Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Peer review/Battle of Smolensk (1943)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[edit] Battle of Smolensk (1943)

Well, it took me some time to put this article together, with pics and inline citations and so on, so I would like to improve it even further... :)) -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 00:03, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Kirill Lokshin

A very good article; obviously you spent a great deal of time preparing it! A few suggestions, mostly formatting- and style-related:

• The "References" section would benefit from a separate alphabetical listing of the books used; several of the sources given also need full publication information.
• There are a lot of one-sentence paragraphs and one-paragraph sections. I'm not sure how much more material you're planning to add, but you might want to think about merging some of the smaller blocks of text together.
• Out of curiosity, what's the original language of the quotes in the article? There's some unusual wording that I'd attribute to an attempt at a word-for-word translation; are these from an edition published in English or in Russian? Kirill Lokshin 02:05, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Done.
  • Done. A few cases remain, but sometimes they're paragraphs cut by the cquote template so heh.
  • Yeah, I know. All books I use are Russian and my translation is often fast and thus approximative. If you want, we can try to find a better one together :) -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 21:04, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Nice work! As far as the quotes go, I'm not sure if we can easily find a published source for them; but a few ideas based on what I'm guessing the Russian was:

• "Russian West front forces strokestruck the Army Group Center from Yelnya and Dogorobuzh, planning to advance to Smolensk. It became clear that this part of the front, forming an eastern salient defended by the 9th Army, could not be held anymore."
• "Despite the vigorous actions of the German command and the armed forces that had managed to create a single defensedefensive line, the fact that most of these troopsforces had low strength, lacked any reserve and were stretched on considerable distances constantly maintained the danger ofthat all of this patched front collapsing atwould collapse with the next Russian attack."

If you can get me the Russian text of the quotes, I might be able to make more sense of them; but don't bother if it's too much work ;-) Kirill Lokshin 21:21, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

but don't bother if it's too much work - Обижаешь, начальник! :)

«...войска русского Западного фронта нанесли с рубежа Дорогобуж, Ельня удар и по левому крылу группы армий «Центр» с целью осуществить прорыв на Смоленск. Теперь стало ясно, что выступающий далеко на восток участок фронта, на котором оборонялась 9-я армия, удерживать больше невозможно»

«Хотя в результате энергичных действий командования и войск немцам удалось создать сплошную линию фронта, однако не было никакого сомнения в том, что плохое состояние войск, полное отсутствие резервов и большая растянутость фронта отдельных соединений, ликвидировать которую было невозможно, постоянно таили в себе опасность того, что при следующем мощном ударе [157] русских этот залатанный с большим трудом фронт окончательно рухнет»

Thanks again for your help! -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 21:48, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, here's how I would translate them:

"The forces of the Soviet Western Front struck the left wing of Army Group Center from the Dorogobuzh-Yelnya line with the aim of achieving a breakthrough in the direction of Smolensk. It became clear that the salient—projecting far to the east—in which the 9th Army was positioned could no longer be held."

"Although the vigorous actions of their command and troops allowed the Germans to create a continuous front, there was no doubt that the poor condition of the troops, the complete lack of reserves, and the uncorrectable lengthening of individual units' lines concealed the danger that the next major Soviet attack would cause this patchwork front—constructed with such difficulty—to collapse."

I might be trying too much for literary "correctness" rather than ease of understanding, though. (My normal writing style tends towards overly complicated structure and turgid prose, unfortunately). Hope that helps somehow! Kirill Lokshin 22:09, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Аффтар жжот! I inserted your translations into the text. Kudos.

Well, all remarks were taken into account. Wewt? -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 22:50, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks!

I'd probably leave the article in peer review for at least a week or so, to see if one of the more occasional reviewers drops by; you might try listing it for GA at the same time, if you're interested in that. But I think that it's in a position to wind up on FAC rather soon :-) Kirill Lokshin 23:30, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I really want it to promote it to GA and then FA :) -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 23:33, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Edit: nominated for GA! :) -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 23:56, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

I also edited measurements to conform with WP:MOSNUM... :) -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 14:31, 21 May 2006 (UTC)