Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history

Please add requests for MILHIST participation to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Requests for project input. This includes requests for comment, requested moves, articles for deletion, and more.

Requests for input archives

Topics inactive for seven days or longer may be archived: 2024–2025 2026

Requested move at Talk:Princess Mary Christmas gift box#Requested move 21 March 2026

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Princess Mary Christmas gift box#Requested move 21 March 2026 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. TarnishedPath^talk 07:55, 6 April 2026 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Powers of the president of the United States#Requested move 8 April 2026

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Powers of the president of the United States#Requested move 8 April 2026 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Qwerty123M (talk) 13:01, 8 April 2026 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Wizard of the Saddle

An editor has requested that Wizard of the Saddle be moved to Wizard of the Saddle (film), which may be of interest to this WikiProject. You are invited to participate in the move discussion. Hog Farm _Talk 15:37, 8 April 2026 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Construction Troops#Requested move 7 April 2026

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Construction Troops#Requested move 7 April 2026 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. grapesurgeon (talk) 16:51, 8 April 2026 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Children in the military#Requested move 10 April 2026

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Children in the military#Requested move 10 April 2026 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. 🌙Eclipse (she/they/it • talk • edits) 01:07, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

Dear Milhisters, I have been working for decades on the assumption that an Order of battle is essentially operational, not administrative. In my understanding, it should list the actual commanders and forces involved in the engagement, not the standing peacetime structures. As far as I am concerned, a good example is the Falklands War order of battle: British naval forces, with CINCFLEET at the top and the various temporary task forces shown, with the ships and aircraft squadrons that formed part of each TF listed under each TF commander.

Now, after Donald Trump launched the war against Iran we have a new order of battle, 2026 Iran war order of battle. I first came across this and was suprised to see the entire USAF listed, for example, or the USN, when the component commands responsible for the Middle East, NAVCENT and AFCENT, were in charge of all air forces and naval forces and were the delegates for their services. This did get included after some back and forth.

I've also been trying to keep the RAF's present structure explained properly within Wikipedia. As many of you will know, the Chief of the Air Staff now directly supervises several air marshals, including DCAS but also a relatively new three-star post named the Air and Space Commander, currently Air Marshal Allan Marshall (yes, his surname is Marshall) who commands 1, 2, 11, and 22 Groups, all led by air vice marshals, plus Space Command at the same organisational level, also led by a two-star, but rotationally headed by an Army officer, Major General Paul Tedman. I was lucky enough to find within data.gov.uk the attached chart, as of 31 December 2025.

So when I came along to modify the RAF section of the Iran War order of battle, to insert the Air and Space Commander as the direct supervisor of 11 Group, and 11 Group supervising 83 Group within it and the flying activities from the UK, I was surprised to be reverted by J.Weir3, who has insisted repeatedly to me that individual command roles, such as the ASC, ought not to be listed in an order of battle. I have tried explaining the Royal Navy precedent of Commanders-in-Chief, like CINCFLEET, or giving Eisenhower and SHAEF as an example of a commander supervising a war without necessary being the commander of a named, specific command.

I've also had the same problem with inserting Commander Operations (Royal Navy), the direct superior of Dragon and Anson at present, and have been reverted, with "Surface Fleet" and "Submarine Service" inserted. As many of you will know, neither the "Surface Fleet" nor the "Submarine Service" exists, and, also, neither Commodore, Surface Flotila, or Commodore, Submarine Flotilla, are in the operational chain of command. After deploying ships/submarines pass FOST they pass under the command of either COMOPS or CJO.

I would much appreciate third opions on this matter, because pointing out all the above to J.Weir3 has only resulted in repetition of specious arguments. Kind regards to all, Buckshot06 (talk) 15:31, 4 April 2026 (UTC)

I tend to agree with your definition of OOB. It's operational, not administrative. The administrative side might be better thought of to an extent as chain of command or chain of authority, but it's certainly not OOB. OOB should be limited to forces actually engaged in the operation in question. Intothatdarkness 15:40, 5 April 2026 (UTC)

This is the correct take. OOBs are operational, because battles are operational, not administrative. I'll quote from US Army definitions in FM 30-19: "2. Definition of Order of Battle: Order of battle is defined as the manner in which military forces are organized, disposed, maneuvered, and supplied." The latter three are operational concerns, not administrative, so it should be obvious already, however you can read the doc and it goes into lengthy explanation about what requirements constitute effective order of battle intelligence, and you'll note that they're almost all operational in nature and the echelons at which the reporting is covered are limited to operational forces involved and their parent commands and do not extend up the administrative chain. ⇒SWATJester ^{Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat!} 01:08, 6 April 2026 (UTC)

I see an issue here arising because somebody has discovered tree lists and consequently want to populate a whole forest. My view is that an OOB represents units directly involved as evidence by reliable sources to the level of direct operational command. What I am seeing is akin to a competition to see how big we can make this article. That is not a service to our readers. The trees need to be pruned and only the pertinent prunings retained. Each country should be identified as a section heading and branches of service as a sub-heading, if appropriate. Also, this icon fruit salad has no place per MOS:ICON. Cinderella157 (talk) 01:58, 6 April 2026 (UTC)

All the people who have spoken here appear to support my point of view. I think I'd be correct, then, to make these reverts again, and in case of any continuing disagreement, refer those disagreeing to this discussion, correct? Buckshot06 (talk) 12:10, 6 April 2026 (UTC)

Yes. OOB is a defined military subject, and people should familiarize themselves with that definition before creating sprawling lists with no real relevance. Intothatdarkness 12:44, 6 April 2026 (UTC)

I agree with all of the previous commenters who in turn have agreed with @Buckshot06:. Donner60 (talk) 01:36, 8 April 2026 (UTC)

Thank you to everyone for the discussion here. As the editor who originally had a disagreement with Buckshot06 about the best way to order the RN and RAF section of 2026 Iran war order of battle, this has all been very helpful in regards to that discussion. It’s clear that the OOB should display the tactical organisation of forces, not administrative. That part is clear. However, Buckshot06 has now structured it with individual positions (command roles) in the OOB, which I personally do not think fits and should not be included. Yes the commanders mentioned are involved in the chain of command, but they are not actual units involved… An individual officer cannot possibly be included in an OOB? It would be great to hear a few opinions on this, cheers. J.Weir3 (talk) 22:12, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

I have tried explaining the Royal Navy precedent of Commanders-in-Chief, like CINCFLEET, or giving Eisenhower and SHAEF as an example of a commander supervising a war without necessary being the commander of a named, specific command. There is no iron law that says there needs to be an organisation, only fighting men [women now too]. Maybe it's helpful to also mention say Henry V at Agincourt - what organisations would be mentioned in an order of battle for that engagement? Buckshot06 (talk) 23:16, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

To quote our article: "The army was divided into three groups: the right wing led by Edward, Duke of York, the centre led by the king himself, and the left wing under the old and experienced Baron Thomas Camoys. The archers were commanded by Sir Thomas Erpingham, another elderly veteran." What organisations are mentioned? Buckshot06 (talk) 23:20, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

• J.Weir3 and Buckshot06, from my comment above, I see that the locus of this dispute arises at a level in the tree structure for which we have no source stating the direct involvement at that level. I would refer to this as excess wood. Consequently, the dispute is most readily resolved by removing this (and other) excess wood. Cinderella157 (talk) 01:16, 12 April 2026 (UTC)

  Buckshot06, I think this is best; let's remove the unnecessary and contentious 'command' branch of the OOB, and just focus on the units involved themselves. I'll remove FC and ASC and have groups organised directly under the RAF title, and ships/squadrons directly under the Navy. I think this will be the best compromise we can achieve, and does help shorten the section as Cinderella157 argues. J.Weir3 (talk) 15:29, 12 April 2026 (UTC)

  Ah, no. What you're suggesting is administrative, not operational, and we've just had the consensus come down as operational.

  The immediately superior points in the hierarchy as No. 11 Group RAF, and you could style that as "No. 11 Group RAF, RAF" if you wished, and Commander Operations, and you could style that as Commander Operations (Royal Navy) if you wished. The CAS and CNS are in no way directly involved with running the Iranian operations: 11 Gp and Commander Operations are the active superiors. Buckshot06 (talk) 15:39, 12 April 2026 (UTC)

  I have to say this is a little bit ridiculous. There does need to be a compromise between legibility to the average reader and accuracy to the operational structure, but this is too far towards the latter to be pragmatic. As is the case for essentially every nation in this OOB, the UK has a very joint nature in the higher command of the armed forces, essentially to the extent that in the higher chain of command, the individual services cease to exist. This is not something that can easily be transferred to an OOB, and not something that is useful to the average reader whatsoever. Aside for the United States, which has a global unified command system, every nation in the OOB has the individual armed services as useful signposts to the reader, showing exactly which units are involved from which service. We must instead list the high-medium level operational units involved under each service. For example, groups in the RAF (if we wanted to be pedantic, we could go into detail about the Combat Air Force, Air Mobility Force etc). There is no real equivalent in the RN any more, so I suggest simply listing them all under the RN title, unless you’d like to bring back in the Figting Arms, as used by the Navy for essentially all purposes other than operational use (hence the joint nature of modern warfare). J.Weir3 (talk) 18:56, 12 April 2026 (UTC)

Hi, I've been slowly improving articles about the Nine Years' War (Ireland) over the last 18 months. I would like to create a task force to work on this, though I don't have experience creating or managing task forces. Per Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide/Task forces, is there sufficient interest in the WikiProject for this task force to be created? SkywalkerEccleston (talk) 05:58, 5 April 2026 (UTC)

How many articles do you think would be eligible? Our smallest war-specific task force is Wars of the Three Kingdoms which has 554 articles and 7 lists. In my view that's probably a bit too small anyway and is probably better served by the wider Early Modern warfare task force (under which the Nine Years War would also fall). The task forces haven't been greatly active for some time in their role as collaborative work areas for like-minded editors but still serve a useful role in categorising our articles - Dumelow (talk) 07:17, 11 April 2026 (UTC)

@SkywalkerEccleston and Dumelow: I agree with Dumelow. The category would be too small. Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Incubator has some more information about establishing task forces. None have been created in recent years. There has been one recent inquiry, which I think was referred to the incubator. A few proposals have been in the incubator for quite some time and for some reason (possibly lack of interest) have not moved forward. I am not sure what the next step would be if a proposal was viable but the information there might indicate that. I know of no other way to establish one except through the incubator, although a post here directly asking for interest in participating in such a task force (and asking for a post showing interest on the incubator page as well as here) would also be a prudent start, in my opinion. I am not sure how much attention project members pay to the incubator page otherwise.

Because I have done many B class reviews or bot checks for the past three years, I sometimes know about active editors on some topics and can point them out. I have no names to point out on this one, however.

Another way is to look for editors/users who have written or contributed to recent articles on the topic and to contact them separately. That would include the article you have mentioned and perhaps some related articles.

If there was an Ireland task force, one could look at the members to see who has been recently active. I am at least mildly surprised there is not an Ireland task force. Perhaps that would be a more likely subject for a task force if some interest might be shown. I think that would probably be on a post about establishing the task force here and at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Incubator.

The Early Modern Warfare task is down to seven members because a bot recently removed users who have not been active for a year. How many of those seven would be interested, to start with, might be shown by their contributions to various articles over the past year. I am not sure whether that would be productive but one could look at users' contributions to see if they work in those areas. The same would be true if there was an Ireland task force or some other related one The European military history task force lists no participants and information on the page has been updated only by a bot in recent years.

I hope these comments help and are not too convoluted. Donner60 (talk) 01:05, 12 April 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for your advice @Donner60. I will try to gauge the interest of other editors. SkywalkerEccleston (talk) 01:13, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

We don't appear to have an article dealing with Internment in the UK in WWII. There is Defence Regulation 18B, but that seems to refer to domestic political opponents rather than the innocent people of German or Austrian origin who were rounded up in 1940 as enemy aliens. There are also a number of articles (or redirects) for individual internment camps - see Category:Internment camps in the United Kingdom, but no umbrella article as far as I can see. Have I missed something? Alansplodge (talk) 15:02, 9 April 2026 (UTC)

Yes, looks like we don't have an article. I think one would be useful that brings together the legal framework, overview of the camps etc. There are some good articles on internment in the US and Canada during the same period; Internment in the United Kingdom during the First World War exists but is also in need of some attention - Dumelow (talk) 07:20, 11 April 2026 (UTC)

Full disclosure: I am Amir Husain, co-author (with Gen. John R. Allen, USMC Ret.) of the 2017 Proceedings article and subsequent book on this topic. I have an obvious conflict of interest and am not attempting to write or draft the article myself. I'm asking this WikiProject to assess whether the topic meets notability guidelines and, if so, whether a volunteer editor might be interested in creating it.

I'm a new page reviewer and came across this new article, which I expanded with some history since it definitely isn't notable just for being attacked this month, but may well be notable given its long history. I see it used to be called Sather Air Base but was renamed in 2011 when the State Department took over operations. On List of United States military installations in Iraq Sather Air Base is listed as being shut down in 2011. It'd be great if someone with more knowledge than me of these topics could check whether Baghdad Diplomatic Support Center is actually a military facility now, how it should be listed and described (e.g. it now has an infobox as a "building" - is that correct?) and even whether it's notable - I can't find ordinary mainstream sources about the facility, but there are lots of airforce sources and there are regular articles in mainstream media about attacks on it so it seems reasonable to me to have an article about it, but I rarely edit military topics. There are also some old edits on the now redirected page Sather Air Base that might perhaps be useful. Lijil (talk) 11:28, 11 April 2026 (UTC)

The previous data about Sather as the USAF side of BIAP was merged into BIAP long ago, and I have just upmerged the BDSC article data into the same section. The redirects remain. Whether CJTF-OIR or the State Dept is the lead agency there right now would need more research. Buckshot06 (talk) 17:16, 11 April 2026 (UTC)

Hello everyone. I plan to expand the scope of the Ottoman military operations on these specific fronts. Would it be more appropriate to create separate, dedicated subsections for Ottoman forces in the articles on the Balkan Campaign of World War I and the Romanian campaign of World War I, or would it be better to create this content as a separate article using the WP:SUMMARY style? I would appreciate feedback from the community and WP:MILHIST editors before I begin drafting and adding sources. Earslaner2001 (talk) 20:22, 11 April 2026 (UTC)

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:No original research/Noticeboard regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The thread is HQ-11.The discussion is about the topic HQ-11. Thank you. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 00:25, 13 April 2026 (UTC)