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


 * K-25 : Continuing Hawkeye's series 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 was demolished in 2017. The article passed GAN and ACR on its way to FA status.


 * ZETA (fusion reactor) : Built in Britain the 1950s, this was the most powerful reactor of its time. According to Maury's nomination statement, it "had the rather unfortunate problem of announcing it was successful in very public fashion in newspapers around the world and then having to retract the claim. In spite of this embarrassing event, ZETA went on to have a very productive career and provided several important advances in the field."


 * SMS Zähringen : Zähringen was a pre-dreadnought battleship that served in three German navies over the course of her 42-year career. Commissioned in 1902, the ship was only part of the first-line German fleet until 1910. She was reactivated during World War I, and served in the Baltic until late 1915. After a lengthy period in reserve, Zähringen was used as a target ship from 1928 to 1944, when she was sunk by an Allied air raid. Her hulk was later used as a block ship. Parsecboy took the article through GAN and ACR prior to FAC.


 * Winter War (Manelolo) : The Winter War was fought between Finland and Soviet Russia in 1939–40, with the result, as Manelolo puts it in the nomination statement, of "David barely holding onto its sovereignty against the Goliath". The article passed ACR way back in 2009 but missed out on promotion to FA shortly afterwards. Manelolo added that their recent revision of the article was inspired by Finland's centenary of independence in December 2017.


 * Civil Service Rifles War Memorial : Another in Harry Mitchell's series on war memorials designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, this article covers a monument near the Thames River in central London that was erected in memory of the Civil Service Rifles' casualties during World War I. The small but hard-fighting unit suffered 1,240 fatalities. Veterans from the regiment conducted annual services at the monument until the late 1980s. The article passed ACR before achieving FA status.


 * Gloucestershire Regiment : The Gloucestershire Regiment was a line infantry regiment of the British Army from 1881 until 1994. Its units saw extensive combat in the Second Boer War, both World Wars, and the Korean War, and were also regularly deployed overseas as part of colonial garrisons. At the time of the regiment's disbandment, its colours carried more battle honours than those of any other regiment of the line. Factotum took the article through ACR before FAC.


 * Russian battleship Petropavlovsk : Petropavlovsk was one of the many ill-fated Russian battleships of the Russo-Japanese War era, and actually spent more time being built than in service. After being commissioned in 1899 the ship was dispatched to the Far East, where she formed part of the military response to the Boxer Revolution the next year. Petropavlovsk was retained as an element of the Russian Pacific Fleet and was involved in the Battle of Port Arthur in February 1904. Two months later she struck one or more mines and sank with the loss of most of her crew. Sturm took the article through GAN and ACR before successfully negotiating FAC.


 * Siege of Constantinople (674–678) : The first Arab siege of Constantinople was a major conflict of the Arab–Byzantine Wars, and the initial culmination of the Umayyad Caliphate's expansionist strategy towards the Byzantine Empire. Nominator Constantine stated in the FAC nomination that the siege's cultural impact was such that news of it "apparently reached as far as China". The article passed GAN and ACR back in 2012 before gaining its FA status last month.


 * List of National Defence Academy alumni : This 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.


 * 2nd Red Banner Army (Kges1901) : The 2nd Red Banner Army was a Soviet field army that spent its entire existence in the Far East. Formed just before World War II, it spent most of the war as a garrison unit. The army saw ten days of combat against Japan in the Soviet invasion of Manchuria, and was disbanded shortly after the end of the war.


 * Avenue Range Station massacre (Peacemaker67) : Peacemaker's second article on an incident in the Australian frontier wars covers the killing of nine Aboriginal Australians on a farm in the colony of South Australia. While the farmer was arrested, they escaped conviction when their trial was abandoned. One of the major complications involved in the case was that there were significant restrictions on the use of evidence given by Aboriginal witnesses, especially where a verdict could involve capital punishment.


 * Peter Drummond (RAF officer)‎ (Ian Rose) : Peter Drummond was an Australian-born aviator who rose from the rank of private to eventually become an air marshal in the Royal Air Force. Drummond transferred from the Australian Imperial Force to the Royal Flying Corps in 1915, and became a fighter ace. He remained in the RAF after the war, and undertook a diverse range of postings. He held senior positions in the RAF during World War II, and attempts by the Australian Government to have Drummond posted back to Australia to command the Royal Australian Air Force were unsuccessful when the British Government refused to release him. Drummond was killed in an air crash in March 1945, while travelling as a passenger in Winston Churchill's previous transport aircraft.


 * Type 1934-class destroyer (Iazyges and Sturmvogel 66) : The first of four collaborations for this month's list covers a group of four destroyers built for the German Navy during the mid-1930s. The destroyers were larger and better armed than most of those operated by other European navies, but were poorly designed and had unreliable engines. Two of the destroyers were sunk in a shambolic operation in February 1940, with one being attacked by a German aircraft and another striking a mine. Another of the destroyers was deliberately run aground and destroyed during the 1940 Norwegian Campaign. The remaining ship survived the war, and was scrapped in 1949.


 * Royal Gloucestershire Hussars (Factotem) : The Royal Gloucestershire Hussars Royal Gloucestershire Hussars was a volunteer yeomanry regiment of the British Army. It was raised in 1830 for domestic security duties. From the mid-19th century its role transitioned to forming part of expeditionary forces, and it first saw combat during the Boer War in South Africa. It raised three regiments during both world wars, though only one was deployed outside the UK in each war. The Royal Gloucestershire Hussars was reduced in size from a regiment to a squadron in the 1960s, and it now forms part of the Royal Wessex Yeomanry.


 * German destroyer Z3 Max Schultz (Iazyges and Sturmvogel 66) : Z3 Max Schultz was one of the Type 1934-class destroyers. It was commissioned in 1937 and participated in the occupation of Memel in early 1939. Max Schultz was the destroyer which struck a mine during the February 1940 fiasco, and sank with the loss of her entire crew of 308.


 * Petropavlovsk-class battleship (Sturmvogel 66) : These three Russian pre-dreadnoughts served during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05. All three were lightly damaged during the Battle of Port Arthur and one was the first major Russian warship lost to a mine several months later. The other two fought in the Battle of the Yellow Sea and endured the Japanese bombardment of Port Arthur that sank one of the sisters in shallow water and caused the other one to be scuttled. The Japanese salvaged the one ship that they could access and incorporated it into their navy as a training ship. The survivor was sold back to the Russians during World War I, captured and then disabled by the British during the Russian Civil War and finally sold for scrap by the victorious Soviets.


 * German destroyer Z31 (Iazyges and Nigel Ish) : The third article on German destroyers of World War II for the month covers a ship which was commissioned in 1942 and survived the war. Z31 was stationed in Norway from late 1942 to the end of 1944, during which time it was mainly used as an escort and patrol vessel. The ship was transferred to the Baltic in early 1945, but was damaged during an engagement with British cruisers en-route. It spent the last weeks of the war supporting German forces in the Baltic. Following the war the destroyer was transferred to the French Navy and remained in service until 1954.


 * Param Vir Chakra (Krishna Chaitanya Velaga) : The Param Vir Chakra (PVC) is India's highest military decoration awarded for distinguished acts of valour during wartime. The PVC is equivalent to the Medal of Honor in the United States and the Victoria Cross in the United Kingdom. The medal was established in 1950, and has been awarded 21 times.


 * Second Australian Imperial Force in the United Kingdom (Nick-D) : While the UK was the main rear base for the First Australian Imperial Force during World War I, the Australian Army presence in the UK was limited to a small number of liaison officers for most of World War II. There were two exceptions to this though: in 1940 8,000 Australians formed part of the forces deployed to counter the feared German invasion, and after the German collapse over 5000 released AIF prisoners of war passed through the UK. In addition, several engineer units were located in the UK between 1940 and 1943.


 * HMS Vanguard (1909) (Sturmvogel 66) : Other than becoming the only British dreadnought lost during World War I to non-combat causes (her magazines exploded in 1917), Vanguard had a typical career for a WWI-era British dreadnought. A few shells fired at the Battle of Jutland mid-way through the war and that was all the combat she experienced. Aside from a few other unsuccessful attempts to intercept German ships, her war consisted of monotonous training in the North Sea.


 * Sam Manekshaw (Krishna Chaitanya Velaga) : Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw was an Indian Army officer. He joined the British Indian Army in 1932 and was badly wounded during World War II. Manekshaw held increasingly senior roles in the post-independence Indian Army and was appointed the Chief of the Army Staff in 1969. In this role, he led the service during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971. Manekshaw became the first Indian Army officer to be promoted to the rank of field marshal shortly before his retirement in 1973.


 * New Britain campaign (AustralianRupert and Nick-D) : The New Britain campaign was a small, but complex, element of World War II. United States Army and Marine Corps forces landed on the western end of the island in late 1943 to secure airfields which were needed to complete the isolation of the major Japanese base at Rabaul. They were replaced by an Australian Army division in October 1944. This unit conducted a limited offensive, which contained the much larger Japanese force at Rabaul which was waiting for a direct attack which never came.


 * Air Board (Australia) (Ian Rose) : Ian's first A-class nomination for a while continues his series on the organisational history of the Royal Australian Air Force. It covers the body which essentially ran the RAAF between 1921 and 1976, and discusses its origins, purpose, changes in composition, major or representative decisions, and dissolution, as well as highlighting those times (inevitably during international conflict) when the Air Board did not exercise complete control of its assets. In his nomination statement, Ian noted that the article appears to be the only relatively detailed summary of this important body currently available.


 * Lawrence Weathers (Peacemaker67) : Lawrence Weathers was born in New Zealand of Australian parents. He joined the Australian Imperial Force in 1916 and fought in France. During the Battle of Mont Saint-Quentin in 1918, with some assistance, Weathers captured 180 German troops and three machine guns, and was subsequently awarded the Victoria Cross. He was killed a few days after the actions which resulted in the award, and never knew he was to receive it.


 * Bougainville counterattack (AustralianRupert and Nick-D) : Launched in March 1944, the Bougainville counterattack was a large-scale assault by Japanese forces on the US lodgement that had been established around Cape Torokina on Bougainville. Aimed at destroying the Allied base, the attack was hampered by poor intelligence and a failure to concentrate forces in sufficient numbers to achieve break in. The Japanese attackers suffered heavy casualties before the counterattack was called off. The article was partially developed by Nick-D in draft space in 2012, and languished there until 2016 when AustralianRupert suggested that it be published and completed. AustralianRupert and Nick jointly expanded the article.