Talk:Oshkosh Corporation

Needs Image

Sorely needs an image :( --Wulf 04:29, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

The building pictures Royalbroil added help, and I found these military trucks elsewhere in Wikipedia. If someone cound find some examples of their commercial trucks (there's room for at least two more pics), that would be great. --Maxrandom777 06:25, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Early History

By: Robert Denes

The company was founded by the Gelhar Family in Oshkosh, WI before World War I. Originally manufacturing rear axles for trucks, the company became prosperous during the war due to the government contracts, and it began assembling trucks also.

The real expansion of the operation came about when John Mosling took the firm over from his father and expanded into other types of vehicles, besides army trucks. After WW. II the products were concrete carriers, snow-plow trucks for both the Air Force and for commercial airports, and very heavy "desert trucks" for oil field explorations in the Arab peninsula. By the 1960-s Oshkosh was a well established specialty truck manufacturer/assembler with about $20 million sales annually. It's distribution network was the world-wide Caterpillar dealer organization, after Mosling committed to use Caterpillar Diesel engines in the trucks. John Mosling, working with advisors from Earnst & Young, also undertook a major expansion into new markets in the 1970-s, when the nation's airports suddenly needed fire/rescue equipments. He, building on the experience of Oshkosh with similar Air Force fire/crash trucks, aggressively marketed fire/rescue vehicles to the US airports.

Around 1970, John Mosling established a cooperation with South Africa's largest Caterpillar dealer, the Barlows Corporation, to build truck assembly facilities there. The operation began in Paarl, near Cape Town, in small temporary facilities, where the rugged Oshkosh trucks were assembled from kits shipped from Oshkosh. Soon, a cab-over truck was also developped by Oshkosh engineering specifically for the South African market. After a decade, the operation became wholly owned by the Barlows organization.

Meantime the US Army, rebuilding its armored vehicle systems, needed new type of trucks to haul its tanks around. Oshkosh, through a long bidding process succesfully obtained a long contract for the Heavy Equipment Transporter. Thus, Oshkosh's success in those times were tied closely with supplying the military with the equipment they needed, even remanufacturing for them their used trucks.

John's sons entered the business in the 1970-s and brought in a new, professional management for the company, greatly expanding its markets. The company went public and its share values just kept multiplying. Aquisition followed aquisition, and now Oshkosh Truck is an over 3 billion dollar public company company, listed as OSK.

Name Change

Oshkosh Truck is now Oshkosh Corporation. Does anyone know how to change the title of the article? Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.130.42.42 (talk) 00:07, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

You have to be logged in to move, so I moved it. Thanks for the heads up! Royalbroil 02:29, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Recent rewrite of article

I'm a bit concerned about the removal of sourced information that is occurring with the rewrite that User:Khoxtell is doing to the article. (diff 1, diff 2, etc.) In a recent edit summary, the editor stated that the information will be included later. I'll wait a couple days in good faith to see if that happens, but otherwise I don't see the harm in leaving correct, sourced information stay there until a new section is created.--BaronLarf 15:34, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

And you can add that after the Defense Dept reviewed their contract, that it decided to keep the bid awarded to Oshkosh [1]. Royalbroil 04:21, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

External links modified

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List like a catalogue

Folks I shortened one of the lenghty lists here just to give a hint. WP is not a sales catalogue, and pure list information is not helpful. This is an encyclopedia, mention each product together with a description and we're fine. Just reverting it to the list will not do. --Bernd.Brincken (talk) 20:51, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

I thought if most of the items in the list linked to other related Wiki pages, that would be OK? It's interlinking valid content, isn't it? But no worries, over the coming weeks I will chip away and a few words for each product and see how that goes.--Wolpat (talk) 09:51, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Discussion below moved from User talk:32.218.35.71 to here.
Hello 32.218.35.71, Could you possibly direct me to where the Wiki rule is that states contractual details are not encyclopedic? I'd then be happy not to revert your recent edit. I'd argue when used in context that they are actually very encyclopedic, and beyond that reckon if somebody were to wander through Wiki deleteing all mention of contract details (rule or not...), they'd have a job for life! Anyway, happy not to just revert before you have the chance to direct me to the rule. I did try and find it, but obviously failed...--Wolpat (talk) 17:14, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Have you ever seen contractual details in a traditional encyclopedia? Britannica? Americana? World Book? Not every principle of editing Wikipedia is codified in a rule. 32.218.35.71 (talk) 17:43, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Never really looked is the honest answer. That said, they do appear across Wiki. And that's why I add them. So if there's no rule to say 'don't' then I'd speculate it's considered OK, and on the basis of that my proposal is to return the details and, if you wish, then throw the topic open to the wider Wiki community. If they don't like the idea, then they go. How's that sound?--Wolpat (talk) 18:19, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Somewhere here in Wikipedia (can't find it at the moment) is a guideline stating that "everyone else is doing it" is not a sufficient rationale for inclusion. How about if you open it up for comment before you re-add it to the article? (I'd also add that you seek the comments of general readers/editors, rather than specialists in military matters or equipment.) 32.218.35.71 (talk) 18:25, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

I've had another go at the amount and type of detail included as some think it's to much, while the original was not enough. Any thoughts? These OK? They're kind of a happy medium - hopefully...--Wolpat (talk) 15:07, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

If you think that tweaking a few terms here and there solves the problem with this section, you really don't understand the issue brought up by Bernd.Brincken and expanded by me. As the tags suggest, the section "focuses too much on specific examples", rather than on an encyclopedic description of the topic. Look at General Motors, for example. That article could easily descend into long, detailed lists of makes, models, and features, but instead it uses descriptive paragraphs to discuss the brands and makes under its name. That's what needs to happen here; the entire section needs to be rewritten as descriptive text. 32.218.38.49 (talk) 16:59, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

I'll go with I don't understand then... How converting a list with a brief descriptor into paragraphs of rambling text would improve things, I've no clue. And I say that simply because most of the items in the list have pages of their own, and so can be linked to for a decent read if required. All of that said, life is far too short to lose too much sleep over what is best here. If I'm bored one day I may have a go at a re-write and see what I think, or if you are bored (and doing this would clearly get your vote...), maybe you could. Or even that other fella?? Random thoughts.--Wolpat (talk) 17:20, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

No one suggested "paragraphs of rambling text". A single paragraph of concise text would do. I'm not sure why you feel that every single model of equipment needs to be specifically mentioned in the text. If you want to link to other individual pages, use the See also section. That's what it's for. 32.218.38.49 (talk) 18:28, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Wolpat, if there is no such a big story to be told about Oshkosh compared to GM, that's fine. But then the article will just be shorter. Compensating for the lack of a story by listing product details is not the way to go for an encyclopedia (read that article if you care). Otherwise someone might come up with the same idea for a company like Würth - they produce screws .. and trust me it's a universe on its own ;) --Bernd.Brincken (talk) 19:29, 28 March 2017 (UTC)