Talk:World War II, air war

Stimson

I restored the section on Stimson, and added full citations. Please don't erase chunks of text without discussions here.Richard Jensen 05:01, 17 June 2008 (CDT)

Close air support

I was able to find full downloads of some of the references pointing to Google Books, and inserted a number of wikilinks as well as some general copy editing. Rather than indent with a colon, I put direct quotations into what I believe is CZ style, <blockquote>text [reference if any]</blockquote>

I must disagree, however, with a point about Marine aviation and CAS, which I moved here:

Marine pilots, like all aviators, fiercely believed in the prime importance of air superiority; they did not wish to be tied down to supporting ground troops. On the other hand, the ground Marines needed close air support because they lacked heavy firepower of their own.

Given the assumption, going back to the first recruits at Tun Tavern, that every Marine is, first and foremost, an infantryman, I find it hard to believe that Marine Aviation ignored CAS and concentrated on defensive counter-air for the fleet. It is plausible that they gave a higher priority to gaining air supremacy over the battlefield, so they could provide CAS undisturbed.

The Marines, indeed, had been experimenting more than the other services with forward control of both air and artillery. ANGLICO was the longest-lived organization, but JASCO units were a Corps initiative in WWII.Howard C. Berkowitz 21:46, 15 July 2008 (CDT)

P-47

I removed text that is duplicated in the excellent article about the P-47; I'm not sure that the Airacobra discussion is that critical here. One must stay aware of the mission rather than concentrating on the equipment — what if Hitler had employed Me-262's as air superiority fighters as soon as they were available?Howard C. Berkowitz 21:56, 15 July 2008 (CDT)

Proposal: separate strategic bombing article, with key points only here.

At least with respect to heading levels, strategic bombing is taking up half of this article, which is much larger than the CZ recommendation. The discussion of strategic bombing is on many levels, from broad strategy to specific attacks.

I believe that it is reasonable to include the major theories here (e.g., Douhet, Harris, etc.), the major weapons systems and their operational implications (e.g., the British not really being able to attack during the day), the lack of developments that might have made a major difference (e.g., German or Russian heavy bombers), but to branch to the other article when it comes to the campaigns and how they were fought.

Howard C. Berkowitz 01:47, 16 July 2008 (CDT)

there are two missions:general overview and specialty articles. Thus a separate article on theory of strategic bombing (which is only briefly mentioned here) is a good idea. Keep it out of this article on the history of the air war. The air war is a integral part of ww2 and has to be covered in ww2. Branching out for example to a longer article on Battle of Britain is already done. That is, we have a now have this broad overview in this article and people can write much longer more in=depth specialty separate articles. (I have already done that regarding B-`17, B-29, etc Richard Jensen 08:43, 17 July 2008 (CDT)

Trying for maintainability and flow

As noted in previous comments, I've made organizational suggestions before, but the principal author of the material did not want to change anything. There were parts, I believe, that strongly pushed a particular interpretation of some events whose exact structure really is not understood, such as the decision to use nuclear weapons. I hope that we, as a workgroup and community, can improve on some of those areas, mostly by adding additional material to help a reader come to personal conclusions. On some of the more controversial matters, while I may have a personal opinion on the matter, I don't believe that belongs in the main article, although a signed article might be appropriate.

Without, I believe, losing much substance, I split what I believe was the longest article on CZ into what might be much more manageable pieces. There is absolutely no question that a good deal of flow editing is needed to make the somewhat arbitrary splits work better, and I would enjoy collaborating on this. It's a rather daunting topic for any individual, especially when I'm a journeyman at the history and more of an expert at the technologies and military techniques. Earlier, I had been nibbling around the edges: there had been no text under Battle of Britain, so I started with an introductory article on radar in general. I also created integrated air defense system and suppression of enemy air defense, and then went back and wrote a Battle of Britain article, not changing the technologies and techniques, but phrasing them to be compatible with current conceptual work in air defense and overcoming it.

In a few cases, I have made substantive changes, often toning down some unquestionably vivid language and being a bit more realistic about how some things did — or did not — work.

Part of my motivation for doing this is that I found that splitting up Gulf War, starting with three major phases, then some individual articles such as KARI, the Iraqi integrated air defense system, made, I believe, for a better topic.

Anyway, thanks to David Barnett for the {{toc-right}} command. I'm off to put it on Gulf War, and, perhaps with others, might try a similar reorganization of Vietnam War.

Howard C. Berkowitz 15:37, 21 August 2008 (CDT)

Comma in title

I think the comma within the title here is superfuous. World War II air war is acceptable grammar without the need for a comma. Derek Harkness 05:30, 22 August 2008 (CDT)

I do not disagree. Indeed, were it up to me, I would not have titled it anything remotely like this; "Air operation in WWII" would be in keeping with Samuel Elliott Morison's definitive history of naval opertations. Nevertheless, I don't know if you were involved in the disagreements, a few months ago, when the main author of this material, Prof. Jensen, insisted on this format for things such as "Gettysburg, Battle of". Apparently, that kind of comma-based structure is common in academic history journals.

In this case, and also pertinent to another point you raise, I'm dealing with some practical issues of linking and such. If the article was just being written, I certainly would not title it this way. Unfortunately, it did get this title, and there are extensive links to its format. Changing the title now, even with redirects, is likely to break quite a number of wikilinks.

Now that the article is split from being one of the largest in CZ, I would not be surprised if some of the subordinate titles start to change to more euphonious titles. In a quite different article, the title was not simply ungrammatical, but outright wrong: it was making a terminology assumption that was incorrect. Luckily, that was not overlinked, but, to be sure nothing broke, after setting up the newly titled article, I set up one window with the "what links here" display for the title as it was, and, in the next window, went down the list, one-by-one, to change the links to this title.

With this, I was more concerned with untangling text that mingled fairly different ideas and was not easily maintainable, or, in other cases, presented one particular analysis to the exclusion of even suggesting there might be other scholarly opinions.

The title should be changed, but, at present, it's not my highest priority. I'm perfectly open to starting a discussion as to what it should be titled; I don't think the only problem perceived by a number of people is the comma alone. Howard C. Berkowitz 06:30, 22 August 2008 (CDT)

I was involved in the "Gettysburg, Battle of" debate but that does not apply here. In the case of "Gettysburg, Battle of" the word order is reversed from normal spoken English and so a comma is required to indicate the change of order. It's similar to writing my name as Harkness, Derek. It's not wrong, it's just a different style.

However, with the comma in "World War II, air war" there is no indication of word order being reversed. It cannot be rewritten as "Air war World War II". In fact in the second form the comma would be required, you'd need to write "Air war, World War II". Derek Harkness 08:39, 22 August 2008 (CDT)

Derek, I didn't mean to say that the "Gettysburg, Battle of" was exactly the same reversal. It wasn't. Both titles, however, were created by other than myself, and I believe the same individual. Believe me, if I had created this article, I wouldn't have created quite this title. I agree that removing the comma would still be grammatical, although the repeated "war" would be awkward. Without thinking about it extensively, I probably would have called it "World War II air operations", "World War II air campaigns", or something along those lines.

Nevertheless, I am dealing with existing titles, and creating subarticles that clearly are subordinate to the main article. We do not disagree that the title could be improved. At this point, however, I would prefer to concentrate on having a maintainable set of subarticles, editing those subarticles for flow and occasionally for balance and technical accuracy, perhaps creating additional articles if that seems appropriate, and, once there is a more stable -- it will never be completely stable -- structure, then go back and change titles. When we change titles, I'd like some consensus on the best wording of the main title, and then for articles subordinated to it.

There will be cases where it might be more appropriate to move certain material to a WWII section of a different main article. For example, there are areas where the ethics and efficacy of city bombing generally, and nuclear attacks specifically, are addressed. It may well be that the issue of bombing populations belongs in the WWII section of the more general countervalue, and there may well be an article on the ethics of nuclear weapons (and perhaps other WMD) in any context.

All I ask, at this point, is not to spend a lot of time on titles that are likely to change, and which have links to them. I would greatly appreciate help in the body of articles. There are some orphaned headings. In some areas with which I have a good level of technical knowledge, which either suggests to me that relevant material was omitted, or that the technical reason, for example, the poor performance of a particular weapon in a particular environment was caused by other than the reason given. Howard C. Berkowitz 09:06, 22 August 2008 (CDT)

See also at the beginning

The section with "See also..." at the beging of this article seems too long. Where's the introduction? Derek Harkness 05:30, 22 August 2008 (CDT)

Derek, this is not a new article where the luxury of following all conventions was available. It was huge, and difficult to maintain, especially since its primary author had been reluctant to accept changes before he took an apparent break.

There were a fair number of links to the older article, well over 100K. The past author believed, and I disagreed, that readers would not accept linking to smaller articles. In point of fact, there was little introduction.

At this point, there are many see-alsos at the beginning, so people that have been linking to the article can be aware that it has been significantly segmented. A block of see-alsos helps make this obvious, and is intended as an aid to transition. The sub-articles are not an ideal division, but those that could be made with minimal disruption to the existing text. In the near future, I hope, there should be a discussion about the most effective outline and set of subarticles, and a new introduction written that introduces the subarticles with a much more fluid flow. Not everything can be done at once.

My concern now is first with people, including myself who may need a reminder of exact wording, to know there is a major split without major alterations of content. My next thought would be that (preferably) several people work on first edits of the sub-articles, with collaborative reading, until there is a consensus on the best set of sub-articles. At that time, an introduction, indeed, should be written that introduces them.

Essentially, your complaints are addressed at the figurative equivalent of "WARNING! road under repair" signs. I'd be delighted to have your help in cleaning up, but I can't be emphatic enough that the ideal naming and introduction can't be used if it breaks may tens of links.

Howard C. Berkowitz 06:40, 22 August 2008 (CDT)