Talk:GADA 601

MILHIST B-Class assessment

There are a few uncited paragraphs in the political unrest section early in the article; if these can be cited, then the article will be eligable for B-Class. TomStar81 (Talk) 21:43, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

31 May edit

Hi. I've copyedited just one paragraph (only did one as I soon realised this article is gonna need a fair bit of work as far as copyediting goes). I've also tagged a few things that might need changing;

• I've changed "CAP" to "attack". CAPs were when SHARs patrolled the skies to intercept enemy aircraft, the only ground attacks they performed whilst on CAP, were high-level "nuisance bombings" of Port Stanley . Also Morgan's book refers to it as an "attack"
• I think you might of meant isthmus instead of peninsular. A peninsular is normally a strip of land surrounding by water on 3 sides, where as the land Goose Green is on, actually connects to Lafonia
• This sentence is a bit unclear; "A second Sea Harrier was fired at, and a claim was made by 20 mm cannons from Grupo 1. The third jettisoned its bombs and flew back to the Hermes."
  • "A second Sea Harrier" was this the one behind Taylor? That would make it "the third SHAR"
  • Are you sure you mean "jettisoned"? In aviation term that implies the pilot (Ted Ball) merely discarded the weapons, unarmed, without aiming at any target, just to get them off his aircraft (usually an emergency procedure when extreme manoeuvrability is required). Also in Morgan's book Ball briefly mentions the attack went "ok" (barring obviously the loss of their first pilot) and doesn't mention anything of an emergency requiring him to jettison his weapons. Perhaps something like "dropped his bombs, but failed to destroy any targets" (do we actually know if Ball missed???) would be more suitable.
• The details or Taylor's crash are very specific, "losing the left wing in the process. The aircraft cartwheeled in the air and crashed at a 35º angle. The body of the pilot was thrown trough the canopy and fell 80 meters away from the jet wreckage." do you have a ref for this?
• Drop the "the" before "Hermes", call her just "Hermes" or "HMS Hermes"

In the two following paragraphs information is repeated i.e. the Sea Eagle trial bit. Also the "first of its kind to fly ever" part is a bit confusing, firstly it wasn't a new model/variant of a SHAR, just merely one with some different equipment (none of the harriers were identical, albeit with minor differences). Secondly it can't of been the first time it had flown, else they would've never got it on the carrier in the first place. I'd just drop the whole line myself personally.

I think that covers it, anything you're not happy about feel free to message me (on this page though), cheers ;) Ryan4314 (talk) 12:50, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

LOL mate, I don't think you understand ;) Sea Harrier number XZ450 was just an ordinary Sea Harrier. "XZ450" is just it's individual number. It wasn't a "prototype" or a new version of the Sea Harrier (or GR3), it didn't actually carry a Sea Eagle or anything special like that during the war, or have any enhanced capabilities. To quote Morgan, "The airframe (the aircraft) had been allocated (given) to British Aerospace (by the Royal Navy) at Dunsfold so they could carry out trials of the Sea Eagle anti-ship missile".

Do you see what I mean, after the trials were finished they would removed the Sea Eagle testing equipment and replaced the RWR, so all this about variant and models is invalid. :) Ryan4314 (talk) 14:29, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Hi Ryan, sorry for editing before coming here to discuss. I'am glad to have getting the point about XZ450.

I wrote that Ball "jettisoned" the bombs because according to Argentinian sources: el tercer avión descarga sus bombas en cualquier parte posiblemente para perder peso y poder alejarse así más rapidamente de la zona. Translation: "the third aircraft dropped its bombs elsewhere, probably in order to loss weight and fly away from the area as quickly as possible." You're right, however, that "to jettison" implies unarmed ordnance, and that was not the case. I've already edited the phrase properly.

Finally, about the "peninsular", the text mentions a small portion of land west of the isthmus of Darwin which is in fact what you describe as a peninsular. You can see it in this battle map of Goose Green

File:WwwF48GooseGreen.GIF

Goose Green

below. The guns position is marked in red.

I also want to make clear that English is not my mother language, so if there is some copyedit needed, or the sentences seems a bit messy or even awkward, feel free to clean up them merciless ;).

P/S= Congratulations for the photo montage in the Falklands war article. It's cool, man :).

Thanks for replying, I made a mistake though concerning "Ball's bombs", if your reference does say "the third aircraft dropped its bombs elsewhere, probably in order to loss weight and fly away from the area as quickly as possible." then we should use the world "jettison". However I am always wary of using an Argentine source to say what the British were thinking and vice versa (for example), do you understand?

Great research on the peninsular though! Don't worry about the language barrier, hopefully me and Justin have shown that we're neutral and you can trust us, so we're be able to help/guide you :)

P.S. Praise for the montage should go solely to Justin, I gave up half way through, but he persevered with it. Ryan4314 (talk) 17:41, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Which variant of English should be used?

Template:RFChist Here's the rules concerning the usage of English variants on Wikipedia. GADA 601 is an article about a South American military unit, the majority of the article covers a war with the British. Which form of English spelling should be used?

Slight lean towards British English: I'm not particularly bothered either way, but I guess out of all the countries that use English, British users are thr ones most likely to read this article due to the units huge role in the Falklands War. Ryan4314 (talk) 16:05, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

I'd suggest British English, unlikely to be of interest to the Americans, most relevance to the British and Argentish is closer to British English anyway. Justin talk 16:44, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

My opinion would be British English if there is an edit war going on. Buckshot06(prof) 21:57, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Nope, no edit wars here, I just used the RFC as the quickest way to draw in a neutral consensus :) Ryan4314 (talk) 22:35, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Historical Events

A couple of things about this article, clearly its written from an Argentine perspective given the subject. However, it still contains a lot of claims that post-war were shown to be optimistic. Would it not be better to use both sets of sources to focus on what happened, rather than what either side claimed. This was kinda prompted by your comment, Ryan, and I tend to agree. Justin talk 16:44, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

I think the only dubious claim from the Argentinian side is that of the free-fall bombs hit either by AAA or Roland. I mean by dubious a claim that is not specifically recalled by any British source. By the way, I think the claim of a Sea Harrier flying to a mission without any kind of RWR equipment is also quite suspicious.

The performance of the 35 mm during the battle of Darwin and the figure of Harrier/Sea Harriers shot down or damaged come all of them from British authors, some of them involved in the operations (Pook, Morgan, Squire).

On the other hand, the article should include both sets of sources without seeking an improbable synthesis, since "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth". (See WP:V).--Darius (talk) 17:46, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

I've always been a bit doubtful of what any side "claims", I much prefer to look at a side's self-declared losses/casualties. I haven't read this article all the way through, but Justin I take it you might also be referring to the "The 20 mm cannons from Grupo 1 claimed they shot down another of the Sea Harriers." I'm happy to keep the bit about the Argentine claim in, but would prefer to word it a bit more negatively, thus giving more weight to the British source (the "declaring" source in this case).

Perhaps something like this; "The 20 mm cannons from Grupo 1 claimed they shot down another of the Sea Harriers. However British sources have confirmed that XZ450 was the only aircraft lost that day."

Unfortunately Darius the part about the lack of RWR is true, multiple British sources (including fellow SHAR pilots) have confirmed this potentially embarrassing fact for British, it's the realities of war I'm afraid. In 1982, we had a lot budget cutbacks, thus a lack of Sea Harriers, hence why we had to recall one from trials. Also Darius although "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth" remember the "verifiability" has to come from a Reliable source, when 2 sides claim opposite things, both should be mentioned. Ryan4314 (talk) 18:01, 31 May 2008 (UTC)