Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Brilliant Pebbles

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Article promoted by Parsecboy (talk) via MilHistBot (talk) 15:30, 20 February 2018 (UTC) « Return to A-Class review list

Brilliant Pebbles

Nominator(s): Maury Markowitz (talk)

Brilliant Pebbles (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

• Featured article candidates/Brilliant Pebbles/archive1

Brilliant Pebbles was the "crowning achievement" of SDI, although given that it was cancelled shortly after getting that crown, that might not be saying much. This isn't ready for FAC because there's some loose ends I'd like to get in there - better weights and budget numbers, and more on Teller's attack on Smart Rocks - but it seems up for A in the meantime. One question: the "description" section is based on the images in the body. How do I cite those? Maury Markowitz (talk) 19:43, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

Support Comment: G'day, Maury, haven't had a full look through the article, yet, but have been looking into your question above about the description section. I think the way around it depends on where the images are sourced from. If they come from a book, the sfn template allows you to use a "loc" instead of a page number, e.g. {{sfn|Smith|2017|loc=Image p. 8}}. If they come from a website, potentially you could just use the cite web template to cite the page the image came from, using the "|format=" or "type=" parameters to clarify the source is the image, or using the "|at=" parameter to specify the in-source location. Thoughts? Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 23:57, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

I didn what you suggested, and it worked out perfectly. Thanks! Maury Markowitz (talk) 14:56, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

No worries, Maury. I will take another look at the article today. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 23:11, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

Continuing the review: AustralianRupert (talk) 00:16, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

• in the first sentence of the lead, I suggest adding a year or date to provide a little more context
• in line with the above, suggest maybe mentioning (and linking) the Cold War in the lead
• "didn't work" --> "did not work"
• the formatting of citation 6 (Edwards) and 26 (MacKenzie) seems inconsistent with the main style employed (e.g. citation 1)
• in the lead, suggest linking "Congress" for non US readers
• Note a: "The term "smart rocks" has since been used for a variety of different weapons systems". I wonder if it would be possible to provide an example here?
• subject-verb agreement: "advances in microprocessor design was on the" --> "advances in microprocessor design meant they were on the..."
• as above: "that there was no apparent "show stopper" issues..." --> "that there were no apparent "show stopper" issues..."
• "One commenter went..." --> "One commentator went..."?
• I see some British English variation in the article (e.g. "manoeuvres", "kilometres", "sceptical", "refocussed", "defences" and "metres"). Was this intentional, or should it use US spelling?

@AustralianRupert: All done (I think). The british/us spelling is my dumb spell checker, which randomly decides to use one or the other based on some sort of internal logic that clearly doesn't work. The different cite style is deliberate, for cites I use once I include it inline, and use bib entries for the main cites I use repeatedly. Maury Markowitz (talk) 23:14, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

Too easy, I've made a couple of minor tweaks and added my support now. Hope you had a happy Christmas. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 23:28, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

Image review

• File:Ltg_graham.jpg: source link is dead - FIXED - added archive URL. But is this really needed? Maury Markowitz (talk) 14:56, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
• File:Brilliant_Pebbles_presentation.png FUR should be more complete. Nikkimaria (talk) 16:31, 9 December 2017 (UTC) - FIXED. This is more a problem in the upload wizard, it does not ask for those fields. Maury Markowitz (talk) 14:56, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

Support Comments from Sturmvogel_66

• A lot to digest here. So this pass is only what struck my eye.
• What are Brilliant Eyes?

Added explanation. Will be its own article at some point.

• And GSTS?

Added an inline note.

• The link for Black Brant goes to the bird, not the rocket.

Ha! Fixed.

• Watch for overlinking, I saw multiple ones for Wallops Island for one.

All fixed I think. I did retain dups where they are in the lede vs. body (like Teller)

• Be consistent in formatting your bibliography. Magazines should have ISSN and books ISBNs, etc.

Made consistent. Maury Markowitz (talk) 14:56, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 22:37, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

• Images appropriately licensed
• The link to global security appears to be broken.
• No DABs or overlinking.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 01:56, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
• Mention that Graham was a retired general and director of the DIA
• weighed 30 stone (420 lb; 190 kg) and could only be launched one at a time Why is this expressed in stones? And it's such a trivial weight, is there a missing digit or two?--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 18:34, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

Sorry Sturmvogel, I didn't see this second set. The "stone" was supposed to be "short ton", I fixed the convert tag. Maury Markowitz (talk) 02:15, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Comments by Iazyges

Will come soon. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 22:50, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Lead

• "Because they struck the ICBM before they could release their MIRV warheads, each pebble could destroy multiple warheads in a single shot." Is this saying that all USSR ICBMs of the time had MIRV warheads? I'd be surprised if the USSR didn't keep some obsolescent single warhead ICBMs around just for safety.

I've reworded this to make it less specific.

• "suggesting it simply didn't work." Recommend you change it to "suggesting it was unworkable".

I simply removed it, it reads even better.

• "all the logic" suggest changing "logic" to something more understandable to layman.

Done.

• "But this was just as the Soviet Union was collapsing and the perceived threat changed to short-range missiles." Wouldn't call this "just as", as the dissolution of the USSR was a long time coming, and indeed six republics broke off in 1990. I'd recommend a change to "during the time period that the", unless the source specifically states something congruent to "just as".

Fixed.

Body

• "formed a group known as the High Frontier Panel to help develop and support his idea." would recommend linking High Frontier Panel unless you think it isn't notable enough for its own article.

Good question. Let's revisit this one.

• "Excalibur, had it worked, would have been able to attack multiple ICBMs in a single shot." (Image Caption) would recommend a change to "A concept art of a working Excalibur, attacking multiple ICBMs with one shot." or something along those lines.

Touched up.

• Not a suggestion, but I absolutely love how much mad science reigned during the Cold War times.

And a lot of cynicism too. SDI spent three years repeatedly and very publically dismissing Smart Rocks as useless, and then when the APS report comes out the instantly select it as the solution. They all knew it was pants, but once the pork starts getting greasy...

• "beam quality by at least 100 times before it would be useful" Is "Beam quality" a direct quote from source? I'd recommend disambiguating it, as it, to a laser layman like myself, could mean the accuracy of the beam, the strength of the beam, etc.

It is, and to be honest I'm not really sure what it means.

• "After a lengthy declassification procedure, it was released to the public in March 1987." Was the original version made using classified material before it was declassified? Trying to understand the logistics here. Was APS given classified material officially by Government, made the report then asked for declassification; did they get the material unofficially and or guessed based on what was known, then asked for permission to publish?

The original report was based on full access to the labs, so I'm assuming it contained classified information that waa removed.

• "Only three all-up tests of the Pebbles concept were carried out before the program was cancelled." this needs to be cited, if you wish, you could just slap on all three later paragraph citations to the end of this sentence.

Done. Maury Markowitz (talk) 17:02, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

• That is all my comments, happy to Support now. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 15:35, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

Support by Kees08

Plan on starting this week. Kees08 (Talk) 03:26, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

• Spell out acronyms in headers
• Smart Rocks
  • Introduce the ICBM acronym
  • Let's get APS spelled out as well
  • "According to some," - according to who?
  • "His administration is marked by its efforts to break out of the strategic stalemate and put an end to the threat of nuclear war." - this sentence seems worded odd, could you try rewording it?
  • From " low earth orbit, " to "low Earth orbit (LEO),"
  • " infrared seekers " - infrared sensor? Have not heard the term seeker before. Would change to "infrared (IR) sensors detected the ICBM"
  • From "was extremely bright in IR" to "was extremely bright in the IR wavelengths"
  • From "simple interceptor missile could" to "simple interceptor could"
  • From "As the interceptor missiles" to "As the interceptors"
  • "Since they were moving about in orbit, this demanded hundreds of such stations." - Try to incorporate the fact that because they are in LEO instead of GEO, they cannot be simply stationed above the Soviet Union but instead have to cross the globe
  • "least $30 billion a year in 1963 dollars." - can we get a value adjusted for inflation as well?
  • " $30 billion a year in 1963 dollars (equivalent to $240 in 2017)" - I know its $240 billion, but the word billion should probably be there
  • Wikilink anti-satellite (ASATs)
• Excalibur
  • From " x-ray lasers" to " X-ray lasers"
  • "A single warhead might be able to destroy 50 missiles in a radius of a thousand kilometers around it." - I do not have the source, so can you verify it is radius and not diameter? Also can you add a convert template for miles?
  • "Graham returned the favor;" can we phrase more encyclopedic?
  • and "popped-up" when needed.[12] - can we change popped-up to launched?
  • ", and a host of others." Since you used the word included, I do not think this is necessary.
  • "of SDI" to "of the SDI"
  • "sceptical" - is it spelled that way in British English or something? Always have seen it as "skeptical"
  • There are a couple more that should be switched to skeptical (or all should be sceptical)
  • "before it would be useful." - change useful to practical
  • "concepts was remotely ready for use. " - "concepts were remotely ready for use. "

Let's start with this and move from there? Interesting read so far! Kees08 (Talk) 06:26, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

Sorry for the tardy reply @Kees08:, Chrismas... I've done everything above except expand ICBM, as it is now the more used term (ie, kleenex vs. tissue). Maury Markowitz (talk) 17:29, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

• Early failures, APS report
  • From "were exploring an array of systems" to "were exploring systems"
  • From " included ground-based lasers, various particle-beam weapons, nuclear shaped charges, and a host of others." to " included ground-based lasers, various particle-beam weapons, and nuclear shaped charges" (i think since you have included in the sentence, you can get rid of the extra verbage that means the same thing)
  • sceptical → skeptical
  • From "would be able to attack an ICBM." to "would be able to disable an ICBM."

@Kees08: complete! I changed the first one to "a variety", I think that's better. Maury Markowitz (talk) 15:29, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

• Strategic Defense System
  • "Although this concern had been raised repeatedly" change repeatedly to "before"
  • "had to be able to pass along their information" pass along their → transmit
  • "The $40 billion budget estimate was dismissed as "pure fantasy". Over the next year the budget continued to grow, apparently without bound, first to $60 billion, to $75 billion, and then reaching $100 billion by April 1988."
• Brilliant Pebbles
  • "Canavan noted that advances in microprocessor design meant were on the verge of delivering supercomputer performance on a single chip" sentence doesn't make sense
  • "missile nose cone." change to fairing
  • "Since the cost of each missile was expected to scale down into the $100,000 range, even the maximal system would still cost only $10 billion" try not to use the word only or imply that it is a small number; the reader should come to that conclusion if they would like
  • "Since the cost of each missile was expected to scale down into the $100,000 range, even the fully expanded system would cost $10 billion." remove the word 'even'
  • " carrying so little rocket fuel that they could only attack targets right in front of them" fuel → propellant
  • "A larger interceptor with more fuel" fuel → propellant
  • "sceptical congressman" skeptical (though I realize now sceptical seems to be an acceptable spelling?)
• Pebbles become the Strategic Defense System
  • The section title seems worded wrong...maybe "Pebbles becomes the Strategic Defense System"?
  • "Space Based" ground-based had a hyphen so should this?
• Global Protection Against Limited Strikes
  • "operate against a firing rocket" wouldn't it be something like "during the midcourse phase of the missile's flight"? (reading the next paragraph I think I am wrong, but will leave this just in case)
• Missile Defense Act of 1991
  • "four parts; a ground-based" should be a colon since you are listing things
  • "to aid Pebbles and" lower case to match the rest of your mentions
  • "Ultimately this proved unwise. " that came out of nowhere, what proved unwise?
  • "third Pebbles test" lower case
• Description
  • " final Pebbles design" lower case
  • "of fuel tanks" fuel → propellant
  • "while tracking it using the attitude control system. " attitude control systems orient the object, they do not actually do any tracking.
  • You may want to mention the bad luck of two test launches failing that were not Brilliant Pebbles fault at all. Or highlight it at least. That sucks.
• Countermeasures
  • " concepts of Pebbles was" lower case

Other comments *This was the precursor to the now functional GMD program yeah? I think it would be good to have a brief section that talks about where they ended up going with the program (be it GMD or something else). Kees08 (Talk) 19:34, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

@Kees08: These are done two, with a few points:

I left "rocket fuel" instead of "propellant".

I didn't to the capitalization, I'm not sure which way to go on this yet.

The ground-based having a hyphen and Space Based not is because the second is an actual name.

This is *not* the precursor to GMD, the ground-based portion of SDS was a shorter-range, higher-performance system that was more of a last-ditch concept. GMD evolved out of another program, which was part of earlier multi-layer concepts. It's all quite mad.

Maury Markowitz (talk) 19:53, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

@Kees08: Ok, so for the Pebbles vs. pebbles what I did was use a capital whenever I was referring to the system as a whole, ie, a short form for "Brilliant Pebbles", and lower case when I was referring to the devices themselves, "a pebble" or "some pebbles". See if I missed any! Maury Markowitz (talk) 20:08, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

@Maury Markowitz: Quick note, typo in the bibliography: "Correll, John (June 2012). "The Called it Star Wars" (PDF). Air Force Magazine. pp. 66–70." Kees08 (Talk) 23:43, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

Okay, crossed off the completed ones. Did not cross off some that you said you preferred not to do. The one that I care about most is the fuel to propellant, any reason you did not want to change that? Kees08 (Talk) 02:17, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

@Kees08: The minor theoretical difference between fuel and propellant adds nothing but jargon, and the article is chock-a-block with that as it is. Is there a reason you prefer that term? We all used "fuel" in my actual rocket courses (back when I had hair). Maury Markowitz (talk) 19:24, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

Ah, I see! The kids these days are learning that fuel + oxidizer = propellant. Also, it is only a propellant if it is carried onboard. Therefore, since they are in space, even if they are just using an inert gas to propel themselves (a little unlikely), it would still be considered propellant. So propellant would be accurate no matter what, and fuel may be accurate, but probably not. Would you be willing to change it to propellant? It is, unfortunately, one of my biggest peeves and I like to correct it whenever I can! Kees08 (Talk) 07:00, 14 February 2018 (UTC)

Fair enough, changed. Maury Markowitz (talk) 15:55, 14 February 2018 (UTC)

Works for me then. Good luck at FAC, if you are taking this there. Kees08 (Talk) 22:58, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

Comments by CPA-5

• How much is ibs in this line "every kilogram of material had the energy equivalent of six kilograms"

I didn't do this because it doesn't make a difference, no matter what units, it's still six to one.

• Found a Britsh metre "to bring it to within 10 metres (33 ft)"

I don't see this - this is a convert template, maybe it's your settings?

• How much is miles in this line "radius of a thousand kilometers"

Added.

• "in 1987 near the end of Cold War" → "in 1987 near the end of the Cold War"

I think someone else did this one already?

• How much is a dr in this line "a lower limit under a gram."

Added.

• May i ask you who did said this two lines "I have directed that the SDI program be refocused on providing protection from limited ballistic missile strikes – whatever their source. Let us pursue an SDI program that can deal with any future threat to the United States, to our forces overseas, and to our friends and allies." and "So, it is my assertion, Mr. Ambassador – which you can rebut – that what you’ve done by a combination of funding, and the reduction in GSTS, is, you made sure that Grand Forks would not be effective if we did it during this decade. Therefore, you made it almost impossible for it to happen during this decade. I don't know the motive for that, but that's what it looks like to me."

I changed these to cquote, which look better.

I hope this would help you further, i can't see anything and if i do then i'll continue reviewing the page. Good luck with this page CPA-5 (talk) 16:37, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

@CPA-5: All good, let me know! Maury Markowitz (talk) 20:03, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

Lingzhi

Edwards, Lee (2005). Missing ISBN;

• MacKenzie, Donald (1991). Missing ISBN;
• Herken, Gregg (October 1987). " Sort error, expected: Baucom, Donald (Summer 2004); Missing archive link;
• Broad, William (25 April 1989). Sort error, expected: Brilliant Pebbles".; Missing archive link;
• Baucom, Donald (Summer 2004). Sort error, expected: Broad, William (25 April 1989); Missing archive link;
• Hey, Nigel (2006). Sort error, expected: Herken, Gregg (October 1987);
• "Brilliant Pebbles". GlobalSecurity.org. Sort error, expected: Sale, Richard (23 January 1988); Missing access date;
• Sale, Richard (23 January 1988). Sort error, expected: Science and Technology of Directed Energy Weapons (Technical report) Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 03:00, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

I fixed the sorting. I did not add archive links for books. Single-use cites I put inline, so they are not a sorting problem. BTW, are you using a tool for this list? Maury Markowitz (talk) 16:19, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.