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Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/STRAT-X

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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.

Article promoted Hawkeye7 (talk) 11:59, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

STRAT-X edit

Nominator(s): --Sp33dyphil ©hatontributions


I am nominating this article for A-Class review because...the article has just undergone a successful GA review, and I think it's good for ACR too. However, it's your comment(s) that will count --Sp33dyphil ©hatontributions 10:10, 27 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments:

  • ", was a nine month long study conducted during 1966–1967 that comprehensively investigated the future of the U.S. nuclear deterrent force. " - it isn't immediately clear from this if this was a US government study, or an independent study.
  • " then U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara" - the "then" is probably superfluous
  • "weapon-basing ideas" - in the later bits of the article, the context makes clear what this means; in the lead, it wasn't clear to me what this meant (weapons-basing can also refer, I think, to regional deployments - e.g. do you base the weapons in Turkey, or Germany, etc.).
  • "eventuating" - this felt like an obscure verb for the lead section. Could you say "ultimately resulting in" or something like that perhaps?
  • "reports surfaced " - surfaced in the press, or in intelligence channels?
  • "The R-36, some variants of which are still in service, was larger than the LGM-118 Peacekeeper missile" - it wasn't clear to me what this was telling me (I'm assuming the Peacekeeper is particularly large?).
  • "Were these ICBMs to be used operationally," - used operationally as in fired, or as in just deployed?
  • "ways of maximizing the U.S. nuclear arsenal that could survive a Soviet preemptive strike." - maximising the amount of the arsenal that could survive, or maximising the utility of the surviving arsenal?
  • "Fred Payne preside" - "presided"
  • "new ideas about "path-breaking" weapons systems, either offensive or defensive, without defense bureaucracy" - I'm not sure "without" is the best word here (it could mean the systems didn't need bureaucracy, whereas I'm assuming he wanted the ideas not be surrounded by bureaucracy); "encumbered by" or "unhindered by"?
  • "would roam the ocean" - "oceans"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hchc2009 (talk • contribs) 20:05, 29 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Mostly done. ✔ I've replaced "weapon-basing ideas" with "weapon-basing concepts". As for the eighth point, I don't see much difference between your first suggestion and the current phrase. And if I wanted to convey the latter meaning, I would've have said "ways of maximizing the utility of the surviving U.S. nuclear arsenal following a Soviet pre-emptive strike." It is also superfluous because, what would be the use of maximizing the U.S. nuclear arsenal that could survive a first strike if not to inflict the most damage against the adversary? --Sp33dyphil ©hatontributions 07:28, 1 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Cheers - I now Support. Hchc2009 (talk) 20:27, 1 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments This is an interesting article, but I think that it needs some extra work to reach A class:
    • "the Soviet Union were making significant strides in nuclear weapons delivery" - 'were' should be 'was'
    • "To address a potential technological gap between the two superpowers, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara entrusted the STRAT-X study to the Institute for Defense Analyses, who compiled a twenty-volume report during the nine month long study." - no need to have 'study' twice in the same sentence
    • "The R-36, some variants of which are still in service, was larger than the LGM-118 Peacekeeper missile (the most modern U.S. ICBM in the 1980s through 1990s) while its 8.8-tonne (19,000 lb) throw weight is the greatest of any ICBM ever" - uses both past and present tense
    • Page numbers are needed for each reference to the 3 page long Air Force Magazine article
    • "greatly mitigating the threat posed by U.S. ICBMs and thus the concept of nuclear deterrence." - seems an overstatement, and isn't really supported by the source given. Soviet ABM facilities were limited to the system around Moscow.
  • I've rephrased the sentence. And isn't it the mitigating of the American ICBM threat, and thus the concept of nuclear deterrence, the essence of why McNamara initiated the study? --Sp33dyphil ©hatontributions 10:26, 12 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • The new wording is still much too strong; a semi-effective system around Moscow didn't mitigate the US nuclear arsenal given that it could continue to hit everything else in the country. The US had more then enough missiles of overwhelm the defences around Moscow. Nick-D (talk) 00:33, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Please explain what the Institute for Defense Analyses was. Was this a genuinely independent organisation, or part of the US military/department of defense?
    • Who's Fred Payne?
  • There wasn't any background info about Fred Payne, so I just added "the institution's". Done. ✔ --Sp33dyphil ©hatontributions 10:26, 12 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • "Not one was ever fully implemented, partly as a result of the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991." - given that the Soviet Union collapsed about 20 years after the study reported, this link seems rather tenuous: there was tons of time to develop and field new weapons.
  • Weapons can take years to design, manufacture, and field. I suspect that with the USSR's collapse, some programmes were cancelled after a few prototypes were constructed, or that some weapons were not fully fielded as probably envisaged by the stud. --Sp33dyphil ©hatontributions 10:26, 12 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes, but 20 years is stretching it a bit, especially given how quickly military technology was moving at this time (eg, during the late 1970s and 1980s the US military replaced virtually all of its analog-based aircraft and tanks with vastly more effective computer-based equipment). Nick-D (talk) 00:33, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • How was the study "one of the most influential analyses ever conducted" if none of its ideas was ever fully implemented?
  • That doesn't really address my concern for the reason explained below. Nick-D (talk) 00:33, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Given that the US Navy already had SSBNs before this study was conducted, how were the Ohio class boats one of its outcomes? - surely new SSBNs would have been ordered to replace the old ones when they wore out?
  • The article says that the Ohio class boats have significant differences to what was specified in STRAT-X (eg, they carry their missiles inside the hull and are capable of high speeds) Nick-D (talk) 00:33, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Did the study reach any conclusions other than on weapons systems? I presume that they had some strategic concepts which underpinned their thinking.
    • What criticisms did this plan receive? I imagine that nuclear disarmament groups wouldn't have been impressed with the idea of new nuclear weapons, and especially ones sailing around on unmarked ships or driving through public lands. In retrospect, it also appears to have been based on an drastic over-estimate of Soviet capabilities (especially considering that the ABM treaty was quite successful in stopping the deployment of these systems, which have never really worked all that well anyway). From a purely military point of view, some of the concepts seem impractical. Nick-D (talk) 04:19, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • The study was classified until, I believe, a few years ago, so no anti-nuclear activists couldn't have been aware of it. And no, I haven't come across any criticisms of the study's findings. --Sp33dyphil ©hatontributions 10:26, 12 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm pretty sure that the development and deployment of the systems specified in the study (whose existence weren't classified) attracted some criticism. Nick-D (talk) 00:33, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support Comments: I only looked at prose. Generally looks okay, but I have a couple of suggestions:

  • "The latter was particularly interesting, as documents were..." Interesting to whom? I think it would be best to reword this as it seems a bit like editorialising;
  • "Despite the numerous options investigated during this successful study..." I think it would be best here to remove "successful" and just say "study", leaving the readers to determine where it was successful;
  • would this work (emphasis added only to highlight suggested change): "Nevertheless, the former was only a prototype, while only 50 out of the original 100 of the latter were fielded (the Peacekeeper has since been retired)"?
  • this needs to be tweaked slightly: "The study originally called for a dedicated slow-moving missile-carrying submarines, instead of converted attack submarines, to embark missiles outside its hull and relying primary on stealth so as to not betray its location..." Perhaps try: "The study originally called for dedicated slow-moving missile-carrying submarines, instead of converted attack submarines, to embark missiles outside their hulls and relying primary on stealth so as to not betray their location". This would probably also work: "The study originally called for a dedicated slow-moving missile-carrying submarine, instead of a converted attack submarine, to embark missiles outside its hull and relying primary on stealth so as to not betray its location.";
  • would this work: "However, Admiral Hyman Rickover, director of the Naval Reactors office, wanted..."?
  • "STRAT-X has far-reaching effects..." I think this would be best in past tense. "STRAT-X had far-reaching effects...";
  • I think a second comma is required here: "Journalist Peter Grier, in his Air Force magazine article "STRAT-X" described the study" (after "STRAT-X");
  • would this work: "In 2006, the Defense Science Board noted the inspirations"?
  • the duplicate link checker tool reports a couple of items that might be considered to be overlinked: "nuclear triad" and "LGM-118 Peacekeeper". AustralianRupert (talk) 12:43, 14 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have performed a copy edit of the article today and believe that the prose is okay. Please check that I did not change any of your intended meaning and feel free to revert/adjust as you see fit. I support this article for A-class on the caveat that I only looked at prose and have only a very limited knowledge of the subject matter. I defer to others to determine its quality in this regard. Cheers, AustralianRupert (talk) 07:03, 21 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support Comments -- Interesting, succinct article. Specifics:

  • Prose/structure/detail: Copyedited but basically happy with all these.
  • Supporting materials: Images appear fine, all US govt.
  • Referencing/sources/spotchecks: Citations look good; I also spotchecked refs to FAS.org (FN3), Burr (FN5), and AF.mil (FN8). The only slight issue I found was that AF.mil only records the Minuteman launch from a Galaxy; it makes no connection between that event and STRAT-X, which is implied by the preceding sentence Nevertheless, the study did inspire a number of developments in nuclear weapons delivery systems. I realise the first sentence is probably meant as an intro to the whole paragraph but it may not be read that way by some. Suggest you cite the first sentence to Grier, then the rest follows logically. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 03:18, 28 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Tks for that, Phil -- happy to support. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 08:20, 1 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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