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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Ian Rose 10:02, 20 April 2013 (UTC) [1].[reply]

Operation Hardboiled

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Operation Hardboiled (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): Errant (chat!) 23:28, 22 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

My second FAC in the topic area of military deception during the Second World War. A short article, but of interest and importance because it was the first deception attempt by the legendary London Controlling Section. A small operation, reflected in the length of the article, but broadly complete. Errant (chat!) 23:28, 22 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Celuici

  • "trick the Germans into believing in an invasion threat to occupied Norway" does not read very easily for me. Also, does the fact that Hitler was already obsessed with defending Scandinavia not meant that he already believed that an invasion threat existed? Perhaps something like "convince the Germans that the allies would soon invade occupied Norway".
    • Done, thanks
  • "Hitler did reinforce Scandinavia..." -- use Hitler's full name, with a wikilink, for this first usage?
    • Done, thanks
  • "The Chiefs of Staff approved of this plan, and chose..." -- the "of" is unnecessary here.
    • Done, thanks
  • "unconvinced with" -- with => by
    • Done, thanks
  • "Hardboiled was envisioned as an invasion of Norway" -- in formal British English, I think "envisaged" would be better
    • You learn something new every day :) cheers.
  • "It had no clear objective, Stanley proposed the operation" -- comma splice. You need a "but" or something before "Stanley"
    • Done, thanks (I did quite a bit tweak here, so have a check)
  • "Hardboiled was the first deception..." -- a long a complicated sentence. I'd split it into two sentences -- and the information in brackets is significant enough not to be relegated to a parenthesis.
    • Broke it up slightly - is that acceptable?
  • The formatting of the notes is inconsistent. Each instance of "pg" should be replaced with either "p." or "pp." Celuici (talk) 10:04, 23 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments This is an interesting article, but the prose needs some work, and I think that there are some gaps which could be filled:

  • The first sentence ("Operation Hardboiled was a 1942 Allied military deception operation during World War II.") is a bit awkward - the '1942' in the middle of things in particular, but 'military deception operation during World War II' isn't great either)
    • I reworked it, take a look :)
  • 'Allies' should always be capitalised
    • Thanks
  • "but had struggled to make any progress against a military establishment" - this is a bit confusing given that the LCS was targeting the Germans
    • I'm trying to explain that Stanley had difficulty getting anyone to take part in his deception schemes. I've reworded this section to try and put it across better.
  • "The LCS had little guidance in strategic deception, an activity pioneered by Dudley Clarke the previous year, and was unaware of the extensive double agent system controlled by MI5. As a result, Hardboiled was planned as a real operation, culminating in a fictional amphibious invasion." - more context is needed here (what's the difference between a 'strategic deception' and a faked 'real operation')
    • I've added some more detail, related to the expansion later in the article
  • "Adolf Hitler did reinforce Scandinavia" - this is a bit akward
    • Copyedited a little, better?
  • "The operation did provide limited experience" - ditto
    • Reworded this, take a look :)
  • "The department had no access to the double agents of MI5's Double-Cross System, and were unaware that all German operatives in the country had been turned double. This lack of access, and an overestimate of German intelligence capabilities in the UK, rendered a lot of the perpetration work wasteful." - more context is needed here; I doubt that readers who are unfamiliar with the workings of deception operations or the British double agent system will understand what's going on here. I imagine that the issue is that the LCS could have executed this deception mainly through the double agents, and there was no need to force the poor Royal Marines to slog through the snow in order to get the Germans' attention.
    • I've significantly reworked this segment of the article to better explain what insights the LCS lacked and so link things up. Do I go far enough?
      • That helps, but 'and through an overestimate of German intelligence capabilities in the UK' sounds a bit awkward Nick-D (talk) 10:11, 26 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
        • This sentence still needs to be tidied up - it's rather wordy, and what's meant by "German intelligence capabilities in the UK" is unclear - the article already notes that Britain had succeeded in 'turning' all the German intelligence agents in the UK, so presumably this is referring to other forms of intelligence collecting, and I'd suggest making this clearer (which should in turn help with the sentence's readability). Nick-D (talk) 10:17, 2 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • After reading the article, I'm still unsure what the plan was. Am I right in thinking that the operation basically involved preparing the RM Division for operations in Norway and developing invasion plans in the hope that the Germans would somehow notice and send extra troops to Norway?
    • I've added some information through the article to try and clarify this :) As to the last part of your question.. there was never any clear aim for the operation (i.e. troop reinforcements of Norway). It was deception for the sake of it.I can expand on this if you think it is needed, perhaps in the impact section, which I am considering rewriting.
  • "Despite the LCS being unaware of the double cross system, some of this information was passed on via agents" - did the LCS feed the information to these agents, or did their controllers do this without coordinating the activities with the LCS?
  • "Hardboiled did allow" - this is awkward ('did allow' = 'allowed'/'provided')
    • Rewrote (see below) and this disappeared
  • "Hardboiled did allow the LCS to gain experience in deception planning, however this was of limited use because they were unaware of the techniques refined by Clarke and of the double agent system" - why was this practice of little use because of the other factors?
    • Rewrote this section; based on your comments above I will expand on how this format of operation was considered sub-optimal in the Planning section.
  • "In May 1942, John Bevan took over control of the London Controlling Section. " - was this linked to Stanley's poor performance in preparing this operation?
    • No, I added some comments to explain what happened (without going overboard on detail).
  • There's some extra material on this operation on pages 23-24 of Michael Howard's volume of the official history, and his view that the operation provided "some useful practice" even if it didn't meet its aims seems worth including. Likewise, his explanation of why a deception focused on offensive operations lacked credibility at the time given the dire war situation seems important. Nick-D (talk) 07:36, 24 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • I've incorporated Howard's comments on pg. 24, and will work in the other item as well.
      • I think that you should add in the material from Howard about what the war situation meant for planning deception operations on page 23 given that it's pretty important background. Nick-D (talk) 10:11, 26 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks that's excellent feedback, I'll get onto it ASAP :) --Errant (chat!) 14:33, 24 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I think I've made some significant progress on these points, could you take another look and see if some of them are addressed? As I mentioned, I think tomorrow some time I will rewrite the Impact section to look at things from the perspective of the mistakes made, and then emphasise the impace (or lack thereof). --Errant (chat!) 22:57, 24 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Support My comments have now been addressed: nice work with this article, and it's great that you've put so much effort into an example of 'bad practice' when the successes in this kind of field generally receive the most attention! Nick-D (talk) 10:27, 3 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Crisco 1492

Addressed comments from Crisco 1492 moved to talk

  • Comment,,,
  • "...which was unconvinced by the idea of strategic deception and resistant the idea of a central planning authority..." Ae we missing a to? "resistant to"?
  • " the objective for Hardboiled was chosen because the the resources existed..." Two "the"s.
  • " However, notes that it provided experience for the planners in handling deception and for the Twenty Committee in proving the worth of double agents" Seems to be an incomplete sentence.--Dwaipayan (talk) 14:06, 27 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done

  • Page formatting: multiple pages should use pp. not p.
    • Ech. Last FAR someone insisted pp. was never used in this way, I'm inclined to think it's not worth worrying about :) Sorry, was misremembering. Fixed!
  • Page(s) for FN10?
    • Done
  • Date for Levine is given as 2011 in footnotes but 2012 in bibliography
    • Done
  • Be consistent in whether subtitles are sentence or title caps. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:16, 27 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

CommentsSupport from HJ Mitchell: Nice article. Relatively short, but it looks comprehensive and well-researched. Just a few comments and queries:

  • Non-Brits won't know what MI5 is, so a link would be useful
    • Done
  • To what end were the Allies trying to convince Hitler that they were invading Norway? Was it an attempt to distract from a real operation, for example?
    • I've tweaked the intro to that section a little. The point is that there was no point to it :) Does that now read OK?
  • Michael Howard, who authored the official British history of strategic deception, attributes the lacklustre response to the fact that the Allies were, at that point of the war, facing severe setbacks on every front. Could you re-work that to make it more readable (it's a bit long with the two subclauses) and to get rid of the sloppy "the fact that"?
    • Reworded
  • the committee was given much broader powers and heightened respect The idea of a higher authority granting the committee respect n the same way as broader powers seems odd to me. Perhaps reword?
    • I removed the respect bit, it's not really important

—HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 18:55, 10 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the review Harry. :) Drunk a glass too much wine this evening to address your comments, but I'll get onto them tomorrow! --Errant (chat!) 20:05, 10 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
OK! I think I've looked into all of these points, thanks :) --Errant (chat!) 10:34, 11 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Works for me. Happy to support. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 18:39, 11 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delegate comments

  • Couldn't see an image review above but I'm satisfied the licensing is okay.
  • I'm afraid it's a little unclear to me in both the lead and the main body whether Clarke found "real" or "fake" operations wasteful; can we clarify? Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 08:47, 13 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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