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Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Peer review/173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team (United States)

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173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team (United States) edit

This article has been annoyingly close to FA status all year, without being promoted. Much has changed since its First Peer Review and its Second FA Failure. I'm working on finding more book sources but I want to know anything that will make this A-class Article move up. -Ed!(talk)(Hall of Fame) 23:16, 8 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hawkeye7 edit

  • "A decorated unit, the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team has received 20 campaign streamers" Er, are you aware that you list 21? (And what is a "decorated" unit?)
  Fixed
  • "The unit's two paratrooper infantry battalions are the 1st and 2nd Battalions of the 503rd Infantry Regiment, an association that can be traced back to the unit's World War II service." But according to the text, the 173rd was not associated with the 503rd during WWII.
  Fixed
  • "making the 173rd Airborne Brigade one of the largest airborne formations in the United States Army, behind the 82nd Airborne Division" Isn't this true of every airborne formation in the United States Army?
  Fixed
  • "The brigade deployed to France along with the rest of the division in September of 1918, but it did not participate in any named campaigns" Did it participate in any unnamed campaigns?
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  • "It entered combat in 1944 and fought in three European campaigns in central Europe, the Rhineland and Ardennes-Alsace" Actually, these are the three campaigns...
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  • "The brigade was also the only separate brigade to receive its own tank company." What was this unit?
As far as I understand, it was just a generic tank company without a designation. No designation has been provided for it in any of the sources. -Ed!(talk)(Hall of Fame) 21:04, 9 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The SSI would be given to them in May of 1963." Er Shoulder Sleeve Insignia? Are you aware that other variants were worn?
I don't fully understand what you mean. If you're referring to the subdued versions, they were distributed at the same time as the full color version. I don't know of any other patch that was designed for the 173rd. -Ed!(talk)(Hall of Fame) 21:04, 9 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The 1st Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment and the 161st Field Battery of the Royal New Zealand Artillery were later attached to the brigade in 1965." 1 RAR was withdrawn from the 173rd in April 1966.
  Fixed
  • "Recreation as an Airborne Brigade" You mean Re-Creation. Recreation is leisure time.
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  • "The 173rd was also assigned Company N, 75th Ranger Regiment." When it was formed from the 74th Infantry LRRP in 1969 (reference required here.)
  • "During more than six years of continuous combat, the brigade earned 14 campaign streamers and four unit citations." You mention the PUC for Dak To. What were the other three?
  Fixed
  • "The drawdown on the US military following the Cold War had resulted in all non-divisional separate brigades to be deactivated." Something askew with the grammar here.
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  • "Headquarter" should be "Headquarters"
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  • The brigade was dispersed throughout the east of the country, yadda yadda. Reference required here.
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  • "Fifteen soldiers have been awarded the Medal of Honor for service with the 173rd Airborne Brigade". Ray E. Eubanks and Lloyd G. McCarter were awarded theirs for service with the 503rd in WWII, so they were not with the 173rd. But since 14 were won by the brigade in Vietnam, somebody is missing...
The Brigade's website claims that only those fifteen soldiers have ever been awarded the medal serving with the unit. Is there another source that conflicts with this? -Ed!(talk)(Hall of Fame) 21:06, 9 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry. Misread 13 as 14. It's okay :) Hawkeye7 (talk) 23:15, 9 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hawkeye7 (talk) 02:16, 9 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have some more for you:

  • "As the Pacific quick-reaction force, they were the first to be sent to Vietnam two years later when hostilities escalated there." The first what? Brigade - troops - paratroops?
  Fixed
  • "As larger US Army commands were established in Vietnam, the brigade was assigned to III Corps, which they would serve in for the next six years." No, this is not correct. It was assigned to the III Corps Tactical Zone. The ARVN III Corps should not be confused with the US III Corps (which you have linked), which did not serve in Vietnam.
  Fixed
  • "III Corps was in turn under the command of II Field Force, Vietnam." No, this is not correct. II Field Force, Vietnam was the senior US formation in the III Corps Tactical Zone.
  Fixed
  • "The brigade also took part in humanitarian missions where possible in the operations." This doesn't make sense.
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  • "From April until August of 1971, the unit underwent the process of redeployment to Fort Campbell, Kentucky in the United States, its first time in the country since 1942." BUT "After the war, the troop reverted back to reserve status and was posted at Birmingham, Alabama from 1947 until 1951."
The 87th Reconnaissance Troop spent some time in America, but the 173rd Airborne Brigade did not. They may share the same lineage but they are not, in my opinion, the same unit. I have ammended the article to clarify this, though. -Ed!(talk)(Hall of Fame) 17:32, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The unit then took part in Operation Peninsula Strike, quelling Ba'ath party members" In this context, "quell" means "to take the life of; to kill". I think you mean that they quelled the insurgency?
  Fixed

Cheers Hawkeye7 (talk) 23:40, 9 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

YellowMonkey edit

I have copyedited this article and did some info additions a while ago. The main thing that concerns me is the relative weight given to the 21st century stuff compared to what happened in the Vietnam War particularly the very famous Battle of Dak To. I think this is indicated in the fact that a lot of the modern stuff is sourced to Army Press Releases and such (nobody else thinks that the duties performed were very influential etc). Most of the engagements there seem to be pretty low key, just a round up on patrols and day-to-day control, whereas at Dak To, there was a fierce and large scale attack in which heaps of soldiers were killed. I think the Dak To part needs to be beefed up a lot. Luckily, the Battle of Dak To is a current A-class article and can you can cut and paste the details from there. :) YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 05:05, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've been cautious about adding too much info from individual battles because most of them have their own articles, but since Dak To was the one fight this unit was best known for, I would agree.
Still, the Battle of Dak To page is only a B-class article, problematic because it was lacking in sources for a lot of the text. Siege of Dak To was even worse off. I tried to filter in only the more relavent stuff from the Battle page to the 173rd, but it's still a substantial chunk of info that is easily as big as the entire Vietnam War section, and it seems like it's way too much information about one event in the Brigade's 90+ year history. Let me know if anything needs to be added/taken away from it, the entire "Dak To" section in the History is cut from the Battle of Dak To page. -Ed!(talk)(Hall of Fame) 22:46, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, I would recommend forking most of the post-1990s into 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team after 1990 because there is still a very large undue problem. Just with comparing book/scholar hits on Dak To with the post-1990 stuff. I don't like to lose information, so that's why I recommend doing that. There's nothing wrong with having the new topic. Look at all the stuff I did in Category:Keith Miller. Also you can get lots more GAs out of it... YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 01:25, 16 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nick-D edit

This is a very solid article, but it does need some more work to reach FA standard. Some comments are:

  • The article lacks any analysis of the value of the brigade, the tactics it used in operations, etc. For instance, some of the Australian officers who served with the brigade in 1965 believed that it was much too aggressive, and often sustained excessive casualties (though the Americans believed that the Australian battalion was inefficient as it was too cautious, and the experiment of attaching an Australian battalion group to a US brigade was deemed a qualified failure by both armies). At present, the article is a very dry summary of the brigade's structure and history and doesn't really capture the highs and lows of its history.
I was trying to just stick to the historical facts because I was afraid opinion and analysis would be disruptive to the neutral, historical narrative. But are there any references I should look for that would cover this kind of thing? -Ed!(talk)(Hall of Fame) 23:01, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Is the 'Legacy' section necessary? The fictional references to the brigade's service in Vietnam are basically trivia given that the brigade itself isn't an important plot device in any of the examples, and the listing of notable former members of the brigade doesn't add much value given that most of these men attained notability for reasons other than their military service.
I think so. The movie references may not be prominent plot devices, but the movies themselves are well known popular culture and their mention of the 173rd by itself is notable in my mind. And the notable persons part shows a list of people who have served in the brigade just names important people who were in the brigade at one time or another. Lists like this are all over Wikipedia and I've never seen them be a problem. -Ed!(talk)(Hall of Fame) 23:01, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree with YellowMonkey's comment about the balance between material on Iraq and Afghanistan and the brigade's service in Vietnam
See above, I've added a substantial amount about Dak To. -Ed!(talk)(Hall of Fame) 22:55, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • "It is the United States European Command's conventional airborne strategic response force for Europe." - what happens during its regular deployments to the Middle East?
As far as I understand, when it's deployed, that just means that the strategic response force is being used. There really isn't any kind of backup force avaliable when it's in use. -Ed!(talk)(Hall of Fame) 22:55, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm pretty sure that the 4th Infantry Division only had 3 combat brigades at the time of the invasion of Iraq, not four as stated in this article
No, it definitely had four. See Frontenot, On Point, pp. 458-464 Hawkeye7 (talk) 07:07, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Concur. There were definately four brigades. If you want verification, the entire book in question is avaliable here -Ed!(talk)(Hall of Fame) 22:55, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Dragoneye shouldn't be in italics Nick-D (talk) 06:49, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  Fixed
  • By the way, according to some research I did years ago for an article on orbat.com, the 173rd's armoured company was Company D, 16th Armor and it was equipped with M-113s and the M-56 self-propelled gun. I'm pretty sure that my source for this was Richard A. Rinaldi's order of battle at the sadly defunct website: www.gruntonline.com/Order%20of%20Battle/US%20Army/us_army_oob15.htm If you send me an email via my user page I'd be happy to email you the document I prepared on the structure of the 173rd Brigade and attached Australian and NZ units in 1965-66 (not that I'm a reliable source!). Nick-D (talk) 06:58, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Here's a good printed source: Stanton, Vietnam Order of Battle, pp. 88, 93. Hawkeye7 (talk) 07:07, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. Stanton was one of my sources as well, and may have been where I got this from. Nick-D (talk) 07:10, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'll source it to Stanton then. Thanks! -Ed!(talk)(Hall of Fame) 23:02, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
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