Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Battle of Dien Bien Phu

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Battle of Dien Bien Phu[edit]

This is a second nomination (Old nom). The previous comments were mostly minor, and I think they've been addressed now. Raul654 21:44, 3 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment per WP:MSH, section headings should not have wikilinks, and words should not be capitalized unless it is the first word of the heading or is a proper noun. AZ t 22:19, 3 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • I fixed the wikilinked section header (and put it into the paragraph itself), but I fail to see any capitalized words that shouldn't be. Raul654 22:24, 3 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • I found a few. I think they're all good now. —Kevin 05:56, 4 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose This article is pretty good, but it needs some work to reach FA status. Some suggestions:
    • The first half is very lightly cited.
    • Some of the claims in the article are contridictory. For instance it is stated that VM AAA batteries "made it prohibitively costly for the French to bring in reinforcements", yet the French did manage to bring considerable reinforcements into DBP, including several complete battalions (albeit at a serious cost on transport aircraft). Similarly it is stated that "The Viet Minh elite 148th Independent Infantry Regiment, headquartered at Dien Bien Phu, reacted "instantly and effectively"; however, three of their four battalions were absent that day". If the 148th Regt was so weak at DBP how could it be effective?
      • The 'instantly and effectively' is quoted verbatim from Davidson. I don't believe it's contradictory - they were understrength, but the people who were there fought effectively. As to the comments regarding the airdrops, I agree that may need clarification. Raul654 04:59, 7 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • Perhaps you should also add how many battalions of the regiment reacted "instantly and effectively". Wandalstouring 20:24, 9 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • The section on the American involvement in the battle should be expanded. It should also cover the United States considerations of intervening directly in greater detail - the US also seriously considered conventional raids at DBP. --Nick Dowling 08:20, 4 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Agree; I mentioned something Fall discusses on pages 306-307, about several American and British leaders considering the possibility of lending atomic weapons. — Deckiller 06:33, 7 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • This section has now been largly expanded. Raul654 20:49, 7 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object. In order to be encyclopaedic, the article should not look like the summary of a single reference. We expect more variable sources from a featured article, especially when the topic is potentially contentious. --Ghirla -трёп- 09:45, 4 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • I own Hell in a Very Small Place, so I can add some page citations to combo-cite. — Deckiller 05:22, 7 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • The article now contains many more citations to Roy and Fall. Does this address your objection? Raul654 07:24, 7 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, a very interesting article, very well written. Feature it! FrummerThanThou 04:14, 7 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Very detailed and interesting article on a little known subject. PHG 19:56, 7 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Support after copyediting the article on the previous nomination and helping Raul refernece on this one, I'm safe to say this article is yet another one of Wikipedia's outstanding History selections. — Deckiller 00:19, 9 December 2006 (UTC) (Sorry, I forgot that I didn't get around to copyediting this in the old nomination; I just added sources)[reply]
  • Oppose. Please clean up the references section. Books should have a publication date, web references should be expanded to include the name of the site and the last access date. There are many one and two-sentence paragraphs, resulting in choppy prose. There are also statements that should be cited (for example, "The garrison constituted roughly a tenth of the total French manpower in Indochina.") Sandy (Talk) 00:45, 9 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • I don't think the paragraphs are an issue, but then again, I've always stongly disagreed with the "stubby paragraph" arguement. I cited what I could from the one book I had, so Raul might be on his own for the rest. As for the reference issues, again, I couldn't help there, since all I know is the Bernard Fall book. — Deckiller 00:51, 9 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • I've added dates for all the books and switched the website references over to the cite web template with the access date. The smaller paragraphs, located primarily towards the beginning of the article, have been merged together by Deckiller and myself. I've added a reference for the 'tenth of manpower' statement, but I don't see anything else that should be cited that isn't. I think that addresses Sandy's concerns. Raul654 01:44, 9 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • Support (providing Tony's points are addressed - how's that for circular reasoning? :-) My concerns are addressed. Sandy (Talk) 02:29, 9 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, providing Sandy's points are addressed, and the issues below are fixed. (These are only writing glitches that I found on a quick read-through; there may be more.) Generally, it's well written.
  • "a colleague whom he trusted"—better "a trusted colleague".
  • To be picky, this is ungrammatical: "would require operating his army far from its home base". Better: "would require his army to operate far from its home base".
  • "launched a massive artillery barrage against the surprised French"—better as "a massive surprise artillery barrage".
  • "unbeknowenst" (like "whilst" and "amongst"), should go into the bin of forced formality. Just remove the last two characters.
  • "and had practiced assaulting it used models." ??
  • "However, the Viet Minh ..." Stubby para.
  • "While the fighting was going on ..." Too informal. "During the fighting".
  • "on the night of the 14-15 and the 16-17"—Are these dates? Format correctly, with en dashes and "th"; remove the two "the"s.
  • "4 155mm howitzers and mortars"—Confusing and unacceptable. Spell out "4". Tony 01:12, 9 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • I have fixed all the problems Tony has identified. Raul654 01:40, 9 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • comment article has a redlink to an ethnic group in Vietnam: T'ais: "Anne-Marie was defended by T'ais". This group is not listed in the article List of ethnic groups in Vietnam. Perhaps someone could reconcile these facts. Thanks Hmains 01:35, 9 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • The defect is in the list article. See this for a description of the T'ais. Raul654 01:37, 9 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • I take it back. The list has a link to Thai people, which gives T'ai as an acceptable alternate spelling (I have now made this a redirect). Raul654 01:38, 9 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • I am not sure this is the answer. The 'Thai people' article does not show many Thais living in Vietnam. I think the www link is talking about a different group, truly named "T'ai", who are in Vietnam. It might be the Tay people who are being discussed, the largest minority group in Vietnam--and who seem to live in the correct area. Sorry, I do not have reference material at my disposal to help out. Hmains 02:32, 9 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • Tai peoples is the correct article. It includes links to Black Tai and White Tai, which are both mentioned in the link above. Raul654 02:36, 9 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • comment Article has the following sentence: 'generals Gilles and Dechaux (the ground and air commanders for CASTOR'.) It would be nice is the full names of the two generals could be found and included. These names are only referenced this once in the article. Thanks Hmains 01:49, 9 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
          • Good point. I've added it to the article (they're both named Jean) Raul654 01:55, 9 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • support a good useful article. Hmains 03:08, 9 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • comment overall a very good article but some issues could be adressed Mieciu K 16:26, 9 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • how did the French forces took care of their wounded, and how many of them were evacuated?
    • did the French use helicopters or attempted night-time ressuply (to avoid Vietnamese AA fire)?
    • how well were the Vietnamese units armed in small arms like submachine guns and machine guns compared to the French forces, and how well were they supplid in ammunition?
    • did the Vietnamese use human wave tactics?
      • The answer to most of your questions is no. The French doctors and surgeons tried very hard to treat the wounded (Roy 138 describes Dr. Grauwin, the French surgeon, as a man of "considerable virtuosity") but the field hospital they used wasn't much more than a hole in the ground - one which the Moroccan workers had to dig the walls out of every night in order to expand it, to accommodate the ever increasing numbers of wounded. As far as evacuation - the airfield became unusable not too long after the battle began. After that, as the article says, supplies and reinforcements had to be parachuted in (a one-way trip to be sure). A helicopter rescue - especially in the extremely primitive 1950s helicopters - would have been a suicide operation. Helicopters tend to be large, slow-moving , and easy to knock out. A night time resupply would only have made the problem of inaccurate supply drops far worse.
      • Most of the ammunition used by the Vietnamese came from China. Given the logistics involved in transporting it through untamed jungle from China, the Viet Minh operations at Dien Bien Phu consumed virtually their entire supply capability. As far as their armament, I'm not entirely sure - none of the sources I've read explicitely state it (and it's somewhat beyond the scope of this article. It would more properly belong in an article about the Viet Minh). If I had to guess, they were probably using Chinese knockoff AK47s, although at the time there was a *LOT* of surplus WWII equipment from the British, Japanese, Chinese, and French in the area, so it wouldn't surprise me if the logistics were very diverse. Raul654 03:35, 10 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • As far as human wave attacks - no. The fighting was reminiscent of the trench warfare of WWI, but I wouldn't go so far as to describe it as having human waves. Raul654 03:50, 10 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • I think Fall describes the Viet Minh as swarming, but Hell in a Very Small Place is slightly French biased. — Deckiller 04:42, 10 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
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