Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Archive 59

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Ordinance pics - follow up

You guys impressed me with the identification on the above pictures. As I mentioned, some of the tanks (and almost all of the guns) lacked display plaques. For that reason, I didn't upload them. I've posted my unidentified pics here - if you guys can identify them, I'll upload them. Raul654 03:05, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Gun 1 - Can't say for sure, but looks like one of US experimental 90 mm antitank guns.

Tank 1 - Soviet KV tank.

Tank 2 - German Panzer I.

Tank 3 - German Panzer IV.

Tank 4 - German Jagdpanzer IV.

Tank 5 - German Jagdtiger.

Bukvoed 19:58, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I was almost right... Gun 1 is US-designed experimental anti-tank gun, but a 105 mm one, called 105mm Gun T8 on Carriage T19. Rare beast indeed, thanks a lot. Bukvoed 16:45, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I noticed you've uploaded the pictures, except "Gun 1". Thanks again. Though, truth be told, for me the "Gun 1" pictures was the most interesting of the lot :). Bukvoed 09:05, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Ironclad warship now open

The A-Class review for Ironclad warship is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 09:47, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

World War II edit war

There is currently an edit war going on at World War II - which, unbelievably, has several users trying to add the USSR to the axis because of their 1940 non-agression pact. I could ask people to please keep on eye on this page. Thanks. The Evil Spartan 17:02, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

The Soviets did invade Poland, just like Germany, so it is possible to say that they switched sides. However, despite their invasion and killings, the UK and France didn't declare war on them. Wandalstouring 06:57, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Isn't there always an edit war of some sort going on in that article? This one sounds pretty silly though - the USSR didn't sign the Tripartite Pact. --Nick Dowling 10:27, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

It was not to add them as a member of the Axis, it was about them being listed as a co-belligerent in 1939. Quite a difference. Oberiko 13:19, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, I doubt that there are any arguments against it. Wandalstouring 14:18, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

There are quite a few, primarily revolving around finding a documented source which specifically calls them "co-belligerent", much in the way that Finland is usually referred. Oberiko 14:26, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

History of aviation in Bangladesh

This article needs you attention. Can anyone take a look and advise, or better still, lend a hand? Aditya Kabir 15:37, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

If a section needs expansion, feel free to shuffle there more materials from the main articles. Else source a few parts for verifiability. Wandalstouring 11:02, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

I guess a little explanation is necessary here. The main articles generally talks more about the subject in general, as the Burma Campaign talks mostly about the land operations. But, for a better perspective you need to cite the main articles. On the other hand, the specific articles that bifurcate from the main articles deal with a lot more specific stuff. Wikipedia has never been as easy as shuffling a few things around, and that's why the article needs "expert" attention. Cheers. Aditya Kabir 11:55, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

One more thing - the help expected out of this wikiproject is not a generalized re-edit or something in that line. Particular help on "World War II military aviation" section is really needed, which involves the Burma Campaign very much. But well, if you want to help in general, please, go ahead. Thanks and cheers. Aditya Kabir 13:48, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Ask the respective task force if they are maybe interested. We have 15,000 articles with similar problems. So I strongly suggest a do it yourself approach or that you pinpoint your problem. Wandalstouring 08:45, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Michael Brown Okinawa assault incident now open

The A-Class review for Michael Brown Okinawa assault incident is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 01:39, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Excluded articles?

Is there a good reason why some military history articles (e.g. all D-Day beach articles but Juno) do not display the project banner in their talk pages? --FactotEm 20:54, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Not really; the most likely explanation is simply that nobody has gotten around to tagging them yet. Kirill Lokshin 21:24, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Tagging has been pretty unsystematic up to this point. Although we would like to get all (or virtually all) the articles that fall within the scope tagged at some point, we haven't made a concerted effort to accomplish that yet. Carom 22:18, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Victoria Cross now open

The A-Class review for Victoria Cross is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 16:10, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Ironclad warship needs attention

A few more editors are needed to complete the A-Class review for Ironclad warship; please stop by and help review the article! Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 16:10, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Military history of Goguryeo needs help

This article needs bringing into line with project guidelines, it was mentioned on an admin board due to a long ongoing dispute over the articles title. Hypnosadist 20:22, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

delsort changes proposed

Hi over on the WikiProject DELSORT talk we are discussing merging the Guantanamo Bay detainment camp sort list into a more general list. Comments are welcome either here or there. John Vandenberg 00:02, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Michael Brown Okinawa assault incident needs attention

A few more editors are needed to complete the A-Class review for Michael Brown Okinawa assault incident; please stop by and help review the article! Thanks! Kirill 19:54, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Matt Sanchez

The article Matt Sanchez may fall under the purview of this project. I'll leave it up to project members to decide whether or not to tag it. The article is somewhat controversial, with much of the dispute from the subject himself, and has had mediation requested. In any case, it could probably use some fresh eyes peeking at it. Aleta 22:12, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

We have no article on...

...the (mostly Commonwealth) executions for desertion during the First World War. There's bits scattered here and there - articles on some individuals, and even a Category:Military discipline and World War I, but no article on the topic as a whole. Anyone feel up to writing one? Shimgray | talk | 01:02, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

I'll do it. I've been toying with the idea as I did some research on this a few years ago and have most of the literature as well as a very comprehensive database collated from the main sources of who was shot and where they were buried etc. A related topic is British Army Mutinies 1914-1921. Again I have material for this so I suppose I'm volunteering for that too. I have already done a short piece on French Army Mutinies (1917) and it'll go with that.  ← ROGER →  ^TALK 08:36, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Muahahah. I noticed mainly because I just wrote The Secret Battle and was quite surprised to find nowhere to clearly link it to! This is a rather interesting article on the development of "shot at dawn" as a popular concept, tracing it through the fiction it was used in and noting how it was substantially less common than usually percieved. Definitely material for a good "in popular culture". Shimgray | talk | 12:16, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for that.  ← ROGER →  ^TALK 13:26, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Warfare by "genre"

I've just discovered the recently created Category:Warfare by genre. As far as I can tell, this is just a copy of Category:Warfare by type with a stranger name (as I've never seen "genre" used in this sense), so I've listed it for merging here; if anyone has other ideas for what this was intended to be, though, please feel free to propose them. Thanks! Kirill 05:42, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

It may have been to broadly categorize the more common warfare types; looking at the genre category I find gurrilla warfare, psyops, and electronic warfare, of which only psyops are listed on the type category. I concur that the the former should be moerged into the latter. TomStar81 (Talk) 08:32, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Should be merged, as they are both about the same topic. It will also be less confusing to readers and users not familiar with Wikipedia. --Patar knight 19:10, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Chevron ribbon

I can't help but notice that we don't have a ribbon for our chevron w/oak leaves award; not that recipiants wouldn't want the actually chevrons, but IMHO it would be nice to see a ribbon for the oak leaves version too. TomStar81 (Talk) 08:32, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Anyone with the requisite graphics skill (i.e. not me) should feel very welcome to create one! ;-) Kirill 15:26, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

RFC Operation Barbarossa

Since the anniversary of the Operation Barbarossa some editors sterted inserting the "Outcome: Axis tactical victory" into the infobox. I find this quite improper to see this in the infobox without any corresponding text in the body of the article. Please comment in Talk:Operation Barbarossa#Modifications. `'Miikka 21:30, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Battleship Division 7

In my updating of the US Iowa class battleships I have repeatedly come across a unit designated Battleship Division 7, yet I can find no information about the unit on google. Does anyone know anything about this group or its composition? TomStar81 (Talk) 23:12, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

See http://orbat.com/site/ww2/drleo/013_usa/_41_usn/pac-bat_battleships.html for a graphic indicating generally what BatDivs consisted of. Battleship Divisions in the US Navy of the interwar period were usually two ships, and that persisted into the Second World War. Best to find the History of United States Naval Operations in World War II (by Samuel Eliot Morison)- check in your city public library for starters - will give you a good background and details of what BatDiv 7 did. Buckshot06 11:53, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I will certainly look into that. TomStar81 (Talk) 18:48, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Battle of Abu Ghraib

I saw this article among the articles needing attention. I've posted some comments at talk:Battle of Abu Ghraib#Where to start? and I'd very much welcome feedback from editors here.  ← ROGER →  ^TALK 08:55, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Ordnance pic - Anyone know what this is??

Anyone know what this is? I took a picture of this at an old, abandoned National Guard camp. The camp was operating from 1949 to about 1974 in New York State. Could it be a spent anti-tank round or a flare? Thanks for all of the help.

Truthunmasked 03:54, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't know alot about arty or AT or tank rounds, but it could be a discarding sabot round. just a thought. --MKnight9989 13:33, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

My guess would be part of a rocket from a WWII-era recoilless rifle, M9A1 maybe.Fixerofthings 02:18, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

US Armor

I was wondering if anyone here could help me with the article King Armored Car. I'm trying to find information about it and units that used it, but I can't find anything on the web and my library searches have proven fruitless thus far (I'm not giving up yet thought). Any and all help would be appreciated. --MKnight9989 13:36, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Yup, not much on Google Book Search, and probably already covered:

• Semper Fi: The Definitive Illustrated History of the U. S. Marines

A regular Google search turns up quite little as well. Next time I'm at the library I'll check their military equipment books and see if I can find anything. Oberiko 15:45, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the help guys. I'm afraid the article has run out of steam. --MKnight9989 12:44, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Talk:Sino-Indian War : Subjectivity of victory

As you can see on Talk:Sino-Indian War, a major dispute is underway but progress is being made by the parties. There was an issue with the infobox saying "Chinese victory" plainly as I thought it was a subjective interpretation of the war that shouldn't be in the infobox. However, the overwhelming majority of articles contain such subjective representations in their infobox led me to concede defeat in this area. But then Jvalant rightly pointed out that most of those other wars only define victory after a surrender or territorial change was made. In this war there was no territorial change and the ceasefire was unilaterally made during a period of regrouping by the Indian forces. Does the project think that surrenders must be declared for infoboxes to say victory belonged to a side or does the project side with subjective descriptions? Traing 06:21, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

As far as I can remember I read that it was a Chinese victory because they did capture quite a lot of Indian military equipment and India ceded territory to China in exchange for peace. You can compare it it to the First Punic War. Wandalstouring 09:19, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Really, the question of what the infobox says shouldn't be up to us; what we need to determine is how historians view the war. So if the sources for the article call the war a Chinese victory, then that's what we would put in the infobox, even if this may not correspond to our own views of what the outcome meant.

(In this case, it may well be that the outcome is a matter of active debate among historians, in which case something like "Inconclusive" or "Disputed" may be more appropriate; but that's something for the editors of the article to figure out as they examine the historiography of the war.) Kirill 16:10, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

And here I thought we had a good edit war going on at Talk:Korean War. I guess we're just amateurs. wbfergus 17:09, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

OK, I agree with Kirill. But just as a note to Wandalstouring, China did capture a lot of Indian equipment and land but there was no discussion before China unilaterally declared a ceasefire. In a way, you are right, as India's claim on the western sector has almost been forgotten in exchange for stopping escalation into another conflict in the Kashmir region. Traing 02:06, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Task forces I'd Like To Create...Anyone Interested?

Hi All,

I would like to created a French and Indian War, am American Revolutionary War, an War of 1812, and a Mexican-American War task force.

But, I am not sure if anyone else would be interested or would want to help or join.

If anyone here is interested please contact me on my talk page, so we could collaborate and maybe get these ideas off the ground.

Thanks,

Psdubow 14:30, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I believe only the French involvment in Indochina would need a separate task force. For the rest, we already have WP:USMIL. The Mexican-US War has only limited articles and therefore would not need a task force. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 15:00, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm interested in the Mexican-American war. I don't know what the required number of editors is for taskforce status. Richiar 15:33, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

In fact there is no requirement. The thing is that we avoid specific task forces due to the amount of articles involved. For instance, the African task force has around 500 articles (a lot of new articles are to be requested) while the Mexican-American War would only be limited to a few dozens of articles. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 15:39, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Yeah. I guess you guys are right about the Mexican-American War task force idea, but there may be a few people interested and the Mexican American War articles may need to be improved, expanded, etc. Also, there may need to be more articles about that War and its combatants. Anyway, how about the French and Indian War, American Revolutionary War, and the War of 1812 task force ideas? Do you think they need task forces?

Psdubow 15:45, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I believe you may also need to post these suggestions at WT:USMIL for further comments. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 15:50, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Okay. Is there anyone specific there I can talk too who will tell me if these task forces are okay to make and if they are needed or not? Psdubow 15:53, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

User:Kirill Lokshin. He is the project lead coordinator. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 16:02, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) In general, I'd avoid making task forces for individual wars unless there's a very large number of editors working on that specific war. The conflicts you mention are each already covered by several task forces:

• F&I : French, Early Modern
• AR : British, US, Early Modern
• 1812 : British, US, Canadian, Napoleonic

so I don't really see any pressing need to create additional groups to work on them in isolation. I would suggest working through the existing infrastructure to begin with—the Early Modern task force, in particular, covers much of what you're interested in and isn't all that busy—before trying to add more groups to the picture. Kirill 16:06, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Okay. I understand. But, how about the American Revolutionary War task force idea covers a lot of articles though. Psdubow 16:11, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

It's a bit more about the number of editors than the number of articles. I have no particular objection to setting one up if there's a lot of interested people; but, based on what I've seen, I doubt there are more than a handful of editors who'd want to participate. Please feel free to prove me wrong on this count, though. ;-) Kirill 16:23, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for your support. I may or may not create these task forces. I am going to think over what you said and I'll also try to see how many people are interested and if it even nessary to have a task force.

Thanks,

Psdubow 16:26, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I'd be interested in an American Revolutionary War task force. I wouldn't mind having a cyber clubhouse for editors working on topics related to the American War of Independence. All four of us. ;-) —Kevin Myers 16:31, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Ok. Good. So far, I see that atleast a few people are interested in the Revolution task force idea. Kevin Myers, do you know anyone else who would bei nterested? Psdubow 16:39, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Classification system

I've been studying the classification system here for 6 months. It is so confused, I can't understand it any more than when I started. Something is wrong with it. Nothing makes sense. Richiar 16:19, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Could you please give us a specific case? Thanks. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 17:12, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I'll see if I can put together some examples. First I checked in the Wikipedia category and classification system, and found the graphs illustrating the tree diagram, and the multi multi directional diagram. There is a reference to the article "directed acyclic graph". Alright. So there can be inter related systems, I agree with that. But if I go to the astronomy portal, or history of science portal, the connections are simple and hierarchal and circular, so the user can easily navigate, find what they want, know where they're going and not get lost. My experience of the classification system here is that of a lobster trap, a quaqmire. I will try to collect some examples to further illustrate what I mean. Give me a liitle time to get the information put together. Richiar 22:13, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Here's an example: it doesn't look like the Military History project is connected to other projects having to do with military. For instance, the U.S. Military Portal, and the WW II portal. A lot of the WW II articles have to do with the involvement of the U.S. Military and are Military History, which would be directly related to this project. Tbere is rather indirect connection through a haphazard arrangement of links.

If we pick the WW II Portal, there is a topics section, which goes to a Pacific War article. There is a box template with Campaigns and Theatres of WW II. There are links here to a Pacific Ocean link, and a Pacific War link. There is also a link to a WW II article, and another link to the aforementioned Pacific War article. There is a link to a Pacific Ocean theater of WW II. (Theater is sometimes spelled "theater" and sometimes spelled "theatre".

These links branch off in all directions, maybe related and maybe not.

The categories should be related to the Portals and the Portals should be related to the categories. The Campaigns and Theaters (or Theatres) of WW II should be under the WW II Portal. And yes, we're talkin' Military History here, at the same time, because WW II is military history.

If I want to look up an article on Merrill's Marauders, I might never find it, except by luck, if I type it into the search mechanism.

And right now, I'm just talking about WW II. I haven't even started to tell you about the Vietnam War articles. Richiar 01:34, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

I'll be the first to admit that WWII, especially the less attended Asia-Pacific Theatre, is kind of a mess right now. You'll find alternate spelling because one is British English and one is American English; both are acceptable and the use is usually determined by the influence of the participants in the article in question (American dominated = theater, British dominated = theatre).

The portals are actually a reference guide, and should cater to the article structure, not the other way around. Most of this is still quite rudimentary (there's a lot of work in WWII, your example, which needs to be done), but if you have any particular suggestions, bring it to the WWII task force as I'm sure they'd like to hear them. Oberiko 03:18, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

RfC on Korean War

This may be out of place, but we need some fresh commentors, as most of it is the same people going back and forth. There is currently a Request for Comments going on at Talk:Korean War. The more neutral commentators we have, the better. Thank you. wbfergus 16:17, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for HMS Ledbury (L90) now open

The A-Class review for HMS Ledbury (L90) is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 18:09, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Request for input

A discussion has come up about whether House demolition in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict should exist as a detailed spinout of House demolition, where the issue is currently addressed in summary form. Please see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/House demolition in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - independent views from editors without political axes to grind are badly needed in this debate. -- ChrisO 15:58, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Request for outside Opinion

Recently a User:Robert K S added "including Free French General Leclerc" to the surrender of Japan section on the article USS Missouri (BB-63). Having never heard of the guy before, I reverted back to the original "High ranking diginataries from the Allied powers" line, omitting his name, but now I see that the Free France guy is back in there. I am sorely tempted to revert, since this sort of thing screams "edit war" (like as in "your guy is listed here, therefore mine should be too"), but before I do anything drastic (or stupid) I would like an opinion from a third party since I recognize that I have a tendancy to protect my edits on page, and this one in particular is special to me. TomStar81 (Talk) 22:39, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

On one side you can argue that if you put one allied military official, you must put in all allied military officials and that is obviously a bite too much detailed for this article. Another argument is that Leclerc of France and Thomas Blamey of Australia should be mentioned because they are the only allied military officials that are somewhat notable. Leclerc commanded the 2nd Armored Division that liberated Paris and Thomas Blamey is Australias only Field Marshal, they other is fairly unknown. Carl Logan 23:00, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Fix to redirects

I moved the article Wound Medal to Wound Medal (India) and am revising the Wound Medal page for disambiguation among various countries' medals called Wound Medals (Austria-Hungary, Syria, etc.). In checking the links to the old page, I see there are four to project talk pages that I can't fix:

• Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Military history articles by quality/45
• Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Indian military history articles by quality
• Wikipedia:WikiProject India/Articles/Page2
• Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/India articles by quality/56

Can someone qualified fix these links? Airbornelawyer 18:42, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Request for Military Award task force

Hello, i have been getting Victoria Cross upto FA for a while now and i was wondering whether it would be ok or feasible to create a Victoria Cross task force or maybe an awards subsection. I know that some overlap may be created with Wikipedia:WikiProject Orders, Decorations, and Medals and also Wikipedia:WikiProject Victoria Cross Reference Migration. The latter project has been inactive for a while as has its main participant. I would suggest migrating all articles over to a new all encompassing Victoria Cross project. This would help to maintain the separate Victoria Cross (disambiguation) articles and all the recipients and categories left over from the reference migration. The main question is would it be Ok? but also how feasible in terms of numbers? Thanks for any considerations Woodym555 23:12, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

I doubt there's enough editors for a sustainable task force dealing exclusively with VCs (and, even if there are, such a structure would probably be somewhat unwieldy, as we'd soon have a MoH task force, a HotSU task force, etc.). What would be somewhat more sensible, I think, is a general "military awards" (or some similar name) task force, which could cover all of these topics on a slightly higher level without the need to spawn off lots of isolated groups, and which would probably attract a broader base of editors.

(There would also be the simple expedient of pulling the VC stuff directly into the British task force, but that would be a less ideal option.) Kirill 23:22, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

I think that would be a very good idea. I am sure that many of the orders, decorations and medals project would double up and it would be a viable project. (Some of the VC stuff relates to commonwealth personnel as well and as such would not fall under the British Task Force such as Victoria Cross for New Zealand) How do i proceed in requesting a "Military awards task force? Thanks Woodym555 12:22, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Consider it requested; now we just have to see if there's any interest in it. ;-) Kirill 15:57, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Battle of Stillman's Run

I am with the Illinois project, and two of us are going to start doing some work on Ogle County, Illinois. We were hoping that we could get some assistance in getting this article cleaned up, and hopefully go for GA in the near future. If any are interested in helping, we would gladly accept it. You all of the military minds would prolly be much better at this than I. Thanks for any assistance.--Kranar drogin 01:42, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Sheees. Instead of helping out at the Battle of Stillman's Run i went on expanding the Economy Ogle County, Illinois! I was wondering why you came here to seek help for a county article! It is only now that i realized that you were refering to the military-related topic instead. This happens only in wikipedia i believe. I'll try later to help out the battle article. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 11:26, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes! I meant the battle. Oh my, I really goofed that up! Thanks for any help with the battle that you can provide. We do appreciate it.--Kranar drogin 20:31, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for 37 mm Gun M3 now open

The A-Class review for 37 mm Gun M3 is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 15:59, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Today's Featured Article

Battle of Savo Island will be the Today's Featured Article tomorrow (July 5). I usually "watch" this article to help protect it from vandalism, but I'll be away tomorrow on a family vacation. If others could "watch" it, since Today's Featured Articles usually draw a lot of vandalism, that would be very helpful. There's one controversial claim in the article that a U.S. ship accidentally helped sink an Australian ship and this may especially draw the ire of some of the article's readers. Thanks in advance. Cla68 20:45, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Corps

Yesterday I linked I Corps in the article 100 days and in Étienne Maurice Gérard. This message was left on my talk page:

I gave reverted your links on the Étienne Maurice Gérard article. Those two corps was formed ad hoc and dissolved when the war was over, for those it is best to use the name of the parent army, for exmaple: III Corps (Grande Armée). The first permanent corps in the French Army was formed after the Franco-Prussian War and fought in World War I and II and was active during the Cold War, for example: III Corps (France). Carl Logan 19:58, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Now I have no strong feelings over his issue. I am quite happy to create new articles like III Corps (French First Republic) and III Corps (First French Empire), but I know from editing other articles that Indian contributors like Indian Army formation to follow the Indian Army's lead (as is shown on the Indian Army website), which includes the history of the British Indian Army in the desendent formations, eg XXXIII Corps (India). As to the ad hoc temporary formation of Corps, it is quite common for such formation to be formed and disolved again, the RAF and the USAF does it all the time, but when they are reformed in the RAF they inherit the traditions of the Squadron (eg probably the most famous squadron in the RAF: No. 617 Squadron RAF). So what should the general rule be in this area? --Philip Baird Shearer 16:10, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Does anyone know if the current French army carries over the lineage of the older formations? I would suspect not, personally, but they may follow the British model more closely. If the names are shared but the lineage is not, I would be hesitant to arbitrarily consider the newer unit as a reformation of the older one, rather than as a completely new unit that happens to share the older one's name.

(As a matter of convenience, it may be easier to retain separate articles on identically-named formations that existed more than some arbitrary number of years apart, to avoid having century-long gaps in an article's narrative. On the other hand, of course, if one of the units doesn't have enough material to sustain a full-blown article, combining the two may be a better solution than creating permanent stubs just to keep the naming distinct.) Kirill 16:18, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes they do, in many instances tracing their lineage back to the pre-revolutionary monarchist regiments. ROGER ^TALK 17:09, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Ah, ok; that makes things a lot easier. :-) Kirill 17:19, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

From my talk page:

I have seen that you read my post, but I am not sure you fully understod my point. During the Napoleonic Wars there was a number of French armies and many of them had a I Corps. There wasn’t one I Corps but several and they were disbanded when the campaign was over and the crosp HQ dissolved. After 1870 the French Army created permanent corps, there was only one I Corps, one II Corps and so on, each with a permanent corps HQ, even during peacetime. Carl Logan 16:44, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

So it was possible to have more than one I Corps at the same time. I did a quick check on the III Corps and while in 1809 it was fighting at the Battle of Eckmuhl, the French I and IV corps were fighting at the Battle of Talavera in Spain. So are there examples of two French corps with the same numeral fighting in two different armies at the same time? --Philip Baird Shearer 17:10, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually, if I understand it correctly, Carl is arguing that, e.g. III Corps in 1805 and III Corps in 1809 are distinct formations, because the corps' structure was not retained during peacetime. The question is really about the extent to which the corps existed as a separate headquarters unit, versus being simply a grouping of divisions under a single command, not about the simultaneous existence of identically designated corps. Kirill 17:19, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

It is relevant because if there are two corps with the same numeral at the same time then it is probably better not create articles by nation by some other criteria. But if they are nation wide then it becomes possible to create them with an internal chronological order even if they are decommissioned between campaigns. This is what we do with World War II German corps armies and army groups, and probably other nations units of a similar size as well, and is what we do with other units such as RAF squadrons. --Philip Baird Shearer 12:57, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

As far as I recall French Corps during the Napoleonic wars were numbered in sequence for the entire Army and not for individual armies. On the other hand I believe Carl Logan's intent was to explain how those corps were repeatedly reformed without respect to their old numbers (I know this to be the case for certain between the 1809 and 1812 campaigns where there is no connection between most like numbered corps of both campaigns).--Caranorn 13:48, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

No Caranorn, they were not and neither did I mean that. They were indeed more than one corps with a certain number at the same time. For example in 1810 there was two main French Field Armies in Spain: the Army of Midi under Soult and the Army of Portugal under Massena. Soult’s Army consisted of I Corps, IV Corps and VI Corps while Massena’s Army consisted of II Corps, VI Corps and VIII Corps. That means that there was two French VI Corps at the same time, which confirms my claims. For the make up of the French forces in Spain 1810 see: this document. You can also see the II Corps (ACW) article which deals with the II Corps of the Army of the Potomac, but notes that there was five different II Corps in the Union Army serving in different field armies.

Now over to my main point, which is that the Corps that were active from after the Franco-Prussian War until a bit after the Cold war and that fought in World War I and II do not trace there lineage back before the Franco-Prussian War. My solution to this problem is to name the corps created after the Franco-Prussian War uses there countries name in brackets after the name and those created before that uses there army’s name in brackets. Carl Logan 15:04, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Extrapolating data from Digby Smith's Napoleonic Wars Data Book I come to the conclusion that Mortier's Corps in 1810/11 was Vth Corps, so I assume that Jean-Paul Stril's data is a typo. French Corps of the Napoleonic Wars as far as I can tell were numbered in sequence. But I'd agree to earlier French Corps having separate articles, just that I'd suggest name (campaign rather then name (army) as the campaigns seem to be the determining factor to differentiate between the different corps of the same number.--Caranorn 21:29, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Note, as I don't trust Digby Smith's data Book 100% I checked two other sources, French language Wikipedia also gives Mortier Vth Corps and not VIth, so does Esposito's Military History and Atlas of the Napoleonic Wars.--Caranorn 21:35, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

My mistake, it was the V Corps, which I should have doubled checked myself. I am most humbled my dear Caranorn, but I am not ready to give up my position.

When Napoleon invaded Spain in 1808, he did so with the Army of Spain, which consisted of eight corps numbered I to VIII. Napoleon soon left for Austria, but the corps stayed, either being formed into smaller field armies or operating independent. In the Battle of Wagram Napoleons army consisted of eight corps numbered II to VII, IX and XI. So in at least in 1809 there existed two II, IV, V and VI Corps at same time. Carl Logan 14:48, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that the argument over lineage is realy relevant, (I don't think anyone awards battle honours to a corps or an army). I can see, and do not oppose, the argument that we should keep later national corps structures separate from the Napoleonic ones, but from a practical point of view it would be much more convenient to have one article called I Corps (First French Empire) than half a dozen small articles (unless doing so would cause more confusion than not). Apart from anything else it would help to cut down the chances of multiple articles about the same thing. For example I think the current name of the article III Corps (Grande Armée) is not complient with the words of the Naming convention "Generally, article naming should prefer what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature", particularly as this project has advised "Where present, the optional disambiguator should be the common name of the country whose armed forces the unit belongs" --Philip Baird Shearer 09:48, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Sukhoi Su-25 now open

The A-Class review for Sukhoi Su-25 is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 16:15, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Horse artillery updated

I've made a pretty major rewrite and update of horse artillery today. Among other things, it now includes a source (though I'll try to get a hold of one in English soon enough) and a pic. Comments and a review would be appreciated.

Peter ^Isotalo 17:26, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Nice work. Do you have more sources? Wandalstouring 08:25, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Not yet. I really only learned about the existence of horse artillery last week when I visited the Army Museum in Stockholm and saw that magnificent model. Bidwell's book is only available here in Sweden at the Anna Lindh Library, and they're closed for the summer and so is the the Army Museum library. Stockholm University Library shut down last week because some worthless POS vandal flooded the bathrooms in the floors above it and also won't open 'til August. Same goes for many other major libraries here in Stockholm. I can't really do much serious research for at least another month.

Howeverm, just about everything that I added is covered by Hedberg, and he is very meticulous with referencing. I can't confirm the original article content with any direct citations, but as far as I know Ghost is (or was) a very reliable contributor, so I don't think we need to slap fact tags on the article quite yet. None of it looks like it's overly controversial or subjective material.

Peter ^Isotalo 17:03, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Structural history of the Roman military now open

The A-Class review for Structural history of the Roman military is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 04:53, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

help at Aegis combat system

Could somebody comment on what I could do better here? thank you. Mr. Killigan 06:09, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

For starters, find a uniform size for your pictures; variations in picture size can be distracting. My other suggestions would be to see if there are any infoboxs you could use for information purposes on the system, expanding on the use of Aegis in other navies (for example, were these nations offered the U.S. Aegis system? Have any of the other nations Aegis ships been involved in notable incedents? Have they improved the system any? etc) looking into finding how many people are needed to operate the system, and locating shooting statics (I would presume that, like the patriot missile system, there are numbers out there somewhere that report on the succsess or failure of the system under fire. In the case of the patriot system, that info is here). You may also want to cruise through the Government Accountability Office papers, you can find a lot of interesting information pertaning to cost and implimentation and effectiveness with regards to the development of military software. Hope that helps! TomStar81 (Talk) 07:23, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

The 'Possible Aegis-like Systems' could be expanded to include the similar European designs which are now entering service - the Royal Navy claims that the system in their Type 45 destroyers is superior to the Aegis-AN/SPY-1 combination. The article also reads a bit like an advert for Aegis, when the system surely isn't without flaws. --Nick Dowling 00:24, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks a bunch. Mr. Killigan 13:26, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Cannon now open

The A-Class review for Cannon is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 23:18, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Soviet invasion of Poland (1939)

Feel free to comment and help improve the article.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  15:30, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Interesting new portal

Portal:Military history of the Christian West. It strikes me that the name doesn't really match the topic, and the topic itself is rather cherry-picked (why not Byzantine involvement in these wars, for example); but I could be overthinking things here. Comments? Kirill 16:24, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

It's...interesting. Agreed that the name doesn't seem to match, and I'm also not sure that the topic is a particularly good one (and it certainly seems ripe for abuse). I don't know what, exactly, we might or might not do - editors are pretty much free to do whatever they like, provided they aren't disruptive (apologies if you weren't suggesting doing something here, Kirill). Carom 16:35, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

I wasn't really thinking of doing anything beyond suggesting a better name; the scope may be open to debate, but it's not something I'm really bothered by at this point. The main thing, I think, is just for us to be aware of the portal's existence, as I suspect that any complaints about it will eventually find there way here. ;-) Kirill 16:42, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Ah, quite. I'm not sure about the best option for a different name - anything that seems to adequately capture the content of the portal seems unneccessarily clunky ("Medieval conflict between Christianity and Islam," anyone?). Carom 16:52, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Military History of the Crescent and the Cross. Raymond

Excellent name. Another option is just to concentrate on warfare and religion generally and bring the ALL the sectarian stuff in as well. That has potential too. ROGER ^TALK 19:04, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Umm. We should first have an article on Military history of the Christian West. Or on Christian West, for that matter...-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  19:47, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Christian west --> Christendom, more or less. —Kevin Myers 20:56, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

I've just received a request/comment from User:sa.vakilian a few days ago about creating something like [WikiProject Muslim military history]. I am bringing this here in contrast of this new portal. I've got no idea for now but i share Kirill's concerns in that we would expect some disruptions in the future. Merging all of that into a single portal would not help i believe. At the opposite, it would escalate conflicts. So shall we think about renaming and have two or one new open task here? -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 01:32, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I would draw a distinction between classically Islamic military history (which is to say, the military history of the Caliphates, etc.) and all of Muslim military history (which would presumably include any military activities involving Muslims). Quite honestly, I would prefer if this could be rolled into the existing ME task force somehow; but, failing that, the first variant would be much better than the second (which would spur "Christian military history", "Buddhist military history", etc.).

The other option, which would perhaps be neater, would be to look at it as a conflict—the Islamic conquests—rather than as a group or national military history. Granted, this would be somewhat broader in scope than the portal, as it wouldn't be limited to Christendom; but as far as the task force idea, it could be a good solution. Kirill 01:39, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately Fayssalf wrote a brief summery of my comment. I had written

Salam. Can we made a new task force in Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history which includes Ghazwat, Muslim conquests and Civil Wars of the Early Caliphates . --Sa.vakilian(t-c) 13:59, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

So I don't mean every military actions which Muslim participate in it. I don't think ME(middle east) task force would be appropriate for Umayyad conquest of Hispania, Battle of Tours or Battle of Talas.--Sa.vakilian(t-c) 03:14, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

And that becomes part of Portal:Military history of the Christian West and so on... I believe task forces can do the job and there would no need to create more confusing subsequent Military-related portals. Checking User:Daniel3's portal related contribs, i found no consultation whatsoever whether here nor at Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals. I also suspect he is the sockpuppet of indef blocked user User:DADE who used to disrupt Pope Benedict XVI and the creator of Portal:Latter-day Saints. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 03:36, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes. A task force is good idea. Do you agree with Islamic military history task force which contains Ghazwat, Muslim conquests and Civil Wars of the Early Caliphates. We should clarify whether this task force include Abbasids, Fatimids, Seljuks and Ottoman conquests or not.--Sa.vakilian(t-c) 04:21, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

That could work, although, as I said, "Islamic conquests task force" might be a neater name for this particular scope. As usual, of course, we need to find some more interested editors before we set up a task force. ;-) Kirill 10:33, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

This portal looks like pure POV pushing and needs to be either refocused or deleted. For instance, the introductory text states that "The articles are all about the Christian Military and Victories", so I guess that the portal excludes the all the wars and battles 'Christians' (however this is defined) lost and as such clearly isn't trying to present a balanced view of history. The 'Did you know...' section has shockers like 'did you know ...that the Crusades were defensive conflicts!" and the selected quote seems to be an anti-muslim distortion of history. --Nick Dowling 09:52, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you, it looks like the portal glorifies Christians and their victories over Muslims. This sentence "...that the Knights Templar were some of the best equipped, trained, and disciplined fighting units of the Crusades!" seems to be an exxageration to me. Mr. Killigan 09:59, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I already mentioned above that it is a blatant sockpuppetry of User:DAde. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 12:03, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

The portal is simply agenda-pushing masquerading as fact. It should be deleted, swiftly. ROGER ^TALK 12:41, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Shall we follow the deletion process or just be bold? -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 13:16, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't see why it shouldn't just go. By its highly selective use of material, it is broadly a cleverly put together attack page, with no non-attack version to revert to. I've flagged various bits of it (WP:CSD) ROGER ^TALK 14:06, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I've requested a CU here. Strong connections. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 17:16, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Delete. The material is much too selective and even if the content was brought into line with NPOV, it would still be a prime candidate for revert wars and what's worse. Valentinian ^{T / C} 14:11, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Please note that the portal has now been submitted for deletion. See Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Military history of the Christian West. Pascal.Tesson 20:51, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Portal: Military history of the Christian West - update

There's now an miscellaneous pages for deletion discussion underway at Wp:mfd#Portal:Military_history_of_the_Christian_West. No doubt it'll be added to the deletion portal here. ROGER ^TALK 17:28, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Islamic military history task force

Since there's been some interest expressed in creating an "Islamic military history task force" (covering, largely, the Caliphates, early civil wars, the Islamic conquests, etc.): does anyone have objections to setting this up, or to the proposed name? Kirill 17:47, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

How much would this overlap with the Middle Eastern task force? Renaming the Middle Eastern one to Islamic military history could clear up any controversies about the scope of the task force including Northern Africa, southern Spain, parts of the Balkans, and parts of Southeast Asia, but would also exclude Israeli military history and anything else Middle Eastern that doesn't quite fall under "Islamic" ... At the same time, I don't believe that we ought to have both a Middle Eastern and an Islamic task force, as they overlap too much, and I'm not sure what really would happen if we were to create a separate task force just for Israel. Would that make people upset and create some sort of POV issue (particularly given the question of whether or not Palestinian stuff, such as the recent Hamas vs Fatah fighting which didn't directly involve Israel, would fall under Israeli military history or not)? LordAmeth 17:54, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Mmm, I was actually working under the assumption that this new task force wouldn't run up into the modern era, and could thus avoid getting entangled in the various messes on all the modern ME conflict articles. (Admittedly, the name is a bit problematic; perhaps something like "Classical Islamic military history" would be clearer?) Kirill 18:05, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Islamic Conquest, Islamic Empire, Islamic Rule, the Islamic Conquest and Age of the Caliphates, Islamic Middle Ages would be possible titles, roughly ending with the Abbasid Caliphat (let's say 1500 AD) and we don't run into recent events. Afterwards is the Age of the Turkish sultans who claim the Caliph title among others, but who have a totally different legitimation. The Middle Eastern Task forces concentrates on the modern times after 1500 AD. Someone can calculate this dates into AH and try to find the correct Islamic term for this age. Wandalstouring 19:16, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

The "Golden Age of Islam" ended a while before that, didn't it? The Military History of that would be a good name, though it might raise a few eyebrows.ROGER ^TALK 19:55, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

I prefer Muslims military history task force which includes period between the first war of prophet of Islam(Battle of Badr)(624CE) and Fall of Constantinople(1453CE).--Sa.vakilian(t-c) 05:43, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually, if it's entirely contained within the 500–1500 range, could we get away with something like "Medieval Islamic military history task force"? Kirill 05:58, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Ah, medieval. Yeah, I like that. LordAmeth 08:54, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Medieval represents European viewpoint to history. You can't find even one Muslim who recognized this era as Medieval era before European colonialism. I oppose using this word decisively. Let's know FayssalF's idea. --Sa.vakilian(t-c) 10:01, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Muslim military history is problematic since it doesn't end around 900 AH. Islamic Conquest and Age of the Caliphates might be a better title since the central institution of the Islamic world was the Caliph and around this date there is a clear change in this institution, making it an event for Muslims. Wandalstouring 11:50, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

It was thinking along similarish lines Military History of Islam to 1000AH (which takes us to 1590 CE, I think). ROGER ^TALK 12:00, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Muslim military history until 950 AH, would this be an option? The trick is that until then there isn't that much difference between them and the Christians in military terms. We have around this time the beginning of the Turkish Caliphate and the discovery of the New World, what totally changed Muslim military history since the Turkish Sultan was also heir to the Roman Empire, something no Caliph had been before, and he didn't get his legitimation from any consent among the Muslims. Wandalstouring 12:13, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

If we're just going to put a date delimiter on it, we could probably keep the name as "Muslim military history" and put the date in a scope statement (similarly to how we handle that case for the Italian, Balkan, etc. task forces), no? I'd like to avoid putting dates in the actual page name if possible, for usability reasons. Kirill 12:50, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

This is my suggestion. Please comment.

Portals:

• Early Islamic Miliatry History. (a period of 3 centuries)
• The Crusades.
• The Ottoman military history.
• The Iberian military history. (this would include Roman conquests, Muslim conquests in brief as it would be included in the first portal above, the Reconquista period until the Spanish Civil War)

Wikiproject task force:

• Middle Eastern military history task force (we can leave it as it is) -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 12:53, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

The portals look like good ideas. As far as the task force goes, though, the concern was that much of early Islamic military activity took place outside the ME, and that the ME task force dealt with a much broader range of topics. Admittedly, the first point hasn't been a problem for the Balkan task force, which covers military activity by Balkan states outside the region, so I'm not sure if it's really going to be an issue here either.

(As an aside: could we just use "Early Muslim military history task force" and stretch it—at the task force level—all the way to c. 1000 AH as suggested above? Or would this be unduly problematic.) Kirill 13:09, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

"Early Muslim military history task force" till c. 1000 AH sounds appropriate. As you said, ME task force would keep dealing with a much broader range of topics. After all, task forces are kept at the editorial level and members of the related task forces would not be confused. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 13:49, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree with "Early Muslim military history task force".--Sa.vakilian(t-c) 13:56, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

As an outsider, I suggested (probably after the start of this thread) that maybe your project setting up task forces to deal with specifically religion-based wars might be useful. I note the rather impressive starter of this thread was evidently thinking on the same lines. Would any of you perhaps be interested in either an "Islamic wars task force" and/or a "Christian wars task force" which might deal with the Crusades, the French Wars of Religion, the Thirty Years War, and the like? John Carter 18:02, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

A "Religious warfare task force" might have potential, if there's enough interest; I would suggest avoiding breaking it down by particular religions, however, both because I don't think we need to create so many separate groups, and because the bone of contention in many of these conflicts was, in fact, whether one (or more) of the sides involved was part of the religion in question. Kirill 18:40, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Isn't the main point here that Muslims have a common history that doesn't conveniently sub-divide by country? So, to some extent, it is easier/more comprehensive to treat Islam as a race/nation (though technically that's not the case) than as a religion. ROGER ^TALK 18:53, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree with the name and the time period proposed above. Kyriakos 01:27, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I've created the task force at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Early Muslim military history task force; interested editors are invited to sign up! Kirill 17:57, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Infobox Military Structure

Can we split the "commanders" tab in the template Infobox Military Structure into two seperate groups, one for the current commder(s) and one for notable commander(s)? For bases like Fort Bliss, who have had both types of Commanding Officers, it would help simply logistics (IMHO). TomStar81 (Talk) 23:09, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Done. Kirill 00:43, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

You're a miracle worker, Kirill. Never let anyone tell you otherwise :) TomStar81 (Talk) 02:36, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Category:United States naval aviators

I created this as a subcat for Category:Naval aviators. Should this actually be Category:American naval aviators? Happy to go with either one myself Kernel Saunters 14:01, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Not sure what system is used for the "normal" categories, but we had a similar discussion on WP:WSS and most stub categories now use "United States ..." to avoid confusion. I'd suggest the same system here. Valentinian ^{T / C} 14:16, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't think we've (yet) settled on a single form for military personnel categories; for the time being, going with what WSS is using seems as sensible an option as any other. Kirill 00:00, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Historic Warplane Question

History of the Armée de l'Air (colonial presence 1939-1962) in section 6 about Algeria may refer erroneously to the Martin B26 when the plane in use at that time by the Armée de l'Air was more likely the Douglas A26 (renamed B26 after WWII). The picture shows a Martin plane in use by the Free French in WWII. I’m not sure enough to make the correction, so I’m seeking advice. --Kevin Murray 05:08, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

"Douglas B-26" was used in bombardements and reconnaissance after 1945. According to this Douglas started to replace "Martin B-26 Marauder" in autumn 1940.

However Martins were still used as of 8/05/1945. Most of them were based in Saint-Dizier and participated mainly in France, Morocco and Senegal[1]. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 10:31, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

This question is regarding use in Algeria in 1954 - 1962. --Kevin Murray 21:57, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

I am sorry for the inconvenience. I haven't read the section's title. I'll try my best. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 22:12, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

No inconvenience. I think that we are agreeeing that the Douglas is the plane used in Algeria, since it was used by the French late in the Indo China fighting in the 50's. --Kevin Murray 00:30, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Japanese bias in WWII aircraft articles

I've noticed a trend of overstating performance and/or abilities of an aircarft model, in the articles concerning Japanese aircraft of WWII. For example, in Kawasaki Ki-100, I removed the statement that claimed that, in 1945, a group Ki-100 was able to wipe out a flight of Hellcat without losses. Now, I'm sure that someone can find an IJAAF Japanese report confirming it, but those same reports claim the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot resulting in the sinking of a dozen US carriers. Is there a policy for dealing with this, or I am going to get reverted if I start removing claims that Oscars regularly downed Corsairs. Burzmali 14:58, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

You've already fixed the problem yourselves. You've just removed something unsourced which has been there since Feb.07. It would be just nice if you could leave a comment at the talk page so other editors may bring a source and restore it. For now just get rid of all unsourced stuff especially which are older than a few months. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 15:28, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, I fixed that one, and it is the worst offended that I've come across, but the majority of problems seem to be WP:CRYSTAL related. Lots of, "this plane would have made all the difference if the Japanese had managed to build enough", and "it would have shot down bunches of B-29s, if it had been given the chance". Burzmali 15:36, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Be bold and break that crystal ball. Otherwise let us know about where they are so we can deal w/ them. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 15:41, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Good work Burzmali! There is a lot of hype by fans of some weapons. --Kevin Murray 00:32, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Easter Offensive now open

The A-Class review for Easter Offensive is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 17:43, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Ehime Maru and USS Greeneville collision now open

The A-Class review for Ehime Maru and USS Greeneville collision is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 02:51, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Rubber ducky

I started an article on rubber ducks, the fake rifles used in US Military Basic Training. Since recruit training falls under the scope of this project, I think rubber ducks probably should as well. Please review the article and tag it accordingly. Thanks. Equazcion 12:18, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Done Wandalstouring 12:35, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Equazcion 12:55, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Tagging and assessment drive

Without further ado: we are now running a major article tagging and assessment drive. The full instructions are duplicated (many, many times!) on the drive's pages, but the short version is this: we've used a script to parse through all the categories descended from Category:Military and Category:War and collect all the untagged articles there. The total number of candidates is ~165,000; obviously, this includes a lot of false positives. What we have to do now is to determine, for each article, whether it's actually in our scope, and, if it is, to assess it.

Please do drop by and help out when you have the time! Even if you can only go through a few entries, every little bit will help! Kirill 13:00, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

I have been working from the bottom up, dont know why, but anyway if a page is a duplicate such as Swiftsure class submarines and Swiftsure class submarine, should we just leave it? At the moment i have just left a note on the Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Drive/165 page and merge tags on the article. Thanks Woodym555 13:40, 13 July 2007 (UTC) Put it up for speedy deletion, will remove it from assessment drive list. Woodym555 17:39, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, I'm not sure that the script correctly picked out "untagged" articles. I just went to one page of the massive list and clicked on two articles at random, Dull Knife Fight and Second Battle of Trenton. Both are listed on this page as being untagged, but in fact both were tagged and assessed a long time ago. Obviously, this assessment drive will be much more labor intensive than needed if many tagged articles were included in the lists. Did something go wrong with the script? —Kevin Myers 15:30, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

I've noticed a couple of these as well. Carom 15:32, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

I suspect this is the usual problem with category listings not showing all of the category contents; I was making the "untagged" check based on whether the article was present in one of the assessment categories, not by examining the talk page directly. This could probably be mitigated if direct talk-page checking were added to the script; but, given the already massive numbers of false positives, I suspect simply filtering those out in the course of the normal worklist processing would be the easier option. Kirill 15:35, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

If we have completed a page should we cross out that page on the main list? I have finished Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Drive/165 which is why i am asking. I think it would serve as a notice to reviewers that the particular list has been finished. Thanks Woodym555 17:55, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that's a good idea; please go ahead. :-) Kirill 19:42, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Battle of Abu Ghraib

This is being discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Battle of Abu Ghraib. ROGER ^TALK 17:27, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Norwegian Defence Force

An anonymous contributor changed the value of the mobilized Norwegian Defence Force to 270.000. The same ip-address also updated the Dutch wiki on this point. A quick google search gave no results. Could someone pls check? TeunSpaans 19:10, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

I have added a link to the NDF's own web page on this to the talk page. Askari Mark (Talk) 17:41, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Up for Deletion

Template:Infobox Military Australia, Template:Infobox Military China, Template:Infobox Military Azerbaijan, Template:Infobox Military Austria, Template:Infobox Military Armenia, Template:Infobox Military Antigua and Barbuda, Template:Infobox Military Angola, and Template:Infobox Military Algeria have been nominated for deletion. All editors are invited to comment on the deletion. TomStar81 (Talk) 23:46, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Proposed split of US Army Basic Training from Recruit training

Please discuss at Talk:Recruit training#Proposed split of US Army Basic Training Equazcion 00:14, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

• US Army Basic Training is now a separate article. Equazcion 01:03, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Merger proposal: Theodore Penland

I would like to draw your attention to the merger proposal for Theodore Penland, which has been open for a long time. You will find the discussion here. --B. Wolterding 18:27, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Walter Model now open

The A-Class review for Walter Model is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 19:44, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Ohio class and Metal Gear Solid

THere;s a user trying to add Metal Gear Sloid apprearances to the Ohio class submarine page per diff. He thinks I'm the only person objecting, and has been trying to state his case on my talk page, in spite of my asking him to tak it to the article talk page. If I'm not the only person he thinks the appearance is non-notable per MILHIST pop culture guidelines, feel free to join in! - BillCJ 04:41, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

From where I sit you are in the right here: it is trivia, and no Ohio class submarine bears the name USS Discovery. At the least, it should be titled "a fictional ohio class submarine". If the submarine has a major role in the game (and having never played the game, I don't know that it does) then it could stay provided it got sourced (if you look at the page Iowa class battleship, you will see that all pop culture appearnces are cited), otherwise I would remove it. TomStar81 (Talk) 05:00, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

The key here is really that we need to be able to say something beyond "it appears in the game," and we need to be able to cite to a reliable source that the appearance is more than trivial. As TomStar says above, if the submarine has a major role in the game, it may be worth a mention, but I've never played the game either. Carom 13:39, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

TomStar81, I wouldn't have a problem with this, apart from the fact that the movie trivia additions haven't been removed or questioned along with the game point. Not only that, but none of said additions is referenced. In fact, NOTHING in the article is referenced. Asking me to provide a reference whilst not enforcing the same for the remainder of the article appears as an excuse to remove the section and a simple lack of respect/recognition for the gaming medium. I have a reference (an online section of the game's manual) and will gladly add it if need be. The problem is, I get the feeling it's simply going to be removed again regardless because that's not the reason it was cut in the first place. The only thing I want here is equal judgement for all of the information in the article and I'm not seeing this happen. Gamer Junkie 09:46, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

There's a few generic references which confirm the existance of the subs and their stats, so the article isn't totally unreferenced. The current 'in popular culture' references are instances where an Ohio class sub was at the centre of the movie or book (in particular, the sub's nuclear weapons and their launch procedures form the central issue in the movies and book). The same doesn't seem to apply to Metal Gear Solid, in which the text suggests that the sub is only a minor element of the story (I'm not at all familiar with the game, so re-write the text if the sub is central to the game). That said, I'd get rid of almost all 'in popular culture' sections in all history and military articles. --Nick Dowling 09:57, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Like I said, I've no problem with that. It's simply the fact that the film additions weren't touched upon that annoyed me. As for it being central to the plot, the submarine in the game houses the main character's support team, which is in contact with the character for the entirety of the game. The sub is also where the main character begins the game and is launched via SDV to the game's location. A large sequence of the game's briefing (about 20-30 minutes), takes place aboard the sub. Gamer Junkie 10:03, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Personally I'd tend to rip out all that sort of trivia anyway, particularly galling when the adherents to the genre insist on calling it a Sub rather than a Boat as well. From the description above it looks like they're portraying a GN, rather than a BN, configuration.

I do recognise the complaint about consistency though, and if you look at the usual usage in MilHist we do tend to frown on anorak lists.

ALR 12:12, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Ehime Maru and USS Greeneville collision needs attention

A few more editors are needed to complete the A-Class review for Ehime Maru and USS Greeneville collision; please stop by and help review the article! Thanks! Kirill 00:55, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Walter Model needs attention

A few more editors are needed to complete the A-Class review for Walter Model; please stop by and help review the article! Thanks! Kirill 00:55, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Iraq War battle category rename

There's been some bizarre shuffling of articles among the several categories used for them here, so I've bitten the bullet and nominated Category:Battles and operations of the 2003 Iraq conflict for renaming to Category:Battles of the 2003 Iraq conflict (with the idea that the higher-level Category:Military operations of the 2003 Iraq conflict, created under the new scheme outlined in WP:MILHIST#CONFLICTS, can be used to collect the non-battle-type operations without the need to lump them all together). Comments on the nomination would be very welcome! Kirill 05:04, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree. Does this have something to do w/ Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Battle of Abu Ghraib? -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 11:57, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Not directly, although I suppose it may be helpful depending on the outcome of that AFD. Kirill 13:14, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Battle of Laupen

This article seriously needs help.--[[User:Franky210|Tutopotamus]] 22:17, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

If you are looking for help on this I suggest you add a request for help at the Medieval, German and French military history taskforces talk pages since this article has to do with that era and area. I hope I was of assistance. Kyriakos 06:30, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Proposal

It has been proposed by me (SpecialWindler) that a new bot go through and assess certain articles. These certain articles are categorised in the Unassessed category but also in an Assessed category (either as FA, A, GA, B, Start or Stub). However there are many articles which have been assessed as one thing while another project has yet to assess the article. The bot's proposal would be to assess the unassessed article as the other projects assessment, which would save time for that assessment.

Take Talk:Shane Perry as an example, it is rated as Start for the WikiProject Biography but unassessed for the Rugby league WikiProject. Would it not save the time of the Rugby league assessment team to have it assessed as Start by a bot. However the problem is that various WikiProjects have different assessment criteria. While most projects base it of this {{Grading scheme}}, some may not and wouldn't like a bot to do that.

If you would like to make a suggestion about this bot proposal you may want to add a suggestion at this page under the section "Comments from WikiProjects", in which you should state which WikiProject you come from. You may also want to look at the background of this proposal at Bot requests (under "WikiProject assessing" section) and then Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team (under "bot" section).

This message was substed from this page to alert some WikiProjects whether this bot is a good idea, to see if it can be run. It is planned that some WikiProjects will not like the idea and can be excluded from this bot, if it does go ahead. Thankyou. SpecialWindler talk 10:13, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Our system is quite simple. Anything longer than a stub is a start and you can have a bot tagging them. The B-class, A-class and FA assessments are done manually. Wandalstouring 11:01, 18 July 2007 (UTC)