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




 * Yugoslav destroyer Beograd (Peacemaker67) : Beograd was the lead ship of a class of destroyers built for the Royal Yugoslav Navy during the late 1930s. In World War II, she was captured and saw extensive service with the Royal Italian Navy, completing over 100 convoy escort missions, mainly on routes between Italy and the Aegean or North Africa. In September 1943, she was captured by the German Navy and redesignated TA43. She was sunk or scuttled at Trieste in 1945.


 * Roman withdrawal from Africa in 255 BC (Gog the Mild) : This was the attempt by the Roman Republic to rescue the survivors of their defeated expeditionary force to Carthaginian Africa during the First Punic War. A force of 390 warships fought and defeated 200 Carthaginian vessels and the Roman survivors of the previous year's invasion were evacuated. While returning to Italy the Roman fleet encountered a storm off the south-east corner of Sicily: 384 ships were sunk and more than 100,000 men were lost.


 * Al-Hafiz (Cplakidas) : A biography of the eleventh caliph of the Fatimids who reigned from 1132 to his death in 1149. Many Isma'ili followers abroad refused to recognize him and there were uprisings throughout his reign. He tried to restrain his over-mighty viziers, with mixed success. He was repeatedly forced to give way to the demands of various military factions, and ultimately was unable to halt the evolution of the vizierate into a de facto sultanate, independent of the caliph.


 * First Battle of Newtonia (Hog Farm) : A battle fought on September 30, 1862, near Newtonia, Missouri, during the American Civil War, when Confederate forces clashed with a Union column. The Confederate force consisted mostly of cavalry including a brigade of Native Americans. After a sharp skirmish in the morning, seesaw fighting took place during the afternoon. Shortly before nightfall, the Confederates made an all-out attack, causing the union troops to withdraw.


 * British nuclear tests at Maralinga (Hawkeye7) : These were conducted between 1956 and 1963 in the Woomera Prohibited Area in South Australia. A total of seven nuclear tests took place with approximate yields ranging from 1 to 27 ktTNT. The site was also used for trials of neutron initiators and tests on the compression of nuclear weapon cores and the effects of fire on atomic weapons. The site was left contaminated with radioactive waste, and a clean-up was attempted in 1967. A further clean-up was completed in 2000. In 1994, the Australian government paid $13.5 million compensation to the traditional owners, the Maralinga Tjarutja people.


 * Alfred Worden (Wehwalt) : Worden was an American test pilot and astronaut, and the command module pilot for the Apollo 15 lunar mission in 1971. He served on the support and backup crews for Apollo 9 and 12 before selection for Apollo 15. In lunar orbit, he became the individual who was the furthest from any other human being, a record he still holds. He also performed the first deep-space extravehicular activity, or spacewalk, in history. His career was effectively ended by a scandal over carrying postal covers to the Moon, and he retired in 1975.


 * Treaty of Lutatius (Gog the Mild) : This was the agreement of 241 BC between Carthage and Rome that ended the First Punic War after 23 years. Accepting defeat, Carthage agreed a peace treaty by which it would hand over what it still held of Sicily, relinquish several groups of islands nearby, release all Roman prisoners without ransom, and pay large reparations over 10 years. In 237 BC Carthage prepared an expedition to recover the island of Sardinia, which had been lost to rebels. Cynically, the Romans announced that this an act of war and that their peace terms were the ceding of Sardinia and Corsica and the payment of an additional indemnity; these were added to the treaty as a codicil.

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


 * Battle of Saseno (Cplakidas) : This engagement was described in the nomination statement as being "a good example of guerre de course in the Middle Ages and the only Genoese success in the War of Saint Sabas, this battle was won by clever strategy rather than force of arms". The battle took place on 14 August 1264 near Saseno island off the coast of Albania, between a fleet of the Republic of Genoa and a trade convoy of the Republic of Venice. The Genoese commander successfully deceived his opponent about his intentions and sank most of a Venetian convoy.


 * 3rd Missouri Infantry Regiment (Confederate) (Hog Farm) : Hog Farm described the subject of this article as "a scrappy ACW regiment that was in service for about a year and a half. After fighting hard at two battles in 1862 and the Vicksburg campaign, the unit was so decimated it had to be consolidated with another unit in late 1863". The article provides a very detailed account of the unit and its service.


 * Slayback's Missouri Cavalry Regiment (Hog Farm) : This article covers an obscure Confederate cavalry unit. In the nomination statement Hog Farm noted the article covers "a minor unit that was active in one campaign, it played a minor role in a few minor actions. The unit's role at the Second Battle of Lexington and the Battle of Little Blue River aren't as fleshed-out as I would like, but I can find nothing in reliable sources anywhere that I've looked online or in my print books that discuss this unit's role at those battles, except for a few sentences in McGhee's book cited in the article. Not even the Official Records deal with those details. The commander of the unit didn't even issue official reports."


 * M113 armoured personnel carriers in Australian service (Nick-D) : This article covers the Australian Army's use of M113 armored personnel carriers since 1964. For most of this period they were the most numerous, and possibly the most important, type of armoured vehicle in the Army's fleet. The article covers the large numbers of variants operated by Australia, including a bungled recent major upgrade project which delivered 400 essentially obsolete vehicles, and their operational service in South-East Asia, Somalia and Rwanda. In the nomination statement Nick noted that it had been a difficult article to work on due to the lack of any comprehensive sources and sheer complexity of the topic.


 * Zaharije Ostojić (Peacemaker67) : Zaharije Ostojić was a Montenegrin Serb and Yugoslav military officer who served as the chief of the operational, organisational and intelligence branches of the Chetnik Supreme Command in Yugoslavia during World War II. He was a major in the Royal Yugoslav Army Air Force prior to the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia, and was involved in the coup that deposed Prince Paul of Yugoslavia on 27 March 1941. Ostojić planned and oversaw several operations conducted in conjunction with the Axis occupation forces, and forces under his command murdered thousands of Muslims. He was captured in the last weeks of the war, and killed during April or May 1945.


 * Battle of Piercebridge (Harrias) : The Battle of Piercebridge was a relatively minor skirmish near the start of the First English Civil War fought on 1 December 1642. The Parliamentarians futilely tried to prevent the Earl of Newcastle bringing his army of 6,000 men into Yorkshire. Faced with a defence of 580 men, the van of Newcastle's army made an assault supported by 10 artillery pieces. Within a few hours, the Parliamentarians had retreated back towards Yorkshire, and Newcastle was able to continue his march, and give the Royalists a numerical advantage in the county that lasted for eighteen months.