Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/News/November 2020/Articles


 * Muhammad IV of Granada : Muhammad IV was the ruler of the Emirate of Granada on the Iberian Peninsula from 1325 to 1333. The initial years of his reign were marked by civil war between his ministers, which ended in 1328 when Muhammad began taking a more active role in government. Castile and Aragon, Granada's Christian neighbours, invaded in 1330. Muhammad requested help from the Marinid Sultanate in North Africa, which sent 5,000 troops to capture Gibraltar in 1333. The Castilians in turn besieged Gibraltar, but after confused fighting a truce was agreed. One day later Muhammad was assassinated, aged 18.


 * SMS Preussischer Adler : SMS Preussischer Adler was a paddle steamer built in the mid-1840s for commercial use. Requisitioned by the Prussian Navy during the First Schleswig War in 1848, she took part in the first naval battle of the Prussian fleet. During the Second Schleswig War, in company with four other vessels, Preussischer Adler attacked a Danish force blockading the German North Sea ports. The resulting Battle of Heligoland in May 1864 was tactically inconclusive, but the Danes abandoned their blockade. She was decommissioned and sunk as a target ship during experiments with torpedoes in 1879.


 * Arthur Sullivan : Arthur Sullivan was an Australian recipient of the Victoria Cross. He joined the Australian Imperial Force during World War I but had not completed training when the war ended. He enlisted in the British Army for service with the North Russia Relief Force. In North Russia in 1919 he was a member of a rearguard as his platoon crossed the river on a one-plank bridge. Under intense fire from Bolshevik troops, four men fell into the river. Sullivan jumped in and rescued all four, one by one; and was awarded the Victoria Cross for his actions.


 * Peter Raw (Nick-D) : Peter Raw was a Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) pilot and officer. He served as a flight instructor, bomber pilot and the commander of a communications unit during World War II. He was appointed the commander of No. 2 Squadron in 1953 and subsequently served in staff and diplomatic roles until taking command of No. 82 Wing in 1965. Between May 1966 and April 1967, he served as the air support co-ordinator for the Australian forces in South Vietnam; his initial refusal to commit RAAF helicopters to assist the Australian Army during the Battle of Long Tan in August 1966 generated lasting controversy. Raw retired from the RAAF in 1978. Nick began work on the article in 2011, and has improved it over time as new sources became available.


 * Third Punic War : The Third Punic War was the third and last of the Punic Wars fought between Carthage and Rome; it lasted from 149 to 146 BC. The war was fought in what is now north-east Tunisia. The Romans besieged the city of Carthage but suffered repeated setbacks. A new Roman commander took over in 148 BC, and fared equally badly. Scipio Aemilianus was appointed commander in Africa in 147 BC and in spring 146 BC launched a final assault, systematically destroying the city and killing its inhabitants; 50,000 survivors were sold into slavery. The formerly Carthaginian territories became the Roman province of Africa


 * Landis' Missouri Battery : Landis' Missouri Battery was an artillery battery that served in the Confederate States Army during the early stages of the American Civil War. The battery was formed in late 1861 and early 1862 and fielded two 12-pounder Napoleon cannons and two 24-pounder howitzers, and a maximum of 62 men. The battery providied artillery support at the Second Battle of Corinth in 1862 and formed part of Confederate defenses at the battles of Port Gibson and Champion Hill in May 1863. It saw action during the Siege of Vicksburg, but was captured when the Confederate garrison there surrendered on July 4 and was not reformed.


 * French battleship Suffren : Suffren was a predreadnought battleship built for the French Navy and completed in 1902. She twice collided with French ships and twice had propeller shafts break before the start of World War I in 1914. Suffren was assigned to the naval operations off the Dardanelles, participating in a series of attacks on Ottoman fortifications. The ship provided gunfire support for the Allied forces during the Gallipoli campaign; as the Allies withdrew she accidentally sank one of the evacuation ships. While en route to Lorient for a refit, Suffren was torpedoed off Lisbon by a German submarine on 26 November 1916 and sunk with all hands.

All but two of the above articles underwent a MilHist A-class review before achieving featured status.


 * 1st Missouri Field Battery (Hog Farm) : The 1st Missouri Field Battery was a unit of the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. It was raised in Arkansas after the Confederates lost control of Missouri, and spent most of its existence in that state. It took part in a large number of campaigns, most of which ended in defeat for the Confederates, but saw little combat.


 * Milorad Ekmečić (Peacemaker67) : This article covers a Yugoslav and Bosnian Serb historian who "went national" during the Yugoslav Wars, and was one of a group of prominent Yugoslav historians who eschewed the standards of international scholarship and concentrated exclusively on sectarian myths during the period of conflict in the former Yugoslavia, resulting in the production of what has been described by several scholars of the period as "pseudohistory". He was also an advisor to the convicted war criminal Radovan Karadžić during the Bosnian War.


 * French aircraft carrier Béarn (Sturmvogel 66) : Béarn was an incomplete Normandie-class dreadnought that was converted into an aircraft carrier after World War I. Her pre-war career was uneventful, and her aircraft were disembarked at the beginning of World War II to operate from land bases. The carrier was used for training new pilots and ferried over a hundred tons of gold to Canada in early 1940. The armistice with Germany caused the carrier to be diverted to the French West Indies and Béarn was effectively interned there for the next 3 years. After the islands joined Free France in 1943, she was converted into an aircraft ferry. Following the war she transported troops, aircraft and supplies to French Indochina and finished her career as the flagship of a combined submarine and anti-submarine unit.


 * 2nd Armoured Division (United Kingdom) (EnigmaMcmxc) : The British Army's 2nd Armoured Division was formed in December 1939. The division was a key part of the British plans to counter-attack German invasion during the summer and autumn of 1940, but was transferred to North Africa in December that year. It was destroyed there in early 1941 and was subsequently disbanded.


 * Battle of Powick Bridge (Harrias) : The Battle of Powick Bridge took place during the First English Civil War, and involved about 1,000 mounted soldiers on each side. A detachment of the Parliamentarian field army had been sent to try and secure a Royalist silver convoy, which Prince Rupert had been sent to protect. The Parliamentarians bungled across Rupert's troops, who themselves were resting in a field without their armour. Rupert dispensed with the more common tactic at the time of using cavalry as a mobile firing platform, and instead "charged" his men at the opponents, breaking all but one troop. The skirmish was soon won by Rupert's Royalists, and Rupert's reputation as a cavalry commander was established.


 * Yugoslav torpedo boat T2 (Peacemaker67) : T2 was a seagoing torpedo boat operated by the Royal Yugoslav Navy between 1921 and 1939, after being commissioned in August 1914 and spending World War I in Austro-Hungarian Navy service. The ship undertook convoy, patrol, escort, minesweeping and minelaying tasks, anti-submarine operations, and shore bombardment missions during World War I. In Yugoslav service she undertook training tasks and visited foreign ports, but these activities were constrained by tight budgets. The ship was scrapped in 1939.


 * Hitler's prophecy (Buidhe) : This article is about the most notorious phrase from Hitler's speeches: "If international finance Jewry inside and outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war, the result will be not the Bolshevization of the earth and thereby the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe." This threat/prophecy was repeated in speeches, printed on posters and in newspapers, and is often cited as a reason why Germans ought to have known about the mass murders of Jews which took place on Hitler's orders.


 * HMS Pearl (1762) (Ykraps) : HMS Pearl was a fifth-rate, 32-gun Royal Navy frigate. Commissioned in 1762, she took part in the American Revolutionary War and the Napoleonic Wars, with her role in the former being particularly active. From 1802 she was used first as a storeship at Portsmouth and later as a receiving ship. She was sold in 1832.


 * United States war plans (1945–1950) (Hawkeye7) : This article covers the early American plans to fight the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Although most of the plans were discarded as impractical, they nonetheless would have served as the basis for action had a conflict occurred. The plans were focused on the defence of Western Europe against a massive Soviet invasion and involved land forces making a fighting retreat from Germany to Spain while a strategic air campaign using nuclear weapons was undertaken.


 * 55th (West Lancashire) Infantry Division (EnigmaMcmxc) : The British 55th (West Lancashire) Infantry Division was established in 1920 as a reservist Territorial Army unit. It was converted to a motor division in 1938. The division remained in the UK throughout World War II, undertaking counter-invasion duties for most of the period between 1939 and 1944. Following D-Day, it was used as a source of manpower for other combat units and was retained as a formation largely for deception purposes. The division was disbanded in 1945.