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Nominations for military history newcomer of the year for 2012 now open!

Military history newcomer of the year 2012

As we find ourselves fast approaching the end of the year, it is time for us to pause to nominate the editors who we believe have made a real difference to the project. This year, in addition to the annual "Military Historian of the Year" award, all Milhist editors are invited to nominate a promising newcomer that they feel deserves a nod of appreciation for their hard work over the past 12 months. The award is open to any editor who has become active in military history articles in the last 12 months.

Like the Military Historian of the Year, the nomination process will last until 23:59 (GMT) on 21 December. After that a new thread will be created and a voting period of seven days will commence during which editors will be able to cast their vote for up to three of the nominees. At the end of this period, the top editor will be awarded the Gold Wiki; all other nominees will receive the WikiProject Barnstar.

Editors are asked to keep their nominations to 10 editors or less and nominations should be made in the following format (20 words max).

  • [user name]: [reason] ~~~~

Please nominate editors below this line. Self nominations are frowned upon. Please do not vote until the nominations have been finalised. Thanks, and good luck! Hawkeye7 (talk) 13:39, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Nominations

Nominations have now closed. Please see the voting section below. AustralianRupert (talk) 00:35, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

"landing craft, tank"

Is "landing craft, tank" and "landing craft tank" a real term? I just got blocked on Wiktionary for adding that as an entry. -- 70.24.247.127 (talk) 06:39, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Managed to get unblocked, but as for what Wiktionary accepts as terms, it's very foggy. It seems like adding things there will just end up being deleted and having a block applied. If it appears in a military dictionary, that's not enough to avoid being blocked. -- 70.24.247.127 (talk) 06:47, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
whether Wiktionary accepts it or not, it is a real term. LCT is well known [3]. Per LCM (Landing Craft, Medium) etc etc. Regards, Peacemaker67 (send... over) 11:16, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
My argument that got me unblocked was that it was a well known term. The administrator who blocked/unblocked me took my evidence and said that it looked like it was a barely used term, just barely acceptable. His own search for the term apparently resulted in no acceptable results. It got restored wikt:landing craft, tank, but I don't think I'll add anything else from a military dictionary to Wiktionary, unless it's an abbreviation. Getting a 2-week block for adding a military term sucks. -- 70.24.247.127 (talk) 22:11, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
Argh, Wiktionary is frustrating, now a different administrator has said that it should be wikt:landing craft tank (the opposite of the last adminsitrator) -- 70.24.247.127 (talk) 08:23, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Malcolm Gladwell talks in Outliers about how hierarchical cultures inhibit communication, sometimes with disastrous results. (He talks for instance about a Colombian passenger jet that crashed because the co-pilot felt uncomfortable telling his superiors that the plane was out of fuel.) The same top-down, don't-give-me-any-backtalk culture that sometimes produces bone-headed battle plans also sometimes produces semi-literate English, and it doesn't get corrected because people don't feel comfortable reminding their superiors of basic English grammar ... for instance, that everyone will think a "landing craft tank" will be a kind of tank, just as everyone knows that a "film theatre" is a kind of theatre and not a kind of film. How to deal with "exceptional" English is a very hard problem when you're writing for a military readership, but it's dead simple on Wikipedia, which is written for a wide readership: keep the proper nouns if they're established proper nouns, but avoid stupid grammar. The usual solution to this particular problem, even for a military readership, is to stick with the acronym, LCT ... but we have to define the acronym at least once on Wikipedia, so go with "landing craft for tanks (LCT)" at first occurrence, and stick with "LCT" after that. - Dank (push to talk) 13:52, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Btw, sorry about your Wiktionary problem ... I can't speak to that, different culture over there. - Dank (push to talk) 14:02, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
Just out of interest, what was called a "proprietorial attitude" also played a part in the worst airline disaster to date. Britmax (talk) 15:46, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
Several of the smaller Wikimedia projects have a reputation for problems which spring from their limited pool of regular personnel and unclear inclusion/exclusion criteria. This appears to be an example of that. Nick-D (talk) 04:50, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
Should we set up a WikiProject at Wiktionary for military terminology? (I note that several WikiPoject children have appeared at WikiCommons) -- 70.24.247.127 (talk) 07:57, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
It might be time to set up a subproject at Wikidata, I'll investigate. - Dank (push to talk) 19:33, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Category:Military history articles with incomplete B-Class checklists

This category has a serious backlog of articles needing a completed checklist. Since over 20,000 articles is a bit much for a single editor to go through, it might be better for some kind of "special project" similar to the Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/March 2011 backlog reduction drive. 198.252.15.202 (talk) 21:39, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

I'll be happy to participate. Inkbug (talk) 10:11, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
There has been some discussion of this already here [[4]]. There is an issue around the proposed introduction of a B6 criteria that is preliminary to a drive getting off the ground. But feel free to nominate yourselves there, the more the merrier. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 10:15, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Portal:European military history was nominated for featured portal status back in mid-November, but has received few reviews. The nomination is at Wikipedia:Featured portal candidates/Portal:European military history. Nick-D (talk) 10:28, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Battle of Jutland, image

I've started work on an SVG version of File:Jutland1916.jpg (these things take time). I just wanted to know, since the image has three sequentially more zoomed-in panels, whether it would be preferable to have three separate images, three, the same as now, or whether there is demand for both (not much extra work).

Also I'm planning to drop the grid references, which I think are arbitrary, unless there's a reason to keep them? Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 13:48, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

I'd suggest both; that way it's a relatively future proof design (the size of image you necessarily want in a an article in a few years time will vary according to the future size of handheld devices etc.) Hchc2009 (talk) 14:06, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

US military units categories

I ran across this category: Category:United States militia in the American Revolution and was wondering if the categories needed renaming. Most of the categories are simply titled (state) militia, while others are (state) militia in the ARW. Wild Wolf (talk) 18:27, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Since no one has an opinion on the matter, I guess you can do whatever you think best. 64.6.124.31 (talk) 17:05, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Imperial German invasion of the United States

I am wondering what should be the name of the article which is currently in place at Operational Plan Three, referring to the German language military study called Operationsplan III of 1903. I think the article should also be about the precursor plans I and II, from 1898 and 1899 respectively. I think some expansion is in order. After expansion, should the article be moved to a new name or is the current name the best one?

Also, the article is orphaned. Once the name is settled, it should be mentioned here and there in appropriate articles. For instance, it can be mentioned in the following biographies: Kaiser Wilhelm II, Alfred von Tirpitz, Alfred von Schlieffen, Eberhard von Mantey, Hubert von Rebeur-Paschwitz, Wilhelm Büchsel, and Charles J. Train. Those redlinked men were closely linked to this set of plans but their later careers were greater. German Wikipedia has articles on them. Binksternet (talk) 23:29, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

I think Imperial German plans for the invasion of the United States, and it should cover all three OpsPlans, not just the third one, especially since the third is an iteration on the second. -- 70.24.247.127 (talk) 05:28, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
Good point. Binksternet (talk) 15:24, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

It should be handled the same way as Operation Sea Lion. --Bomzibar (talk) 09:21, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Okay, I moved it to Imperial German plans for the invasion of the United States as suggested. The article can still use a Legacy section discussing its very poor chance of success, and discussing the historiography of the plans, being hidden for nearly a century then found in Freiburg's archives, and finally how the world reacted to learning of the plans. Binksternet (talk) 22:19, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

AfC request? Perhaps someone here can take a look

Hi there. It'd be great if someone from this project could take a look at Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Eric Anthony Gondek. Upon first read, he doesn't meet notability for winning a bronze medal, and of course it's lacking sources. It'd be great if someone from here could take a look though - I have a hard time judging based on notability (i.e. "playing a significant role" in a major military event..). Thanks so much! (Should only take a project member about 2 minutes :) ) SarahStierch (talk) 18:50, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

The only source it gives doesn't resolve (I'm getting error messages from the page). Seems a brave marine, but a quick search isn't showing him to be necessarily notable. Hchc2009 (talk) 19:07, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Need some opinions/help

I am in a conversation on the Battle of Jamrud, where another editor is taking certain conditions(ie. "...the immediate military objective of the Afghans was to retake Jamrud fort. They failed to retake it.") as reasoning to place Sikh victory(as opposed to Afghan victory or stalemate/indecisive) in the result part of the template. Is this customary in the military history section of wikipedia??

My other question is, doesn't the template result have to be supported by a reference stating Sikh victory, Afghan victory or Indecisive and not simply an editor's formulated opinion as to objectives gained/lost?

Each "result"; Sikh victory, Afghan victory and Indecisive are supported by university source(s). I am for listing each result in the templage with corresponding sources.

Thoughts? --Kansas Bear (talk) 20:24, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Why not a compromise based on the text? As in: "Result: Defined western boundary of Sikh Empire." Boneyard90 (talk) 20:37, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
That is a possibility, or another option might be list something generic in the infobox. For instance "result=See Aftermath" (or whatever section in the prose is being used to discuss the results). You could then use a number of paragraphs in that section to discuss the varied scholarly interpretations of the result, adding equal weight to all reliable sources. Another option might be "result=Disputed" and then, as above, discuss all the varied interpretations in the prose. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 02:13, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
In an ideal world the infobox entry would be obvious based on the outcome/aftermath section, which itself should be summarised in the lede. But reliable sources do not always state the outcome simply and a lot of editor time can be taken up in trying to work out the a suitable statement. Omitting it from the infobox does not necessarily detract from the article.GraemeLeggett (talk) 07:19, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
I agree with AR and Graeme. For an example and the syntax have a look at Operation Trio. Regards, Peacemaker67 (send... over) 07:54, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Potential copyvio problems at No. 204 Squadron RAF

A large chunk of this article appears to have been a close paraphrase of [5]. Comments on the talkpage and help clearing up the page would be appreciated.Nigel Ish (talk) 20:09, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Looking for book reviews for the December edition of the Bugle

If anyone is interested in providing a book review for the upcoming edition of the Bugle, please post it at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/News/December 2012/Book reviews. I'll be reviewing a book, but more reviews would be great :) Reviews can be of any military-related book (non-fiction or fiction) and can be of any length or style. Nick-D (talk) 10:12, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Is there any kind of time restriction for this (only books within the last X number of years)? Wild Wolf (talk) 19:28, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
I hope Nick will forgive me for replying on his part, but my understanding is that there is no restriction. I recently reviewed a book that had been published in 1986. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 02:53, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
Sorry, I missed you post Wild Wolf. As AustralianRupert notes, the books reviewed don't have to be at all recent - I can close to reviewing an almost 60 year old book earlier in the year :) Nick-D (talk) 04:16, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I will get started on book reviews for the next issue. Wild Wolf (talk) 20:56, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Question re Fort Yellowstone article

Please advise on this question at: Talk:Fort Yellowstone#How much history to include? Thanks -- Mike Cline (talk) 19:18, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

I've left a note on the page, suggesting a few recent Featured Articles on fortified locations that might be used as models. Hchc2009 (talk) 09:31, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Infobox resistance group

Hello,

I've been doing some work on Belgian resistance groups in WWII and it seems to me that all the articles on the subject of resistance cells around Europe during the war deserve an infobox of their own. "Infobox:Military Unit" has not only the wrong name, but it also lacks some of the fields which would be required for a resistance group which are not on list, here are a couple off-hand:

  • Region(s)of operation (few groups operated nation-wide)
  • Estimated size (i.e. number)
  • Nationality [of members]
  • Countries supported by
  • Founder(s)
  • Language(s) spoken (important to divide Flemish and French speaking resistance groups in Belgium, as well as in the Balkans)
  • Political affiliation (Communist, loyal to Government in Exile etc)
  • Types of operation (sabotage, passive resistance, hiding pilots etc.)
  • Dates of Operation
  • Newspaper(s) published
  • Why it was disbanded (was it disbanded after the end of the war, or found by the Germans?)

I don't know how to make one myself, and it is certainly possible I don't have the needed privileges or expertise, but if anyone would fancy the challenge, it would certainly be a worthwhile contribution! --Brigade Piron (talk) 17:50, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

The infobox is only a summary of information and several of the above "parameters" could be omitted (newspapers) or accomodated within existing parameters (eg "active" could have the reason for dismbandment following the last date. but there is a "disbandment" field to take notes "part of" could be the affiliation, there is a "type" field that could be used as well.

|commander1= |commander1_label= |commander2= |commander2_label= |commander3= |commander3_label= |commander4= |commander4_label= |notable_commanders= |identification_symbol= |identification_symbol_label= |identification_symbol_2= |identification_symbol_2_label= |identification_symbol_3= |identification_symbol_3_label= |identification_symbol_4= |identification_symbol_4_label= }}-->

I see your point, however I'd say that some fields like newspapers are the ones that really differentiate resistance groups - which were self-contained political as well as economic units. It's that sort of summary information which should, I believe, be incorporated into an "infobox summary".Brigade Piron (talk) 22:11, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
Interesting idea. Of course there were a number of resistance movements in the Balkans, some of whom did little resisting and a lot of collaborating, but I fear there would then be edit-wars over whether the resistance group infobox was justified. Applying it to Chetniks for example would create a Category Five POV-cyclone... So using "infobox military unit" is probably more neutral. In the Balkans articles we are always having problems with infoboxes, particularly "infobox former country" which is currently doing my head in over at Hungarian occupation of Bačka and Baranja. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 23:23, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
As an alternative to {{Infobox military unit}}, you might consider using {{Infobox war faction}}, which was designed with something closer to this scenario in mind; it may be particularly useful for the larger resistance groups (or groupings of resistance groups, if such a thing existed in this context).
More generally, if there are specific fields that would be useful additions to either of the infobox templates, it's not a problem to add them; certainly, adding fields to an existing infobox is much simpler than creating an entirely new one, and avoids the thorny issues of which infobox to use that Peacemaker67 alludes to above. Kirill [talk] 00:06, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
I think that Kirill has hit the nail on the head. That's much closer to what I was looking for. Thanks! --Brigade Piron (talk) 10:58, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Tet Offensive

Tet Offensive, an article that your project may be interested in, has been nominated for a community good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status will be removed from the article. AIRcorn (talk) 07:17, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of GW Panther

I've prodded GW Panther due to lack of sources to give sufficient notability for an independent article. The sentence has lain there unreferenced and tagged with notability concern for 6 months, so I thought it worth prodding. GraemeLeggett (talk) 09:14, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Not the original article creator, but I've given it a quick rewrite based on Russian sources; how does it fare now? -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 09:34, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
Well now that you've added to it, I recognise that there's an existing article on the Flakpanzer Coelian. But at what point are these largely-unrealised projects better handled as a separate article than a subsection of the parent chassis. Is there room for expansion. By comparison the self-propelled AA gun based on Crusader tank [covered by the variant section of the article] and several of those were made and entered service (briefly) GraemeLeggett (talk) 09:49, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
Didn't notice that article; I'd have gone ahead with merging but realised that there's very little to add, so I've just redirected it to Flakpanzer Coelian. I'm just wondering why the Russian Wikipedia has two articles on the same thing for all this time (ru:GW-Panther and ru:Flakpanzer V both document the same thing). As for these developmental projects that never came to mass production, I'm not sure what the criteria for notability would be. I think as long as it's well documented, and isn't too interrelated with an existing design, it should be fine, but I'm open to what others have to say as well. In our case here, it would make sense to make it a subsection at Panther tank. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 09:56, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
Agree, sub-section at Panther tank. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 10:05, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Operation Entebbe

Operation Entebbe, an article that your project may be interested in, has been nominated for an individual good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status will be removed from the article. AIRcorn (talk) 14:34, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Troop engagements of the American Civil War, 1865

When I tried to nominate this and similar articles to A List class a couple months ago, one of the suggestions was to reformat the articles from lists to tables. I did so for the above article and I am looking for feedback about how this looks. Wild Wolf (talk) 20:54, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Voting for military historian of the year for 2012 now open!

Military historian of the year 2012

Nominations for this year's "Military Historian of the Year" award have now closed, and it is time to vote for who you think deserves this honour. As with the awards for previous years, the second and third placed editors and all the runners up will also be acknowledged.

The nominees for this award and the statements given in support of these nominations are provided below. Voting can be done by adding a hash sign (#) followed by the four tildes (~~~~)

All editors are welcome to vote, but are asked to keep their votes to a total of three candidates. The winner will be the editor who receives the most 'support' votes by the time voting closes at 23:59 (GMT) on 28 December 2012.

Good luck to all the nominees! For the coordinators, AustralianRupert (talk) 00:35, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Candidates and voting

Voting has now closed. Results will be tallied shortly and published in the latest edition of The Bugle. Thank you to all who participated. AustralianRupert (talk) 03:43, 29 December 2012 (UTC))

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

  1. Support: has been a big part of keeping Milhist's ACR vibrant and has done great work on the Battle of Long Tan article. AustralianRupert (talk) 21:41, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
  2. Support Peacemaker67 (send... over) 00:53, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
  3. Support Nick-D (talk) 06:06, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
  4. Per nom. - Dank (push to talk) 17:32, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
  1. Support Cuprum17 (talk) 16:59, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
  2. Support Hamish59 (talk) 21:17, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
  1. Support Anotherclown (talk) 02:15, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
  2. Support -- so many names worth voting for, but Cliftonian's lively prose, on top of his solid referencing and under-represented subject matter, I think puts him in the top rank of MilHisters. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 11:19, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
  1. Support -- definitely an under-covered area of Wikipedia getting great coverage thanks to this user. —Ed!(talk) 19:24, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
  2. Support - some great articles. Hchc2009 (talk) 08:07, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
  1. Support—MisterBee1966 (talk) 15:18, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
  2. Support His dedication is truly remarkable. —Ed!(talk) 19:24, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
  3. Support Constantine ✍ 22:05, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
  4. Support Peacemaker67 (send... over) 00:53, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
  5. Support Gavbadger (talk) 01:12, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
  6. Support — Crisco 1492 (talk) 04:05, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
  7. Support Zawed (talk) 09:25, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
  8. Support Nikkimaria (talk) 14:42, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
  9. Support —Simon Harley (Talk | Library). 19:41, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
  1. Support Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 02:39, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
  2. Support Hchc2009 (talk) 08:07, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
  1. Support Cuprum17 (talk) 16:59, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
  2. Support His work on MacArthur and the Manhattan project are some of MILHIST's best accomplishments on the year, I think. —Ed!(talk) 19:24, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
  3. Support: has authored a very broad range of high quality articles this year. AustralianRupert (talk) 21:41, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
  4. Support Constantine ✍ 22:05, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
  5. Support Gavbadger (talk) 01:12, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
  6. Support Anotherclown (talk) 02:15, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
  7. Support — Crisco 1492 (talk) 02:44, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
  8. Support I'd also note Hawkeye's huge contributions as a coordinator - I suspect he's closed more ACRs than the rest of us put together! Nick-D (talk) 06:06, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
  9. Support -- prodigious work rate and fearless when it comes to subjects, plus he dragged me along for the ride to my first Good topic -- what's not to like? Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 11:19, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
  10. Support How can I not vote for the chap who surpassed me in ACMs? Ed and Ian hit it right on. Parsecboy (talk) 14:56, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
  11. Per all of the above. - Dank (push to talk) 17:32, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
  1. Support—MisterBee1966 (talk) 15:18, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
  2. Support Gavbadger (talk) 01:12, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
  3. Support Nick-D (talk) 06:06, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
  4. Support Nikkimaria (talk) 14:42, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
  5. Support Ian's work has always been of the highest caliber, and his work in administrative areas of the project (and at FAC) are certainly commendable. Parsecboy (talk) 14:56, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
  1. Support Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 02:39, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
  2. Support Keith's work on these important WWI articles is very impressive (especially with the centenary rapidly approaching!). Parsecboy (talk) 14:56, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
  1. Support Jim Sweeney (talk) 20:19, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
  2. Support Constantine ✍ 22:05, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
  3. Support Peacemaker67 (send... over) 00:53, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
  4. Support — Crisco 1492 (talk) 04:05, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
  5. Support Zawed (talk) 09:25, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
  6. Support —Cliftonian (talk) 17:25, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
  7. Support -- per Rupert's nom, 'nuff said. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 11:19, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
  1. Support, as per Ian's nomination. Hchc2009 (talk) 08:07, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
  2. Per nom. - Dank (push to talk) 17:32, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
  1. Support—MisterBee1966 (talk) 15:18, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
  2. Support Cuprum17 (talk) 16:59, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
  1. Support: per nom. AustralianRupert (talk) 21:41, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
  2. Support Anotherclown (talk) 02:15, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
  3. Support Zawed (talk) 09:25, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
  1. Support Nikkimaria (talk) 14:42, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
  1. Support Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 02:39, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
  2. Support Ma®©usBritish{chat} 02:52, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Comments and discussion

I can't recall from last year (and perhaps missed it in an earlier discussion above), but are we voting with a simple approval system like the coord elections, or should we vote for only one candidate? Parsecboy (talk) 00:40, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

G'day, Parsecboy, editors are asked to limit their votes this year to up to three candidates only. I had tried to articulate this in the instructions above, but I fear I may not have made it clear enough. Do you think it needs to be reworded? The discussion about this was on the co-ord talk page here. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 01:43, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
Oh, I guess I'm just daft. Parsecboy (talk) 15:18, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
Having worked with you, I know that's not true. ;-) Anyway have a good one. Cheers, AustralianRupert (talk) 21:41, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Voting for military history newcomer of the year for 2012 now open!

Military history newcomer of the year 2012

`

Nominations for this year's Military History Newcomer of the Year award have now closed, and it is time to vote for who you think deserves this honour.

The nominees for this award and the statements given in support of these nominations are provided below. Voting can be done by adding a hash sign (#) followed by the four tildes (~~~~)

All editors are welcome to vote, but are asked to only vote for only one candidate. The winner will be the editor who receives the most 'support' votes by the time voting closes at 23:59 (GMT) on 28 December 2012. The top editor will be awarded the Gold Wiki; all other nominees will receive the WikiProject Barnstar.

Good luck to all the nominees! For the coordinators, AustralianRupert (talk) 00:35, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Candidates and voting

Voting has now closed. Results will be tallied shortly and published in the latest edition of The Bugle. Thank you to all who participated. AustralianRupert (talk) 03:43, 29 December 2012 (UTC))

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

  1. Support Ma®©usBritish{chat} 02:53, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
  2. Support Great to see new(er) people joining the project and working on the subjects less travelled. I note that despite the fact that he's only recently joined the project, he has been editing MILHIST articles since he began editing. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 08:13, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
  1. I've seen a lot of his excellent work. —Ed!(talk) 19:21, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
  2. All of the candidates have strong claims to the award. AustralianRupert (talk) 21:41, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
  3. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 17:30, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
  4. Support Nick-D (talk) 06:07, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
  5. Support Nikkimaria (talk) 14:43, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
  6. Support. Good reviewer, great writer focusing on under-represented subjects, and a nice guy as well! HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 17:11, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
  1. Support—MisterBee1966 (talk) 15:19, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
  2. Support Jim Sweeney (talk) 20:20, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
  3. All these guys stand out, but Peacemaker does a good job in an exceptionally difficult area, Balkans military history. - Dank (push to talk) 16:04, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
  4. What Dank said; tireless work in a very tiring area. bobrayner (talk) 17:09, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
  5. Support Hamish59 (talk) 21:16, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
  6. Great work, which counters systemic bias and provides a reliable coverage on Yugoslavian topics? Count me in... Constantine ✍ 22:10, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
  7. Support — Crisco 1492 (talk) 04:06, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
  8. Support Hchc2009 (talk) 08:08, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
  9. Support per Dank and Constantine. —Cliftonian (talk) 17:36, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
  10. Support Gavbadger (talk) 20:36, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
  11. All of these editors have done great work over the past year, but Peacemaker really stands out to me, for the reasons highlighted above. Balkans military history (especially in the 20th century) is an exceedingly difficult area to work in, which makes his work all the more impressive. Parsecboy (talk) 15:04, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
  12. Support Arius1998 (talk) 15:50, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Zawed: began editing in 2010 but really came to the fore in the last year or so with a great many solid B-Class articles that focused on the somewhat neglected field of New Zealand military history, especially biography. Ian Rose (talk) 01:11, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
  1. Support Some excellent contributions this year. Anotherclown (talk) 02:12, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
  2. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 02:39, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
  3. Support -- could happily vote for all of the above but will stick with my nom, particularly as a fellow biographer... ;-) Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 10:54, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Comments and discussion

Battle of Jutland, image (2)

I've uploaded a draft version of the file File:Jutland1916.jpg here. It's not at native resolution, but I thought as a late Christmas present some editors would like a sneak-peek :) I'd also like any feedback - I've corrected a couple of typographical errors/odd translations and there may be more. There are some things which might look slightly odder at this resolution than at native, but feel free to chuck things at me. I'm looking to upload it in the new year. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 22:00, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

That's looking good. I'd suggest zooming in though - there's no need to include anything south of the Netherlands given that the ship movements were confined to the North Sea. Nick-D (talk) 07:30, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
Without an inset locator map the risk is that we lose what we're looking at. I'll consider a somewhat tighter crop going forward though, I think we can lose a bit off the sides. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 23:16, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
Agree - a nice bit of work. Hchc2009 (talk) 10:42, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Egyptian Expeditionary Force

This article seems to be a colection of orders of battle. Should it be renamed to something like "Egyptian Expeditionary Force order of battle"? Wild Wolf (talk) 20:39, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

I think it's a case that the main author of the article hasn't got round to writing the prose to fill in the gaps. However there would have to be a lot of history of the EFF to dilute the orders of battle down to a proportionate size relative to the rest of the article. It would make good sense to spin off - rather than rename- the list of orders of battle off under Egyptian Expeditionary Force order of battle. GraemeLeggett (talk) 21:02, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
Agree with Graeme. No doubt the order of battle is substantial and will dominate even an article that is filled out. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 21:20, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
Where are the guidelines which explain the subject of your discussion? --Rskp (talk) 04:55, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Template question

It would be good to see what members of this project feel about the questions raised at: Template talk:Infobox military person#Spouse. Thank you. --My76Strat (talk) 07:55, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

American Revolution

(Retitled)

Keepin it real

I have a small handful of articles just over stub size. Dealing with the American Revolution Colonels and Generals, BUT they are in need of some serious polishing. REF tags I just dont have the hang of. but anyway I'm not looking for an award here I just need help making them presentable articles Kiliaen van Rensselaer (colonel) The articles for his sons and nephews that fought also are sorta rough also. JGVR (talk) 11:46, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

I'll gladly have a look at what you have, is there a link to the drafts? I gather Kiliaen van Rensselaer (colonel) is one you are referring to? --My76Strat (talk) 12:01, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
Above, it does look like we're all about awards ... but it's just for fun, and they work (at least, for me :). - Dank (push to talk) 17:58, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
(added link for Albany militia)JGVR (talk) 01:29, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Thank you to all who responded

I am very thankful for the fast response. I know I didn't leave a message to all that helped, I sorta have mixed feelings about that happening. I left my message and left thinking it might be a day or so which would have satisfied me, but as I kept refreshing the watchlist - well it was more than I expected in such a short time it was more than I could keep up with. So I felt I should come back and leave a note to those I missed. As this was happening an admin swept through and removed the "Battle of Fort Anne" cat-tags, on ONE he did say cats should not be on drafts in the notation but THAT one was in my sandbox...so I wont gripe about that. The others I do wonder about. Are the articles still technically "drafts":

The above names I think would qualify as a project I think is well worth working on due to how rare it seems to have so many family members documented to be involved in one single conflict as a theme. I admit I am not great copy-editing, so I welcome any input that would help make any of these articles more informative, engaging and interesting. Research material on some of these guys seems a bit scant, which makes a project that much more challenging.

My main concern is I do not want to credit any of these subjects to any particular battle without getting input beforehand, from those who really know much more about the topic.

Jerry JGVR (talk) 23:28, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

AS a funny aside it appears 6 of the 5 mentioned in Schuyler's book are accounted for (unless I am overlooking something )
o)~

JGVR (talk) 23:32, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

It looks like there are times I mis-cap officer titles... someone please set me straight...JGVR (talk) 23:44, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
  1. ^ Hamilton, Lewis H. and Darroch, William (1916). A standard history of Jasper and Newton counties, Indiana, Vol. 1, p. 137. Lewis Publishing Company
  2. ^ Spooner, Walter Whipple (January 1907). "The Van Rensselaer Family", American Historical Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 1, p. 207.

Forgotten add on

in desperate need of help on Van Rensselaer's Regiment

Can anyone help on the Prince's Palace of Monaco...?

Although passed as a FA back in 2008, it's now looking a bit saggy around the edges. I've raised a query at here, but lack the relevant source material myself... Don't know if any of you can help? Hchc2009 (talk) 20:04, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Notification of nomination for deletion of Decade of Darkness

This is to inform the members of this Wikiproject, within the scope of which this article falls, that this article has been nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Decade of Darkness. - Ahunt (talk) 00:33, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Polish-Swedish wars article pointless?

Just been reading the Polish-Swedish wars article, and wondered if anyone with more experience than myself would care to take a look at whether this article should be deleted. Personally I don't see the point of it. It seems to be a long list of synopses of (often unconnected) wars that are dealt with by other articles (i.e. every section has a main tag). It is written in pretty poor English, seems somewhat POV (IMHO), and is only half finished yet hasn't been worked on since mid 2008. Cheers.1812ahill (talk) 13:45, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

I think the page, re-titled "Polish-Swedish war," would make a good disambiguation page.--Jim in Georgia Contribs Talk 15:32, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
Hadn't thought of that. Great idea!1812ahill (talk) 17:47, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
I'm not so sure. I think that the history of the wars between Poland and Sweden could be a feasible article. Not one that would be high up the preference lists, granted, but {the military history of Sweden} and {the military history of Poland} are each big enough to possibly justify the page. The lead would have to be more prose, however. Something a bit like French Revolutionary Wars. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 19:31, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
In that case, would it be feasible/desirable to set up a disambiguation page for 'Polish-Swedish war' whilst leaving the 'Polish-Swedish wars' page unchanged? (I note the former redirects to the latter at the moment). I'd be willing to do the work, if only for the selfish reason of exploring the mechanics of disambiguation pages :o).1812ahill (talk) 01:42, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
That could. The problem here is that my solution would work better if the article was more complete and better written. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 17:33, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
OK, will leave it as it currently stands.1812ahill (talk) 13:19, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Yeomen Warders

I hate to be a pain, but anyone want to tackle this? For something with deep roots going right back to the Tudor period, it's rather amazing that the article acts as if nothing of note happened between its founding and 2007, outside of Etymology and a well-known Gilbert and Sullivan opera. Adam Cuerden (talk) 10:55, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

It does need a bit of work... And the opera wasn't even one of their better ones... Hchc2009 (talk) 16:15, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
Hey, I like that opera! =P - But this is off-topic. Seriously, though, I think I have a couple sources I can use, which'll make a start, but they're all to do with the Victorian era, so, while it's a start... Adam Cuerden (talk) 08:37, 25 December 2012 (UTC)
I know a source with some info on the unit under the Tudors, including numbers and roles, which could provide a para. I'll try to drop it in over the hols. Monstrelet (talk) 12:37, 25 December 2012 (UTC)
Will have a look and see what I've got as well - in between listening to HMS Pinafore...:) Hchc2009 (talk) 12:40, 25 December 2012 (UTC)
The article now has a history section and some stuff on the Tudors. Over to you guys Monstrelet (talk) 09:32, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
The 1911 Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica has a heart-warming account of how they lost their right to wear royal livery when the Tower of London ceased to be a royal residence, but got it back c1553 because of their considerate behavior to a briefly incarcerated lord protector. Unfortunately their history since then seems to have a been a peaceful and uneventful one.Buistr (talk) 00:31, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
The Warders would probably consider that fortunate :) I can think of a couple of incidents they may have been involved in - Colonel Blood and the theft of the Crown Jewels perhaps, and they may have had a role in WWII, when the Tower was at risk from bombing and, IIRC, spies were held there. Anyone able to confirm or deny these roles?Monstrelet (talk) 08:47, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
Continued to follow up one or two interesting facts about the Yeoman Warders and found this http://yeomenoftheguard.com/towerwarders.htm Not sure if it can be referenced as a source but includes large chunks of quotes from historical documents on the history of the yeomen warders esp. 17th-19th centuries. Will certainly fill some gaps in research. Hope it's useful. I've linked it on site. Monstrelet (talk) 15:34, 30 December 2012 (UTC)
It looks interesting; I'm wondering about emailing the author and seeing if he can recommend any other sources...? Hchc2009 (talk) 16:51, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Create children wikiprojects at WP:SISTER sites?

There's been a suggestion, of mine, and of user:Dank, to create child wikiprojects at the sister sites. I'd like to see if we have any support for this, from the community here:

Examples of sistered WikiProjects are such like commons:Commons:WikiProject Aviation the sister of WP:WikiProject Aviation

-- 70.24.248.246 (talk) 09:58, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Wikidata and Individual Engagement Grants are both coming fast, with a lot of opportunities to help us or hurt us, I think. (IEG isn't a sister project, but since there's a lot of money on the table, and since "community endorsements" are a big part of this effort, I think this is going to pull the larger community in, for better or worse, in a way that previous grant-making initiatives haven't.) Is there anything anybody definitely does or doesn't want to see from these projects, especially as it might affect Milhist? (I've got some ideas, but it would be nice to get everything out on the table before we pick a plan and go with it.) - Dank (push to talk) 19:05, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
I think this is generally a good idea but you might receive some pushback from some of the sister projects. Some don't want projects (like Simple English Wikipedia) or the drama and article ownership that frequently comes with them. Not to say this project does that but its a general feeling as I have worked on some of these other areas. I think building a common project page somewhere (maybe in Wikimedia or commons) that helps this project support articles and content on the sister wiki's that relate to this project is a good idea. Take it from me though. Tread slowly and carefully or you may find yourself in a hornets nest as I did with WikiProject United States. Another possibility is to build a Facebook project page where you could post info about the project, articles in it, etc. to a much wider audience. Kumioko (talk) 20:04, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
Good to know. But if a sister project is going to directly affect the English Wikipedia ... for instance, if some of our infoboxes are going to have content that is determined by Wikidata editors (many of whom won't speak English and most of whom won't have access to any of the article's sources) ... then I think we're entitled to have a wikiproject, or task forces within existing wikiprojects, right here on Wikipedia to get consensus on what we do and don't want to see coming in from Wikidata. - Dank (push to talk) 20:36, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
I think it'd be better if the sister sites had a place on one of the sites to go to, if they want to discuss about some of the activities then, instead of making everyone register on Facebook (and not everyone is an FB user, especially in some regions of the world) -- 70.24.248.246 (talk) 20:45, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
I also think FB is blocked in some jurisdictions that allow WikiMedia sites. -- 70.24.248.246 (talk) 01:24, 30 December 2012 (UTC)
As for things I would like to see: It would be good to get some grant money to continue to get people in the Archives, Library of Congress, Smithsonian and possibly even things like the Naval Historical Society and Army Center for Military History to work with the pedia to add content, do research, etc. It would be good if we could work with these agencies to do things like Qcode certain items (Such as things in the Air and Space museum) to the Wikipedia article in the language of the person looking at the display. Kumioko (talk) 20:08, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

New task force needed for central Europe

I noticed that there is no task force to cover Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Austria, and Hungary. 64.6.124.31 (talk) 18:29, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Also nothing relevant for Mongolia. Possibly because there are not enough articles to warrant relevant task forces, or not enough interest. Boneyard90 (talk) 18:34, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
Benelux countries too. But see this thread [6] for recent discussion of the task force situation. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 23:37, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
Regional taskforces for all the major regions of the world would be a good idea. (So in this case, it would be TFEurope, and there'd also be TFMediterranean, TFEastAsian, TFCentralAsian, TFMesoAmerican, TFAndean, TFCaribbean, TFNorthernAmerican (preUSA+preCANADA+Greenland), TFAmazonianGuianaShield, TFPampasAltiplano, TFNorthAsian. -- 70.24.248.246 (talk) 07:26, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
While in no means opposed to new task forces, I see little point in establishing them before we are clear what they are going to achieve. Because task forces are not our reader categorisation scheme but are meant to help editors work in certain subject areas, we don't need total coverage, just coverage in areas where we can establish collaboration to improve the project and by extension the encyclopedia. Or am I misunderstanding something? Monstrelet (talk) 10:40, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
Creating "task forces" by rote, to cover every country systematically, is missing the point. A task force is just a group of people working together to improve content. Maybe there are already editors working on those areas, singly or collaboratively; or maybe not. There are people already editing within preferred topics which cut across national boundaries. Simply declaring several task forces by fiat won't make these groups of people appear and start cooperating on specific countries. bobrayner (talk) 11:06, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
I've raised this point repeatedly, but it always falls on 'deaf' ears for lack of a better term. In my mind's eye it would be better at this point for all the nations and regions to be concentrated on blocks and continents rather than individual nations and small regions, yet nothing ever seems to come of such discussions... :/ TomStar81 (Talk) 03:33, 30 December 2012 (UTC)
Sorry Tom, don't think your argument merits a whole lot of work setting up pages which will actually gather metaphorical dust. Agree with Bobrayner and Monstrelet. Buckshot06 (talk) 04:06, 30 December 2012 (UTC)
Oh no, I'm not blaming anyone or trying to accuse ya'll of shying away from doing this, all I wanted to point out was, in a nutshell: Its been suggested, it's been debated, it's hasn't been implemented, and it likely never will be either. The other side of that is that with the task forces more or less dead it doesn't make much sense to start new ones either, which sort of leaves us in a status quo situation with regards to this matter. TomStar81 (Talk) 04:22, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Belgian Army page moved

Hi there, I'm here because the page Belgian Army was moved without any consensus as per WP:CONS. The actual name Belgian Defence is wrong cause following the Canadian reform example, since 2002 the 4 previously independent Belgian Armed Forces were disbanded and merged into a single structure called "Army" under the political administration of the Ministry of Defence, so the word "Army" should not be confused as synonym for the "Land component", this one is not the "Army" but part of it, along with the other 3 components! I think the previous name must be restored for the reasons above. Bye. --Nicola Romani (talk) 09:19, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes the sudden shifting of the page did produce a confusing maze of redirections between "Belgian Army", "Belgian Defence" and "Belgian Land Component" articles and you were right to revert it, at least until there is talk page discussion and consensus. There is duplication of historical and other material here and a sensible longer term rationalization might be to regroup it into separate "Belgian Military History" (1830 to 2001) and "Modern Belgian Army (Land, Sea and Air Components)" articles. Buistr (talk) 10:06, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
Not a bad idea! Could be a valid option ;) --Nicola Romani (talk) 11:09, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
It seems that we have the same problem with the Swiss Army, wich is organised in 2 components like the Belgian one, and now the page is named Military of Switzerland. --Nicola Romani (talk) 10:11, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
I objected strongly to the move from 'Belgian Armed Forces' to 'Army'. 'L'armee' in French is *not* = English 'Army', but actually means 'Armed Forces'. By all means, we can reflect the current name of the land force as 'Land Component', though given given WP:COMMONNAME and WP:UE it might be better at 'Army', but the entire armed forces page should definitely not be 'Belgian Army' - this is a mistranslation 'L'armee belge' from French to English, breaches WP:COMMONNAME and WP:UE for English-speakers who are not aware that the whole armed forces in French are 'L'armee belge', and simply doesn't describe the subject properly in English. Should be at 'Belgian Armed Forces' or 'Military of Belgium' or something that doesn't imply in categories and links etc that it's only about land forces, not the armed forces as a whole.
Simply, it's NOT 'Army' in English; the French literal translation comes across as 'Armed Forces', and thus it should be translated properly. Buckshot06 (talk) 23:15, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
Even if the translation was Army, naming the Belgian military (or armed forces) "Belgian Army" is confusing and counter to normal English terminology, i.e. WP:COMMONNAME. -Fnlayson (talk) 00:00, 30 December 2012 (UTC)
It doesn't seem to cause confusion with the People's Liberation Army. Couldn't a skillful use of hatnotes or redirects eliminate confusion? That being said, I think of army when I see armee (isn't there an accent missing on the first e?), so I'm Neutral on this issue. --Lineagegeek (talk) 01:05, 30 December 2012 (UTC)
In a word, no. This is because the title isn't just visible in the article, but in categories as well. People trying to navigate through categories will, naturally, assume we're talking about land forces when they see an article labelled 'Belgian Army.' On the face of it, the PLA example seems roughly the same, but the worldwide understanding of the PLA as the whole PRC armed forces, and the addition of the 'People's Liberation' prefix avoids the issue. Again, we need this article renamed to a more understandable title, one that implies, in normal English, 'armed forces' or 'military', and not a single service. Buckshot06 (talk) 04:03, 30 December 2012 (UTC)
Army=Armée [7]; [8]; the Belgian Army is now like the People's Liberation Army or the Yugoslav People's Army etc. wich are/were the name of the common armed forces at the top level, not just a "Land Army" (french: Armée de terre), and not "arm" like the British "Fleet Air Arm" (even the word "arm" could make some confusion). The sense of the Belgian reorganization was just to build an "Army" (a single armed force) like the ones cited above, with 4 different components or branches, exactly like : Yugoslav Ground Forces, Yugoslav Navy, Yugoslav Air Force, People's Liberation Army Ground Force, People's Liberation Army Navy, People's Liberation Army Air Force, etc. etc. but Belgians now use the terms "Components" and for these reasons "Army" is correct exactly like for China and Yugoslavia. --Nicola Romani (talk) 10:26, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Contribution by wikipedians knowledgeable about military law, practices and uses would be useful at 2012 Italian shooting talk page.

Hello. Understanding of international military ways and practices, with particular reference to the functional immunity of military personnel on state duty, status of Vessel Protection Detachments (i.e military personnel in charge of civilian vessel protection from pirates) etc. is critical in order to correctly edit/address the 2012 Italian shooting in the Arabian Sea article, which relates to the Enrica Lexie incident.
On relative talk page a handful of editors are debating subjects I am afraid not all of them (and perhaps nobody, myself included) know as much as it would be desirable.
Therefore, review by somebody more knowledgeable than us on such subjects would certainly help a lot.
Thank you in advance.

LNCSRG (talk) 12:06, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

December FAC update

The three Milhist FACs that are waiting for a third support (and poor Bert has been waiting quite a while) are Bert T. Combs, John F. Bolt, and Lady Saigō. There's been a request for some input from anyone with an interest in chemistry over at Hawkeye's James_Bryant_Conant FAC. - Dank (push to talk) 21:58, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Samson Option

This article is apparently receiving a fair amount of attention on Reddit at the moment. Input from other editors on its content (and whether it should remain a standalone article) would be excellent at Talk:Samson Option. Nick-D (talk) 06:17, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Rzhev-Sychevka Offensive Operation

The redirect Rzhev-Sychevka Offensive Operation, which currently points to Operation Büffel, an article supported by this project, has been nominated for deletion. Your comments would be welcome at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2012 December 31#Rzhev-Sychevka Offensive Operation. Thryduulf (talk) 10:57, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

American Revolutionary War source

I've seen a couple of articles on battles of the American Revolutionary War - Battle of Camden, Battle of Guilford Court House - which have footnotes to a source called Sava, Dameron but no full cite is given. Is this likely to be a typo for Savas & Dameron's A Guide to the Battles of the American Revolutionary War? If so, could someone who has a copy, check the reference and add a full cite to the references. Thanks. NtheP (talk) 22:25, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Category:Soviet Anti-Air Defense

Category:Soviet Anti-Air Defense has been proposed to be renamed -- 70.24.248.246 (talk) 22:48, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

John Brian Christopherson

I created the John Brian Christopherson article and I have to few knowledge to put him in the military rank. He served in the Royal Army Medical Corps but if this is real Royal Army I do not know. Thanks for the help! --Stone (talk) 22:41, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the copy editing!--Stone (talk) 23:18, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

GAN order

G'day all, while FAC and A class seem to be consistently in order of nomination, newest to oldest, the GANs are in the reverse order. Is that intentional, or did it just happen? Is it worth using the same order for all three? Happy New Year, BTW. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 23:17, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Do you mean in the navbox at the top ({{WPMILHIST Announcements}}) or somewhere else? -Fnlayson (talk) 23:23, 31 December 2012 (UTC)
In the navbox. Sorry I should have specified. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 23:37, 31 December 2012 (UTC)
Looks like that navbox is being update manually by editors. WP:Aviation has a similar navbox that is updated by a bot via a transcluded Article alerts page. Might be something to look at. -Fnlayson (talk) 23:52, 31 December 2012 (UTC)
I'll add a pointer to this discussion from the coords' talk page. Articles are coming and going so fast from that template that I agree that it's time to automate it, if we can. - Dank (push to talk) 13:12, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
If we can automate it, why haven't we done so already? The PR, FAC and ARC lists are manageable, but the GAN list is almost always (and often greatly) out of date, plus this would remove a rather tiresome burden from the coords. Constantine ✍ 21:43, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

George Hancock leads Pickett's Charge

Check out this rather amusing error at the Library of Congress:

'Print from the painting called Hancock at Gettysbug by Thure de Thulstrup. Shows Major General George Hancock leading the attack popularly known as "Pickett's Charge."'

My best guess is that Major General George Pickett (Confederate), and Major General Winfield Hancock (Union) got combined into one because the title of the painting refers to the defenders. Still, though...

Those who know me may have guessed there's a reason why I was looking at this, so if anyone cares to attempt a better description, it would be appreciated. =) Adam Cuerden (talk) 18:22, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

It would be worth sending them an email about this - Durova (talk · contribs) spotted an error in a LoC photo (after a bit of detective work on her part) and they amended the record after she notified them. Nick-D (talk) 09:48, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
I always notify them. This was about the 5th error I've reported in the last month, due to rather poor luck. =) Adam Cuerden (talk) 14:01, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Category:Fooian military personnel

Hi all, what is the scope of categories of the type "Fooian military personnel"? For example, is Category:German military personnel for military personnel who are German, personnel of a German military, or both? I'm copy editing an article on a Croatian who fought with the 369th (Croatian) Reinforced Infantry Regiment (Wehrmacht), and thus it doesn't seem incorrect to call him German military personnel. But absent a scope note, I'm trying to be cautious and assume the category is for Germans who were part of a German army. Thoughts? --BDD (talk) 03:19, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

I would think that it makes more sense to fill the categories with the personnel who served under the flag of Foo. As for a foreign legion as you linked, was it legally a Croatian unit working for a military ally as Germany, or was it actually a German unit? Remember that a puppet state is still a different state, with its own military, even if in factual terms they do whatever the master state tolds them (a puppet state is a different thing than a plain annexation) Cambalachero (talk) 03:51, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
I think it would be best to take a relatively strict scope. A broader scope would invite lots of problematic editing - think of all the edit-wars and neutrality disputes associated with puppet governments and quislings and colonies &c... categories are especially difficult in those conflicts because they're boolean, membership is either-or, it's not possible to fine-tune a claim, like in the body of an article. bobrayner (talk) 04:20, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
I'm more of Bob's opinion here. I wanted to make sure there wasn't a current practice that I just wasn't aware of. Cambalachero, the unit "was a unit of the German Wehrmacht" according to us, but I'm still not quite comfortable classifying Marko Mesić as German military personnel unless it conforms to general practice. The man in question was part of Yugoslav armies before and after his Wehrmacht service, so I think it's a stretch in this case. --BDD (talk) 05:59, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
I'd agree with Croatian military personnel AND Yugoslav military personnel. He also served in the Red Army as part of the Yugoslav Legion. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 06:12, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
Hmm, looks like the category trees need name tweaking. Clearly many things on Wikipedia are divided by the nationality of the person. But for military personnel, it is quite important as to what country they serve. So we should have two trees, and clearly indicate what's what. Category:Military personnel of Germany Category:German-national military personnel, and ofcourse we do ethnic categorization as well Category:Ethnic-German military personnel, and sometimes by language Category:German-speaking military personnel -- 76.65.128.43 (talk) 04:19, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
Errr...no. We only need country served. It's the only defining characteristic in this sense. - The Bushranger One ping only 04:26, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
Mesic would then be Yugoslav, Croatian and Soviet Union. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 04:44, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Good topic nomination...

Not sure if this fits under any other list, but I've nominated Castles and Town Walls of King Edward in Gwynedd as a Good Topic. Comments/suggestions etc. welcomed. Hchc2009 (talk) 15:20, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

A small query regarding scope

Should people who are verifiable as military veterans, but who aren't notable in any way for their military service (but are, of course, notable for other reasons), be tagged for the project and/or categorised in military personnel categories? (cf. Roz Howard). - The Bushranger One ping only 21:02, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

I'd say no, just to avoid cluttering. In times or countries when conscription is in place, this could lead to some pretty cluttered stuff with no real purpose. Intothatdarkness 21:10, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
I can't think of any names offhand, but I've seen such people categorized as military personnel without being tagged for the WikiProject. This seems reasonable unless their military service was really trivial. --BDD (talk) 21:14, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
(e/c) Maybe add a MilHist project banner on the article's talk page, but probably no on military categories, imo. -Fnlayson (talk) 21:17, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
...interesting mix of opinions there. On the article that spurred the question, I was able to find a smidge more detail on his service, so I catted and tagged it, but on those that are just "X served in Y during Z" I won't. - The Bushranger One ping only 01:19, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

The Western Front- Flanders

Please note unassessed article The Western Front- Flanders, which may be in need of attention. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 01:32, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

It's in need of lots of attention. I'm not quite clear what its purpose is or what the criteria have been or including stuff. It's almost a guide to Flanders during WWI rather than an encyclopedia article.  Roger Davies talk 10:33, 31 December 2012 (UTC)
It's in a bit of a state. The editor concerned is hoping to make this one of a series of articles on WWI, and so might benefit from coaching from one of our WWI experts. There's a talk page discussion going on about the title, btw. Hchc2009 (talk) 10:50, 31 December 2012 (UTC)
This article has a lot of potential, but I agree it does need some cleaning up. Mentions of battles should be kept to one paragraph at most, and should use the lead of the battle, as well as a Main article hat note. Better sources should be found to verify content; presently many large sections of the article are sourced to non-RS sources or entirely un-sourced at all.
That being said, the article should not be so pruned down as it becomes a travel guide for those who want to visit war memorials.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 19:55, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Request for a third-party opinion on Red Tails disagreement

A submission that "Allied fighters abandoned the bombers to chase German fighters" is to be included in the article as part of "historical inaccuracies" has been challenged on the talk page: under the sub-title: "Lies and inaccuracy". FWiW Bzuk (talk) 20:55, 4 January 2013 (UTC).

I've commented there. Ranger Steve Talk 22:31, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Talk:Belgian Army#Requested move

Following the discussion above, it was clear that no answer was likely to be reached (Belgian Army or Belgian Armed Forces). Thus I have opened a requested move discussion on the article talkpage. The problem with the discussion above was lack of input; please come along to the talkpage and give your opinion, yea or nay. Regards to all and Happy New Year !!! Buckshot06 (talk) 21:30, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

More eyes needed

A little tangential to MILHIST per se, but the article on historian Orlando Figes has recently got some attention from some ip editors who are attempting to remove a sourced statement. Given the history of this article, I'd appreciate some extra eyes. Benea (talk) 16:17, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

US 163rd Depot Brigade (WWI)

Could anyone with a knowledge of the US Army in WWI cast an eye over a query about the above formation on the Reference desk/Miscellaneous page please. Many thanks. Alansplodge (talk) 20:14, 6 January 2013 (UTC)


Landis’ Philadelphia Light Artillery Battery

Is this the same as Landis’ (Pennsylvania) Battery? And do we have an article on it? Rich Farmbrough, 02:29, 7 January 2013 (UTC).

"No quarter"

FYI, the usage of No quarter is under discussion, at Talk:No quarter where it is suggested that the Led Zeppelin song is primary. -- 76.65.128.43 (talk) 05:47, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

John Paul Jones

John Paul Jones usage is up for discussion, see talk:John Paul Jones where it is suggested that the Led Zeppelin member is primary over the sailor -- 76.65.128.43 (talk) 05:56, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Battle of Jutland, image (3)

Map the Battle of Jutland, 1916: new vector version

I've uploaded the new image File:Map of the Battle of Jutland, 1916.svg and replaced the original in the Battle of Jutland article itself. All feedback welcome, as would replacing the original File:Jutland1916.jpg should you agree the new file is better. I'll be taking it to FPC in a week or so if there are no problems, so there will also be an opportunity to give feedback there. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 18:03, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

I'd suggest trimming the western side of the main map to get rid of Ireland. The bulk of the Channel is also redundant, but I suspect would a lot harder to get rid of considering the text blocks and the two tactical maps.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 21:01, 1 January 2013 (UTC)
Bearing in mind the feedback above, I have now acted on that partially. I'm a bit nervous about removing Ireland as a whole (or more than now) as Great Britain will be affected; also, in the context of the Battle Ireland isn't that significant, but in the context of British naval operations the ports and shipbuilders were. I've halved Ireland, though. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 21:34, 1 January 2013 (UTC)
Given that it's specific to the Battle of Jutland, I fail to see how Ireland matters. Your concerns would be valid if the map was more generic.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 21:47, 1 January 2013 (UTC)
No, what I think he's saying is that he's cut it as far as he can, but he doesn't want to cut half of Scotland off too, which is what cutting out Ireland would entail. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 05:26, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
Very nice, but I have a quibble with the type in the insets: I would prefer to see the descriptions in upper- & lower-case and the ship names italicized. Further, while probably unnecessary for the large map, a scale for the insets—whether in nautical miles (or thousands of yards?), km, or both—would be useful.—Odysseus1479 (talk) 23:10, 1 January 2013 (UTC)
Picking one or the other case would be good. Same with italicized ship names (us ship nerds are picky). I don't think scales are possible though, given that the source map doesn't have them. Also "battlecruiser" is one word. :-) Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 05:28, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

The map is pretty good. I actually prefer to have the Channel - if you're going to understand the naval war in the North Sea, you need to know the geography, and the Channel is a critical piece of geography. One small nitpick though: in the legend, the lines are covering the last couple of letters until the map is viewed at larger resolutions (just look at the image description page, for instance). I don't know if this can be fixed, but it might be an issue at FPC. Parsecboy (talk) 03:21, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

As some nit-picking comments, the location of London isn't marked, the location of Edinburgh looks a bit odd (I know that Edinburgh proper isn't on the sea, but it's not very far inland and I think that it might be a bit to the east of where it's currently placed as well; my Scottish geography isn't great though!), why is the German-Danish border included when no other borders are? (I'd suggest removing it seeing as land borders were irrelevant to these events), the placement of the label for Southampton should be shifted a bit to the right (and if you're including all the major British ports and naval bases Portsmouth should probably be added). Nick-D (talk) 07:49, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
Re land border, isn't that the Kiel Canal? Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 07:52, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
The location of Edinburgh looks reasonable to me. The line near Kiel is the Kiel Canal. At first glance the map seems to have historically accurate land/sea borders (ie. the zuiderzee is blue, but on a modern map it would be green thanks to subsequent land reclamation) - I'm quite impressed. bobrayner (talk) 09:51, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

I've made dozens of small alterations based on the above. The only other one outstanding is the capitalisation of things like "Hipper turns" on which I have not decided the correct way forward. I've now nominated it at Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Map of the Battle of Jutland, 1916. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 16:23, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

British fencible regiments

I have created two new articles to cover British 'fencible regiments. They are List of British fencible regiments and Highland Fencible Corps The are both largely based on copyright expired text, with the appropriate attribution added to meet the plagiarism guideline. I have put in a lot of links into the articles but more are needed and there are a few minor discrepancies between the two articles that that will need sorting out. Some additional information is needed, the most obvious is about cavalry regiments, but there are lots of details for individual regiments that can be expanded upon. When any one regimental description gets too large, it can be summarised and the information added to a stand alone article. -- PBS (talk) 03:17, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Looks good. Do you have a copy of Prebble's Mutiny? It covers several of the Highland fencibles in greater or lesser detail (often their mutiny was about the only notable thing about them...) Andrew Gray (talk) 16:23, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
No I don't. There is a lot more in the Appendix section of David Stewart's Sketches of the character, manners, and present state of the highlanders of Scotland (1822) on the mutinies. There is a more pressing problem which I have mentioned on the talk page is the backdrop of the Clearances and coercion (see Talk:Highland Fencible Corps#Coercion) --PBS (talk) 15:08, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
I'll try and dig it out and see what turns up in the index. (As I recall, it has a quick table of all the involved regiments at the end). As I recall it was unusually slow reading for Prebble, but I think it's still on a shelf somewhere rather than discarded... Andrew Gray (talk) 16:19, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

British Army websites

All current British Army unit websites have changed their URLs, possibly following the move of the MoD website to gov.uk on 1st January. Very few appear to automatically forward to the new page. This presents a huge editing task for WP editors. I will make a start on higher brigades. Anyone wish to take on certain parts of the Army? --Lidos (talk) 18:18, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for raising this here. I don't have too much time to help sort out the mess, but I'll certainly keep an eye out (I write quite a few articles related to the British Army, though I don't link to their website very much). HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 11:44, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
There is now a list of those articles I've amended so far on my user page User:Lidos#Work_in_progress_-_links_to_current_Army_units.--Lidos (talk) 17:00, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Infobox question

If a person known for their military work served (mostly) in a civilian capacity, how should we mark that in the infobox? I'm thinking of Nugroho Notosusanto. Bonus question: Should it be Professor first, or Brigadier General? — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:56, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

With infoboxes, it's often tempting to hammer a square peg into a round hole. Maybe gloss over awkward infobox fields, and use more nuanced wording in the body of the article? bobrayner (talk) 00:15, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
  • I think it's clear in the body, but considering the person in this case spent most of his adult life working for the military cutting his service years out of the infobox would be misrepresentative — Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:17, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Lynette Nusbacher

I think this BLP, of a military historian, might be of interest to this project. There is also a sourcing dispute summarized at Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Lynette_Nusbacher. Insomesia (talk) 11:31, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Fort Dobbs (North Carolina) Peer review

Thanks to everyone who's helped me so far; I appreciate everyone's input in the ACR and GAN processes. I would like to continue down the path with this article, and thus have opened up a Peer review, specifically with an eye towards FA criteria. I am also interested in expanding the archaeology portion, and so have some points there to discuss as well. I look forward to continuing to work with all of you! Cdtew (talk) 15:33, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

ARA General Belgrano

The article ARA General Belgrano used to explain the issues surrounding the sinking of the ship rather well. An editor has seen fit to insert a series of quotes asserting this to be a "war crime", in what appears to be a violation of WP:SOAPBOX. The comments in talk indicate that the author responsible believes it to be a war crime. If there is someone with expertise in the Law of Armed Conflict, the role of Rules of Engagement and the role of the declaration of exclusion zones, the article could benefit from such expertise. Wee Curry Monster talk 22:55, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

Adding what seems to be an accurate quote from the president of Argentina in which she makes this claim seems sensible to me. Nick-D (talk) 07:34, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
It was the multiple quotes which concerned me, all were political in nature and not from neutral academic sources. I see you removed at least one. Thanks. Wee Curry Monster talk 12:18, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
The two concerns that I see are WP:NEU & WP:WEIGHT. Equal balance should be given, but neither side of opinions should be given undue weight in the section which is viewed as a concern.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 18:18, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Is it real?

American Revolution specific, general knowledge.

The reverse side of a roster is said to detail events leading up to, and including the Battle of Fort Anne and moving on to Fort Edward. Possibly written by Captain Gray, titled: The 3rd New Hampshire Regiment of Foot, in the service of the United States, commanded by Colonel Alexander Scammell,[1] Ticonderoga, June 28, 1777..... JGVR (talk) 01:44, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Progress,[2] references Serg Isaac Davis, Boscawen being killed while with the 3rd NH, 7 Jul 1777. And [3] from 1733 to 1878, contains several references to Isaac Davis, the town and the revolution with narratives (Defense of Ticonderoga, etc)
  1. ^ New York History: John Warren: Why Fort Ann's Battle Hill is Significant
  2. ^ [1] "Granite State Monthly Volume 1"
  3. ^ [2] "The History of Boscawen and Webster [N. H.]

...JGVR (talk) 07:31, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

  • JGVR, welcome to MilHist! I'm not exactly sure what question you're posing here, but I'd be happy the help you out with any American Revolution stuff. Is this a source you're trying to authenticate for purposes of passing muster with WP:VERIFY? Cdtew (talk) 12:29, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
Yes but there are some issues I explain in an incubator project Even if the project does not get off the ground I am in serious need of help with the articles in particular. I have a few issues establishing notability in addition to wikihounding by a certain editor that makes this rather discouraging. My articles are only a couple weeks old and there seems to be a rush to get them deleted.JGVR (talk) 15:32, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
JGVR, I remember clearing one of your articles in New Pages (in my part-time spot doing curation), and I think I referred you here. One thing I will say is that, while I don't know who the editor is who is hounding you, that editor may have good intentions, or may just be communicating poorly. I think the biggest problem you'll have is that some members of the family may not meet the WP:GNG guidelines, specifically WP:MILPEOPLE (note: "Conversely, any person who is only mentioned in genealogical records or family histories, or is traceable only through primary documents, is not notable."). Anyways, some of the VR family you've started working on appear to be notable in their own rights. Some, however, may not be notable except as members of this family, in which case they may not deserve their own articles.
Have you considered doing a "VR family in the American Revolution" article, highlighting this large participation number? If you could find a reliable source that passes WP:VERIFY, and that says that this rate of participation among one family is unique or near-unique, an independent article on the family may be called for, rather than an article for all 18. If this wasn't unique at the time, I would suggest only writing independent articles about the truly significant ones (generals, politicians at the state or federal level, people who made large state-wide or national impact, etc.). Since it appears you're a member of this illustrious line of VR's, let me give you a word of caution -- any edits you make, or articles you create will be presumed by some editors to be examples of WP:SELFPROMOTE and WP:CONFLICT in general.
Finally, if you're looking to improve existing biographies, take a look at some of my recent work - they're not the greatest, but they earned acceptable class-ratings shortly after being created: James Innes (North Carolina), Hugh Waddell (general), and Marion Butler come to mind. These should give you an idea about how to organize your articles, and about how to fit in overall context without giving so much background that it drowns out the content of your article that's actually about the subject. Cdtew (talk) 15:51, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
Fortunately I am most certain I would not be able to have articles on 18. I am concentrating on rank of at least Colonel. Im not denying the articles are in need of help. I am dealing with a hound that is making assertions that the people did not even exist and the editor is either pretending to be an admin or at the very least an unwelcoming, unhelpful abuser of their position this talk page will give a glimpse a certain editor seems to show up after nearly every edit I make. Nicholas Van Rensselaer (military figure)
Be careful; if sources cover individuals in the revolution, rather than the family, then writing a substantial article about the family in the revolution may be synthesis. (Unless it's just a disambiguation page or something like that). Are there any sources which discuss the family as a whole? bobrayner (talk) 16:13, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

For the time being I am not really that concerned about the family thing but the individual subjects are Colonels and they were in notable battles. For instance Nicholas was on Committee of Correspondence (revolution version of CIA)though i have to re-find the reference it was said that he was responsible for sending bad info to Burgoyne.

JGVR, first let me suggest that you sign all of your posts by putting four tilde marks after each post you make. That helps clear up the conversation. Second, I've seen some of the discussions you've been having, and I have to say that I tend to agree that merely being a Colonel and being involved in a battle doesn't meet WP:SOLDIER, which has pretty clear guidelines about notability. Paritcularly, you state that commanding a regiment is enough to reach notability (which, if it were true, would mean we'd have thousands of articles on the Revolutionary and Civil War regimental leaders alone), but note that WP:SOLDIER states that "For the purposes of these criteria, a "substantial body of troops" refers to a capital ship, a division or larger formation, or their historical equivalents", none of which would have been commanded by a colonel (except in extreme emergency or during brevet promotions). Again, as I said, some of these may lack enough notability to encyclopedia articles. Cdtew (talk) 17:39, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Commons ENIAC images

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Computing#Commons ENIAC images. -- Trevj (talk) 12:20, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Regia Marina

Quick question about usage for Regia Marina. Italics (Regia Marina) or no italics (Regia Marina)? WikiCopter Returns 01:14, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

It would be italicized. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 01:48, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
Thanks. WikiCopter Returns 04:55, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
You're welcome :-) Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 18:57, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

110th Rifle Division (Soviet Union)

I noticed that the above article has a large block of text in cyrillic. Should this text be removed? Wild Wolf (talk) 18:32, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Removed or translated.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 00:31, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Rotterdam Blitz

Greetings! I have recently relisted a requested move discussion at Talk:Rotterdam Blitz#Move to Bombing of Rotterdam regarding the page "Rotterdam Blitz." Discussion and opinions are invited. Thanks, Tyrol5 [Talk] 02:06, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Bartizan

It seems to me that the main image illustrating a Bartizan is not really a bartizan, since it doesn't fit the description given in the text of an overhanging, wall-mounted turret. Since I'm no expert, I didn't feel right changing the image, but someone who knows better should do so. Rani nurmai (talk) 17:30, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure, it does appear to be both overhanging and wall mounted, though the small size of the image in thumbnail form and the perspective does perhaps trick the eye into perceiving it as not overhanging, but instead flush with the wall it's mounted on. In the full scale image though it is clear that it overhangs. Was this your objection? Benea (talk) 17:38, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
I'd agree with Benea - it is overhanging. It's perhaps not the best example from a military architectural perspective though. Hchc2009 (talk) 17:41, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
I've switched it for a clearer one from the gallery. Andrew Gray (talk) 21:10, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
Oh, yes, I see now from the original image that the Malta one is indeed overhanging, but I think Andrew's choice is better as the main illustration.Rani nurmai (talk) 20:56, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

IAF articles

That's Indian Air Force, just in case you were wondering. Of course, it could have been Israeli, or Iraqi, or Italian. You get my drift. There seem to be a whole bunch of these IAF Squadron articles all named like No. 1 Squadron IAF which seems to be counter to your MilHist MOS naming guideline.
Also, I just CSDd No. 2 Squadron for copyvio, the whole thing copied in stages from what looks like an official Indian Air Force history website. The No. 1 Squadron article has a really bad duplication detector report as well. I wonder how far the rot goes? Just thought you people might want to know. David_FLXD (Talk) 21:04, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

You do not appear to be aware that all Commonwealth air forces use variations on No. 1 Squadron RAF, No. 1 Squadron RAAF, No. 1 Squadron RNZAF, 1 Squadron SAAF etc. Nor do you appear to be aware that Israel is 101 Squadron (Israel), and Iraq goes 23rd Squadron (Iraq), or, recently, No. 23 Squadron IqAF. The Italian Air Force use Stormo(s) for the wing level, and Gruppo(s) for the squadron level, and we don't have any articles on them yet. Buckshot06 (talk) 08:06, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
No, I was not aware. Of course, since I am not a member of the Military History project, there was no particular reason why I should have been. I'm afraid that I went by the MILMOS Unit Name section for my advice on how these things should be named. I got into this as a GOCE copy editor who found a problem and thought that the Military History Project might want to know about it. Sorry to have bothered you for nothing. David_FLXD (Talk) 12:55, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
We do appreciate your concern, whether your first issue was valid or not. There is an argument for No. 1 Squadron (India). Please continue to raise such issues. Secondly, I'm just about to start working through the Indian squadrons for copyvio starting from 1. Which was the website in question? Cheers and thanks. Buckshot06 (talk) 18:49, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
This is the link for No. 1 Squadron: www.bharat-rakshak.com, and you're welcome. David_FLXD (Talk) 19:16, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

I didn't want to edit the announcements page, in case you use that for archiving or something, but all the FPCs listed have closed, with all but Sweethearts and Wives passing.

The current MILHIST FPCs are:

These will likely be joined by the Battle of Shiloh within a couple days. Adam Cuerden (talk) 04:39, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the note Adam - I've just updated Template:WPMILHIST Announcements (which all editors are welcome to edit, and isn't used for archiving purposes). I don't think that the Shuttle one is in-scope though unless there's a clear connection to some kind of military activities. Regards, Nick-D (talk) 07:21, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
I'll try to keep it updated, then. I'm already basically running {{FPC urgents}}, so I am paying attention. =) Adam Cuerden (talk) 17:34, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
Cheers Adam. Nick-D (talk) 22:28, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Purana Qila

I was just looking at the entry for Purana Qila, the so-called "Old Fort" of Delhi, and realized that the introductory paragraph makes claims that are purely speculative. I believe historians agree that the fort was built in the 16th century by Sher Shah and Humayun, so it would not nearly be Delhi's oldest structure or even fort. Probably Lal Kot has that distinction. Hindu nationalists have liked to claim that the Purana Qila was built by the Pandavas, but that is pure speculation. The finding of PGW on the site only shows that there was a settlement there, not a fort. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rani nurmai (talk • contribs) 21:19, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Troop engagements of the American Civil War, 1865

When I tried to nominate this and similar articles to A List class a couple months ago, one of the suggestions was to reformat the articles from lists to tables. I did so for the above article and I am looking for feedback about how this looks. Wild Wolf (talk) 17:46, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Looks fine, a few minor layout issues though. Table headings don't need wiki ''' bold tags, as they will be made standard bold automatically following the ! (<th>) tag – using bold tags makes them extra bold, which is fairly ugly in the way it makes tables look top-heavy. I wouldn't recommend making the columns all fixed at 25%, especially that first date column, on wide monitors the date column appears up mostly blank whilst the rest squash their content, so it looks a bit odd. Better to set the wikitable to 100% and let the columns sort themselves. Or if you want them to align vertically, so they look better to read, I'd recommend setting the wikitable at 100% then the columns at 15% (for Date) 15% (for Engagement) 40% (for Units) 30% (for Losses) which might work better, given the content in each. Rgds, Ma®©usBritish{chat} 18:04, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
Changed the formatting. How does it look now? Wild Wolf (talk) 15:54, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
Better. I'm just wondering.. is having the separate monthly tables practical? Would it not be better to merge them all into one table, with the dates written without ordinals, and with ndashes instead of "to" for ranges, followed by the month, e.g. 2–9 April, which would allow for you to add table sorting functionality, which would let readers be able to find specific items better, when searching by place or unit, rather than just date? Only a thought though. Ma®©usBritish{chat} 16:08, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
Merged the monthly tables into one table. Wild Wolf (talk) 16:29, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

HMS

Say I've got a whole string of Royal Navy ships all at once. When would I use HMS and where? For example: HMS ship, ship2, ship3 or HMS ship, HMS ship2, HMS ship3, or ship, ship2, ship3? WikiCopter Returns 21:21, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

In text, it can be "HMS Dreadnought, Queen Elizabeth, and Warspite all ..." with or without the HMS. The prefix is used in many sources, but isn't required. Most times I'll use it on the first mention of a British ship, then omit it in the rest of the article. Hope that helps :-) Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 21:24, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
So no real guidelines? Thanks for the info, I will use the same way you do. WikiCopter Returns 00:15, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
If most of the ships mentioned are British, I generally don't use it.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 00:31, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
It's really your personal preference. As Sturm says, if the ship is identified as British, I don't typically use it. I wouldn't use HMS multiple times in a series, though, as that would get repetitive. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 00:59, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
If it's clear in context, I'd say you can leave it out, so Hood & Bismarck really don't need the prefixes... If it's a page with a variety of navies, I tend to identify by HMS/HMCS/HMFooS (or USS, or whatever) at first appearance, then just use the ship name. TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 03:40, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

I don't know how relevant this is for the British and other navies, but if you need to list several British ships and need the HMS for context or to prevent confusion (i.e. if a list of other-navy ships appears in a nearby sentance), the Royal Australian Navy favours spelling out and pluralising the S from HMAS. This (translated into the Queen's English) gives "HM Ships ship1, ship2, and ship3". -- saberwyn 08:46, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

As above, formal convention for the plural would be "HM Ships X, Y and Z", but here I think the form suggested by The ed17 works best. Wiki-Ed (talk) 10:28, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
I've found "HM Ships" (even more rarely "HM Submarine{s})) a fairly uniquely Brit conceit, & never encountered it outside Brit sources. Elsewhere, it's tended to be "HMS" or "HMAS" or "USS" with an implied plural. TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 06:15, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
"HM Ships" does make for less ambiguous sentences while avoiding repetition
eg HM Ships Courageous, Tiger and Queen Elizabeth - is clearly referring to 3 warships
while these two lists look similar, and are written "correctly" but differ in content
HMS Courageous, Tiger and Queen Elizabeth
HMS Courageous, Tiger and Queen Elizabeth
So it may on occasions be useful - if a rewording of the sentence cannot achieve the same effect. GraemeLeggett (talk) 10:48, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Categorisation...

Just spotted this, which finally pushed me over an edge from spending a long time shaking my head at Thirty Cat Pileups like there are at the bottom of AIM-120 AMRAAM. Useage is rarely defining, which is the standard for categorisation. These categories should be for countries of origin, with operators being listed, not categorised. So it's my belief that we should start some serious pruning along those lines. Any objections? - The Bushranger One ping only 21:52, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Endorse wholeheartedly. Ping me if you need any help. Buckshot06 (talk) 22:31, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
Endorse as well. Intothatdarkness 22:38, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
Click go the shears! Peacemaker67 (send... over) 04:08, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
Agree a list of users in the article is OK but the cats are not needed for users. MilborneOne (talk) 11:13, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

U.S. Camel Corps (revisited)

Someone commented a few months ago that the U.S. Camel Corps page had no images. I found on the Web and finally uploaded an image (File:US Camel Corp 1.jpg) which I assess to be public domain. My rationale and my source for the image are cited with the image. I haven't added it to the page yet because I'm waiting for reactions. Comments, here or on the file talk page, appreciated.--Jim in Georgia Contribs Talk 22:57, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

It doesn't technically show that it was published (that is, made available to the public or some identifiable class of persons not the copyright holder) before 1923, but that does seem likely. The next step is to see if it's in a book or newspaper before 1923. If you happen to know, why is the French description of this image "Cavalerie américaine" (when the subject appears to be Ottoman? Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 23:04, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
It's only a guess, but that may come from the cited author being the "American Colony Jerusalem." The photo is from 1915. The U.S. wasn't even at war yet and certainly never campaigned in the Middle East (in any uniform!). I'm going to drop a note on the uploader of the Beersheba photo.--Jim in Georgia Contribs Talk 00:19, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

This page has the same photo captioned, "The only known photo of an Army camel in Los Angeles, California." The "original tale" is in Publications of the Historical Society of Southern California and the Pioneers of Los Angeles County, Volume V; the story is labeled "Read May 6, 1901" Sadly, no images of camels.--Jim in Georgia Contribs Talk 01:18, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

As the original uploader, neither the current source link nor the current image description were part of my upload. It appears that a later editor got very confused. Posting a more detailed response at my user talk--the gist of which agrees that this could not possibly be an American camel corps. Durova412 01:00, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Bob Lilley (soldier)

Hi all I have added an AFD to Bob Lilley (soldier), while his service in the British SAS is admirable. I do not believe he meet notability per WP:SOLDIER the discussion is here Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bob Lilley (soldier). Any comments would be welcome. Jim Sweeney (talk) 11:36, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Single source articles on current National military units

I am thinking of adding the following to WP:MILMOS#BPROJ:

In many articles on units within the National military, eg the British Army, there is likely to be only one published source available, the government webpage on the unit. This should not prevent editors from creating articles on these units. (Editors placing warnings eg {{One source|section|date=}} about the lack of multiple verifiable sources will be referred to this guideline.)

Here is a example article 101st Logistic Brigade (United Kingdom) which (unusually) has one news item too.

Does this have general agreement?--Lidos (talk) 18:23, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Not sure why it should be an exception to single source tagging, if it is notable then multiple sources should be around. MilborneOne (talk) 18:56, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
The WP:GNG is not negotiable except at that page, not here. There are literally tens of thousands of formations and units that have no immediately obvious published sources on the internet. This means we have to go beyond the internet !! For the British Army, a waltz down to Shrivenham will produce enormous amounts of information at the JSCSC Library, and, elsewhere if you look through the arm/corps journals. For the other armies, you have to go to their countries and look in the libraries, or newspapers, or bookshops, etc !!
Try the Forces Echo, or whatever the British forces newspaper is called these days. Local newspapers in the garrison area too. MoD media releases mentioning the brigade might have been used by news media. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 21:24, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
As a local resident of the 16 Air Assault Brigade (which I don't think is exceptional), I know that the Brigade is referenced regularly by local press; it also has its own website, and is referenced occasionally by government sources. I would be surpised is a Brigade lacked significant multiple coverage well in excess of the GNG. As to the 101st, more sources can be found by referring to it as the "101" rather than "101st". So there is some local news coverage, occasional national coverage and some passing refereces in books. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 22:55, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
Take a look at this edit. Information on 101 Log Bde/FMA can be found in the most unlikely places. Just need to do your research. Buckshot06 (talk) 05:23, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

2008 South Ossetia War remaning proposal

A discussion has started to rename the page to Russian-Georgian War (2008) or something similar. It can be found here Talk:2008_South_Ossetia_war#Requested_move I'm sure the expertise of many here would be a valuable addition to the discussion.XavierGreen (talk) 19:23, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

A class reviewers needed

Hi all, We have an unusually large number of A class reviews open at the moment, and assistance with reviewing these articles would be much appreciated (if you're new to reviewing articles for A class status, the FAQ for the criteria available here may be of assistance). Editors who have nominated articles for A class status are strongly encouraged to review other articles, though this isn't a requirement. Thanks, Nick-D (talk) 06:39, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Question on Inclusion

While working on the B-Class Checklist backlog I have run into some articles that I would like input on their inclusion into the MILHIST project. I am indifferent towards their inclusion but would like greater input on what is and isn't included.

Places such as Kahoolawe, and Korangal Valley that have importance as military targets and events are included but open a hazard where any place that has had a military engagement seem to be included. A clear definition would be helpful so places like Washington D.C. and Rome are not included because of battles that have occurred in the city limits.

Political issues as Japanese history textbook controversies are included but I feel they are more about politics than actual military history.

Biographies notable for non-military reasons. People who have ever been in the military have been included no matter how short or frivolous their careers. People as Kurt Riezler or the countless footballers and poets listed that were privates during time of war.

Finally anything Nazi Germany related. It seems if Nazi Germany contributed to anything it is included. Articles like Kindertransport and Reichsgau Wallonien have little to no military implications except the fact it occurred during the rise of Nazi Germany.

Sorry for the inclusion of mostly Ks but that is where I have concentrated my efforts. Any input is welcomed and I am not trying to offend with the articles listed. --Molestash (talk) 03:00, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

As far as Reichsgau Wallonien is concerned, its occupation and incorporation relate directly to the German military conquest of the region and the German breaches of the laws of war regarding occupied territories. IMO it is clearly a MILHIST article. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 03:27, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
The textbook controversies thing is a definite yes; it concerns the nuclear weapons use in World War II. As far as military people, I'd say they're still of relevance to MILHIST. Look at Jimi Hendrix, even people whose service is of marginal notability has drawn a lot of attention. —Ed!(talk) 03:52, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
I am not asking about those articles specifically to avoid any confusion. I can see Peacemaker's with the established military governments. With the biographies I am trying to focus on the inclusion of articles like John Coates (tenor) who have their entire military career summarized by a single sentence. I feel the project is meant to focus on Generals and decorated soldiers not all who served. --Molestash (talk) 04:29, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
For what it is worth, I support your stand on delinking notable people who incidentally once served in the military. I recall once delinking Johnny Cash for this reason. However, this has been challenged before, as some believe that MILHIST notability criteria only have to be satisfied if the subject is only notable by those criteria, not as a basis for project linking. So I'd be happy to see consensus confirmed on that.Monstrelet (talk) 10:18, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
I personally prefer a more inclusive approach. An individual's military service, especially if active service in a war, generally affects the rest of that person's life to some extent. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 21:31, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
I would feel a total inclusion approach loses the project's focus just as including all cities that have had a conflict in their orders or all countries because a vast majority have been in war. A war changes a country just as it does a person but it makes the project become all encompassing conglomerate that in the end isn't MILHIST in nature. --Molestash (talk) 22:35, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
I'm not suggesting a total inclusion approach, for example I support leaving Cash out as he only served for a short time and did not see active service. However, someone that had active service in a war didn't "incidentally serve in the military". Service varies in length and nature for each individual and the inclusion/exclusion decision needs to be a nuanced one. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 22:45, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
O.K. that would make more sense to me and appreciate the input. Much Ado, --Molestash (talk) 03:56, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Category:Military history articles needing attention to tagging

G'day all, try as I might I can't seem to shift the three remaining articles in this category. Could someone else have a crack at it? Thanks, Peacemaker67 (send... over) 05:25, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Kirill? If you get a chance. I'm buggered if I know what's wrong with them, they are all ship articles. Thanks. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 11:26, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
Hi! I fixed the rest – the problem was A-Class assessment pages not moved when the main article was moved. After one moves the the assessment pages, one needs to null-edit the talk page, and one is done. Inkbug (talk) 12:17, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
OK... I can't promise I got all that, but you're a legend, thanks! Peacemaker67 (send... over) 12:20, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

American Civil War officers

I've noticed that a lot of the images of Civil War officers are fairly bad, such as the very-low-resolution File:William_B._Franklin_enh.jpg which I intend to replace with a very high resolution version of by tomorrow.

Does anyone have a favourite officer whose images really need some work for after that? Because, at the moment, I'd probably just prioritise the most interesting looking generals, since all of them need done eventually. Adam Cuerden (talk) 13:40, 13 January 2013 (UTC)


Frank Finkel

Hi all, I stumbled across the Frank Finkel article after seeing a documentary on Mr. Finkel on the "History" channel yesterday. In short, Mr. Finkel is a person who claimed to be the sole survivor of Custer's Last Stand at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. It appears that one editor wrote most of the article from the standpoint that Mr. Finkel's claim is universally accepted by historians, which it is not, and then one or two editors subsequently made low-quality but good-faith edits to try and provide a more neutral perspective. I rewrote the lead completely, but could use some help in rewriting the main body of the article. If anyone has time can you please help out? Thank you very much. —KuyaBriBriTalk 05:13, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Independent ref question

If a person fails WP:SOLDIER, but there are multiple references published by the person's branch of service, does this person still meet notability requirements? Person in question is Richard Dixon (USCG Boatswains Mate)? Bgwhite (talk) 18:07, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

My understanding is that guidelines and essays such as WP:SOLDIER, WP:ACADEMIC, and WP:POLITICIAN are just that, guidelines and essays. If an individual does not meet specific guidelines but otherwise meets WP:GNG, they meet Wikipedia's notability policy.--ukexpat (talk) 18:15, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
I would have thought that getting the Coast Guard Medal and having a boat named after you would make you notable compared with the normal enlisted sailor. I dont known Although if that is notable enough for a stand-alone article or just to get you a mention in the boat article.is probably a matter of consensus. MilborneOne (talk) 18:25, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
Ukexpat: that is not what I was asking. I probably wasn't clear. Are having only sources from a person's place of employments (Coast Guard, Army, Navy) enough to meet GNG?
MilborneOne: A Coast guard Medal is below a silver star in precedence. There are plenty of articles about people that are redirected to their namesake ship. Bgwhite (talk) 18:40, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
Indeed. While I wouldn't wish to diminish the medal or the man, a medal only usually makes its recipient notable if it's the highest decoration their country has to offer, in this case the Medal of Honor. The boat would be notable though, so I'd suggest creating on article on that and merging the content about Dixon himself into hat article. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 18:44, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
The boat herself is notable, however the namesake of the boat does not appear to pass WP:SOLDIER, but the subject does not appear (IMHO) to pass WP:ANYBIO; see this search. The subject has received significant Coastie Richard Dixon has received signfiicant coverage from a secondary source, the USCG; but unconnected sources do not appear to cover the subject in a manor that would be considered to be significant coverage as definied by WP:GNG. Perhaps the article should be refocused on the ship, with a section which focuses on her namesake.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 19:31, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
As mentioned above, the ship is notable. The sailor, however, is not - having a ship named after you doesn't establish notability. He should be mentioned in the ship article though. - The Bushranger One ping only 21:58, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
Dixon should have mention in articles where such mention are relevant. IMO this includes:
Of these five related articles only the first would be relevant to USCGC Richard Dixon (WPC 1113), the as yet unwritten article you suggest this content should be shoehorned into. Sorry, but I think it shows a lack of imagination to insist on shoehorning coverage of Dixon into an article about the vessel named after him, when readers may be looking for him solely as an example of a first responder recognized for calculated daring while saving lives; or they may be looking for him solely due to an interest in the history of the Oregon coast.
Realistically, don't all of the related articles I listed above have a claim to the details of his life, if we are going to shoehorn them into another article? I suggest choosing a target is arbitrary -- and unnecessary.
Anyhow, what often happens when one set of quality control volunteers over-ride what the content creators actually working on the articles think is best, and force a merge and redirect, is that the merged content is later trimmed from the target article by later quality control volunteers who deem it "off-topic".
IMO, with very rare exceptions, any topic significant enough to merit a wikilink, merits a separate article. When a topic is related to multiple unrelated topics, the main updating of that topic should happen in an article on that topic, not in a subsection of an arbitrarily chosen related article. Geo Swan (talk) 16:16, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
That would be fine. Iff Dixon had received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject (as is required by the GNG). As it is, there isn't enough coverage to sustain an article on the man and none of it is independent (what an organisation says about one of is own employees, even when that organisation is as well respected as the US Coast Guard, is not a factor in determining notability). The article would not survive an AfD in its current form, so merging what content can be preserved is the best option. The division between "content creators" and "quality control volunteers" is fictional, and serves no purpose but to demean those whose opinions one may disagree with, so please don't do that. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 16:37, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
I've taken the article to AfD located at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Richard Dixon (USCG). Bgwhite (talk) 18:11, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

New Civil War article

James Gwyn is my first shot at working on an American Civil War article. If there's any advice or comments from some of the experienced editors, that would be much appreciated. If I had to say the article was in need of the most would be sources. Mkdwtalk 00:12, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Hi Mkdw, as someone who focusses on military biography, and has an interest (but not expertise) in ACW, I've had a quick glance. In terms of structure, detail, prose, and supporting materials, the article looks to be in pretty good shape. For an article of this size the lead could be expanded a bit, say to three paragraphs, but that's fairly minor. The main issue is, as you've suggested, the referencing. Each paragraph needs to be cited to at least one source for the article to make MilHist B-Class or higher. Perhaps ACW experts can weigh in and suggest useful references? Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 07:32, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for the comments Ian. I've done some recent work on the page if you have a chance to look at it again -- or anyone else passing by for that matter. Mkdwtalk 06:46, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Help at Duchy of Brittany...

There's an ongoing debate at the Duchy of Brittany article on the use of medieval chroniclers and self-published sources for the early military history of the duchy. Any comments from experienced hands would be useful I suspect. Hchc2009 (talk) 07:25, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

WT:MHC#New GLAM proposal

Just a pointer. - Dank (push to talk) 18:16, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Chief of Staff of the French Army

Would anyone here be able to help with clearing up some confusion that seems to have arisen at Chief of Staff of the French Army? I just removed two entries from that list (see page history) that were clearly wrong (the source provided for one of the claims for the WWI period, Joffre, stated correctly that he was commander-in chief, not chief of staff, so why it was added there in the first place I'm not entirely sure). Possibly the command structure has changed over time, but some of the entries there (and the sourcing) look rather dubious. Carcharoth (talk) 01:13, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Carcharoth, have you seen User:Dormskirk's and others excellent work at pages like Flag Officer Scotland, Northern England, Northern Ireland? (or Commander Australian Fleet?) Are you aware of WP:MILMOS#UNITNAME? Military officer and formation titles always change over time, and the proper course of action is not to unilaterally delete them because they don't exactly match the page title, but to insert a subheading saying the title at the time, and the dates that title was in force. Buckshot06 (talk) 08:12, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for the advice Buckshot. I've restored those two entries that I removed, clarified a few points, undid a translation of a name (fr:Jean Brun (général) was listed as 'John Brown', which confused me horribly!), and made a start in expanding the list. I'm not sure, though, how far back it should go, and whether a different approach is better (something on fr:Conseil supérieur de la guerre would help, and the history of the creation of the modern positions of CEMAT and CEMA is complex). The list is also still woefully incomplete. Would you or someone familiar with French military history and sources be able to help? I do know a few editors who work in that area, but thought I'd ask here again first. Carcharoth (talk) 01:47, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Battle of Berlin (air)

There is a discussion going on the talk page about the need to change the article's title. Could editors please have a look. Dapi89 (talk) 12:37, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Shark Island Extermination Camp

Greetings! I have recently relisted a requested move discussion at Talk:Shark Island Extermination Camp#Requested move, regarding a page relating to this WikiProject. Discussion and opinions are invited. Thanks, Tyrol5 [Talk] 04:14, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Help with SOT-A

Can interested editors please stop by the SOT-A article? There is some disagreement over if the "S" is SOT-A stands for "Special" or "Support". According to the included references, it is "Special", but several editors have said it was "Support" (see article history). I also removed various comments added to the article about the article being incorrect, comments about previous editors of the article, and gripes about command using SOT-A teams. I left one of the editors a message after they asked me to explain my edits, but could use some additional assistance from editors well-versed in the issue at hand. Thanks. -- Gogo Dodo (talk) 07:04, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Maps

I've been asked to add a map section to Portal:European military history. I'll need about 10-20 good quality maps to be able to do so. Any suggestions? Adam Cuerden (talk) 18:25, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Content dispute: Juan Manuel de Rosas (help needed from neutral editors)

There is presently a dispute regarding the neutrality of the article Juan Manuel de Rosas. Neutral editors are needed there. For anyone interested, here it is my point of view. You may request the other two editors involved for their own point of views. The link to the place where you may make your own comment is here. All I request is that the person who volunteer to help should read carefully what is being said. Thank you, --Lecen (talk) 19:31, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Will take a look, but probably can't be until tomorrow now. Hchc2009 (talk) 19:44, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
Thank you. You may take your time. However, more editors are needed. --Lecen (talk) 20:05, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
Dear military history Wikipedians, as you can see in a recent message I posted in the talk page of an administrator ([9]), plenty of third opinions have already been provided in the Juan Manuel de Rosas article. While I certainly welcome more opinions in the article, please be aware that Lecen's behavior by this time constitutes an issue of WP:GAMING the system. Regards.--MarshalN20 | Talk 21:46, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Upcoming Civil War edit-a-thon at the Smithsonian

Just a heads-up: Wikimedia DC and the Smithsonian Institution are organizing a Civil War Edit-a-Thon at the Smithsonian American Art Museum on Friday, February 15. If anyone is planning to be in the area, you're very welcome to join us! Kirill [talk] 19:56, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

John F. Bolt at FAC

This American flying ace of World War II and the Korean War has been at FAC for 30 days and has two supports...just needs one more review! Any thoughts will be appreciated. —Ed!(talk) 01:22, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Proceedings

Hi!

Does someone know whether old issues of Proceedings are available online? In particular, I'm looking for the June 1960 issue, page 26 (about USS Kentucky (BB-6) at Kobe – see [10]).

Thank you, Inkbug (talk) 15:26, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Online there are archives going back to 1997. If one goes to a major military library, they may have archived copies as well.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 02:22, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
Thanks. I saw that, but as I said I'm looking for a 1960 issue :-(. In addition, I don't have access to a library, so that won't help me either. Thanks any way, Inkbug (talk) 06:24, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
Perhaps the image can be found, or copy of the issue can be found at the Naval History and Heritage Command. Have you tried contacting them?--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 19:21, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
Hi. For some reason that site seems to always timeout for me (both on Firefox and Chromium), so I can't use that site, but if some one else can, I'd be very grateful. Thanks, Inkbug (talk) 19:38, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
Anybody? Inkbug (talk) 13:52, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
You might want to ask at Wikipedia:WikiProject Resource Exchange/Resource Request - there's people there who have access to major libraries, which are probably the only likely source.Le Deluge (talk) 12:30, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Notability of decorated Aboriginal soldiers

G'day all,

I have a query regarding the notability of Australian Aboriginal soldiers awarded the DCM during WWII. There were only three that I'm aware of. Even those awarded the MM are less than 10. There were no Aboriginal officers in WWI and only about 500 soldiers that saw active service. Can a combination of two characteristics about a soldier make them notable (eg Aboriginality and award of a decoration). This is assuming coverage in WP:RS of course. Views? Peacemaker67 (send... over) 01:07, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Notability is determined by the availability of reliable sources, and not any unusual characteristics of the person per-se. If these soldiers received sufficient coverage then they're notable per WP:BIO. There tends to be considerable coverage of the disgracefully small number of Indigenous Australian soldiers who received high level medals or other distinctions (eg, Reg Saunders and Len Waters have received considerable coverage for being the only Indigenous officer and fighter pilot of the war respectively). Nick-D (talk) 07:28, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
Echo what Nick said, having been closely involved in both examples mentioned above. In those cases, the AWM and official histories had a bit of coverage to start us off, but the ADB has only just posted its entries for them (owing to their relatively recent deaths), some time after their WP articles had achieved FA and GA status respectively. If you're looking for references to raid from those two, Robert Hall's two books provide a useful overview of the contributions of Aboriginal servicepeople, in case you hadn't looked into them yet. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 07:55, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
Peace, were you thinking of staking a claim on improving Reg Saunders' uncle William Reginald Rawlings? If not I might have a go shortly to ease back into article writing after a break... ;-) While we're on the subject, I'm wondering why we don't have a "soldiers" subcategory of Indigenous Australian people -- might be time I think... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 08:27, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
If you're unsure about individual notability, it might be worth using them as a nucleus around which to build Indigenous Australians in World War II, or something similar. Andrew Gray (talk) 10:50, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
Ian, although I'm tempted, I'll leave William Rawlings to you, but I do think there is scope for a subcategory there. I might take up Andrew's suggestion and start with an Indigenous Australians in World War I article, there is enough in Phillipa Scarlett's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Volunteers for the AIF, Hall and Rod Pratt's articles in Sabretache to form the basis of an article, and I can highlight the decorated ones there. If there is scope down the track and notability criteria is met, maybe one or two might spin-off. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 03:40, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
Sounds good, I've already watchlisted the red link for the WWI article and look fwd to its progress -- maybe I'll get to start the WWII one but no prob if someone beats me to it... ;-) Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 04:10, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
Across the water, we have an article on the WWII Māori Battalion and WWI New Zealand (Māori) Pioneer Battalion; there's also a brief overview note, but no dedicated section, in Military history of New Zealand in World War I. Andrew Gray (talk) 16:52, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
Gday Andrew. One key difference in Australia though was that we didn't really have a dedicated unit for Indigenous personnel though (one exception was the Torres Strait Light Infantry Battalion in World War II - although it saw far less action and did not recieve the distinction that the celebrated Maori Battalions won for themselves in both World Wars). Indeed regulations at the time usually prevented Aboriginal enlistment. So I think a dedicated article like Indigenous Australians in World War I or (World War II for that matter) might be the best way to cover this topic in the circumstances. That said as you suggest to me the idea of including a section on this topic in Military history of Australia during World War I (and the equivalent for World War II) definately has merits though, as long as it was covered in a summary style with regard to the policy on undue weight. Anyway thats my belated two cents worth. Anotherclown (talk) 22:43, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

AC-130 designations

Can anyone explain the differences between the AC-130J, AC-130W, MC-130J, and MC130W? (America789 (talk) 01:19, 15 January 2013 (UTC))

AC-130 means "Attack/Cargo" I think. Don't know the difference between the AC-130J and -130W. Maybe the latter is just more advanced, hence the lower "W" designation. See AC-130.
MC-130s are used to special ops, so I believe the MC means "Miscellaneous/Cargo". Like the AC-130, I don't know what the "J" and "W" denote. Check out MC-130.
BTW, I don't think this kind of question is suitable for this page. --Sp33dyphil ©hatontributions
J and W are just the aircraft model suffixes and have no specific meaning. Aircraft models are given suffixes to reflect changes in the basic airframe/engines starting with A. There have been a lot of different models of the C-130 in nearly 60 years of production.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 15:55, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
Page you want is 1962 United States Tri-Service aircraft designation system. 'M' prefix now effectively means special operations. Buckshot06 (talk) 02:00, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
United States Air Force#M .E2.80.93 Multi-mission -- M = Multi-mission. I was confused with NATO designations of Eastern Bloc aircraft. Designations starting with M means Miscellaneous I believe. --Sp33dyphil ©hatontributions 01:58, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
  • The M modified mission in the US system has been used a lot for special operations aircraft/aircraft versions. But is being used more for all multi-mission aircraft recently, such as MH-60R, MQ-1, & MQ-8 aircraft. -Fnlayson (talk) 22:58, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
I highly suggest reading this interview between the AFSOC commander, Eric E. Fiel, and the magazine Special Operations Technology. He specifically talks about all four of those aircraft in the article. Hope this helps. —  dain- talk   03:58, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

What ship?

Hello all
I was watching the BBC documentary on the Tank Regiment in WWII, and the programme had a brief clip of (what I assume is) a British battleship, though I am stumped as to which one. Does anyone have any idea?
The doc is on the BBC iplayer (here) and will be available until Sunday 20th January; the clip is at 08.54 to 08.57 (it's just a brief flypast, but it's a nice stern-to-stem shot).
There's also a brief shot of another warship at 09.03, but I'm thinking that one is a Town class cruiser (like Sheffield, for example; or even London, after her re-construction)
Does anyone have any thoughts? Xyl 54 (talk) 22:55, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Apparently its going to take a UK editor to answer your question because the message I'm getting is that the video won;t play if your serve be outside the UK, and I am in the US. :/ TomStar81 (Talk) 23:01, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
Doesn't look British to me. At a guess, I'd say French, and one of the Courbet-class battleships. Benea (talk) 23:46, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
Although after closer inspection I might just plump for the Lorraine. Benea (talk) 00:01, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
Agreed with Benea - it doesn't 'look' British for a start and the only British ships with 4x2 turrets were the QEs, the Rs and the Hood. It's definitely not the latter and the former classes did not have a lone funnel so far aft. Your second question is much more difficult: I would suggest a Town or Crown Colony class rather than a County class. There isn't much to go on, but the funnel layout and the rounded shape of the bridge are distinctive. If the film describes when the men were being transported and where they were going you could find out which of those cruisers were around at the time. Wiki-Ed (talk) 21:03, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure it's the Lorraine at 08.54 to 08.57. I'll spare you the fascinatingly dull description of the tiny details unless pressed :) I don't think there's any conceivable reason why she'd have been used for trooping duties, so my guess is that the film-makers have just dug up a few seconds of stock footage of an impressive ship to accompany the 'shipped overseas' part of the narration. Which might make your ship at 09.03 hard to identify. It could be from footage from any time or place. Benea (talk) 23:25, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
Thanks, one and all; So, French, hey? That would explain a lot!
I agree, historical documentaries do tend to bung in any old footage to make their point sometimes, but I had expected better from the BBC
I wouldn’t say the tiny details would be fantastically dull (not to me anyway; I’m pressing, I’m pressing!) but looking at the clip yet again with that clue in mind she does seem to be flying a tricolour of some kind, so, probably not British after all. (O mea culpa!)
And yes, Lorraine does seem to be the best bet. In the Beebs defence, 5RTR arrived in Alexandria in December 1940 (“on the morning of Christmas Eve 1940, after almost two months at sea” at 09.20), which is where Lorraine was at the time, though she probably wouldn’t have been under way, as the clip seems to show.
As for the other one, I agree it could be anywhen, though the clip seems to show tank men on the troopship. The only troop convoys arriving in Egypt in December 1940 were WS 4 and WS 4B (though the details don’t match exactly), both of which were escorted by County class cruisers (though WS 4B was accompanied by Southampton from Durban to Egypt).
Anyway, thanks again for the assistance, Xyl 54 (talk) 14:01, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Amphibious evacuation

Greetings - I rarely, if ever, edit military history, and then only biographies. However, surely Amphibious evacuation merits an article? GiantSnowman 16:20, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Hi. I don't know if specific methods of evacuation merit individual articles. They might, if there are sources specifically discussing, say, amphibious evacuations. Otherwise, they could be discussed in the articles on the type of evacuation. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 17:13, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Company C, 52d Infantry Regiment (Anti-Tank)

I'm having a hard time telling if this article, extensive and detailed as it is, fails WP:MILMOS/N. Thoughts? —Ed!(talk) 17:21, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

It does fail; it's an independent company, not a battalion or larger. This information should be folded into the 52d Inf Rgt page.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 17:53, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

WT:Requests_for_comment/Article_feedback#PR, FAC and GAN

Just a pointer. - Dank (push to talk) 19:03, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Laura Secord FAC

I've just nominated the Laura Secord article as a Featured Article Candidate. Any feedback or other input on the nomination would be much appreciate. Curly Turkey (gobble) 21:44, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Needing help badly

The Category:Military history articles with incomplete B-Class checklists still has over 20,000 articles in it. I'm trying to do as many as I can, but at this rate it may take years before this category is finished. 198.252.15.202 (talk) 22:49, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Progress has been slow, but good work so far. I've been a bit slack with this recently but will try to help out a bit more. Anotherclown (talk) 23:18, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Backlog: Military history articles with incomplete B-Class checklists
Goal: 0 articles
Current: 2 articles
Initial: 24,689 articles
(Refresh)

Unfortunately, this looks like a task for more than two people. 198.252.15.202 (talk) 23:43, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
We should probably have a drive sometime to get the number down to a more manageable level. Is there any interest in setting one up? Parsecboy (talk) 23:52, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
There's been some discussion about having a large cleanup/maintenance drive in March, and the B-Class checklist backlog is one of the potential targets. Assuming that we can maintain a decent level of participation in the drive—which, given the results of past project-wide drives, shouldn't be too difficult—we should be able to make good headway through the backlogs.
Having said that, I don't think that this particular backlog is a very high-priority one, since it's not really tied to any specific problems with the articles themselves, and is really just an artifact of how the semi-automated assessment system works. Clearing the backlog will probably just reinforce what we already know: that we have a high proportion of not-very-good articles; given that, it may be more immediately beneficial to focus attention on the single-missing-item article backlogs (e.g. Category:Military history articles needing attention only to supporting materials) instead. Kirill [talk] 03:18, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

Naming conventions for military biographies - Lord Charles Hay

Comments would be welcome at Talk:Charles Hay (British general)#Suggested move. Thanks. Opera hat (talk) 00:33, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:15th (Imperial Service) Cavalry Brigade

Greetings! I have recently relisted a requested move discussion at Talk:15th (Imperial Service) Cavalry Brigade#Requested move, regarding a page relating to this WikiProject. Discussion and opinions are invited. Thanks, Tyrol5 [Talk] 02:26, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

Heritage of US Navy Carrier Strike Groups

I've opened a discussion on this topic on WT:SHIPS. All interested editors are invited to comment.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 03:08, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

I was hoping someone could help

Hi, I'm looking to expand the United States Air Force Combat Control Team article and since I'm newer to contributing around wikipedia I was hoping someone could help me by showing me where/how the article could be improved. Thank you, —  dain- talk   04:23, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

If you've got information available from the classic reliable sources, feel free to add it yourself. I just took a peek at the article and noted on the history that it jumps from World War II to the 2000s without much of a pause. There's a lot that could be done with that. I'd personally beg out of amy mention of the 7th Air Commando Squadron on the grounds of primary sources, but it looks like the employment of Combat Controllers in the Viet Nam War and other combat situations and their relationship with PJs is not covered well. I also think the article title could well be changed to eliminate "team" since the article focus is more on the indivual controllers and has almost no mention of how they interact as a team. --Lineagegeek (talk) 00:37, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
Yeah, I thought about the name as well, the acronym fits it but thats about it (CCT). I think "... Combat Controller" works best. I have had a hell of a time looking up their history since it's mostly recorded on sites like specwarnet.net and others like it where it seems more blog-ish than anything. Although I did find one persons research paper and I thought about going to find the references in the bibliography. What's your opinion on this link in regards to Combat Control related history? Useable or no? I did think of doing a "Notable Combat Controllers" and "Movies" section. Although the movies section I think would only have Tyrese playing a CCT in the transformer movies *shutters*, or at least that's the only one that comes to mind off-hand. Thanks much for your advice though.—  dain- talk   02:16, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
If the Transformer movies have their own pages, they might provide some references, but I believe WP:MOS makes use of a Wiki article as a source a no-no. If they are unreferenced, you could add the material, put the Wiki pages in a "See Also" Section of the article and post a note on the talk page for pointers to reliable sources to avoid instant removal. I believe Koskinas, Lt Col Ioannis, White Hats and Black Hats: The Effect of Organizational Culture and Institutional Identity on the Twenty-third Air Force, CADRE Paper No. 24, (2006) Maxwell AFB, AL is available online and it provides a couple of mentions of CCTs. A search at Air Force History.org website might provide some other leads--Lineagegeek (talk) 16:44, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
I found an air force article mentioning Tyrese being trained by CCT for the role so that was handy! I will definitely look at those references too, thank you guys. I just need to get better as far as writing style goes.—  dain- talk   17:41, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
Does this seem like a useable WP:RS? link. I wound up finding it after looking at some sources that were used on these pages. Thank you guys. —  dain- talk   18:48, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
I figure it would at least help me fill in the history between vietnam and the Iraq/Afghanistan era. Thanks for the input! —  dain- talk   08:22, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

Battle of Blair Mountain

I'm offering a bounty (payable as a donation to the Wikimedia Foundation) for improvements to the Battle of Blair Mountain. £15 for bringing it up to B-class, another £40 to get it to Good Article status, and another £100 to get it to Featured Article. --OpenToppedBus - Talk to the driver 16:34, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

FAN: Lady Saigō

I have nominated the article Lady Saigō for Featured Article status. Comments are welcomed at the FAC discussion page. Thank you. Boneyard90 (talk) 11:05, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

DYK reviews requested

I'd be grateful if someone could assist in reviewing three MILHIST articles I've nominated for the Did you know? section on the Main Page, but which are currently stuck in a backlog. The nominations are:

Thanks in advance. Prioryman (talk) 13:32, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

War on Terror - Mali

I would like to see what the consensus is regarding two articles

An editor, Joesr55, has made edits to the body and lead of the War on Terror article, and in the body of the OEF-TS article. What is the opinion of us editors who are in this WikiProject regarding whether the French lead operation is part of the WoT, or not?--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 00:23, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

It seems like a major stretch to connect a French-and-African-nations-led mission to a U.S. led organizational grouping. I checked a few sources given, and they don't seem to make the connection, though I may have missed one. Adam Cuerden (talk) 00:27, 18 January 2013 (UTC)
Should these edits be reverted, or should we wait for additional editors to comment before stating that we have achieved consensus? Perhaps I should invite Joesr55 to this discussion.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 12:19, 19 January 2013 (UTC)
- The edits in the diffs above appear to be uncited. So no need to wait on consensus for something that looks to be speculation. -Fnlayson (talk) 18:56, 19 January 2013 (UTC)
Thanks, I have removed the content in question. See diff 1 & diff 2.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 21:04, 19 January 2013 (UTC)
The content has been re-added with references at the OEF-TS article, and the War on Terror article. Can someone please revert this. I do not want to revert their reversion (which already violates WP:BRD) as it may appear to be joining in in an edit war.
I will invite the editor to join this discussion.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 23:37, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
I have left a warning about not using edit summary on the Joesr55's talk page, and invited him/her to this conversation again. My major concern is that the addition of content, even with references is outside of the scope of the articles. The article's are both about US Military campaigns, and neither reference that was added to verify the re-added content states that the current Mali conflict is part of the United States' War on Terrorism Campaign; therefore it can be said that it does not verify that the new content is within the scope of the articles where the edits have occurred.
Yes, that French are fighting terrorist, who are part of the independence campaign of the the Tuareg's, but that doesn't mean that it is part of the American campaign (as defined by the DoD).--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 23:51, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
  • I was going to add disputed section tags there, but the text has been removed from the Operation Enduring Freedom-TS article. The sources do not provide a connection to War of Terror and/or OEF–TS. The WoT article says it covers "an international military campaign". So that one seems more borderline. -Fnlayson (talk) 23:57, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
There's a long history of editors mistaking US military's various 'Operation Enduring Freedom' deployments (most of which are limited to training local forces) with broader wars. Operation Enduring Freedom – Horn of Africa is a particularly awful example as it claims that all sorts of countries are participating in this American operation, when they're not (for example, no Australian news report or office publication I've seen states that the Australian ships which have operated in this area have done so as part of something called 'Operation Enduring Freedom'). Nick-D (talk) 10:03, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
There have been many discussions regarding the scope of the War on Terror article. My understanding, is that the current consensus has been that the scope is based on the United States defined campaign (it has an associated campaign medal after all (and was previously awarded for service in Iraq and Afghanistan until each was authorized their own campaign medals)). That being said, my objection maybe moot, this release list Mali as one of the locations listed as within the scope of the campaign.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 15:29, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Free Pearl Harbour ebook

Thought I'd alert everyone to a free ebook by a leading naval writer now available on amazon. Might be worth having a look at! Pearl Harbour: Hinge of War. MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk) 19:46, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

"Britain's Greatest Naval Battle: The Armada, Trafalgar, Jutland" is also free -- 76.65.128.43 (talk) 04:48, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
Yes they are, thanks for the heads up, downloaded both of them. For anyone interested there are hundreds of free books available. Start with searching for free books on Amazons site [11] Then you can add in search terms like free books History, free books War, Roman, Saxon etc. Have a play you may find something useful. Jim Sweeney (talk) 13:10, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
Project Gutenberg also has lots of free history books in Kindle and epub format, though most are pretty elderly. It's excellent for military history-related classics. archive.org has more recent titles in these formats, including good coverage of public domain US government publications (though the quality of the reproductions of the official history series from World War II is disappointing in Kindle format in my experience). Nick-D (talk) 11:04, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Including the year in a battle title

Dear friends,

Is there a consensus regarding having the year in a battle article title when there are no other battles in different years to make an ambiguity. For instance Battle of Tangier (1437),Battle of Sauce (1816),Battle of Braga (1809).

Thanks. Nishadhi (talk) 08:11, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Hello! The WP:MILMOS guideline on names is usually interpreted to mean that when disambiguation is not needed, it should not be provided. So in the cases you have mentioned, the dates should be removed. --Constantine ✍ 08:21, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
Do, however, double-check there isn't another battle that just doesn't have an article yet, though. Adam Cuerden (talk) 02:01, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
I have checked that, and I saw that those battles don't have any similar article name yet, if you exclude the year. Arius1998 (talk) 03:35, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
perhaps someone was avoiding confusion with Bombardment of Tangiers, Battle of the Nobles or even the battle honour related to English Tangier. GraemeLeggett (talk) 20:38, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Belligerents: only mention parties militarily involved or also political / economical allies?

hello, I've been having a long discussion on the Invasion_of_England_(1326), Talke page here about whether or not to include the kingdom of France, the economical ally of Isabella of France and Mortimer, in the infobox under the heading "belligerents". While we've reached agreement on the nature of the involvement (economical, not militarily), we cannot agree on whether that qualifies France to be called a belligerent in this invasion. Can someone who knows the correct format for the military history pages take a look and see whether the kingdom of France qualifies to be put in this box or not? Thank you! Gadifere (talk) 14:05, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Have a look at the infobox in Korean War (folding menu) or clearly labeled section in Vietnam War? I think they should be included provided it is clear that there were not militarily engaged.Brigade Piron (talk) 14:18, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
As far as I know, I think we're avoiding adding parties that don't have military forces directly involved. There was recently a similar discussion at Syrian Civil War where it was decided countries that give supplies or weapons to one side are not "belligerents." —Ed!(talk) 14:21, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Monthly MILHIST contest

The contest is going great guns this month. Great to see. Still a week and a bit to get your entries in at WP:MHCON. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 02:49, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

The Long March

On reading Alfie Fripp, I'm surprised to see that "The Long March" is not wikilinked to an article about the forced march Westwards of Germany's PoWs in late WWII. There is no such article mentioned on the The Long March disambiguation page. Is there such an article, or would anyone like to start one? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:30, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

The article on the topic appears to be the somewhat poorly named The March (1945), which could do with some work (and a new name IMO) Nick-D (talk) 00:24, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
I'm surprised that {{noredirect|The Long March]] doesn't redirect to Long March -- 76.65.128.43 (talk) 07:04, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Found: a great US Air Force film of the destruction in Berlin in July 1945

I founded it at the German Wikipedia article on Berlin. Check it out.

US Air Force photographs the destruction in central Berlin in July 1945

Rjensen (talk) 23:10, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Have you considered this for featured picture status? Adam Cuerden (talk) 08:20, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

John B. Caddell

The John B. Caddell article has been nominated for deletion. Mjroots (talk) 07:44, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Split proposal for Piracy in Somalia

This is a notification that I've proposed a split of Piracy in Somalia. Please see Talk:Piracy in Somalia#Split for details and to voice your opinion. Thanks, BDD (talk) 21:57, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Merger of USAF Operations Group and Wing articles

There is a discussion going on my talk page (User talk:Bwmoll3#Merger of Operations Group and Wing articles) about merging USAF Wing and Operations Group articles. Could editors please have a look and share your thoughts? Thank you :) Bwmoll3 (talk) 23:52, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Category:Military history articles with incomplete B-Class checklists

Around August/October, 2011, the backlog for the Category:Military history articles with incomplete B-Class checklists was around 27,800 articles. Now it's 20,515 articles. That's a big difference and I'm sure if we didn't start the backlog when we did, it would be over 28,000 and growing. Well done to everyone who has contributed. Adamdaley (talk) 08:39, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

As a dilettante attacker of the backlog (I look every few days for an article I have some knowledge of to complete the checklist) I notice that this project has some contributors (some frequent) who seem reluctant to give articles they create an assesment, or are automatically using a template that assigns a Start or Stub rating without assigning values for the B-Class factors. Most of the pages whose checklists I have completed have involved just replacing the template and entering values, not in doing an actual assessment. May I encourage editors to use a template that assigns a y or n to each factor as a way to keep the backlog from growing.

--Lineagegeek (talk) 00:23, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

As a regular in that area, I sometimes only add task forces (for example) rather than add the B class checklist and assess an article purely on the basis of getting through the new articles and at least farming them out to task forces where someone might have the knowledge or interest to do the assessment. If it is an obvious stub I usually class it as such though. I personally prefer to do assessment in a block rather than address the whole banner on new articles. Personal preference I suppose. But I agree with Adamdaley, the fact that it is within reach of 20,000 is a pretty good effort by all the gnomes (and others). Peacemaker67 (send... over) 00:33, 22 January 2013 (UTC)
As it shows with great results with a decrease in this backlog I'm hoping we can get down to around 20,000 by the end of this year. I am aware that there is more to WP:Military History than just this backlog. Adamdaley (talk) 00:41, 22 January 2013 (UTC)
  • I think one of the reasons for a backlog is because a lot of the articles are outside of individual editors comfort zones. No familiarity with the subject = no certainty whether or not the article is comprehensive. Also, there are questions about different guidelines for different types of articles. Film and novel articles, for example, don't need in-line citations for the plots, but a lot of MilHist reviewers don't seem to know that. Some just give the articles a "c" because of referencing, and some probably just skip over it. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:51, 22 January 2013 (UTC)
Pity there aren't tools (apologies if there are, and I'm just ignorant) to help. It'd be good if one could do the assessment while looking at the article, but my screen estate isn't big enough to scrutinise the article and edit the talkpage at the same time. I assess what I feel confident with so sometimes I just do individual elements of the B-class checklist - skipping the content one if I know nothing of the subject, but able to yes/no things such as supporting materials. GraemeLeggett (talk) 19:37, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
I think you're looking at this the wrong way. Inside our comfort zone or not, the B-Class criteria are a relatively low bar. The comprehensiveness criteria in the FAQ at WP:MH/B? says "that there are no obvious gaps and that the article will reasonably answer any questions a general reader (not a specialist) might have. For example, a B-class article on an air force base would typically say where the base is, when it was in use, and which notable squadrons used it. Similarly, an article about a battle should say where and when, identify the participating units/armies, and mention the outcome." to my reading, this means that if I know nothing about an article's subject, and read the article fully, I should come away with no glaring questions about what the article was discussing. This is the tack I take with assessing for B-class (now that I'm doing it), and I think we need to make clear that special knowledge is not in any way required, just logic and common sense. Cdtew (talk) 20:02, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
I have always thought B2 could be completed with a little common sense and a little bravado. If the article has an empty section or when read feels as if it is missing something than it probably is. Being said, I have been most impressed with the progress that has been made to the backlog as well. It seems a good coalition of editors with different interests have made substantial progress to the effort. --Molestash (talk) 23:15, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Bugle op-ed needed

We're still looking for an op-ed for this month's edition of the Bugle. It doesn't have to be epic -- check out Index of past op-eds in the archives to see what's been done before... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 01:55, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

About wikipedia or about military policy or somewhere in the middle?--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 18:46, 22 January 2013 (UTC)
Sorry for not spotting this earlier, RightCow -- although we got our op-ed for January, we're more than happy to have a backlog so we're not hunting for one at the last minute -- I guess in the middle sounds fair, it just needs to have some relevance to WP and MilHist. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 23:45, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Are the Royal Marines part of the Royal Navy ?

Hi there is a bit of an edit war going on over this question. Can all interested editors comment at Talk:British Armed Forces#Contradiction. Jim Sweeney (talk) 12:52, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Sorry about the Rollback-iPhone playing up. —Simon Harley (Talk | Library). 14:06, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
Yeah, I had to remove rollback from my mobile account because that kept happening. Parsecboy (talk) 14:08, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Additional opinions requested at an AfD

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Richard Dixon (USCG). RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 19:00, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Request move of William Trump

You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:William Trump#Requested move. RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 20:45, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Contradictory American casualties data

You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Korean War#American casualties number. RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 04:27, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Applications for Wikimania 2013 scholarships now open

Anyone considering attending Wikimania 2013 in Hong Kong will probably be interested to know that the Wikimedia Foundation is offering a "limited number" of scholarships to cover some or all of the costs of attending. Applications have recently opened, and details are available here. Note that several national Wikimedia chapters are also offering scholarships, and the conference organisers are looking for people who are interested in presenting (details for that are here). Nick-D (talk) 07:56, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Assuming I get a scholarship, I'd love to work with someone on a Milhist presentation, perhaps similar to the National Register of Historic Places WikiProject's presentation last year. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 09:12, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
I'll be going to Wikimania this year, and I'd be happy to help out with a presentation if anyone else is interested. Kirill [talk] 15:01, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Persistent vandal/denialism at Extermination Camp

There has been some persistent vandalism & denialism going on at the article Extermination Camp, by one AnonIP and by User:Pineapple742, and I'm about to break 3RR. Can I get a hand from an admin? Boneyard90 (talk) 14:44, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

IP blocked for 24 hours, let me know if s/he resumes after the block expires or if they jump to another IP. The registered account appears to be a run-of-the-mill idiot school kid (note the eminently witty "Adam is gay" vandalism). Parsecboy (talk) 15:25, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
Roger. Thanks for the assist. Boneyard90 (talk) 15:33, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
Watchlisted, FWIW. For a few days, anyhow. TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 09:18, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Repeat

The anonymous Holocaust denialist is back at Extermination camp. I've reverted his recent edits twice this morning, which insist that a pictured gas chamber was actually a "wash room with sink, seat, and drain". Can we put a stronger block on the article? Boneyard90 (talk) 12:50, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Blocked the new IP - there isn't really enough disruption to warrant page protection, I'll just keep blocking the IPs as they show up. Parsecboy (talk) 13:10, 26 January 2013 (UTC)
Understood. Boneyard90 (talk) 13:33, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Question on unit pages, and a few other things

Hey, so I was wondering if there is a new rule against having unit emblems for military units as the first image in the infobox. Currently, there seems to be a movement afoot to place them at the bottom of the infobox (see an example on the 102d Intelligence Wing page), and I was wondering if someone could point me to a discussion where this was discussed, as I really see no need to do this, since it is going against years of conventions, in my opinion.

While we're here, is there any consensus for changing airport infoboxes at Air Force Base pages to military structure ones, and then adding an abbreviated one at the bottom of the page (see Tyndall Air Force Base's page)? In terms of decommissioned base pages, the airport infobox is removed, although these installations are far from one structure, which the infobox suggests. I know for things like the Loring Air Force Base page, converting it would make no sense, but I was wondering if we should switch back to airport templates in lieu of the military structures one.

In addition, I know I discussed it before, and I know there was some support, but is there still support to go ahead and create a "Military installation" template, since it would make more sense on base articles, like Fort Devens, which is not a structure by any means (using the reasoning that the structure one should be used only for single-building things like forts and older structures like Hadrian's Wall if you wanted to to that far).

One final thing, and I was wondering if there has been some serious discussion on the Joint Base articles. Currently, they have been merged, leaving one of the two articles as a redirect, but it could lead to some unwieldy articles down the line, should people expand them. Currently, there is already one out there that is rather large, but I'm not going to search for it this late at night. I was wondering if we could go back to splitting up the articles, and creating a common page that is separate, but incorporates a tiny bit of information for them.

I guess this should cover my questions for the next month and a half, and I look forward to what you all think. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 06:08, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

In regards to question #1, the short answer is no. The longer answer is that some editors prefer this (like me!), but I think that unit emblems are more common where PD images exist. I'd suggest discussing this with the editor(s) making the changes. Nick-D (talk) 10:00, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
For question 1, I'd say the rule to follow is "what illustrates the unit best". There may be an iconic image or motif associated with a unit, or it may have such a long lineage that no one image from any period works and the unit insignia is a good compromise. In regards to air force bases, some RAF Stations are treated as military units which makes sense when some of the WWII ones had satellite airfields controlled by the parent station and were not a single structure. I have a slight beef with airport infoboxes that some output is not suppressed when not present eg ICAO identifiers. GraemeLeggett (talk) 12:37, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
For the military units, in the {{infobox military unit template there is the following: (Using an example from an article)
<!-- Insignia -->
|identification_symbol=[[File:916th Air Refueling Wing.png|125px]]
|identification_symbol_label=916th Air Refueling Wing emblem
Where the emblem or other appropriate insignia of the unit is being placed, and there is the
|image= [[File:916th Air Refueling Wing - Boeing KC-135A-BN Stratotanker 57-2599.jpg|300px]] 
|caption= A KC-135R Stratotanker from the 916th Air Refueling Wing refuels a 4th Fighter Wing F-15E Strike Eagle from Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, North Carolina
where an appropriate image which illustrates the mission of the unit is placed. As the infobox is in that format, that's what I've been using for the past several months. If this should be revised, then let's discuss it so a consensus can be reached :) Bwmoll3 (talk) 13:39, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
I see what you mean, but with RAF Squadrons, the crest if available is in the |image parameter space (No. 223 Squadron RAF) and |identification symbol 1, 2 are used for the squadron codes as painted next to the roundels on the sides of the aircraft during WWII and or a description of the badge (No. 111 Squadron RAF). No. 54 Squadron RAF has all those and the two colour chequer pattern that was used on their aircraft. Royal Norfolk Regiment has a cap badge for its image and gives the shoulder titles (NORFOLK) under insignia. Apart from the indentification elements always appearing under the title "insignia", the template can be quite accomodating GraemeLeggett (talk) 23:08, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
Agreed. Tail/Fuselage code parameters need to be added. I've been doing the following with Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve Wings which accommodate them....
|equipment= Green tail stripe "First in Flight" in yellow
|equipment_label=  Tail Code

Bwmoll3 (talk) 14:43, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

With regards to military air bases, The problem with using the "{{Infobox military structure" template is that there are not parameters in the infobox for the airfield information. Some editors use the "{{infobox airport template". I'd rather use the military structure and have just below it a very abbreviated airport template with just the airfield information. A suggestion here is to have an "{{Infobox military airfield" template that would merge the two, which would be appropriate for military airbases/airfields. Bwmoll3 (talk) 13:47, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
Joint basing is a fact of life. It was mandated by Congress and it was implmented by the Department of Defense. I don't know of many who liked the idea (I certainly didn't), but what is done is done and shouldn't our Wikipedia articles reflect the current name of the facility and have seperate sections for the disparate facilities? The Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst article is the one which was merged a year or so ago, then it was split back into seperate articles for each facility. Joint Base Lewis-McChord on the other hand, was merged and remains so. I agree, that there does need to be some uniformity on this. Bwmoll3 (talk) 14:28, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
I am all for creating joint pages and splitting up the rest of them, as it would make more sense than deciding which one should be turned into a redirect. In terms of unit pages, I think the unit heraldry would be best, since it would be more uniform when compared with all the units that will likely never get a photograph for them. In terms of the airport infoboxes, should we try to expand them or fix them so that they suit our purposes? Kevin Rutherford (talk) 16:34, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
Was there an official name change to "Anacostia Air Force Base" ? Bwmoll3 (talk) 17:18, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
Gosh no. I completely flubbed the move, and I have requested an administrator help me with that. I think all the other pages may have an issue with me attempting to overwrite them, so I'll have to hope for the best. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 22:13, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
I don't believe it's a good idea to create pages for bases whose names don't exist any longer. Bolling AFB doesn't even have a website, it's been taken over by JB Bolling-Anacosta (http://www.cnic.navy.mil/jbab/). Same with Joint Base Andrews (http://www.andrews.af.mil/), Joint Base San Antonio (http://www.jbsa.af.mil/) .... etc. A discussion is in order before we start using "traditional" base names for articles and a consensus reached... Bwmoll3 (talk) 23:26, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
So many things to comment on. Since it's easier to scroll up I'll probably do this in reverse order.
For bases whose names don't exist any longer, if a page hasn't been created, I wouldn't do it, but I think discetion is needed with ones that currently exist. Joint Base San Antonio is a mess with so many bases combined (what about Duncan Field, which was a major base, but merged with Kelly AFB, which then merged with Lackland AFB) without even getting into the Army presence. On the other hand McChord started out as a flying field for Fort Lewis, not a separate installation (same thing with Pope and Fort Bragg, so I would be more comfortable with merging them). The joint base name can always be used as a disambiguation page.
I don't edit military base names as frequently as units, but the idea of combining elements of the military structure and airport templates is a good idea for air force installations.
I think the point Graeme makes about squadron codes being placed in the identification symbol line of the infobox makes sense for USAF units as well. Both the RAF type codes used by Eighth Air Force and Ninth Air Force in WW II and the current tail codes used in the USAF seem to me to fit the definition "identification symbol" better than an emblem. I think the practice of putting an emblem in the image line (which still predominates for USAF units) is preferable. What I don't like is some instances where higher headquarters emblems are included as well (although I find a small 60px emblem in the title area esthetically pleasing).--Lineagegeek (talk) 00:39, 26 January 2013 (UTC)
The issue is, what are we supposed to do with decommissioned bases if you use that logic? For example, Naval Air Station Brunswick was created here when it existed, but now it has been closed and the page has been deleted. By that logic, we should just nuke the page. Besides, we had these pages to begin with early on, so it is trivial to merge them. I support keeping things like the Joint Base Lewis-McChord article separate because we can have a joint base page, but keep the unit and page histories of Fort Lewis and McChord Air Force Base pages separate, and this will allow for their eventual expansion down the road to longer articles that are of Featured Article status (since a lot of these base articles are severely lacking in aspects of full knowledge). Also, if we have three base articles merged to one location, the expansion of one to a large degree will create undue weight on the article of that material, when compared to the other material. I support using the name as more of a disambiguation page, but also to have it used as the history page for its history once it was merged. In terms of unit tail codes, why don't we place image emblems on the top of the template, and create tail code images and place them at the bottom. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 03:46, 26 January 2013 (UTC)
A closed facility, such as Myrtle Beach Air Force Base (Closed by BRAC 91) still physically exists to a certain degree and it's article should be retained. Also, some facilities merged by Congress/BRAC have changed their names, or are referred to by different names. McChord AFB is now called "McChord Field", Hickam AFB... "Hickam Field"... and Kevin's suggestion would apply to them. Bwmoll3 (talk) 14:34, 26 January 2013 (UTC)
I am all for moving them, if you think it would be better to do it that way. While we're here, do you support moving Anacostia AFB (the wrong name) to Bolling, since it is in the wrong location, and we can always merge it down the road if necessary. Thanks! Kevin Rutherford (talk) 18:29, 26 January 2013 (UTC)
Bolling Field works for me.. "Field" seems to be the moniker that is being used Bwmoll3 (talk) 22:39, 26 January 2013 (UTC)
Okay, it isn't perfect, but it will have to work. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 23:20, 26 January 2013 (UTC)
Oh, and Brent, for the most part, I created all of the joint base pages years ago as separate articles, but you merged them over time to their present situation. I may have brought it up somewhere, but the issue with keeping these articles together is that the super page issue is a real possibility (for example, I expanded the Loring AFB page to over 60K, and that base was only open half the age of some of our other bases), and I really can see the day when we're going to have to split it up. At the same time, we should also e consistent in our actions, since there are some joint base pages which are renames of the Air Force or Navy installations, and others that are separate pages. The San Antonio one is what we should be going for, because it provides a brief summary of what's up, as well as allowing for the other pages to be separate and expandable in the future. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 04:26, 26 January 2013 (UTC)
Joint Basing is like a shotgun wedding, forced by $$$, not by desire by any of the parties involved. Bwmoll3 (talk) 14:34, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Page cleanup of 502nd Infantry Regiment (United States)

Can someone help cleanup 502nd Infantry Regiment (United States)? It looks like it has a number of problems. Reverting these edits would probably be a good start, but I thought I'd leave it to the experts. Ryan Vesey 21:39, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Commissioner Government has been flipping back and forth between being an redirect and an article. See talk:Commissioner Government for the issues. -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 01:50, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Joaquim José Inácio, Viscount of Inhaúma is now a Featured Article Candidate

Joaquim José Inácio, Viscount of Inhaúma was born in Portugal in 1808, but fought for the Empire of Brazil and let its navy in the Paraguayan War (1864-70). After six months his article has been expanded, greately improved and it's now a Featured Article Candidate. Anyone willing to take a look and review it please do so. The FAC page is here. --Lecen (talk) 11:50, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Requested move

If you wish, uninvolved editors are welcomed to help in this requested move. 

Talk:Commissioner Government

Thank you for your time, all best! --WhiteWriterspeaks 11:52, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Merger of Air Force Global Strike Command and Strategic Air Command articles

Strategic Air Command, has been proposed for a merge with Air Force Global Strike Command. If you are interested in the merge discussion, please participate by going here, and adding your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. Bwmoll3 (talk) 13:05, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

I have closed this discussion after 24 hours. The consensus was quite clear in the articles will not be merged. Many thanks to everyone who participated in the discussion and shared their viewpoints. Bwmoll3 (talk) 12:57, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

WT:MHC#IEGs

Just a pointer to a proposal for Milhist to do an Individual Engagement Grant. - Dank (push to talk) 19:21, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Nevada Test and Training Range

There was a proposal to merge the 98th Range Wing and Nevada Test and Training Range because the US Air Force renamed the old 98th Wing to Nevada Test and Training Range. The consensus was to move the wing article rather than merge the articles. The discussion now is how best to disambiguate the Nevada Test and Training Range (the organization) and Nevada Test and Training Range (the installation). Discussion is split between the talk pages, but the most recent is on the range wing page. Lineagegeek (talk) 23:10, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Portal:European military history

I'm having trouble revising the topic section, as I don't really ever use topics myself. Here's the request:


Can anyone help me? Adam Cuerden (talk) 18:24, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Category:Military equipment of the Falklands War

Category:Military equipment of the Falklands War, which is within the scope of this WikiProject, has been nominated for deletion. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:13, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

True FACs

Fortress of Mimoyecques is good to go, Fort Dobbs (North Carolina) needs a spot-check, and the rest of our FACs all need additional support (or opposition :). See the list at the top of this page. - Dank (push to talk) 21:02, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Expanding Infobox military structure template

To follow-up on the previous discussion, I believe it would be beneficial to add the following to this template: 

<!-- Airfield information -->
| IATA         =
| ICAO         =
| FAA          =
| metric-elev  =
| elevation-f  =
| elevation-m  =
| metric-rwy   =
| r1-number    =
| r1-length-f  =
| r1-length-m  =
| r1-surface   = <!-- up to r8 -->
| h1-number    =
| h1-length-f  =
| h1-length-m  =
| h1-surface   = <!-- up to h12 -->

I don't have the knowledge to edit the template (or likely the authority to anyway). What is the procedure to modify them? Bwmoll3 (talk) 23:43, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

We'd have to bring it up on the talk page, but I think we should also be having the discussion of the creation of a "Military installation" template (or just rename the current one, which might be the better idea). Actually, moving it is probably the best idea, and then we could expand it beyond that. The only issue I forsee is that people get riled up because we create a super template and we'll have an issue with duplication (and the eventual conversion of everything). Honestly, whatever happens will likely produce a lot of discussion and promises to be a mess, so it would be a bold but necessary step. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 04:06, 26 January 2013 (UTC)
Assuming we're careful with parameter names, a move + expansion of the infobox should be transparent to the editors/articles using it; the old template name will simply be a redirect to the new one, and the parameters will map across the two.
Incidentally, if we're going to generalize the template, should we also merge in {{Infobox military test site}}? Kirill [talk] 15:04, 26 January 2013 (UTC)
I'd caution against separate parameters for metric and imperial units - conversion of one to the other is trivial, and it keeps the template code simpler. Infact it would be easier to insert runway info as a formatted list rather than code for multiple elements, most of which may never be used. In fact now I think of it all that is needed is:
<!-- Airfield information -->
| airport code =<!-- give ICAO, etc codes if known
| elevation  =<!-- use {{convert| |m| |ft|abbr=on}} or flip as necessary -->
| runways=<!-- use unbulleted list in the form length, bearing, material -->
And I think I could code that. GraemeLeggett (talk) 22:34, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Merge discussion for Infobox:Military structure

Hey guys! I've started a move discussion here about moving the above template. Your input is welcome, and I look forward to hearing from you all. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 05:21, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Operation Great War Centennial and the Gallipoli Campaign article

I assume that the Gallipoli Campaign article is included in Operation Great War Centennial's featured article ambitions, so to ease maintainance of the article I created a list on the articles talk page outlining what I see as its flaws.

If anyone with a particular interest in the Gallipoli Campaign would be so kind as to quickly read through the article, add any flaws to the list or even fix some of the flaws, that would be greatly appreciated! Retrolord (talk) 07:22, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Salem Poor

I know almost nothing about the American Revolutionary War, but after encountering this diff, I decided that I *needed* to help this sad little article (among other things, it didn't have a proper opening sentence due to some unreverted vandalism from February 2011 and it used a website written by schoolkids as a reference). I've expanded and referenced the Salem Poor article, but could somebody more familiar with the topic check my work? The article probably needs more people watchlisting it as well. Graham87 09:24, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for all your edits, guys. Graham87 15:42, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Request for closure

Evening all, was wondering if a non-interested admin would mind closing Talk:Sovereign Base Areas#Merge discussion one way or the other, please? The discussion has been ongoing for months and appears to have reached a majority. Many thanks, SalopianJames (talk) 20:11, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Japanese prisoners & demobilisation, 1945-46

A colleague has just pointed me towards the Southeast Asia Library Group newsletter, with an interesting article on Japanese prisoners and repatriation - and their role as labourers - in SE Asia after WWII. This topic seems to fall somewhat through the cracks between the coverage in Surrender of Japan and Occupation of Japan; would it be worth a seperate article? Andrew Gray (talk) 16:52, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Given how much material those two main articles need to cover, it would probably be worth having a separate for this; it's an interesting topic, but it's going to be difficult to put in more than a brief mention of it into the main articles without throwing them off balance. Kirill [talk] 04:42, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
This topic is covered briefly at Japanese prisoners of war in World War II#Post-war. There's also the Japanese Surrendered Personnel article which is about the use of these personnel by British forces (I think that this article would benefit from a clearer title, and some editing to remove WP:COATRACK-type material). It's an interesting topic, and would justify a comprehensive stand-alone article. Nick-D (talk) 07:31, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
Well found! Not sure how I missed those two articles - I guess we don't have very clear crosslinking... Andrew Gray (talk) 09:30, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
(I wrote most of the first one, so it wasn't much of a find ;) ). Feel free to add more links - the awareness that any Japanese were ever taken prisoner is pretty low, so most editors wouldn't think to look for this to link, unfortunately. Nick-D (talk) 09:49, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

As we have the topic here, maybe the Japanese Prisoners of War article should be merged with that about japanese prisoners in soviet custody. And does anyone (I dont know why but I cant open the PDF) have sources to make a table like this which mentions the number of german POWs by country and number and how many died during their POW-time. --Bomzibar (talk) 15:04, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

How to nominate an Article Split.

I have been working on the Nambu Pistol article and need input on a possible split. The Nambu article is currently covering 4 of the 6 types of Nambu pistols. The two type As, Type B, and Type 14 Nambus are all currentl included within the Nambu Pistol Article. The Type 26 Revolver and Type 94 pistol have stand alone articles. The Type As and B are quite similar and should be in the same article. The problem arises with the Type 14. The Type 14 is significantly different internally as was the pistol most commonly used by officers in Japan. The article is fully referenced and both articles could be better expanded with a split I believe. How would I go about a split and any input is welcomed. --Molestash (talk) 23:12, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

The article looks great, but I can see the need for a split. Going by WP:SPLIT, specifically WP:CONSPLIT, be bold and create an article for the Nambu Type 14 on your own; be sure to add in the edit summary "split content from Nambu Pistol". Then, if I were you, I would move The Nambu Pistol article to another more accurate name, like Type A and B Nambu Pistols. Instead of doing a redirect from Nambu Pistol, however, I would turn Nambu pistol into a disarming page. These are just my thoughts, and I'm no expert, but it doesn't seem like this would be controversial. Cdtew (talk) 00:03, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
Please also add attribution templates to the source article talk page and split article talk page ({{copied}} or {{split from}} & {{split to}} ) ; and from the source article, when you remove the content you split off, also add an edit comment there "split content to xyz article" -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 07:07, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

WP:AN#PC2 for Mangoeater targets

This is a pointer to a discussion about Pending Changes 2. Since it's partly a vote, please don't vote, at least not during this discussion. (My posting here might be considered canvassing if it tips a very tight vote.) I've been a vocal opponent of PC2; roughly, the argument is: Wikipedians haven't reacted well to giving some people hats and asking them to rule on the edits of everyone else (unless it's consensual ... we call that "reviewing" :). Some people cry "AGF!", but AGF doesn't prohibit people from trying to take into account what Wikipedians are good at, I think. Anyway, the problem is: for a long time ... and apparently, still ... we're deadlocked on the issue, and deadlocks are bad, no matter which way they tip. If anyone wants to discuss this here or on my talk page, or ask questions at the WP:AN thread, feel free. I'm probably going to suggest that we do more experimentation; we've got another RfC on PC2 coming up at some point, and I'd like to have more data. - Dank (push to talk) 17:23, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Identifying medals

I have recently uploaded a newer image of LTC Rascon, MSC (Ret.), I would like to update the Awards and recognitions section, but Rascon is wearing a blue and yellow ribbon with a oak leaf cluster. It is to the left of the Army Good Conduct Medal, but below the Purple Heart, and does not appear to be on the chart found at Awards and decorations of the United States military. Assistance in determining the medal would be appretiated.

It might be the Navy Distinguished Public Service Award?--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 20:50, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

It's the "Selective Service System Exceptional Service Medal"; see Awards and decorations of the United States government#Selective service System. The one before it is probably the Army Commendation Medal, but might possibly be the Commander's Award for Civilian Service; either would seem plausible. Andrew Gray (talk) 23:18, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
Thanks! Looking for, at least, one more set of eyes to concur or to disagree.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 06:45, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
Some serious fruit salad there, eh? I agree that it is the Selective Service System Exceptional Service Medal, which fits its positioning on his riband bars. Also, he was Director of the Selective Service System under President GW Bush, which would explain the medal (and the oak leaves). I agree with Andrew that the medal immediately before it is most likely the Army Commendation Medal, the photo isn't that clear, but I can't make out the green border of the riband of the Commander's Award for Civilian Service, which is one reason I think it is the former (which has a white border). Also, there is nothing in his article which leaps out as a basis for him receiving the latter (not that that means anything...). Cheers, Peacemaker67 (send... over) 11:42, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
Thanks everyone, I will start updating this now.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 17:08, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
As for unit awards, he appears to have served with the 173rd while it was received the PUC, MUC, & the Republic of Vietnam Cross of Gallantry with Palm. Therefore, these would be personnel decorations, correct?--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 17:50, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
I ask as the United States Army Medical Command is not authorized those unit awards.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 18:01, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
Also please look at this source [http://www.usuhs.mil/vpe/enews/newsed29.pdf from USUHS from 2007, there are devices on the BSM, the Silver Star appears to be covered by the lapel, there appears to be a valor device and two oak leaf clusters on the ACM, and there appears to be an additional medal to the left of the Selective Service System Exceptional Service Medal that I cannot identify.
Therefore, I am looking for additional eyes again, for opinions, of the devices, and the ribbon.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 18:36, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
Check this one out: [12]. Pretty good shot of his ribbon bars in high resolution. It would seem in earlier photos he was wearing one of the Department of the Army Civilian Awards which could make sense due to his career in federal civilian service. EricSerge (talk) 23:52, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
Wonder what happened to the Silver Star from the 2011 image, from the 2010 image that I linked above, which I orignally found at the AMEDD website. Yet, it isn't in the 2006 image. Improper wearing? Well one of three, I can understand its exclusion then.
Oh, we also have to find an image to replace the CMB. A closer examination of the image linked by EricSerge shows it has a star above the red cross, and thus is a Second Awarding. Perhaps it can be extracted from this website.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 01:33, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
Silver Star was probably upgraded to Medal of Honor. EricSerge (talk) 01:39, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Proposed move of Air National Guard Article

Air National Guard, has been proposed for a move to Somewhere Else with the name to be decided. If you are interested in the move discussion, please participate by going here, and adding your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. Bwmoll3 (talk) 23:08, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Boxer Rebellion "Taku" ships

See WT:SHIPS for a discussion about this topic. -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 23:26, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Use of WPMILHIST banner on pic file talk pages

G'day all, I had not struck this before, but while adding task forces to articles I came across a pic file talk page with the banner on it. What is the story with that? I thought the banners were only used in article space? Peacemaker67 (send... over) 21:40, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

The banner actually works in any talk namespace, not just article talk pages. We haven't really pushed to exhaustively tag military-related images—we don't currently use such tags for categorization or statistics, so there has been no pressing need to get them in place—but it's possible that we'll want to do so in the future. Kirill [talk] 12:50, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
Thanks Kirill. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 08:22, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Disambiguation help needed.

Following are this month's top disambiguation pages with incoming links for historic battles:

Each of these has at least 15 incoming links. We need expert help to fix those links so that they point to the correct battle articles. Cheers! bd2412 T 00:15, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Use of German language in reference section of an article

Hello. I am currently reviewing Hans Waldmann (fighter pilot) at ACR (Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Hans Waldmann (fighter pilot). The article makes extensive use of German language references (which I'm perfectly happy to accept as reliable sources per WP:RS); however, the bibliographic details are written in German. Per MOS:FOREIGN non-English words should be used sparingly. I admit that I am unclear on the policy but my gut feeling is that the information in the references should be translated into English. If anyone is interested I'm hoping there is an editor who actually knows the policy that can comment on this. If I'm wrong I'm happy to drop this issue. Thanks. Anotherclown (talk) 09:23, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

As far as I can see, the only "bibliographic details" that are in German are the titles of the books and the names of the publishers. This is as it should be. I speak German and the titles look ok to me. Hohenloh + 11:03, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
Thanks very much for having a look, I appreciate it. What I'm hoping to clarify is the policy on this though. Any ideas? Cheers. Anotherclown (talk) 11:35, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
Titles of works and the names of publishers/organisations and people are what they are - translating them doesn't make much sense or serve a useful purpose. If you search for a book in a library, or online, you'd look for the title "as is", not an OR translation. Roger (talk) 11:47, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
G'day Ac. Maybe you mean WP:NONENG? It talks about requirements if you use non-English sources for quotes or information (which that article does).— Preceding unsigned comment added by Peacemaker67 (talk • contribs) 11:52, 3 February 2013
Thanks Peacemaker. Sort of. Given that most of our readers can't speak German the way I would see it work would be to include both the German and English translation of the title and publishers. An example of where this has been done (effectively in my opinion) with Chinese sources is Battle of the Samichon River. Thoughts? Anotherclown (talk) 12:06, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
I'm not aware of a policy that requires that, although I must admit it does make sense to me. BTW, MisterBee's series of lists on the Knight's Cross use mainly two German language texts, and they haven't struck any issues like this that I'm aware of. I would have thought if someone knew of a policy on it then it would have come up with one of them over the years... Peacemaker67 (send... over) 12:15, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
  • I made a best attempt at translating them. Of course I cannot say if the sources are ever published in English, and if, if my translation are even close to what the publishers may then chose. MisterBee1966 (talk) 15:53, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
  • You're welcome! It's definitely useful to quickly check if the work looks reliable for the subject or what it's about (not military related, but as an example "Atiqah Hasiholan Belajar Potong Ikan [Atiqah Hasiholan Learns to Cut Fish]" at The Mirror Never Lies allows reviewers to check if it supports the information it's used for at a glance) — Crisco 1492 (talk) 03:38, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Maybe not strictly necessary, but I like the add of a translated title (not alone: both). There's a chance there are translated editions out there. And non-speakers/readers might find it useful to know what the book is, in case they want to get parts of it translated for their own use. (Or just to know what the blazes Ausgezeichnet means. ;p) TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 06:48, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Gesundheit! - The Bushranger One ping only 06:57, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
How original. ;p Jamie Madrox You talkin' to them? 08:01, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
The "trans title" parameter seems a good solution. Thank you to a number of editors that pointed this out. This matter has now been resolved. Cheers. Anotherclown (talk) 09:07, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
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