Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Nordic military history task force/Archive 1

Task force icon

I've used a map of the Nordic countries (File:Nordic countries.GIF) as an icon for the task force in {{WPMILHIST}} for the time being. It's not a particularly good image, though, so ideas for replacements would be appreciated? Maybe a longship of some sort? Or would that be too medievalist? Kirill Lokshin 21:58, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

How about the flag of the Kalmar Union () or the flag of the Nordic Council (20px)? Both entities cover all five Nordic countries (not completely true for the Kalmar Union, but almost) as well as the three autonomous territories, but neither flag is generally recognized as a "Nordic symbol" though, so I don't really know if they are better in any other way than being clearer symbols than the map. – Elisson • T • C • 23:05, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

The flag of the Kalmar Union is no longer used to represent the Nordic countries so I think that the Nordic Council's symbol should be used. Kyriakos 23:43, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

It might be usable, I suppose; but it would be somewhat anachronistic, given that the Council is a relatively recent creation. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 23:54, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Why not the most recognizable Nordic symbol of all ?--Berig 10:11, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Excellent suggestion Berig! It would make a fine counter to the Classical TF's Trireme:)--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) 06:01, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I think that should be the symbol as it symbolizes one of the things all these countries had in common...Vikings. Kyriakos 06:18, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

If you like the Viking theme, there are also a few others that may be considered , , , .--Berig 09:09, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

There are thousands of runestones, many more pleasing to the eye than this one, but I suggest the Gripsholm Runestone as it contains one of the most famous poems in memory of dead warriors:

ÞæiR foru drængila fiarri at gulli ok austarla ærni gafu, dou sunnarla a Særklandi.

They ventured as men far away for gold and in the East they fed the eagle. They died in the South in the Caliphate.

It is so popular that it is an example you learn in school, and you can even see it on T-shirts. This particular expedition was a total disaster but the tales of the survivors became a Norse saga on Iceland.--Berig 09:21, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't think a runestone or an actual picture makes for a good icon. Too hard to see what it actually depicts. The longship (as originally proposed by Lokshin) image posted above is good, but a little to wide compared to the height, IMHO. I've created a slightly shortened version () that is better suited as an icon. How about that? – Elisson • T • C • 15:34, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I support your suggestion. Well done to have shortened it. It also looks more historical when it is shorter, IMHO.--Berig 15:49, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Okay, that looks good. I've changed the banner to use . Kirill Lokshin 16:26, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, as a Finn, I don't feel much connected to Scandinavia, especially when adding that viking ship to Finnish World War II articles.. :p I am interesting in Finnish Civil War, Heimosodat, Winter War, Continuation War and Lapland War but don't really know about Scandinavian topics. Sure there might be some nice collaboration but I don't feel like home here. :) It might be a good idea to start own Finnish military task force but I doubt it would get much activity (when looking to WP Finland..) or is this supposedly covering Finnish War Crimean War from Finnish "perspective"? In short, I don't think there's much in common, and thefore the task force seems weird for me atleast. --Pudeo (Talk) 21:38, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, the icon is merely an icon, nothing serious. ;-)

As far as the other issues: admittedly, Finland's 20th-century military history is somewhat different from the rest of Scandinavia's; there's not much to be done on this point other than pointing out that this is as good a place to discuss it as any. (There's no need for everyone participating in a task force to work on everything the task force covers, obviously.) Presumably, once more editors working on Finnish topics appear here, you won't feel so out-of-place.

(Before the 20th century, of course, things are quite different, since Finland's military history is largely an extension of Swedish military history during that period; so there's a lot more common ground there.) Kirill Lokshin 21:49, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Finland is part of the Nordic countries for several reasons, sharing history and much of the culture, albeit not the linguistics, with the other countries. As Kirill says, All of Finland's military history before 1809 is part of the Nordic military history, and the history after 1917 as well, I would say. I obviously can't speak for you or any other Finns, but as a Swede, I consider Finland to have played a major role in the military history of Sweden as well as Sweden has played some part in the 20th century Finnish military history, be it with only around ten thousand volunteers and a lot of other help. That you don't know much about the general military history of the other countries doesn't matter, my knowledge about the military history of Denmark and to a large degree Norway is very limited, while I do know quite a lot about the Finnish military history. – Elisson • T • C • 22:09, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Updated the task force logo to have a transparent background. /Lokal_Profil 19:54, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

WWII operations

There's a list here that includes a separate sub-list of Scandinavian operations, if it interests anyone. There's lots of redlinks, if anyone wishes to accelerate their resolution. Folks at 137 21:38, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Scope

Does this task force also include the Viking era? I assume it does :). My question stems from the narrow wording of the scope. I had a look at the article Battle of Clontarf as an example. It includes participants from Orkney when it was Norwegian. But some might object on the grounds that Orkney is British now. I vote for including such articles involving areas that were Nordic and people from those areas. In my mind that goes without saying, but maybe it should be mentioned in the scope? Inge 12:51, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

That's one of the dangers of letting someone with little knowledge of this area write your scope statement. ;-)

(Please feel free to reword it as needed. The intent was certainly to include all of Viking history here.) Kirill Lokshin 14:07, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Then does the scope include these articles?

• Caspian expeditions of the Rus
• Paphlagonian expedition of the Rus
• Rus'-Byzantine War (860)
• Rus'-Byzantine War (907)
• Rus'-Byzantine War (941)

Note that the second and third articles are listed as "Category:Wars involving Kievan Rus", althouh Kievan Rus' did not yet exist.--Berig 10:16, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

They could if we decide to. I think it would be good if we include all such related topics. Then again, the further we go from the core topic we might encounter objections from people insisting that they are unrelated. And the next question might be do we include the Normans? The early Norman topics might be uncontroversial, but when the Normans invade Britain and other places things get hairy.Inge 10:50, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

If we exclude the articles concerning the expeditions of Kievan Rus' and the Duchy of Normandy, then the following articles are within the scope of Viking related articles:

• Caspian expeditions of the Rus
• Paphlagonian expedition of the Rus
• Rus'-Byzantine War (860)

If these three articles are not within the scope of this task force, we could just as well drop the Viking part. The only reason to exclude them would be to avoid possibly offending a small minority of users, who might possibly maintain that the landlocked Early East Slavs spontaneously turned into seafaring Viking-like rovers without foreign influence. Such objections can easily be disregarded since the early Rus' are documented to have spoken Old Norse by the Byzantines. Note also that the expedition of Ingvar the Far-Travelled, which was a rather official Swedish expedition, is part of the article Caspian expeditions of the Rus.--Berig 11:15, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't see any major problems with including those, personally; even if there's historical debate involved over the exact roles here, the debate itself would pretty much place the articles within the task force's scope. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 14:15, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't object to interpreting these topics as part of our scope. The practical solution might be to have a broad scope and just deal with objections and problems (if any) as they arise. It would be unnatural in my mind to have some Rus and Norman articles included and some excluded. Inge 16:01, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

It may be better to take things case-by-case, I think. The "Norman" areas are rather complex; if this task force were to include everything that's considered "Norman", it would wind up with an enormous amount of Mediterranean stuff (Kingdom of Sicily, Kingdom of Naples, a bunch of the Crusader states, etc.) that doesn't seem all that connected, from a military perspective, to the rest of the scope. Kirill Lokshin 16:14, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

The easy delimitation is to stop where independent mixed states appeared. If we stay with the majority view, both Normandy and Kievan Rus' were initially Norse dominated states which became independent cultures. That is the easy delimitation. If we include the early histories of the Duchy of Normandy and Kievan Rus', the later delimitation will inevitably be much more arbitrary. OTOH, being more liberal in scope may turn out to be more interesting in the long run ;-). The Kievan Rus' queen Olga of Kiev is for instance treated in a book on Scandinavian Viking Age women ("Women in the Viking Age", by Judith Jesch, 2005), which suggests that it is motivated to include Kievan Rus' in the scope of this task force.--Berig 17:03, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Military history of Sweden

Just letting everyone know that Military history of Sweden has been selected as the project's Collaboration of the Fortnight. Kirill Lokshin 00:15, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Norse history and culture

A new project has been started, covering every aspect of Norse culture and activity during the Middle Ages, including the military aspect covered here. Please join if you are interested in contributing! --Grimhelm 18:43, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

It will also cover the Norse and pre-Norse peoples in all periods up to the Kalmar Union (1397). Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 13:34, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

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Military ranks of the Swedish armed forces

The article Military ranks of the Swedish armed forces was created by User:Malin Tokyo in July 2008 and has been a matter of contention between her and several other editors ever since. Some core issues are how ranks compare to those of other countries in actual usage (rather than by OR/OF codes), whether such comparisons are suitable material for the article at all, whether to use the term NCO, etc. It's a nice little mixture of ownership, COI, personal attack, OR and POV allegations. A huge problem is the horrible talk page layout, making its 62 sections very hard to follow. As this is a very active project, people here probably have experience with other articles on ranks, and outside views would certainly be welcome, I hope someone might have the insane amount of spare time required to look at it. —JAO • T • C 09:45, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Copied from WT:MILHIST  Roger Davies ^talk 04:51, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

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Discussion of Swedish ship prefixes at WP:SHIPS

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Peer review for Background of the Winter War now open

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Featured article candidacy for Winter War now open

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Test your World War I knowledge with the Henry Allingham International Contest!

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Free Norwegian Forces

Hi all

I have been a little WP:bold lol

I was searching for the "Norwegian Free Forces" and found there was only a redirect to "Norwegian resistance"

I have redone the page and now it will need some checking and refs and other bits and pieces.

PLease can someone help with the refs !!

I do not know much about Norwegian history and I will need to take many from other articles.

All help appreciated as Its been hard just doing this small amount so far.

thanks...Chaosdruid (talk) 02:07, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Peer review for No. 10 (Inter-Allied) Commando now open

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The "Royal" Swedish Navy

I have posted a proposal related to the use of the prefix "Royal" to the Swedish Navy (not part of its official name) in article and category names at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Sweden#The "Royal" Swedish Navy. Please take part in the discussion there if you have any inputs. Tomas e (talk) 18:28, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Nordic military history articles have been selected for the Wikipedia 0.8 release

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A-Class review for Black Friday (1945) now open

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