Talk:Aerial incidents in Switzerland in World War II

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Military history: Aviation / British / European / North America / United States / World War II B‑class

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Switzerland Mid‑importance

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A fact from Aerial incidents in Switzerland in World War II appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 8 June 2007. The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the bombing of Zurich in World War II led to court martial proceedings with Jimmy Stewart as presiding officer?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2007/June.

Wikipedia

Axis attacks?

Are there any examples of the Axis Powers attacking Switzerland (by mistake or otherwise)? 74.130.215.12 14:48, 8 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Probably not - Switzerland was in completely the wrong direction for any Luftwaffe or Regia Aeronautica aircraft to be outward bound with bombs. In addition, Switzerland, like also neutral Sweden, was not at war and so had no blackout, so the Swiss cities and towns would have been brightly lit up at night, which would have made any night bombing navigational error obvious to the bomber crews.

Reparations formatting

Trying to avoid this becoming an essay:

In the "Reparations" section we currently have this: "the United States Government agreed to pay 62,176,433.06 Swiss francs (equivalent to $14,392,692.82; about ${{formatnum:{{inflation|US|14000000|1944}}}} in today's dollars)" which as I write displays as "the United States Government agreed to pay 62,176,433.06 Swiss francs (equivalent to $14,392,692.82; about $174,747,628 in today's dollars)".
I find this terribly distracting and awkward to read. Even if for some reason we need the CHF amount right down to the last 433.06, I really cannot see that under any circumstances we need to know anything more than about how many million US$ it was worth then, and is now.
I've got additional concerns that I am mentioning but not addressing here: why IS the original CHF sum so precise, does it matter, is the contemporary US$ conversion supported by that same source, and if not where does it come from?
Also, the Inflation template has a moderately scary warning saying what it can and cannot be used for, and how it must only be used by someone with economic training or after consultation with them. I'm assuming that these conditions were met in its initial use here as they are certainly not met by me. I can only assume that its use is appropriate but if you know that it is, or otherwise, please do comment!
To try to sort out the problem of too much detail in the conversions, whilst not addressing every broader concern I have, I am changing the code to "the United States Government agreed to pay 62,176,433.06 Swiss francs (then equivalent to ${{Formatprice|14392692.82}}, or ${{Formatprice|{{inflation|US|14392692.82|1944}}}}{{Inflation-fn|US}} in today's dollars)" which currently displays as: "the United States Government agreed to pay 62,176,433.06 Swiss francs (then equivalent to US$14.4 million, or $180 million in today's dollars)". I feel that this gives an acceptable level of precision and clutters the article much less. It also preserves the detail of the contemporary US$ conversion on the assumption that it is worth keeping.
I have also added a reference for the inflation figure, as suggested by the template's documentation. This is the {{Inflation-fn|US}}) bit, which adds a footnote after that inflated sum.
Finally, I have changed "four million dollars" just before that to "US$4 million" which gets the US in early and lets us just say "$" after that.

I hope that these changes are useful. Thanks and best wishes DBaK (talk) 09:50, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That was way too much bother for a simple inflation template. The way it reads now is fine. --Thorwald (talk) 19:32, 20 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Which "ton" measurement?

Does anyone know which ton measurement is being used in this statement: "...hit Zurich with 12.5 tons of high explosives and 12 tons of incendiaries..."? Is that "long tons", "short tons", or "metric tons"? The source/ref. doesn't clarify it either. --Thorwald (talk) 19:35, 20 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

At the time the RAF used long tons and the USAAC/USAAF used short tons. As the quoted figures refer to the USAAF then they would be short tons. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.7.147.13 (talk) 14:15, 6 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It's been 5 years since this point was raised. It seems to me the Article should have explained this by now.2605:6000:6947:AB00:49D2:79EC:1362:5C96 (talk) 07:06, 22 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

"Swiss Neutrality"?

I'm having some difficulty reconciling the idea of "Swiss Neutrality" with Switzerland's alleged "economic cooperation with Nazi Germany". As a Reader, I expect the Article to explain these two contradictory ideas. Defining "Neutrality" seems like something that would Improve the Article.2605:6000:6947:AB00:49D2:79EC:1362:5C96 (talk) 07:05, 22 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]