Talk:National Bolivarian Armed Forces of Venezuela

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"This apparently refers to Venezuelan armies fighting Venezuela's independence war", IT refers to that, not "apparently" Moyako (talk) 07:24, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

older entries

"Clearly, this divergence is a sign of the current regime's anti-US policies."

How wonderful!!! I want to see Wikipedia write about "the current U.S. regime anti-Venezuela policies". Could you try to be a little less biased?—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 65.118.134.98 (talk • contribs) 19:00, 13 July 2006.

That's not being biased, that's being real. Anyone who says that Hugo Chavez is not anti-U.S. has been living under a rock. He doesn't even try to hide it. Also, please take into account that Wikipedia doesn't write these articles, people on Wikipedia do. I found the article to be quite factual and informative and without biased phrases.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 65.35.11.39 (talk • contribs) 19:40, 25 August 2006.

Moved here

This content isn't appropriate at Venezuela; moving it to here so it can be incorporated here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:44, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Venezuela's national armed forces include roughly 100,000 personnel spread through four service branches:

• the Ground Forces
• the Navy (including the Marine Corps)
• the Air Force,
• the Armed Forces of Cooperation (FAC), commonly known as the National Guard.

As of 2008, a further 600,000 soldiers were incorporated into a new fifth branch, known as the Armed Reserve; these troops bear more semblance to a militia than the older branches.

The President of Venezuela (Hugo Chavez) is the commander-in-chief of the national armed forces.

Since Hugo Chavez came into power, the military has been more reliable on countries that the US feel are a threat, for example:

• China
• Iran
• Russia
• Belarus
• Cuba (give support)
• Bolivia (give support)

But the military has tried to get corvettes and frigates from Spain, in which the US rejected and also other sanctions including:

• Ban on spare parts to F-16 fighters from United States and allies
• Ban on getting more AT4 and RBS-70 missiles from Sweden in which the military has in stock.
• Sanctioning purchases of Scorpene submarines from France
• Ban on purchases of L-159 training fighters from Czech Republic

In a response to the imposed sanctions the military has been purchasing Russian airplanes and helicopters such as:

• Mi-8/Mi-17 transport helicopters
• Mi-35 Hind attack helicopters
• Mi-26 transport helicopters
• Su-30 attack/fighter
• Su-35 fighter

• Proposal of buying russian and chinese transport planes, for ex. Antonov, Harbin and Ilyushin.

• Proposal of buying russian, chinese and iranian apc's/tanks such as:

• T-90 main battle tank
• BMP-3 APC (Already in service)
• Type 99 APC
• BMP-2
• BTR-80 APC

• Also the Venezulean military will produce 100.000+ AK-103 Assualt Rifles from Russia (Already in service)
• Also acquired TOR-M1 missile defense systems from Russia, China and Iran (Already in service)
• Will acquire Iranian UAV's in late 2007.

600,000 in a new branch named Armed reserves. Those are reserves, not real soldiers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.204.90.167 (talk) 02:37, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Standard Equipment

This paragraph seems not very clear to me. No army I have notice about massively issues sidearms to ordinary soldiers, except to those that cannot carry rifle due to the weight/space constraints. There are good reasons for it: inefectiveness of pistols as offensive weapons and high rate of accidents. So I don`t believe "averege soldier" has a Glock.

Also, it is not clear what "crew" means. FN MAG is a heavy machine gun, not a personal weapon for vehicle crew memebers to carry (it is too large, heavy and expensive for such role), although it may be installed on a vehicle itself. If the author reffers to supporting weapon crews, they may also be issued with mortars, recoiless anti-armored guns, missiles and a variety of weapons different from FN MAG. But MAG is never used as personal weapon.

It is also difficult to believe that the primary weapon of frontier units is something different from an assault or battle rifle, although shotguns, SMGs and pistols may be used to part of the troops. Are the information stated in this paragraph verifiable? M.Campos (talk) 12:28, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

using submachineguns, glock pistols or even shotguns in the frontline as a soldier is utterly stupid and will ceartainly lead to death. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.209.26.166 (talk) 21:19, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Does somebody oppose to entirely remove "Standard Equipment" section? M.Campos (talk) 12:07, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Since nobody replied, I understand it is OK to remove the "Standard Equipment" section, based on Wikipedia:Verifiability policy. I believe the information is wrong, but if the author may state reliable sources for it I will be happy to put the text back and also learn more about the subject. Follows the full text I removed:

"==Standard equipment==

• An average soldier will have a FN FAL and a Glock 17 as a sidearm and the crew service will carry a FN MAG instead of the FAL, although the FALs are now being replaced by the AK-103 in just about every branch.
• A frontier soldier will have a Glock 18 and a Mossberg 500 or an IMI Uzi."

M.Campos (talk) 14:20, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

On expanding the article

I tried to expand a little the organizational structure of the FAN translating from the Spanish page. I would like other people try to do it also. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Raskiy (talk • contribs) 16:50, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Nice job! Finally someone edited this article. I thought that I was the only who added information. You should try posting that translating request at the Wikipedia:WikiProject_Venezuela, they might help.

We should search the FAN's websites, they may have accurate information.

Just one thing, I updated a section last week. EconomistBR 02:39, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Do you now what is this Milicia Nacional? It seems that people confuses it with the national guard. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Raskiy (talk • contribs) 13:55, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

On the topic of the reorganization of the FAN I read that there is some Iranian and Cuban influence, maybe also Chinese, Belorussian etc. Can you find some more analytic article about it on the net? I have many problems in finding data on the FAN in English, do you have some internet site to suggest me to look at? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Raskiy (talk • contribs) 15:13, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Hmm...I am from Brazil so I don't know what a "Milicia Nacional" is.

As for sources about foreign influence search that on Google News after that click "all dates". Google News indexes news report from all dates. Have you already tried that? EconomistBR 18:47, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Ok, i expanded the article by translating from the Spanish page. I think the most important things are here now but i think i made a mess a little bit, i would like you to correct it and put in some quotes, the Spanish page is also quite a mess. I think your Spanish is better then mine. I also taught of reorganizing it and expanding the related articles. By the way i appreciate your work on the Manchuria campaign. Raskiy (talk) 22:29, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Onopearls made a bad editing in my opinion, this is what I wrote on his talk page. I was aware that my edit of the article was not perfect but I think you canceled a lot of good information. The main question is the point on the national militia which is not part of the national guard but a separate entity with a separate command structure, hierarchy, mission, infrastructure etc. Please review another time the changes you made.

He also made a bad revision of the military ranks section. Raskiy (talk) 00:03, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I disagree. I simply organized the page better, only removing redundant information and POV. However, considering you are calling my edits into question, I would like you to be more specific as to what my "bad revisions" were, and what "good information" I removed. You just mentioned national guard and national militia (a page that doesn't exist at this time). I don't believe I removed any significant information about the national militia, so your accusations appear baseless to me. Thanks, Onopearls ^(t/c) 00:24, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

All the section on the military ranks was based on a comparison with the NATO system, without the comparison it is meaningless, also this part of the sentence is meaningless: The army's officer rank system is a system of non-commissioned ranks, etc.

The national militia is a separate component of the FAN and it deserves a separate section, if there isn't a separate article I'll do it. Raskiy (talk) 00:57, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

On the nato ranks: You had no information wikilinked to any page, and the way it was set up made it very confusing for the reader. Feel free to re-add it. However, I would suggest you read other pages about nations militaries (other than NATO nations or Russia), and set it up to reflect how the nation's military ranks are reflected in NATO terms.

On 'this part of the sentence is meaningless: The army's officer rank system is a system of non-commissioned ranks'. First off, the paragraph made absolutely no sense before I edited it. And second, the sentence is "The army's officer rank system is a system of non-commissioned ranks, with eighteen non-commissioned ranks from Distinguido to Maestro Técnico Supervisor." That does, in my opinion, make sense. It is saying that the system that ranks offices is one of non-commissioned ranks. Anyway, the section was borderline incomprehensible, so I did the best I could to make it readable. My apologies if I didn't properly translate the almost illegible garble. Thanks, Onopearls ^(t/c) 02:41, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Raskiy, although I am glad to see that you are interested I must say I am a bit disappointed. I thought that you were going to write the article and not translate word for word entire sections of the Spanish version of this article.

The Spanish version is IMO poorly-written since it is bloated, lacks relevant information and source citations, it contains useless details such as references to articles of laws and the names of commanders. Overall the articles uses a language or a tone which IMO is full of POV statements, useless catchy words, pretty acronyms and is comparable to state propaganda.

"But in a relatively short time it has undergone significant changes, and has resumed his old revolutionary, socialist and anti-imperialist traditions."'

Who wrote the Spanish version of this text? This sentence is state propaganda pure and simple.

IMO you should use your creativity and write the article on your own and abandon the Spanish version, can you do that?EconomistBR 13:27, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

• Raskiy, it has been 2 weeks and you still haven't answered me or Onopearls. Could you please answer us so that we can begin to address the issues we pointed out. EconomistBR 16:46, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't care any more, if you think you can do a good job do it, maybe I'll be willing to jump on later. Raskiy (talk) 12:36, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Nice to see that you are back. As for this article, I would like to remove some information which IMO is either too detailed or has inappropriate language. What do you think about that? EconomistBR 16:45, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Any thoughts about my plan? EconomistBR 18:20, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

I have to admit that almost all Spanish military articles sound like they were written by some clerk of a propaganda office, the problem is that we have very limited sources of data in English, which i already mentioned, but i think the Spanish Wikipedia articles have to be used because they are the best source to expand the article quickly. When I made the translation from Spanish I thought: ok there will be someone who will cancel the superfluous stuff hopefully reading the Spanish original. But it happened that, someone, by canceling the superfluous stuff, changed the whole meaning of the sentences.

As for the additional information we can use this site http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/venezuela/index.html in English, but i think it is quite messy and is not updated regularly. Of the Spanish sites there is http://www.fav-club.com/ but in there are described more in particular weapon systems and not so much about organization. And there are the official sites of the FAN in which can be found some interesting data. Raskiy (talk) 22:29, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

There is also the problem that i think the whole article must be reorganized as just adding more data makes it unreadable but I don't think that this is urgent for now. Also in the history section must be included more aviation and navy data, but probably it would be better to make a whole new article "History of the FAN". The related articles as a whole must be expanded as especially that of the Venezuelan army is skeletal at best. Raskiy (talk) 22:42, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Bias

This article reads as if it were a recruiting pitch for the Venezuelan Army. A subject like this is far too important to be left to flacks for the Country. It should not be written by them any more than it should be written by Sean Hannity and John Bolton. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.74.4.190 (talk) 02:12, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

I agree, the introduction is biased and low quality. The English is broken too. Cerberus™ (talk) 20:28, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

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