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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Maralia (talk | contribs) at 03:29, 11 March 2009 (→M249 squad automatic weapon: struck my oppose as Notes/References correlations resolved; elaborated on several specific citation issues remaining). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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M249 squad automatic weapon

Nominator(s): Patton
Toolbox

I withdrew the last FAC for this article because I was afraid the concerns were too many to address during the FAC. Anyway, I feel I have addressed all of them and am nominating it for featured status again. It's come a long way; I have created a "operational history" section and incorporated the reception into it. Thanks in advance to all reviewers.--Patton 13:15, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

  • Comment My previous concern about a lack of operational history has been thoroughly addressed. Because I consider the combat value of a weapon to be its most important feature, I would still like to see this summarized in the lead, perhaps stating that the weapon was used effectively to provide covering fire in both Iraq wars and Afghanistan; that there were frequent reports of weapons jamming because of sand; and that by the second Iraq war the weapons had begun to seriously deteriorate because of age. I would also -- as a non-military type -- like to get some sense of whether the numbers deployed make this a common weapon or a rare weapon, or where on that scale it lies. Looie496 (talk) 17:52, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
Done, the lead is done, and I've added "AAlmost every eight-man squad deployed had two M249s issued to it." to the Afghanistant section." I haven't refrenced this sentence as it's already referenced in the design details section.--Patton 18:25, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
Resolved; striking comment. Looie496 (talk) 02:30, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
  • There's quite a bit of jargon and terminology here -- particularly when it comes to the reports about the weapon. "Small Arms Weapons Systems", "Infantry Rifle Unit Study", "Army Small Arms Replacement Study", "Army Small Arms Program", "Advanced Development Objective", "Materiel Needs Document", etc. I'd suggest writing around these -- removing them entirely -- or explaining them. You can lop all the study names off without hurting the article, I think, but the other ones should be explained.
  • What is a Universal Machine Gun? I can grasp light/heavy/medium, but not Universal.
  • M16 HBAR needs an explanation or a wikilink.
  • As a reader, I think you need a transition sentence or two explaining why improved 5.56 ammunition was necessary to the development of the weapon. Why couldn't they just use standard ammunition?
Done, I've revised the history and simplified it quite a bit, tell me what you think now. M16 HBAR is already linked, though I have added an explanation., it is a fully automatic variant of the burst firing M16. "Universal machine gun" isn't a type of weapon, it's the actual name this gun was given, like "minimi" or "thompson" or "garand". I've also added that the improved cartridge had "better performance characteristics".--Patton 13:50, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
  • Final comments from me:
  • I gave the article one last look over, and I have to say that it's improved greatly from the first submission. I'd suggest a few minor additions, however.
  • I added a fact tag to a place where I think you need to move a citation (I'm sure you've already got something that covers it, just duplicate it there, please.)
  • It'd be nice to have a name/location for the factory and manufacturer. Also, were there any problems in the manufacturing process? At what rate were the weapons produced? How quickly were they deployed to soldiers?
  • In some places, you refer to the Iraq War and the War in Afghanistan in the past tense. I fixed most of those, but since those conflicts are still going on, I feel that those sections at least should be fully in the present tense.
  • As someone else mentioned, it'd be nice to have a table comparing the BAR/M60/M249 and some of these other weapon candidates.
  • You've duplicated information in the second paragraph of the design details section and the first paragraph of the operational history. Some of the problems that led to the PIP are repeated. JKBrooks85 (talk) 11:08, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
Partly done reference the fact tag, found the location of the FN factory and added it in, fixed the tenses, fixed duplicate info. I haven't been able to find production figures or anything like that, and I'll start work on a table right away.--Patton 12:33, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
Table done added into design details section.--Patton 13:12, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
  • Comments:
  • I added a {{fact}} tag for the line about soldiers using duct tape to hold the weapon together. If it's covered in the citation for the following sentence, that's fine, and you can revert the tag.
  • I'm concerned about some of the prose; some parts aren't as professional-sounding as I'd prefer. For example: "rather than running around with them" seems sorta CoD4ish to me; soldiers don't generally "run around" during battle (which implies aimlessness or lack of coordination); they assault positions/defend in defilade/etc. (The example looks good, I'll take a closer look and see if there's anything else shortly)
  • Some of the technical terms in the lead could probably be linked, like gas-operated, linked ammunition, etc. I don't think that would be a problem wrt WP:OVERLINK.
  • Is there any information on service in Kosovo/Bosnia? That would be a useful contrast to the Iraq/Afghanistan data, particularly in terms of performance in a non-desert environment. Granted, it was/is a peacekeeping mission, but find me an infantry squad that doesn't regularly fire their weapons and you'll also show me an infantry squad that isn't doing their job.
That's all for now, although I plan on reading through again later today. Parsecboy (talk) 17:43, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
Partly done I've added a cite where the {{fact}} tag was, there was a cite but it was much further on. I've rephrased the "running around with them" part. I think you could see what I meant by it anyway. As for service outside Iraq and Afghanistant, well I haven't found any sources for anything besides those conflicts. I was even hoping to include service with the Unified Task Force, though I couldn't find any sources. I'll look harder and get back to you if I find anything, or if I don't...--Patton 18:12, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
I've found some sources . One is a military theory book the other one is a memoir. They don't tell us anything about tactics or performance only that the weapons were issued. What do you want m to do?--Patton 18:37, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
What's actionable in the short term (the ref, rewording, links, etc.) looks good; as for the service info on other conflicts, I guess you can't add what you can't find.
Here's something though: in doing some Google book searching, I came across this book, which mentions Bolivia, Colombia, and Tunisia having purchased M249s. I also just found this Army report from 1994, indicating shortcomings of the weapon, as expressed by infantrymen from 10th Mtn. in Somalia. It looks like there are several documents on Google Books from the Army relating to experiences in Somalia, but unfortunately they haven't been made available. The 249 was also used in Panama, but again, there isn't much information about it. Maybe the best course of action at this point is to mention that the weapon was used in Bosnia, Kosovo, and the invasion of Panama in the first paragraph in the "Operational history" section (and maybe reword the first sentence in the "Gulf War" subsection to fit with the addition). Maybe we'll get lucky and somebody with access to government documents will write a more detailed article or book about the weapon. Parsecboy (talk) 21:57, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
Oh, another thing: I never know what's going on with flags in the infobox (there's always so much arguing going on, it's hard to keep track), but either the US should get a flag too, or Belgium should lose it's flag, for consistency's sake. Also, the infobox could probably use a service date range and the number built (that is, if you can find it) Parsecboy (talk) 22:03, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
Done Have added info into start of operational history section and reworded the opening of the Gulf War section.--Patton 17:05, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Query Hi Patton, I think all but one of my queries from last time have now been addressed, however I'd still suggest that "I think it would be relevant to give comparative figures for weight range and rounds carried for the weapon carried by other squad members." Is worth covering. Also, and excuse the ignorance of someone who has never fired an automatic weapon; the article talks about a maximum rate of fire of 750/1000 rpm a sustainable fire of 89 rpm and a 200 round belt. Is this all the ammunition that a gunner would typically have available, or would the gun usually be used from entrenchments or APCs where the encumbrance of an individual soldier is less of a limiting factor? Alternatively does this mean that in practice the machinegunner would usually have less than 140 seconds of a series of short bursts of fire? WereSpielChequers 18:04, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

SAW gunners typically have a few belts with them, and other members of the squad may also be told to carry belts depending on the situation. They can also store them in vehicles if available. I havent' been able to find sources for any of this though, sorry, I've done 4 google searches of different terms but nothing about this has come up.--Patton 18:18, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
OK not necessarily a problem, and I think I can appreciate that the military might not be too public as to how much ammunition troops in the field have to hand. However there may be another way to skin this particular cat, my understanding is that the US army is quite heavily motorised, Is there any chance of getting a stat on that, perhaps accompanied by some line about APC carrying extra infantry ammunition? We don't need to say how much ammo to cover my point, just have something that establishes that 200 rounds is often not a limiting factor. WereSpielChequers 18:31, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
Apcs do carry ammunition and the equipment for the troops when they are present, yet unfortunatly I sitll can't find any sources for it. This time I only did two searches but I can't think of any other way of phrasing it .--Patton 19:08, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
OK well what we can't source we can't source, but thanks for trying. What do you think of my suggestion re "comparative figures for weight range and rounds carried for the weapon carried by other squad members"? Do you agree that it would be helpful if it could be done? WereSpielChequers 16:31, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
I think you'll have an easier time with your Google searches if you try: M249 "basic load". A "basic load" is the technical term for the amount of ammunition carried by a soldier for a particular weapon. However, book values often go out the window when troops go out into the field. --D.E. Watters (talk) 00:25, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
Done diff.--Patton 16:10, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Image review: the first four images were okayed in the previous FAC. File:5.56mm-military-rounds.jpg checks out okay, at least I think {{PD-Gov}} still applies for a simple cut-and-paste job from a federal work. Feel free to correct. Jappalang (talk) 13:39, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Comments -

  • From the previous FAC:
    • Please alphabetize your references.
    • I can't make heads or tails of which references are being refered to from the Notes. The "FAS.org" thing.. is this a website? or make it easier to figure out WHICH reference it is. From the way the note is structured, I'd have guessed it would have been under "FAS.org" but... eventually I figured out it was the "Squad ..." ref that's out of alphabetical order. I'll do a source review when they are sorted out.
  • New concern:
    • There are websites in the notes that are just given as link titles. No publishers, etc. and I cannot find all of them in the references section.
Ealdgyth - Talk 16:13, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
The references are already alphabetised and sorted by type. The Fas.org was fixed last FAC too, and I don't know what you're talking about with your third point - none of the web sites are listed in the references section; basically, none of what you jsut said seems to apply to the current revision of the article.--Patton 21:05, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
I'm sorry I wasn't clear about the third point but right now... current "note" 30 (Arsenal Inc Product Page) is just a bare link. I cannot find that title in the "referencences" section. Same for current "note" 31 (IWI Negev page). Same for current "note" 51 (Marines to test...). It appears that current notes 52 and 53 refer to the same source? Why are they listed in different formats in the notes? If you're not going to go strict alphabetical in the references section, you need to show how you've broken it down by type, by using some sort of subheading. It would be easier if you just alphabetized by the first word in the reference entry, honestly. That'd make things easier for your readers. You also need to make your notes reflect better the actual references being used. Right now a number of the notes refer to "U.S. Army Center of Military History - Department of the Army Historical Summary: FY 1972, p 176" but the reference that refers to is listed as "Department of the Army Historical Summary: Fiscal Year 1972. U.S. Army Center of Military History. 1974" which makes it more difficult for folks to find the exact reference being used in the notes. The notes should be consistent with the format of the references and make it easy to find the references. Also current note 35 is just "fnmfg.com – MK48 MOD 1". What is that? Is it listed in the references section? If so, I can't figure out where. Ealdgyth - Talk 21:18, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
Cleaned up, how is it now?--Patton 21:35, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
Still a problem with current ref 36 (the fnmfg.com - MK48 MOD 1 issue.) The refs still don't resemble the notes on the US military stuff.
New concerns - what makes http://www.israeli-weapons.com/weapons/small_arms/negev/Negev.html a reliable source? Is Janes International Defence Review a publication? If so, it should be in italics. What makes http://www.defensereview.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=853 a reliable source? What makes http://www.usmcweapons.com/articles/M249/M249NF.html a reliable source? Ealdgyth - Talk 21:51, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
http://www.usmcweapons.com/articles/M249/M249NF.html is the website of a former marine who writes about weapons he used in combat. http://www.defensereview.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=853 is a website where various people with knowledge of the military write articles. The Isreali weapons site isn't reliable and I will be replacing it as soon as I find a replacement. Thanks!--Patton 23:54, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) To determine the reliablity of the site, we need to know what sort of fact checking they do. You can establish this by showing news articles that say the site is reliable/noteworthy/etc. or you can show a page on the site that gives their rules for submissions/etc. or you can show they are backed by a media company/university/institute, or you can show that the website gives its sources and methods, or there are some other ways that would work too. It's their reputation for reliabilty that needs to be demonstrated. Please see Misplaced Pages:Misplaced Pages Signpost/2008-06-26/Dispatches for further detailed information. Ealdgyth - Talk 23:57, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Well I can't give any reviews of USMC saying it's reliable however it was authored by someone with an authority in the subject area and has a reputation for fact checking. The same guy who wrote the site is the author of Small Arms in the Marine Corps, which is also used in this article, has had countless reviews and has a reputation for fact checking. The defencereview link isn't actually used any more because that section was removed, so it hsouldn't be there.--Patton 00:12, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm confused about the lack of hyphens throughout (for example, 6 mm cartridge); can someone comment? Also, I saw some redundant prose. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:07, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Going through it and will fix anything I see.--Patton 22:18, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
I've copyedited it again; is it ok now?--Patton 22:51, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Oppose for now, due to Note/Reference presentation issues. I've given this a rough copyedit, and done a lot of reference formatting and MOS cleanup (you misunderstood Sandy's hyphen query above, and she was confused too, but it's resolved now). Here's what I see that still needs some work:

  • I made it through the entire article and still didn't know why it was in Category:Fabrique Nationale de Herstal. Clearly I'm a moron, but it does seem nonsensical that the names of the companies that didn't get the contract are spelled out in the main text but the actual manufacturer is not.
  • Common units of measure need not be linked at all; linking them on first use is more than enough. Please delink the units of measure in the table.
  • Your Notes are not consistently formatted; some begin with lastname only; others use lastname comma firstname; and still others use firstname lastname. Some, like Note 36, use neither.
  • The previous problem is compounded by the inscrutable sorting used within the References section. There's one alphabetical set, in which some sources are listed by authorname and others by title, followed by...another alphabetical set listed by title, followed by...two more sources listed by authorname. What gives? Breaking the References section down into two lists - such as one by author, and one by publication name for those lacking authors - would be fine, but they need to be clearly delineated (subsection headers), and there needs to be a clear, direct correlation between each short-form Note and the long-form Reference.

The content of the article is in good shape, but the Notes and References need sorting out before I can support. Maralia (talk) 04:31, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

I've spelled out FN as Fabrique Nationale de Herstal, though I can't unlink the units of measurement because the conversion template links them automatically. Cleaning up references now.--Patton 11:15, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
Done except for the linked measurements. What do you suggest I do there? It's the templates.--Patton 11:50, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
The {{convert}} template has a parameter to auto-link, you just have to remove it. It's "lk=on", but I've already gone through and removed them from this article. Parsecboy (talk) 13:23, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
Ah you've fixed it. Thanks!--Patton 13:24, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
The Notes/References look better, but more work is needed. Each Note needs to begin with the text that the correlating Reference begins with, so that readers can find the full length reference. An example of why this is necessary: In Note 6, I read "U.S. Army – FM 3-22.9: Rifle Marksmanship". In trying to find the full reference, I discovered that it's not listed under "U.S. Army", nor under "FM 3-22.9"—but wait, there it was, under the second alphabetic list tacked on the end of the References.
I've just gone through and reorganized the References section to begin addressing this issue. The government publications are listed in a subsection now, so readers can intuit where to look based on whether the Note lists an author or just a publication name. I also added data where I could find it (I found one of your offline source available online, added dates for some online sources, added OCLC numbers for publications lacking ISBNs, and changed the 'publisher' field for the government documents to reflect the office that published them, rather than the printer that inked the books).
All that remains is to make each Note clearly correlate to the corresponding Reference. I think the book Notes are okay, but the Note for each government pub needs to read the same (no extraneous 'U.S. Army' etc at the beginning) as the relevant Reference listing.
There are also a handful of Notes that do not have a corresponding Reference listing and do not contain enough information to readily identify the source:
  • Note 11 (U.S. Army - Report of the M16 Rifle Review Panel...) appears to refer to a chapter in a book. In this case, the chapter title should be in quotes, the book title in italics, and the volume and appendix information in plain text. I believe I found this document online here. Please add a full citation; the OCLC number is 227968366.
Not done - the full citation given here is 'U.S. Army. Report of the M16 Rifle Review Panel.". More info is available; please provide it.
  • Note 35 (Eby – M249 employment concepts, April 2001) lacks identifying information. According to this, it is apparently from an article in the Marine Corps Gazette. Please turn this into a full citation.
This was incomplete - a longform cite was added, but the work wasn't italicized and only the author's last name was given; I have completed it.
  • Note 37 (Cargile – M249 SAW?, April 2001) is another MCG article that needs a full citation.
  • Note 38 (Grundy – The M249 light machinegun...) is another MCG article lacking a full citation.
  • Ditto with refs 46, 48, and 49: full citations needed.
Almost done: 46 and 49 are complete, but the full citation added for 48 is "Kelly, Al (2007). M249 Squad automatic weapon.". Isn't there more identifying information for this and also for the citation "Smith, Jim (15 May 2003). Operation Iraqi Freedom PEO Soldier Lessons Learned. U.S. Army."?
I know this is confusing, but just think how much easier your next article will go, once you've got all this referencing stuff down :) Maralia (talk) 04:27, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
I've struck my oppose as the largest issue—shortform cites that did not clearly correlate to longform cites—is resolved. Further comments left above regarding some specific cites that still need more information. Maralia (talk) 03:29, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
  • Oppose, 1a. This is nice, and I really appreciate the amount of work that clearly went into it. However, I'm not happy with the prose. I started reading from Operational History and found several prose and MoS problems. Another problem is the pervasive passive voice that either obscures or eliminates the subject of sentences. This problem seriously affects readability. I suggest withdrawing this to prepare it with a keen eye toward the prose, sourcing requirements, and MoS.
    • You have a mixture of single quotes and double quotes around terms - please make consistent. Prefer double quotes.
    • "By the time of Operation Iraqi Freedom, most M249s had been in service for a long time ..." Too vague; more accurate time frame needed.
    • "Soldiers were requesting replacements and new features, and there were reports of soldiers taping their weapons together with duct tape." The redundant "taping" with "tape" is less than ideal.
    • "The lethality of the 5.56 mm has been questioned, with numerous reports of enemy soldiers still firing ..." Please revise to get rid of the "with <noun> ... +ing" construction.
    • Per MoS, shouldn't dates be in American format since the subject is American?
--Laser brain (talk) 04:15, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
I'm fairly confident I can have all this fixed by Friday morning, so I won't withdraw just yet. I didn't put in the single quotes, someone went through and added them around stuff like "Para" and "PIP" after this FAC was opened; I'll fix it right away. I don't know what you mean by your forth point—"Firing" is a ver. Will fix MOS and change all relevant stuff to American format/English (I'm Irish so I'm not used to writing that way lol)---Patton 20:14, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
I didn't explain that very well, sorry. The ungrammatical phrase is "with ... soldiers ... firing". You want to avoid any phrase like that (see User:Tony1/Advanced_editing_exercises#A_common_problem.E2.80.94noun_plus_-ing for more info). A solution might be just to rewrite it: "The lethality of the 5.56 mm has been called into question by reports of enemy soldiers still firing ..." --Laser brain (talk) 20:49, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
Wow I never knew that was bad grammar. Corrected.--Patton 21:27, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
I've just re read that section, and I agree, it sounds like it was written by someone dunk and who oculdn't speak English lol. Will fix up.--Patton 20:24, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
    • I've corrected points 2 and 3 (Patton, please feel free to give me a troutslap if you don't like the way I did it); the rest I'll leave to patton since I'm not directly involved in the article.
  • Problems. I think this one is within reach, but not until it receives intensive assistance by a good copy-editor. Here are examples from the top.
  • "to successfully pass tests"—spot the redundancy.
  • I guess there's no gender-neutral word for "rifleman" ... are women still barred from firepower-roles in the US military?
    AFAIK they are of course given combat training, but service in a direct combat role is still out. Ironholds (talk) 05:24, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
  • "of a machine gun with accuracy approaching that of a rifle."—"an" is missing.
  • "is considering designs for an infantry automatic rifle which is planned to complement and partially replace the M249 in its service."—The "which" indicates that designs (of ...) is a subset of all such designs; I'm sure there should be a comma before "which".
  • "heavy machine gun usually mounted on"—I think a sweep through by someone else to add a few commas would make for smoother reading. No one wants excessive comma usage, though.
  • Long snake: "The M60 was a more mobile medium machine gun intended to be carried with the troops to provide heavy automatic fire. Both were very heavy weapons and usually required a crew of at least two men to operate efficiently, meaning they were best employed by platoons or larger sized units." Is that "medium-sized"? (Or maybe "medium" is the jargon".) Remove "men" and you've got a neater sentence and removed the gender-specificity. Women are taking more powerful roles in the military, decade-by-decade. "Both" at first sounds like "the troops" and "heavy automatic fire". In your splitting of the sentence into two, try to solve this little bump.
  • Unusually, a good use of "also" at the end of the "In 1965" para. Tony (talk) 05:11, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
    All points corrected. Ironholds (talk) 05:24, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
  • Lean support - besides the above concerns, I could not determine any of my own. I would like to make sure that all of the concerns above are met, and it seems like they are for the most part (I could be wrong). Ottava Rima (talk) 17:23, 6 March 2009 (UTC)