Talk:Lesley J. McNair

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Featured articleLesley J. McNair is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
August 11, 2017Good article nomineeListed
October 14, 2017Featured article candidatePromoted
Current status: Featured article

Untitled[edit]

Thousands of colored soldiers were slain in world War I in Europe. Some of the survivors remained in the Army, for some time. There were Negroes in the Army between World War I and World War II. The Army was not all-Caucasian between the two wars. I placed a "citation needed" notice onto the article. Harshness prevailed in the heyday of the Ku Klux Klan, however, some Negroes found a home in the army during the 1930s. They were trained soldiers who received sparse pay. The Ku Klux Klan killed colored soldiers, too, of course. Superslum 11:01, 19 July 2006 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Too many pages in wikipedia are decorated by the worn out term "African American." Try to limit yourself to making comments about the subject of the page, please. There is no need for a useless comment. Colored (people) fought under illustrious Americans such as George Washington and Andrew Jackson, too. Negroes were sailors in the U. S. Navy during the War of 1812. In some capacity, Negroes have been a part of the U. S. Army continuously since 1863. Look at Buffalo soldiers. Superslum 20:51, 19 July 2006 (UTC)Reply[reply]

How did he die?[edit]

This article says McNair was the highest-ranking US officer killed in WWII, but it doesn't say anywhere actually how he died. Is it true it was as a result of friendly fire? Terraxos 18:40, 3 December 2007 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Reply: McNair (aerial bomb) and Andrews (plane crash) were killed by other than direct enemy fire. The highest ranking US military officer killed in WWII was Lieutenant General Buckner, who died during the battle of Okinawa in 1945 from a Japanese field gun. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.105.32.52 (talk) 07:43, 31 July 2010 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Overly critical, in need of balance?[edit]

A couple of comments strike me as being overly critical:

"McNair saw no need for a heavy tank and believed that tank versus tank duels were "unsound and unnecessary". McNair would agree only to the production of the 76mm M4 Sherman which he believed were capable of handling the Tiger I tank that had appeared in late 1942."

Tank on tank duels were, from my own reading, somewhat of a rarity, not to mention the rarity of Tiger tanks. It seems this para needs a little balancing. It goes on to talk about McNair blocking production to Pershing tanks. Not being an American, it seems odd that a member of the military (and one who was in charge of training) would be able to have an impact on industrial production; this needs elaborated upon. Finally, in regards to this section, why Pershings were such a big deal.

My remaining comment is in regards to towed anti-tank guns. The article states the Germans converted as quick as possible to SP-AT guns, but on the whole they used towed weapon systems due to a lack of motorization and mechanization throughout their armed forces. So the wrong message is being delivered. Knowing that there is an organizational difference between British and AmericN units, however British towed anti-tank crews did not seem to comd off that bad in encounters with German attacks; so another point that needs elaborated on, why American AT crews were.

Regards EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 08:55, 2 October 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Overhauled article[edit]

I recently overhauled the McNair article. My primary reference was the 2012 master's degree thesis of Mark T. Calhoun, which became the basis of Calhoun's 2015 biography of McNair.

If anyone has ideas for improvement or questions about the revised version of the article, please let me know in the near future. My intent is to nominate for Good Article status once I know it's all set.

Thanks,

Billmckern (talk) 11:44, 21 March 2017 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Nice work! I hope other editors will follow this exemplar. Rjensen (talk) 13:08, 21 March 2017 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Yeah, I do.

  1. While the lead does not require references, because it is just a summary of the article, a quote in the lead still does
  2. De-capitalise "General" in the lead
  3. Add you don't need to link France
  4. Add his servicenumber to the infobox. (It's 0-1891 [1])
  5. Note that his papers are in Purdue University [2]
  6. How about some more images? There are some more in commons:Category:Lesley J. McNair (There's also another version of the one in the infobox)
  7. Footnote 103 is messed up
  8. Calhoun (2015) is not used in the article, so move it into a "Further reading" section

Now for the elephant in the room: over-reliance on one great source. I suggest supplementing the World War II from the Official Histories, which are available online [3]:

  • The Organization of Ground Combat Troops
  • The Procurement and Training of Ground Combat Troops

Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:07, 21 March 2017 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@Hawkeye7:
  1. Done.
  2. Done.
  3. Done.
  4. Done.
  5. Done. (Also added that another collection is in the National Archives).
  6. Working. (I added some. I'm working to lay hands on others so I can add them, too.)
  7. Done.
  8. Done. (I used the publisher's book description page as the reference for Number 1, and moved it from the "books" sub-heading to "Internet".
I expanded the details in some sections and made use of The Organization of Ground Combat Troops and The Procurement and Training of Ground Combat Troops. In addition, I created another sub-section under AGF and made use of US Army Ground Forces Study No. 36, The Training of Negro Troops - I tried to pull some relevant data and leave behind what would I think would now be recognized as racist commentary.
Please let me know what you think of these updates.
Thanks,
Billmckern (talk) 13:07, 23 March 2017 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • I have done a pass through the article correcting typos and removing duplicated links. I hope I haven't messed anything up. (I think I have broken FN 96 - my apologies). The article should sail through GA now, and is nearly FAC-ready, although I'd strongly advise running it through GA and A-class first. Three things to consider adding:
  • McNair's efforts to cut the size of divisions to the minimum, which allowed the US to field 89 divisions in 1945 with the same number of men that supported 73 in 1943. This was perhaps his greatest achievement.
  • The tank destroyer section is a bit muddled. The M3 Gun Motor Carriage was the tank destroyer used in Africa. Its performance was such that they brought back the towed gun. The tracked M10 came in the later stages in Africa, and was successful, but less so in Normandy. McNair was the one who championed the name "tank destroyer" rather than "anti-tank gun", and that the tank destroyers should kill tanks and not other tanks - which was counter to his doctrine.
  • The Great Tank debate. There's a couple sentences here out of place in the tank destroyer. McNair has copped blame for failing to push the development of the T23 series. He did not see a role for heavier tanks, and argued that the Sherman was a match for the Tiger.

Really great work here. Hawkeye7 (talk) 04:05, 24 March 2017 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@Hawkeye7: Thanks for your feedback. Thanks also for the edits, all of which I think are helpful.
I'll work to explain with more precision the changes to division organization and the anti-tank/tank destroyer/tank debate. I'm struggling a little with providing enough information to tell a story versus including so much detail that the article becomes overly long and complicated.
I'm also working to add more photos.
Once I've made all those updates, I'll follow your advice on going through the GA/A-class/FAC process.
Thanks again for your help. In my experience, the second set of eyes is almost always useful.
Billmckern (talk) 11:39, 24 March 2017 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Good article nomination[edit]

I pretty well completed revising this article, adding references, and adding photos. I'm nominating it for review as a Good Article.

Billmckern (talk) 16:48, 26 March 2017 (UTC)Reply[reply]

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External links modified[edit]

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I have just modified one external link on Lesley J. McNair. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

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