught between Ottoman expansion, their own weakness and rivalries, the futility of their protestations of loyal vassalage, and the divergent commercial interests of Genoa and Venice.


 * Lou Spence (Ian Rose) : The latest in Ian's vast series on Royal Australian Air Force figures, this article covers the career of a fighter pilot who saw service in World War II and the Korean War. Spence joined the RAAF in 1940 and served in North Africa and Australia during World War II. He rejoined the RAAF after the war, and was the commanding officer of No. 77 Squadron in Japan on the outbreak of the Korean War. He led this unit in combat from June 1950 until his death in a combat mission on 9 September that year.


 * Aegidius (Iazyges) : Aegidius was ruler of the short-lived Kingdom of Soissons from 461–464/465 AD. He was a senior officer in the Western Roman Empire's army before that time. During his reign, he led successful campaigns against barbarian invaders until his death.


 * Nikopol–Krivoi Rog Offensive (Kges1901) : This article covers an offensive by the Red Army's 3rd Ukrainian Front and elements of the 4th Ukrainian Front against the German 6th Army in central Ukraine between 30 January and 29 February 1944. The battle involved over 1 million people, and ended in victory for the Soviet forces.


 * Siege of Berwick (1333) (Gog the Mild) : Gog described this article as "an examination of a siege which led to a catastrophe for Scottish arms and England becoming once again embroiled in the running sore of the Scottish wars". The siege of Berwick lasted for four months, and ended in victory for the English attackers who also defeated a Scottish attempt to lift the siege.