Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Archive 170

Of course, I understand that everyone is tired here. But I want to again clarify American losses in World War II. In total, the Americans lost 405-407 thousand soldiers killed. With this number, everything is porn, it is not disputed, and so on. But if you take the military campaigns in which the United States participated, the numbers do not converge. Western Front: US casualties come to 133,255 killed,and 14,528 missing Italian campaign (World War II): American casualties: 29,560 killed and missing North African campaign American casualties: 2,715 killed, 6,528 missing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Atlantic: Although there is no breakdown into allies. But I read somewhere that about 9 thousand American sailors died. Bottom line: US losses in the war with Germany 195586 killed and missing. Pacific war American casualties: 92,904 killed in battle The total of all US campaigns lost approximately 288 thousand people. But where did the 117 thousand more dead go? Which front for the United States was the most bloody. It seems to me that it is the Pacific theater. Yes, in the war with Germany, the Americans fought on "broad fronts", which is why they suffered relatively high losses, but on the other hand, the Japanese were fanatics, and the climate on the islands most likely favored large non-combat potholes Lone Ranger1999 (talk) 13:37, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

You are never going to get an exact answer to this question. I think you need to accept that and move on. But if you persist, I'd posit you're using the wrong benchmarks. You'd need to compare total troops committed to the reported (and inaccurate) total losses to get a partial answer. The US put the bulk of its manpower into the ETO (and you have to include North Africa and Italy in that equation, since many divisions fought in all three theaters). The Marine Corps was committed exclusively to the PTO. But I repeat: you're never going to get the level of clarity you seem to be seeking because it's simply not possible. Exact losses for some nations (such as Japan) are not necessarily known. Intothatdarkness 22:21, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

Not a direct answer, but we at least have the breakdown of the USAAF losses during the war by theater. I would assume there are similar works for the army and navy, but I was not able to find them. In Table 86 (page 707) it outlines that the USAAF total losses of 121,867.

ETO: 63,410 personnel (19,876 killed, 8,413 wounded, and 35,121 missing)

MTO: 31,155 (10,223 killed, 4,947 wounded, and 15,985 missing).

The PTO losses are split up a bit more (not too familiar with the PTO to be honest), but it look like overall losses amounted to 23,810, with a further 3,332 casualties in the China-Burma theater (is that considered the PTO?).

A remaining 160 casualties are described as coming from "other theaters".EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 14:01, 1 July 2023‎ (UTC)^[1]

I found the "final report" on US Army losses (including the USAAF), which outlines the below losses. You will have to look at the report as some lines overlap each other. It also notes that the total for those who died, include KIA, died of wounds, declared dead, nonbattle dead, and ;other':^[2]

ETO: 586,628 casualties (135,576 dead, 381,350 wounded, 73,759 captured, and 14,528 missing)

MTO: 175,107 casualties (40,45 dead, 111,125 wounded, 20,182 captured, and 8,487 missing)

PTO: 157,938 (50,386 dead, 95,021 wounded, 27,465 captured, and 4,914 missing)

Other: 16,586 (8,458 dead, 4,674 wounded, 2,673 captured, and 2,385 missing)

I am sure there is something somewhere for the navy and marine losses like this, but at the very least the Naval History and Heritage Command website puts the navy's killed at 36,950 and wounded at 37,778; USMC: 19,733 killed and 67,207 wounded.

Hope this help whoever improve whatever articles, although to address the question directly (even including an assumption that all naval/USMC losses were in the PTO) the majority of US casualties were in Europe.EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 02:56, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the help. It’s just that in an article about the Pacific War, the number of 93,000 dead Americans was embarrassing. I understand that the US army and navy were powerful, but I think even they could not provide such small losses. The final report says that the losses of the army were 71 thousand dead. The loss of the marines and the fleet in total in WWII was 87 thousand killed. I think most of them are in the war with Japan. Okay, let's look further, it's just that those sources about the fleet and marines that you threw off take into account only BATTLE losses Lone Ranger1999 (talk) 07:22, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

Not sure what exactly you are after now. What is point you are trying to make? Again, assuming all US Marines losses were in the PTO and then combined with the above US A/USAAF and the USN losses below, it looks like a discrepancy of about 9,000 dead compared to the figure cited in the Pacific War article. That could be for a multitude of reasons including data sets used by the quoted authors. For example, they could have a more accurate breakdown than the theatre-wide reports quoted above and below etc.; There is a UK report, for another example, that admits that some of the missing cited in the statistics had actually turned up.

The totals above for the navy and the marines I have seen combined in other reports referencing total losses during the war. However, the the same website does provide a breakdown of the US Navy's casualties by theater (excluding the US Marines and the Coast Guard) and also includes non-battle related dead (natural causes, aviation accidents, and other). Unless I have made a typo, the below dead and wounded tally with the above dead and wounded figures:

Atlantic: 3,980 dead, 3,554 wounded, and 2,892 non-enemy action deaths

Asiactic: 18,040 killed, 20,451 wounded, and 2,429 non-enemy action deaths

Pacific: 13,117 killed, 11,250 wounded, and 6,398 non-enemy action deaths

Mediterranean: 2,313 killed, 2,513 wounded, and 283 non-enemy action deaths

Home theater: 12 killed, 10 wounded, and 13,122 non-enemy action deaths.

I have not yet found a breakdown for the marines (does it exist?). A couple of USMC-related books quote the same killed and wounded figures, but also that overall losses amounted to 90,709. The overall figure includes KIA, WIA, died of wounds, accidents, and those lost to disease in combat zones.EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 15:21, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

So the Marines actively fought only with the Japanese. 95-99% of the losses killed in the war in the Pacific. If you sum up the losses, then the United States in the war with Japan lost 135k killed (71k army, 40k navy and 24k marines) Lone Ranger1999 (talk) 16:33, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

I've suggested that Russian deep submergence rescue vehicle AS-28 be split to Rescue of AS-28, as the majority of the article is about its rescue, so should exist as an accident article instead of a sub article. For the discussion, please see Talk:Russian deep submergence rescue vehicle AS-28 -- 64.229.90.172 (talk) 23:54, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

Active discussion at WT:MOSCAPS#Capitalization of "Marine", please join. – .Raven  .talk 21:28, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

While working on the article for a Japanese cruiser that participated in the Indian Ocean raid, I've just noticed that the simultaneous activities of Ozawa's cruisers (and 1 light carrier) in the Bay of Bengal are not covered in the article on the raid. Given that the two operations were conducted by different units with different objectives, it doesn't seem sensible to add the missing information to the existing article that solely focuses on Nagumo's carrier operations and a separate article is needed. But what should it be called? Bay of Bengal raid? Cruiser raid in the Bay of Bengal? Bay of Bengal operations during the Indian Ocean raid? Suggestions welcome. Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 14:57, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

Do the WP:Reliable Sources group the two activities together, or separate them? Is the current IO Raid article too long? Buckshot06 (talk) 08:43, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

The IO raid article is already 28K long and I hesitate to add more. The sources vary, depending on their focus. The official histories cover both, while Piegzik's recent The Darkest Hour only covers the cruiser operation in 6 pages out of a total of 160-odd, but it's pretty solid. There just aren't a lot of sources specifically on the raids and most general accounts only devote significant coverage to the carrier attacks on Ceylon.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 16:31, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

The Indian Ocean raid article needs a better title, too. Srnec (talk) 20:45, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

That's actually the phrase for the operations commonly used in the sources.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 16:31, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

I meant something like Indian Ocean raid (1942). Srnec (talk) 14:02, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

For the title, how about "Japanese naval operations in the Bay of Bengal during the Indian Ocean raid". Anything less direct and submarine/anti-submarine operations come into the focus of the article. 17:52, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

I have a source that speaks of "Polaris all-terrain artillery vehicles." I know what Polaris is, and I know they make mil spec vehicles, but I'm struggling to imagine what an ATV/artillery hybrid is, and when I tried to Google it, all I got was Star Wars. Do any of you know? I'm guessing whoever wrote the article was barely familiar with this kind of thing and I want to ensure I describe it correctly in my own article. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 14:45, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

These might be support vehicles for carrying artillery crews and/or artillery components. Polaris does not seem to have any standard government and military models here that could carry much payload (4,000 lb (1,800 kg) max for Dagor). -Fnlayson (talk) 17:04, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Hrmm. Since the source is questionable, I think I'll omit entirely. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 17:46, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

The talk page banner, {{WikiProject Military history}} has been switched to use the standard meta-template for WikiProjects, WPBannerMeta, rather than a pre-WPBannerMeta implementation. MILHIST was the last project to have a non-WPBannerMeta banner, and the switch is intended to lower the maintenance burden for template editors.

The overarching goal was to maintain complete feature and design parity with the old template. Behavior related to categories, task forces, portals, B-class checklists, list articles, A-class reviews, and everything else should be completely unaffected. If there are any bugs, please report them here and I'll fix them promptly. DFlhb (talk) 10:22, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

The new version has improved error handling (thanks to Harryboyles, not me), so it catches mistyped parameters and adds them to Category:Pages using WikiProject Military history with unknown parameters, which now has 3.8K members and growing. Most have to do with the |attention parameter, removed in 2007, which may be dealt with through a bot run (or by telling the template to ignore that parameter); but I've seen two that involve mistyped task forces. DFlhb (talk) 13:38, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

There are many pages showing up in the category because of typos like this one. Editors interested in these templates displaying correctly on Talk pages may be interested in spending some time fixing simple errors like this one. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:55, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Doing a bit of spring-cleaning I noticed a harvnb citation. I haven't done my annual question as to why people use it for ages but would like to know what people see in it compared to sfn? It seems to add complication without benefit. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 08:53, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

It can be used for ref tags - which makes it easier to use when you are making the same cite lots of times - as always, people shouldn't be altering existing ref styles in articles to match their own personal preferences.Nigel Ish (talk) 16:10, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Curious, sfn seems simpler. Keith-264 (talk)

I prefer {{sfn}} myself, but I believe {{harvnb}} has slightly nicer support for additional text or quotes. See Template:Harvard citation no brackets#Additional comments or quotes. -Ljleppan (talk) 17:24, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

I am requesting a review of my draft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:List_of_RAF_Regiment_equipment RAFRegtRockApe (talk) 20:33, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Hi all. Fiona Grasby has been nominated for deletion. The discussion, as to whether the article is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, is taking place at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fiona Grasby. Interested editors are welcome to participate. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 09:31, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Hi all! Qian Xuesen article says that he worked on the Manhattan Project, this statement is referenced with The New Yorker, Public Radio International, and RADII. Though the sources can be considered reliable, this fact is not in Xuesen's biography by Iris Chang, Thread of the Silkworm, nor in these more reputable sources like Nature, Caltech, NY Times, Science, and even Britannica. Manhattan Project is well-researched and documented, so surely there should be better sources about his involvement. Does anybody know where else can I check? Artem.G (talk) 13:36, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

I've been reading about 19th century American history since I was still in picture books (American Heritage's CW books were among my first chapter books at age 5). So of course I've seen a lot of middle names used in sources about people of the era. Some are clearly necessary for disambiguation (William Tecumseh Sherman, Thomas Leonidas Crittenden); some seem not absolutely necessary (ex. Quincy Adams Gillmore, David McMurtrie Gregg, Alexander McDowell McCook, Alfred Thomas Archimedes Torbert, Edwin Vose Sumner). Middle initials too. Is George B. McClellan appropriately concise (as an example)? I've just closed a requested move which landed (by discussion consensus) at Zebulon Vance, previously moved to Zeb Vance after sitting at Zebulon Baird Vance for its entire page history. I'd hate to suggest removing all unnecessary middle names or initials without consensus so I'm asking here: are all these middle names necessary for disambiguation, might we examine a sample set of these for possible renaming, is this just unnecessary effort? My position is that a reasonable case could be made that many, many ACW military related-subjects could get a middle name (or middle initial) pruning with no negative effect on our coverage. For the record, this is my first discussion of this topic anywhere and is intended to test the waters a bit. BusterD (talk) 14:23, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

The full name, including middle name or initial, may be used even when not necessary for disambiguation, if that form is the most commonly-used in sources. Checking the Google Ngram can be useful for deciding on the common name. In this case, the full name including the middle name has briefly dominated at times, but currently Zebulon Vance is most common, so good move. – wbm1058 (talk) 14:42, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:2022–2023 western Russia attacks#Requested move 24 June 2023 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Sennecaster (Chat) 00:05, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

I've been improving Fort Clinton (West Point) lately, but West Point, New York seems to be very similar to the other article. Their histories are very similar and West Point seems to be the site of Fort Clinton. I've been thinking to merge Fort Clinton (West Point) to West Point, New York, but I'm not entirely sure what to do here. Any advice? ‍ ‍ Relativity ‍ ‍ 23:04, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

You know what? I'm just going to move it because half of the things in the Fort Clinton article are about West Point, New York. ‍ ‍ Relativity ‍ ‍ 01:57, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

There is an Articles for Deletion discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Military reserve that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. - Ljleppan (talk) 06:06, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

I re-stumbled across this article the other day, and it's ~250k in size and largely unsourced. That can be easily fixed by citing the relevant Army Lists and Joslen although that would further increase the size of the article.

Looking for some thoughts on reorganizing it. I was thinking it could maybe be turned into a parent article of a bunch of smaller lists. For example a "Northern Command in 1939" article/list could contain all the detail that is currently in this article. This one would then link to that new one and have a small blurb to say what Northern Command was that it contained the 5th Division etc.EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 15:46, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Works for me. Keith-264 (talk) 00:36, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

I whipped this up: Structure of Aldershot Command in 1939 (13k compared to 10k deleted from the main article, but that 3k includes a new lede and sources). Anyone want to provide a little feedback, so this could be used as a model for a bunch of other such ones?EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 03:19, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

PS: Does anyone know what "A.C.R" stands for, in "No. 1 Cavalry A.C.R Signal Troop"? I don' think it is supposed to mean armored cavalry regiment in this context.EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 03:37, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

By 1938/39 there was a "Cavalry Armoured Car Regiment Signal Troop" provided by the Royal Corps of Signals for attachment to the Cavalry Armoured Car Regiment. Some context on page 200 of Armoured Warfare in the British Army, 1914-1939 (Pen and Sword, 2022) - Dumelow (talk) 08:22, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Thank you!EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 13:56, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

I was skimming through the open tasks and I found Siege of Utrecht (and Siege of Naarden) under the header of Dutch Military Conflicts, but there have been multiple sieges of Utrecht, so it's unclear to me which is meant. I know of a "siege" in 1274, but the besieged were let in when they arrived and another in september 1276 which saw actual fighting, but lasted only a day. Is there an article where this is referenced? Thanks! GeneralCraft65 (talk) 12:26, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

The article request was made 16 years ago by User:LordAmeth (Naarden around the same time by an IP user) so maybe he can tell which he meant. Meanwhile the currently non-existing article is linked to only by John I, Lord of Egmond which refers to the siege in 1345. ...GELongstreet (talk) 15:33, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Unfortunately, LordAmeth seems to have retired from wikipedia in 2012, so a response is unlikely. The only siege article I can find on wikipedia is that in 1483. The siege of Vredenburg Castle in Utrecht in 1577 is also mentioned in the appropriate article but not in any detail. Monstrelet (talk) 18:11, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

NATO has been nominated for a 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 may be removed from the article. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 12:40, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

If the armed forces of a country have held a castle or fortification for a period of time, but without formally annexing it, can they still be listed in the infobox? Khirurg (talk) 05:10, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

I've noticed a few articles that have had extremely extensive quoting of sources in citations added recently - such as HMS Sheffield (C24), HMS Capetown (D88) (where there appears to be an entire newspaper article quoted) , USS Florida (BM-9) and USS Chattanooga (CL-18). This level of quoting doesn't seem appropriate to me, and if not the the age of the sources, might get us into copyvio territory. Any opinions here?Nigel Ish (talk) 18:09, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

• Good catch. Unless the sources are public domain or old enough for the copyright to be expired, the text should only be short excerpts or less. -Fnlayson (talk) 18:13, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

  Agreed. This has been raised with the editor before. see User talk:Aodhdubh#Footquotes. There was no reponse / resolution. Dormskirk (talk) 18:55, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

  Kill it with fire. If a quote is important to an article, put the quote in the body of the article and then cite it. Quotes require citations; citations do not require quotes.

  —Trappist the monk (talk) 20:03, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

  Agree with Trappist, these sorts of quotes are not encyclopedic. Some editors seem to forget that we’re writing an encyclopedia, not a specialist site. Parsecboy (talk) 22:09, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

  Me too a cite is a cite. Keith-264 (talk) 18:25, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

Hello, WikiProject,

A new editor has been moving a few articles involving Brazilian military ships. So, for example, moving Amazonas-class corvette to Amazonas-class offshore patrol vessel. This leaves Category:Amazonas-class corvettes without any articles that are called Corvettes. Should this category also be renamed? Or were these article page moves incorrect? Thanks for any military ship insight you can offer. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 19:40, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

I know pretty much nothing about ships, but you might also want to tag in WP:SHIPS. Ljleppan (talk) 20:07, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

https://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/our-organisation/bases-and-stations/navy-command-hq/naval-historical-branch

Bit of a treasure trove here. Keith-264 (talk) 09:36, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Several nationalistic editors have added irrelevant petty lords as chief commanders in the infobox based on their personal notion that just participating in the battle is enough to include them. Not to mention that they rammed it by brute force and what seems to be tag teaming. Considering that the battle is of chief importance for Serbian history, adding some local Albanians in the infobox stinks of nationalistic editing. Because the subjects attracts a small number of editors, they might get away with it. It's so strange. I have no permission to act. Please help Wikipedia to get this mess cleaned. 178.220.230.153 (talk) 12:07, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

All information is well sourced. A case of WP:IJDL. There is no problem with adding Albanian lords that actually have fought in this battle that is of "chief importance for Serbian history". Only because the relations between those two countries are not the best nowadays doesn't mean the past can be erased. AlexBachmann (talk) 23:02, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Iraqi insurgency (2003–2006)#Requested move 9 July 2023 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. - 🔥𝑰𝒍𝒍𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝑭𝒍𝒂𝒎𝒆 (𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒌)🔥 01:50, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

We now have a skeleton draft at Draft:Ships of the Roman Empire, and your help expanding it would be appreciated. Thanks! Mathglot (talk) 06:19, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

This has been released as Ships of ancient Rome. Several sections need work, and the lead is only a single sentence and needs expansion. Your help is appreciated! Mathglot (talk) 21:55, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Draft:Vigilant Isles 22 is the link to clink on. StrongALPHA (talk) 16:17, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

There is not link. Slatersteven (talk) 16:30, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

I assume they mean Draft:Vigilant Isles 22.Nigel Ish (talk) 18:45, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I do, thank you. StrongALPHA (talk) 07:07, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

I've been writing up War College (Finland), and the sources state the original teaching staff consisted (primarily) of non-Finns. I've identified a few, but the following elude me:

• Major H. Malmberg, Swedish, teacher of tactics and general staff service
• Ryttmästare O. Ribbing, Swedish, teacher of military history and strategy
• Colonel Vittorio Pallieri, Italian, teacher of artillery tactics (this person, I think, but I'm not certain)
• Captain R. Devaulx, French, teacher of military technology ("car transportation" in one source)
• Major R. M. Field, British, teacher of military technology ("aerial tactics" in one source)

Any help in identifying these people would be most appreciated. Ljleppan (talk) 18:53, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

There are several bits and pieces about Vittorio Pallieri on line inc

https://www.galileumauctions.com/schedaautografo.php?id=220&nome=autografo-di-vittorio-emanuele-iii-di-savoia-nomine-artiglieria-lazio (see second article)

Searching "vittorio pallieri artiglieria" brings up several gazette entries as he rises through the ranks. Monstrelet (talk) 16:55, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

"Major Field" is a very unfortunate combination of name and rank, making it seemingly impossible to identify an individual from. Are there any further details about him? Just a forename or initial would make identification through The London Gazette probably simple. Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 17:08, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Just so happens that I finally got my hands on another book an hour ago, and it says "Major R. M. Field". It also states a slightly more precise teaching responsibility of "aerial tactics", but I'm a bit skeptical about that. Ljleppan (talk) 17:20, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

My initial guess is that Major R. M. Field is this man, who is actually an RAF officer rather than a British Army officer. By October 1919 he is listed as a squadron leader serving as a staff officer. By 1935 he was serving as Air Attache, Paris. He is also this group captain who receives a mention in dispatches in 1940 having commanded Haddock Force in France. Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 17:30, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks! That would indeed match the "air tactics" bit. My skepticism arose from how the college only started an aerial warfare section in the late 30s, but I suppose it'd make sense to give all general staff officers some idea about air force stuff. Any chance the man you identified is the same person retiring here? Ljleppan (talk) 17:41, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

I think it likely. Will keep looking! Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 17:48, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

The "R" stands for Roger. I expect this is Field on the right of this picture. In the first year of WW2 he also commanded No.71 Wing. Prior to going to Finland he seems to have been commander of the aircraft on HMS Pegasus. Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 17:58, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

His name is Roger Martin Field ( column 119). An overview of his service post-1927 is here, and using his full name provides lots more in the Gazette, etc. Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 18:18, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

And more relevant to your work I think, he received the Order of the White Rose of Finland in 1927. Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 18:26, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Field's short obituary ("Group Captain Roger Martin Field". The Daily Telegraph. 20 November 1974. p. 16.) says that he was in fact "Air Adviser to Government of Finland, 1925-28". Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 18:34, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Good find w/r/t to the Order of the White Rose of Finland! It led me to this clip (the same appears in a dozen of newspapers) where Field, now a colonel, leaves for England on 7 September 1927. It does specify that he was awarded "Commander of the White Rose of Finland", but it's a bit vague w/r/t timing: I can interpret it as both "he got it just before leaving" or "he got it sometime before". He also appears in a bunch of papers commenting on a string of bad air accidents ("look, these things just kinda happen with airplanes and is not a sign of a bad air force") and while inspecting potential sites for airfields. Ljleppan (talk) 18:48, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

A small update on Cpt. Devaulx: Finnish newspaper sources say his full name is "Robert Pierre Devaulx", he was born in 1882, arrived in Finland around 1921, and is an "engineering captain". I managed to find this record that matches the details, according to which he died 17 May 1940 in Avesnes-sur-Helpe. If anyone knows how to get more info about his career, that'd be mightily appreciated. -Ljleppan (talk) 10:24, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

Harald Malmberg (militär) [sv]. Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 10:38, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

Olof Ribbing [sv]. Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 10:47, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks! Ribbing I'd found for certain, but Malmberg I had down just as a "leading candidate" as there's also e.g. sv:Hans Malmberg (militär) who was active around the same time. That gives me a pretty good understanding of everyone except Cpt. Devaulx. Ljleppan (talk) 11:02, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

https://www.loc.gov/resource/hec.15016/ https://www.loc.gov/resource/hec.15017/ My best guess is Admiral George Dewey, the Harris referring to the photographer. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.5% of all FPs.} 20:50, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:List of Lockheed C-130 Hercules operators § Flag icons in section headings. -- Marchjuly (talk) 21:45, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

This needs to be moved to a more general discussion. It's not unique to C-130s or even aircraft operator lists. Lineagegeek (talk) 23:16, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Imperial Army (Holy Roman Empire)#Requested move 3 July 2023 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. ❯❯❯ Raydann^(Talk) 09:11, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

Arab–Byzantine wars has been nominated for a 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 may be removed from the article. Onegreatjoke (talk) 16:18, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

Hello all. Just expanding the article on this cricketer who was a liaison officer between the 21st Army Group under Montgomery and the 1st Czechoslovak Independent Armoured Brigade under Liška, for which was awarded the Czechoslovak War Cross. However, I'm struggling to find his rank. I've searched the usual places, but to no avail. Would anyone have any other places this information might be lurking? Cheers, StickyWicket aka AA (talk) 19:54, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Paris joined the Royal Artillery as a second lieutenant, from Canterbury OTC, on 10 June 1939. Still in the RA, he received the Territorial Decoration as a captain (honorary major) on 22 September 1950, and retired as an honorary major on 2 May 1962. Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 20:06, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Many thanks @Pickersgill-Cunliffe, much appreciated. StickyWicket aka AA (talk) 20:16, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Good to see you around AA. The Third Quarter 1946 Army List has him receiving the war substantive rank of captain on 1 October 1941 (he's also shown as being a graduate of the intermediate staff course. The First Quarter 1944 Army List shows he was granted the temporary rank of major on the same date in 1941. His honorary rank of major appears first in the First Quarter 1946 Army List but I haven't been able to track down a date - Dumelow (talk) 09:23, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

Thank you @Dumelow. You'll be pleased to hear I have plenty of military cricketers still to create! Thank you for finding these, I shall add these to his article, which should nicely complete the expansion for now. StickyWicket aka AA (talk) 00:09, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

I've written on Talk:Nazi Germany about a problem I see regarding the usage of the term. I've seen too many cases where the term Nazi has been used as a nationality, which it isn't. I have also argued that the term 'Nazi' is not universally known to refer to that era of Germany - it might to a Western Anglophone reader but not necessarily everyone else. Hence why I say it is necessary to always have the term 'German' attached to individuals or things rather than just 'Nazi'. Besides it is very inconsistent.

Please read my argument on the talk and let us discuss the issue. Millscrepe (talk) 14:18, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

I have some sympathy with this view. We do not say "a communist film" or "a Republican film". Based upon who runs a country at any given time. Slatersteven (talk) 14:21, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

There is a disturbing custom creeping in of describing country in the infobox as "Kingdom of Italy", "Third Brazilian Republic", "Reagan administration" etc.

On MILHIST we have a long-standing local consensus to minimise the use of "Nazi" and "Nazi Germany" wherever possible, and not use terms like "Nazi German", "Nazi navy" etc. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:16, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be "German Nazi", anyway? Unless this is being used to mean something like "A citizen living at the time of Nazi Germany, whether a Nazi or not," which leads to the awkward situation of calling a whole load of victims of the Nazis, in effect, Nazis. "Nazi-era Germany" is the correct construction for uses related to the country while under Nazi control, I'd say, and just "German" for the person, unless they're, y'know, a Nazi. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.5% of all FPs.} 21:26, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

Absolutely correct, I agree with you and User:Hawkeye7, User:Slatersteven and User:Millscrepe, and there's clearly support here for the OP's view. Instead a stubborn editor on Talk:The Eternal Jew (film) and Talk:Nazi Germany is having an unnecessary heated argument with me and even making an accusation against me... 148.252.129.158 (talk) 18:03, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

@Hawkeye7: I assume you're referring to this discussion from 2013, but it seems reasonable to wonder if that consensus has changed in the last ten years... particularly after the German war effort arb case. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 20:08, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Consensus can change. The main driver has been political turmoil in the United States. I observed the World War II and the history of Jews in Poland case closely. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:46, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Siege of Mantua (1799) has been nominated for a 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 may be removed from the article. Onegreatjoke (talk) 02:58, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Chief of Air Staff (Pakistan)#Requested move 14 July 2023 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. ❯❯❯ Raydann^(Talk) 07:58, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

Can anyone identify these ships lost during the Battle of Narvik in 1940 please? Would like to add to the relevant list of shipwrecks if possible.

• 
  Ship 1
• 
  Ship 2
• 
  Ship 3 (right)
• 
  Ships 4 (left) and ship 5 (centre)
• 
  Ship 6
• 
  Ship 7
• 
  Ship 8
• 
  Ship 9
• 
  Ships 10 (top) and 11
• 
  Ship 12
• 
  Ship 13

Ship 13 appears in several places as German_destroyer_Z11_Bernd_von_Arnim Monstrelet (talk) 09:50, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

• Ship 8 left: Erich Giese
• Ship 8 right: Diether von Roeder
• Ship 9: Hermann Künne
• Ship 10: Guess per this, Wolfgang Zenker
• Ship 11: Guess per this, Bernd von Arnim
• Ship 13: Bernd von Arnim

Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 12:04, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

@Pickersgill-Cunliffe: by ship 8 left and right, do you mean those at the pier? I was referring to the sunken vessel in the centre of the photo. Mjroots (talk) 13:04, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

I realise that now...don't have anything on that vessel so far. Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 13:05, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

It's all good though, info added to the photo at Commons. Mjroots (talk) 13:10, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Pinging @Sturmvogel 66: as the editor most heavily involved in writing the articles on the aforementioned ships. Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 14:23, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

I'll take a look, but don't expect immediate results as I'm tied up until after the weekend.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 15:20, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Any progress, Sturmvogel? Mjroots (talk) 02:42, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

The Germans certainly lost a lot of destroyers that day!! Buckshot06 (talk) 02:23, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

Battle of Atlanta has been nominated for a 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 may be removed from the article. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 09:58, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

An editor has requested a merge at Talk:Russian hussars#Requested merge 1 April 2023 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Raulois (talk) 01:28, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

In that article there is a kit list; does anyone know what "Sarsala – piece for hussar horses" means? Maybe a shabraque? Alansplodge (talk) 11:54, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Hello! I have opened a discussion at Llywelyn the Great about moving the article to 'Llywelyn ab Iorwerth'. If you would like to participate please do so, particularly if you are familiar with Welsh history. Thank you, A.D.Hope (talk) 18:15, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

The US Army has begun renaming bases named after people who fought against the United States to people who fought for it. Some people have begun changing the names. My understanding of what should be done is based on Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names), which says that for the title of an article when a widely accepted English name, in a modern context, exists for a place, we should use it. But within articles For an article about a place whose name has changed over time, context is important. For articles discussing the present, use the modern English name (or local name, if there is no established English name), rather than an older one. Older names should be used in appropriate historical contexts when a substantial majority of reliable modern sources do the same; this includes the names of articles relating to particular historical periods. Names have changed both because cities have been formally renamed and because cities have been taken from one state by another; in both cases, however, we are interested in what reliable English-language sources now use. (WP:MODERNPLACENAME) Accordingly, I have reverted KiraLiz1 edit here. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:37, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

• Yes, using the modern name for past events when an older name was in use is like trying to rewrite history. -Fnlayson (talk) 00:15, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

This has come up on at least two fort articles that I can recall, and in both cases the consensus was as you say: use the historical name in the historical context. Intothatdarkness 01:14, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

Good to note. I changed it because I moused over Fort Benning and its preview showed Fort Moore now. KiraLiz1 | she/her 10:02, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

Might be worth adding a parenthetical "(now Fort Moore)" in the same way we do with stuff like Gdansk/Danzig, Konigsberg/Kaliningrad, etc. to avoid mouse-over confusion for readers. Parsecboy (talk) 11:55, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

Heh, Parsecboy, I promise I hadn't read your comment before making this edit. Great minds think alike! Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 16:58, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

Ha, apparently so! Parsecboy (talk) 17:41, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

The Navy also renamed the USS Chancellorsville and the article has been appropriately moved, with mention of the ship's original name. The only other associated action that might affect Wikipedia articles is the withdrawal of battle/campaign credit awarded for participation as part of the Confederate Army by units of the National Guard of southern states. Lineagegeek (talk) 19:53, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

Yesterday, I removed the following paragraph from 43rd Tactical Missile Squadron, which was added last August:

"However, many believe that the 43d Tactical Missile Squadron was used in confidential operations because it was popularly noticed how Soviet Forces always claimed to have engaged in combat with units quite similar to the ones in the Squadron, another popularly noticed detail is that the 43d Tactical Missile Squadron's publicized list of missions are significantly misaligned with their pilots' list of missions, and with the consideration of the fact that the majority of the pilots who served in the 43d Tactical Missile Squadron retired after its declaration of inactivity, there seems to be unignorable evidence leading up to the theories of the 43d Tactical Missile Squadron being used after it was labeled inactive. This could also be one of the many unspoken tactics in the Cold War."

This is total nonsense (the squadron was formed by consolidation of a World War II bomber unit and a Cold War forward air control unit and has never been active under its most recent name). Rereading it, it seems similar to AI generated text I have seen. Lineagegeek (talk) 19:58, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

I would be equally interested to see if anyone can disprove this edit by the same user. Google comes up with zero results for "Dammin Kazakhnov". Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 20:04, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

That edit to Mikoyan PAK DP was made before ChatGPT was publicly released. Schierbecker (talk) 20:10, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

And awaaayy we go... - wolf 22:44, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

It would be great if someone from the Dundee vicinity (or going there soon) would go to the V&A Dundee Tartan exhibition and photograph the separate exihibits for Commons.Wikimedia.org, like this pic on Facebook. I think the exhibition ends early in 2024. I'm not sure exactly what is on display at V&A Dundee, but I think the original Royal Company of Archers uniform of the early 18th century is there, and probably lots of Highland regiment uniform stuff, along with the jacket of the Ancient Caledonian Society of London (c. 1786). Regardless, it would be of great use to have pictures of historical tartan clothing for articles like Highland dress, Tartan, etc. If the 3rd-century Falkirk tartan happens to be on exhibit there, it would be ideal to have a photo of it and the reconstruction of what it probably looked like when freshly woven (we presently only can link to external sources that provides pictures like this, since there are no free ones to upload to Commons). Same goes for a pic of the reconstruction of the 16th-century Glen Affric tartan (we do have a pic of the original now), and same goes for pics of the original and reconstructed Dungiven tartan of c. 1590–1650.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:24, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

Hello, WikiProject,

I'm hoping that someone here could look over Polog front and determine whether or not it is a legitimate article about a notable military engagement. I went to Wikipedia:WikiProject North Macedonia but that project is inactive. I understand that this geographic area might be outside your areas of expertise but you would know enough about articles on military history to know whether this is a valid article or a page that should head towards deletion. Thanks in advance for any help you can provide! Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 03:36, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

Perhaps Jingiby could help with this? Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 09:27, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

Hi, everybody. This article above is just Wikipedia:Content forking of 2001 insurgency in Macedonia and should be deleted. Jingiby (talk) 10:16, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

Lost what I was posting (edit conflict) but the short version is, that I agree. Cinderella157 (talk) 10:32, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

I've been working on a biography article in my userspace for a little while at User:Lallint/Bradley Winslow, and I need some help to properly wikify it. Thank you. Lallint 19:26, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

Helô! I have opened a discussion at Welsh Revolt about moving the article to 'Glyndŵr Rebellion'. If you would like to participate please do so, particularly if you are familiar with Welsh history. Diolch, A.D.Hope (talk) 21:20, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

I am requesting a review of my draft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:List_of_RAF_Regiment_equipment RAFRegtRockApe (talk) 11:47, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

An RfC of possible interest to this WikiProject can be found here.

Beyond My Ken (talk) 17:55, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

I've been adding task force tags lately and there seems to be some gaps in the task forces. All the centuries are covered reliably by a (Periods and conflicts) tag up to the end of the Napoleonic Wars but between then and WWI there is only a task force for the American Civil War. This leaves many conflicts uncovered such as the Anglo-Zulu War, Spanish-American War, Franco-Prussian War and many other relevant people, battles and other objects. There are also a few events in between World War One and Two that aren't covered like Spanish Civil War. I may be ignoring something here (I hope not) and it's been so long that I'm sure it's been discussed here before but I just though it seemed like an odd thing to leave uncovered when almost every other period is safety covered by a task force. Clyde Jimpson of the Arkansas String Beans (talk) 16:35, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

Related to this, what are the requirements for, or costs and benefits of creating a new task force? I’d like to have an Eastern European milhist task force, mainly for access to a relevant article alerts page. Right now there is a very broad European TF, and a very broad but only slightly overlapping Russian TF, and subscribing to both gives me more results outside of my focus than in it.  —Michael Z. 16:58, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

I have a question about how to evaluate an article whose main topic isn't a battle, a war, or something I might describe as "military in the narrowest sense"—i.e, how broad is the scope of this WikiProject? What about an article whose main topic is, say, economic disruption caused by a war, or mass migration or refugee crisis related to a war, or some of the pandemics associated with a particular war or battlefield conditions—should those be labeled with MILHIST at the Talk page? I pose this general question here, because of a specific discussion that came up at brand new article, Black market in wartime France, created and recently released by Elinruby. (There are still ongoing discussions there about the best title for it, but that's tangential to this post.) I followed up by creating the Talk page, adding a few WikiProjects, including MILHIST. It was later removed from the list, and that made me think of the more general scoping question above. The discussion about whether that article should or shouldn't include MILHIST is going on at Talk:Black market in wartime France#Is this a military history article? and I don't want to fragment it by cross-posting here; so if you have specific thoughts about that article, by all means contribute there.

What I'm interested in at *this* discussion, is the general scoping question: how strictly do we interpret the 'MIL' in 'MILHIST' when evaluating whether or not to tag an article whose central topic is non-military, but which clearly is related to military activity? I realize this is a judgment call, and so there is no "right" answer, but regulars here may have some opinions about it, and that's what I'm interested in, as it may guide how I react in the future when thinking about adding WikiProjects to new articles. Thanks! Mathglot (talk) 22:29, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

Well, the scope of the example is defined as during “wartime,” so it easily qualifies as military history to me.

The article is also in three categories defined by WWII. Wikipedia categories are supposed to be defining for the subject, so they are probably a good indicator of military historicity too.  —Michael Z. 22:50, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

Yep, I removed MILHIST. My rationale is at the talk page post I created as the the D that fills the B and the R ;) I also changed my position on the name of the article because of that classification. It's my title and I think it could be better defined.

• the time period for rationing and the black market is actually 1940 to 1949. Military actions are mentioned not at all in that entire group of just-published articles about the Paris mafia looting the French economy and the museums of Paris with corrupt French policemen paid by corrupt German officers.

There is for example an extensive discussion of what I have only been able to translate as "buying agencies" and of requisitions (by French policemen) on threat of forcible deportation to death or work camps. Many but not all of the victims were Jewish this would be part of the Holocaust if nobody has added that yet. But the sources are very clear that this was thuggery run by the French Gestapo for money, however. Despite the name it was run on a commission basis out of Henri Lafont's personal office at the Prefecture of Paris with French muscle justified by Vichy-enacted enabling legislation. This is discussed at enormous length in the two-thirds of the French article that is as yet untranslated. I intend to fix that soon but sure, let's have the discussion.

• • TL;DR: The Germans were just high-volume customers for the mob wise guys, and they just let them get on with it. Their part in this story is limited to the ruinous occupation costs written into the Armistice.
• The German officers who do appear, for example Illa Meery's art thief lover (who has a Wikidata entry but no article, and we should fix that) don"t seem to be operating in a military capacity and given the shell companies in Monaco and Switzerland, possibly not in an officially-sanctioned one either.
• There's a quote at Business collaboration with Nazi Germany, cited of course, that Nazi supplier Opel, a subsidiary of Ford Motors, was indispensible the the German war effort. Is Ford Motors thus a military history article? That's where I got the quote.

Mathglot is right to ask the scope question imho. Also imho, the article is currently economic history and will eventually also be pertinent to the French administrative law system.

PS.I added the categorizes myself and was primarily concerned at the time with avoiding an uncategorized tag. I am open to whatever seems the right thing to do there, but like the title, it should be consistent with the content, is all. Elinruby (talk) 00:58, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

It’s an important question to ask and come to a consensus on.

Right, that article is not about a military action. But it is a situation that only existed because of the war, and its scope is a period defined by the war. So it is war history by definition. Unless we explicitly define “military history” as something significantly narrower than war history, it qualifies.  —Michael Z. 03:49, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

Historically we've always taken a pretty broad definition of the project's scope, which reflects modern thinking on the nature of warfare. The article in question here is clearly in scope. Nick-D (talk) 10:07, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

Huh. I have other fish to fry and will let the discussion proceed without me for a while. Meanwhile however MilHistBot has just classified Countesses of the Gestapo as North American military history, so ... I am not certain that I agree with these criteria. But if in fact we are going to go with "anything that overlaps the time period of 1939 to 1945 is military history", then Ford Motors, IBM and the Associated Press all need to be added, and for much better reason IMHO since they directly participated in the German war effort, shrug. Just saying. A vast universe exists of things that have three degrees of connection to a war somewhere Elinruby (talk) 04:50, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

• I suppose the "crux of the biscuit" (as my old German teacher used to say) is whether or not we want to cover the "history of war" and the whole economic and sociological lot that entails or the "history of warfare" (combat activities). I tend towards the view that military history should be expansive enough to include the articles recalling important impacts of war, regardless of whether they involve active duty soldiers shooting their rifles or various models of planes and tanks. No offense to the warship or weapons gnomes, but I think that an expansive view helps to keep us grounded. I would certainly organize "Black market in wartime France" as a MILHIST topic. For further context, I would advise the viewing of Uganda–Tanzania War#Tanzania and Belgian Congo in World War II. These article/article sections tackle a lot not directly related to combat and fighting, but they cover situations which arose precisely because a wartime environment existed. -Indy beetle (talk) 09:09, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

When I was in a military history PhD program a decade (and another lifetime) ago, one of my advisors asked how women factored into military history. My immediate answer was something along the lines of “well, the Soviets used female snipers and combat pilots in WWII…” He said that was what he thought I’d say, but that was exactly the wrong, narrow idea he wanted to counter. Military history is much broader than simply what takes place on the battlefield. As Nick said above, this conception is pretty broadly accepted in academia.

In this case, the black market activities were inseparably related to the German occupation (and the destruction and dislocation that persisted long after the war). IBM and Ford are too broad of a topic to be included in the scope of MILHIST, as would woman, to return to my analogy. But if someone were to write an article on Women in France during World War II, it would inherently be military history, even if it had relatively few examples of women taking direct military action (and if someone wrote an article on Ford Motor Company during World War II, it obviously would be too). Parsecboy (talk) 09:30, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Much appreciated, this and all responses. Looking forward to additional feedback. Am subscribed, so will see all of them, even though I may not (and probably shouldn't) respond to all of them. Keep 'em coming! (edit conflict) Mathglot (talk) 09:34, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:1991–1992 South Ossetia War#Requested move 22 July 2023 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Frostly (talk) 13:04, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

I am working on articals about LDS miltary personel and I don't know the best way to say they served in the US then the State of Deseret then back to the US. I know with the civil war it would say USA: 1840-1861 CSA: 1864. What woud be the best way to say they went back to the US? Would it just be USA: 1840-1857 State of Deseret: 1857-1858 USA: 1858-1866. I am working on Lot Smith, I fixed his info box and did some clean up but I'm unsure of how to do the allegiances.LuxembourgLover (talk) 00:52, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

After months of sourcing the hell out of Tartan, the article has expanded greatly, so I've started splitting it up. The first split, which would be of interest to MILHIST, is Regimental tartan (I think it would be better as Regimental tartans, but we seem to like dropping the -s). This is presently categorized in "Tartans", "Scottish regiments", and "British military uniforms". Anywhere else it should go? Any kind of military navbox it should have and be listed in? In the interim, I'm working on a WP:SUMMARY to replace Tartan#Regimental tartans which is right this moment mostly the same as the new split-off article.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:25, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

Armenia Expedition (630) is sitting at AFD. I have no knowledge of this subject matter, but am hoping one or more persons here can add or change enough to keep this from instant doom. — Maile (talk) 01:10, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

The expedition is stated by reliable sources to have taken place so the deletion rationale seems spurious, I have commented at the AFD - Dumelow (talk) 17:52, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:1969 Libyan coup d'état#Requested move 7 August 2023 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. UtherSRG (talk) 16:11, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

I was working on the Red River Bridge War and I don't know why but the info box claimed a “Decisive Oklahoma victory” and also said “toll bridge destroyed” nether of toses claims were true. This could be vandalism but I could uses some help fixing the article tone and organization. LuxembourgLover (talk) 17:43, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Střekov Castle#Requested move 7 August 2023 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. UtherSRG (talk) 10:34, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

Hello. Could you please tell me the simplest ways to create operators maps like File:BvS 10 operators.png? I believe there should be some kind of utility to do that quickly, but didn't find it. RajatonRakkaus (talk) 08:05, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

you can check here: Wikipedia:Graphics Lab/Map workshop. Artem.G (talk) 17:39, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

There's a content dispute on the Battle of Stalingrad article about mentioning alleged Soviet usage of "human wave" tactics, and I'd appreciate additional opinions. Editors may also want to consider how Human wave attacks presents its subject. Kges1901 (talk) 22:20, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

Well, was going through Dad's things and discovered he was more appreciated during his time in the Vietnam War than he let on. D'ye think an actual photograph of an Army Commendation Medal would be useful? We don't have one for any other branch. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.5% of all FPs.} 15:08, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

Actually it looks like the linked page has photos of each branch's medal. They're clumped as one, but they're all individual images. Intothatdarkness 15:45, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

@Adam Cuerden: There is a broad selection at c:Category:Army Commendation Medal (United States). However, if you feel that a photograph of the medal you have found would add something different (or be of a better quality/resolution) then uploading a new file is welcome. From Hill To Shore (talk) 17:22, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

Think I can at least get a better photo than any of those Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.5% of all FPs.} 17:44, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

There is a discussion taking place at Talk:Raytheon_Company#Requested_move_5_August_2023 about whether to move Raytheon Company to Raytheon. --Jax 0677 (talk) 02:32, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (triumvir)#Requested move 3 August 2023 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. — DaxServer (t · m · e · c) 07:44, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Allegations of genocide of Ukrainians in the Russian invasion of Ukraine/Archive 1#Requested move 4 August 2023 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. — DaxServer (t · m · e · c) 08:50, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

An editor believes Nader Shah's name should not be included in the infobox of this article. There is a discussion occurring on the talk-page whether or not it should be included or not. Please share your views: Talk:Skirmish of Chenab (1739) ThethPunjabi (talk) 20:00, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

Please see a discussion I've opened at Talk:Attack on Pearl Harbor#Japanese war crime. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 22:40, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

‎201.46.20.229 talk‎ (Undid revision 1169999539 by Keith-264 (talk)) Tags: Undo possible vandalism Non-autoconfirmed user rapidly reverting edits

• May I have an opinion on the propriety of 201.46.20.229's edits please? Regards Keith-264 (talk) 17:05, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

Just skimming Le Transloy, the IP seems to be going with "The main unit in which a quantity is expressed should generally be an SI unit or non-SI unit officially accepted for use with the SI" from the MoS. You seem to be using "However ... In non-scientific articles with strong ties to the United Kingdom, although the main unit is generally a metric unit (10 kilograms (22 lb)), imperial units are still used as the main units in some contexts (7 miles (11 km) by road)." Given the three nationalities involved, SI seems appropriate to me, but in changing extensively without discussion the IP seems to be at least bordering on vandalism and probably crossing over into the actual thing. Are the changes to the other articles of yours, and the other articles more generally which they have edited, similar? Gog the Mild (talk) 17:26, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

Yes at first revert I noted the articles were in BritEng and imperial to metric. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 17:29, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

Perhaps we should seek the opinion of an uninvolved admin? Hog Farm, Harrias, Girth Summit: any opinions? Thanks. Gog the Mild (talk) 17:32, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

They seem to have stopped for now. Girth Summit _(blether) 11:31, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

If they aren't in the pub. ;O) Keith-264 (talk) 18:03, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

Rolled back their edits and gave them a final warning; while they may be operating in good faith, they haven't made a single attempt to discuss the issue. We're past simple disruption but I'd rather give them a chance to change course rather than just block them. Parsecboy (talk) 18:44, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

I think that's fair. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 18:46, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

And now they've been blocked for 24 hours. Parsecboy (talk) 11:56, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

Extended for a week after resuming immediately after the block expiration. Parsecboy (talk) 17:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

I recently noticed that the article about the Battle of Preveza had fallen victim to Turkish nationalist POV warriors. Self-published websites have been used to support the idea that it was a huge Ottoman victory. When I've tried to check it up in established authors of 16th century maritime warfare, it's clear that it was actually more of a Turkish strategic victor but with very little fighting or losses.

There's been recent activity from Germanicus44 (talk · contribs) who has also edited a bunch of other articles about battles. As far as I can tell, the edits include citations of sources that don't actually support any strength figures, that are impossible to trace, or that are simply not reliable.

Would be appreciated if other interested parties from this project could help keeping an eye for this. From what I've seen of articles about 16th century warfare involving the Ottomans, articles seem to often be in a pretty bad shape. I've recently seen activity involving other Turkish nationalist POV warriors in galley as well. Peter ^Isotalo 12:12, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

Same could be said about other sources that overly exaggerated the number of ottoman troops.For exemple, siege of malta, modern estimates put ottoman casualties at 10,000 however sources on wikipedia put 35,000 dead,the total number of ottoman troops was 30,000-40,000. And we know that most of the ottoman army widrew after the arrival of the Christian relief force. So i could the ottomans suffered 35,000 dead??? We know that some ottomans soldiers were captured and many more were wounded so it is unlikely that they would have suffered more then 10,000 dead.And also,in the battle of preveza, it is a well known fact that the ottomans had 120 ships and 12,000 men and the holy League had double or triple that number(around 200-300 ships and about 30-50,000 men) so i do not understand why it got removed( and it wasn’t some “minor battle”,this battle secured the ottoman dominance in the Mediterranean for 33 years( which would end at the battle of lepanto(1571)). Germanicus44 (talk) 21:50, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

I recently came across a network of sites that claim to rank and provide statistics for various militaries worldwide. These sources are, according to a Bellingcat article , unreliable clickbait coming from a blogger, with no academic or military recognition. A quick search reveals that many military-related articles on Wikipedia use these sources, with some articles even parroting their idiosyncratic rankings and power metrics. I am wondering if it would be appropriate for someone to coordinate or automate the removal of these sources? Dawkin Verbier (talk) 17:19, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

Support, and maybe move-to/cross-post/link-from WP:RSN so there are some eyeballs there as well. Mathglot (talk) 19:17, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

This has come up before. Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Archive 161#What is the best way to find sources for naval equipment?: "specially avoid globalfirepower.com, which is about as reliable as the Daily Mail." Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:48, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

It was also neen discussed on RSN as well. In short they are not reliable. Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 32#Globalfirepower.com, Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 371#Global Firepower Index, and Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 240#militaryfactory.com Ckfasdf (talk) 22:19, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

It sounds like these could also be a candidate for the Wikipedia:Spam blacklist. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 23:12, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

Militaryfactory and the associated sites have been discussed here before, and it's also been suggested before to go through and remove every instance of their use on-site, but so far nobody has bothered to go through the hundreds of articles they're used in. Blacklisting may be a good idea, although I don't really know how that process works. Loafiewa (talk) 23:57, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

Blacklisting is generally for actively spamming, malicious, and/or deliberately false sources. Instead you'd probably want to add it to "unreliable" on RSP, and then ask to put it on the removal list for User:Citation Bot and perhaps on the list for automatic warnings that pops up when used on CS1. SamuelRiv (talk) 08:28, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

SamuelRiv can Milhisters just add globalfirepower.com and Militaryfactory to WP:RSP without any further process? Can I do that myself? Buckshot06 (talk) 09:05, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Having looked, I believe WP:RSPCRITERIA has been met. Buckshot06 (talk) 09:07, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

You'll make a post on WP:RSN with an WP:RfC to add these Military Factory etc sites to RSP with a choice of rating. To make it worthwhile to do so, you should show that the sites are being cited in a significant number of articles still, by showing results of a WP citation search like insource:globalfirepower.com. SamuelRiv (talk) 17:42, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Its a longstanding problem within the topic area (although not unique to this topic area)... Not sure blacklisting is the answer as I think that we have more of a legacy problem than a problem with new edits using these sources. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:48, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Is at it again, reverting Parsecboy this time. Keith-264 (talk) 20:37, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

I want to make the article The United States and the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. I think this would be a good article as it can simfy the Quasi-War, Proclamation of Neutrality, and the war of 1812. I could uses some help as this would be a bigger artical. I also belive this would meet Wikipida's guildines for notably. Any help would be greatly appreciated! LuxembourgLover (talk) 18:58, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

Perhaps something about the Louisiana Purchase, the proceeds of which were nearly all spent by Napoleon on his planned invasion of the United Kingdom. Alansplodge (talk) 22:43, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Hi all

Recently 15 (if I have counted correctly) images were removed in a single edit https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vietnam_War&diff=prev&oldid=1168990200 I just wanted to flag this edit as it seems like a rather large change to make on such an established article.

Thanks

John Cummings (talk) 07:54, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

• The article seems to have been overloaded with images before this. The images seem more appropriate now. Images should be spaced or maybe staggered so text is not sandwiched between pairs of images (MOS:SANDWICH); this does not work too well on small screens, etc. -Fnlayson (talk) 13:55, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

When doing a artical when the federal government and state government in a battle, in the info-box should the Governor’s have there state flag or the national flag? LuxembourgLover (talk) 14:02, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

Example? Slatersteven (talk) 14:06, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

You may wish to note MOS:INFOBOXFLAG, "Generally, flag icons should not be used in infoboxes, even when there is a "country", "nationality" or equivalent field ..." Gog the Mild (talk) 14:28, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

In the Whiskey Rebellion the info box has George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and Henry Knox as federal forces. Then info box then lists the governors of the 4 stats involved. So should I have the 4 governors have there state flags for better organization? LuxembourgLover (talk) 21:20, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

• Probably if useful such as the state flags are used for other items there imo. -Fnlayson (talk) 21:47, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

Flags/icons should only be used in the infobox if they serve a purpose like a "legend" on a map or graph. In a conflict infobox this can be useful if there is more than one belligerent on one side and information in subsequent parameters is grouped by the individual belligerents. This useful purpose is defeated if individual banners for commanders or units are used. The Kokoda Track campaign illustrates an appropriate use. Hope this helps. Cinderella157 (talk) 00:36, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

Should the United Kingdom be written alongside the Mujahideen and Maoists in the infobox of the Soviet–Afghan War article? (because in the article on the United Kingdom in the Soviet–Afghan War it is written "direct military involvement not only in Afghanistan but the Central Asian republics of the Soviet Union", "The operatives always saw front-line action assisting Massoud's men mostly using silencer rifles. They witnessed the interrogation of Russian prisoners and assisted in directing mortar fire", Paying money for attacks on the Soviet Union, which is called "These were the first direct Western attacks on the Soviet Union since the 1950s" Known and…) Parham wiki (talk) 15:43, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

We don't write the article in the infobox. Per WP:INFOBOXPURPOSE what is placed in an infobox must be supported by the body of the article and the article must stand alone. What might be written in another article is immaterial. Soviet–Afghan War does not support the UK being a belligerent. If edits were made to Soviet–Afghan War that did support the UK being a belligerent, then and only then would it be appropriate add or discuss the addition of the UK as a belligerent in the infobox. Cinderella157 (talk) 00:49, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

Input is requested at the subject discussion as to how or whether a result should be reported in the infobox. Cinderella157 (talk) 00:00, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

Please provide input at the subject discussion. The question arises because supported by is now deprecated. Cinderella157 (talk) 01:00, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

I am requesting a review of my draft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:List_of_RAF_Regiment_equipment, thanks RAFRegtRockApe (talk) 09:29, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

The USRC James Madison article claims she was launched in 1807. However, Threedecks has her launched as USS James Madison in 1812, citing British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793-1817 as the source. Are these the same ship, or two different ships? Mjroots (talk) 06:29, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793-1817 does not provide a launch date for James Madison. The ship is only mentioned in the context of being captured by HMS Barbadoes on 22 August 1812. Threedecks is a useful overview for naval research but is in no way a reliable source. Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 12:09, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

@Iskandar323: has been moving lots of "[year] [country] coup d'état attempt" articles to "[year] [country] coup attempt", citing WP:CONCISE and WP:PRECISE (see for example at 1993 Burundian coup attempt, formerly known by a different name). Obviously I could see how CONCISE seems applicable, though PRECISE seems to be addressing potential ambiguity which I don't think is an issue in these instances. I wish this hadn't been done unilaterally (as it seems, and has broken several links like Talk:1965 Burundian coup attempt/GA1 vs Talk:1965 Burundian coup d'état attempt/GA1 at the article's talk page), but it might be worth considering how we title such articles which often don't have a WP:COMMONNAME. -Indy beetle (talk) 09:02, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

I would be very, very surprised if "coup" is used more often in standard/conversational English than "coup d'état", so that feels like a clear and valid application of WP:CONCISE. (Also, I don't have a problem with the "unilateral" aka bold pagemoves, which can be reverted if needed per the WP:BRD cycle.) Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 09:28, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Hi, yes, I've boldly moved a number of pages. The "WP:CONCISE and WP:PRECISE" is one of the basic reason choices, but WP:CONCISE is indeed the prime mover here. In terms of WP:PRECISE, the precision is worth noting as being maintained and not degraded, since "coup attempt" is no less clear than "coup d'état attempt". There are also several broader principles at work here, notably that aside from being an unnecessary and needless overlengthening of the description, "d'état" is A) French, and B) dependent on a special character (in addition to an apostrophe), none of which are preferable. While the term as a whole has obviously been internalized within the English language, there is no conceivable reason that I can see to use an additional word that simply reduces concision while adding no value and lots of non-standard elements. It is also illuminating to consider the overall relative prevalence of these two phrases, as indicated by Ngrams, or on Google scholar, i.e. 36,000 hits for "coup attempt" versus 1,500 hits for "coup d'état attempt". However, as bold moves there is of course zero prejudice to the pages being moved back, especially where problematic, as exampled above. Iskandar323 (talk) 09:49, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Comment: many English-language news outlets use "coup" alone and don't use a foreign-language word with a special character. This wide range of readers must understand the word without help from French? ABC: "Niger's coup leader", AlJazeera: "July 26 coup", BBC: "Niger coup: 'Nobody", CBS: "Niger coup leaders", CNN: "Niger coup leaders", Fox: "following coup that", IndiaToday: "since coup kills", NBC: "Niger coup jeopardizes", Reuters". "former coup general", and Stuff (NZ): "and coup claims". I wonder if "d'état" is becoming a niche word. (I am not a member, just a (US) English speaker). Sammy D III (talk) 17:18, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

Languages evolve. Often they become simpler. I have no problem with these kind of moves. We should keep the order of the pagenames, [year] [country] xxxx [attempt] etc though. Buckshot06 (talk) 01:10, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

I'm working on the article for Thomas M. McLaughlin. Time magazine says he "was part of the “Top Gun” unit that inspired the Tom Cruise movie by the same name", but he was a US airforce pilot and I thought "Top Gun" was a US navy thing? And also "Top Gun" is a training outfit? Looking at what memorial websites says (obviously non-RS, but also likely written by people close to the subject) he served with 12th Tactical Fighter Wing/480th Tactical Fighter Squadron, and also the 25th Tactical Fighter Squadron - I'm not aware of either of these being anything to do with "Top Gun" but I don't know everything? Anyone able to cast light on what actual connection McLaughlin had to "Top Gun", if any? FOARP (talk) 07:22, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

Sounds like a load of nonsense. TOPGUN was (and is) an entirely USN thing. They did occasionally borrow USAF or Marine Corps-piloted aircraft for different aggressors at times, but in no sense was any USAF “the basis” for it. Either he was significantly overblowing his participation in it or the interviewer dramatically misunderstood what he said. Parsecboy (talk) 09:31, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

@Parsecboy - McLaughlin had passed away when the Time piece was written so I don't think this is on him. The photo of him on the Legacy.com website appears to be from his flying days and says "12th TFW TOP GUN" which I think may be the origin for this term. I think it refers to something else, and not the Top Gun school. FOARP (talk) 12:00, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

He was the "top gun" (best pilot) of the 12th Tactical Fighter Wing, probably through some sort of internal competition.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 12:11, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

I'd say this is correct. Could have been an internal competition or something larger, but it certainly has nothing to do with the Navy Fighter Weapons School. Time is clearly deeply confused. Intothatdarkness 12:56, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

You'll find that journalists are generally vastly ignorant about military and naval matters, aside from those actually working in the field.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 13:11, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

@Sturmvogel 66 - That makes sense. I'll strike any mention of Top Gun from the article. FOARP (talk) 17:56, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

• BTW - I'm trying to work out what hill the battle described in the sources about McLaughlin's rescue was. Based on this news report about a F-4 Phantom being shot down, I think it was Hill 31. FOARP (talk) 18:34, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

"Hill 31" was FSB 31 an ARVN base in Operation Lam Son 719. I have added all necessary detail to the page. Mztourist (talk) 06:04, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

Thanks! FOARP (talk) 07:47, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

I have nominated Lawrence Sullivan Ross for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" in regards to the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Dylanvt (talk) 13:15, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Invasion of Quebec (1775)#Requested move 21 August 2023 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Parham wiki (talk) 15:15, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

The Nore does anyone know how to make the Admiralty chart in the Lightship and shape of shoal visible? Thanks Keith-264 (talk) 19:43, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

It works for me. Gog the Mild (talk) 19:44, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Hmmm, I get an empty box except for the caption "The Nore" in the middle. Keith-264 (talk) 20:38, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

I am seeing the same blank image/caption on mobile. The original file is of a very large size. It could be something is going wrong with the render on certain browsers/devices. From Hill To Shore (talk) 20:46, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Correction, I think this is related to {{Annotated image}} - "The Nore" that is showing up instead of the image is being called by the template code on the page. From Hill To Shore (talk) 20:49, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

That goes beyond my Wikimojo I'm afraid. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 22:47, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

@Keith-264: I've posted a copy of the template code in my sandbox together with a normal image link to the file. Are you able to see the file below the template? If so, that will confirm it is the template at fault. Also, what type of device/browser are you viewing the article on when you see the fault? From Hill To Shore (talk) 14:35, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

@From Hill To Shore: The excerpt chart 1934 is still blank except for the caption but I can see the smaller image to the lower right. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 06:00, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

@From Hill To Shore: Think I've got it now but couldn't get upright to work. Keith-264 (talk) 20:21, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

Hello,

it would be nice if someone could help me to understand this diagram. How is it possible that the bullet’s trajectory is going up? Shouldn’t it go down steadily after the zeroed 25 meters? I have not the biggest clue of such things, so I decided to ask here. 😊

Thanks a lot. 🙂 Molekularbiologe (talk) 18:51, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Zeroing has everything to do with the weapon's sights and not so much the bullet trajectory (aside from accounting for it). All a 25 meter zero implies is that the sights have been adjusted so the round impacts on point of aim at 25 meters. Intothatdarkness 20:20, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

The line of sight is higher than the axis of the barrel. The line of sight in the graph is horizontal. The axis of the barrel is pointing up. The up angle is indicated by the slope of the trajectory in the first 50 odd metres. This is not the best graph I have seen because the X axis is very compressed. Hope that helps. Cinderella157 (talk) 00:11, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, that helps. Thx a lot. 🙂 Molekularbiologe (talk) 22:59, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

The way to think about it is, because the bullet is affected by gravity (while the line of sight of course isn't), the barrel must be angled slightly upward relative to the line of sight for it to intersect. And because that is the case, the bullet must pass over the line of sight at a relatively short distance, travel for some time above the light of sight, and then intersect it a second time at a further distance. If the barrel an line of sight were directly parallel, you would never be able to zero the light of sight to any distance. Parsecboy (talk) 23:16, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

I would start a new regional MILHIST task force under the “Nations and regions” category, with the scope of the history of modern states in Eastern Europe. This would fill a gap in focussed coverage on the region, including the active topic of the Russo-Ukrainian War. I would find it immediately useful by providing an article alerts page.

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Eastern European military history task force

Current task force coverage is lacking on this region:

This user is a member of the European military history task force of WikiProject Military history.

The scope of the European task force is extremely broad, covering 44 to 50 sovereign states, in which seven sovereign states and three regions (Balkan, Baltic, and Nordic) already have their own more focussed MILHIST task forces.

This user is a member of the Russian, Soviet and CIS military history task force.

The related Russian, Soviet and CIS task force is also very broad but at the same time limited. It is named as spanning one country, two dead empires, and an obscure international organization mainly in northern and central Asia. It doesn’t correspond to our categorization by country, by period, by war, by size, by type, or by intersections of those. Although its definition statement invokes “post-Soviet states” (a deprecated anti-definition) it actually lists four or arguably six Eastern European countries, but explicitly omits a number of other “post-Soviet” states and former Russian colonies because they belong to other regional or national wikiProjects. It stereotypes these very diverse states (lumping together, e.g., Ukraine and Mongolia) across two continents according to only their former colonial status, obscuring their identity under a WP:BIASed Russian Federation-oriented umbrella.

As to defining precise scope, if necessary, it should be defined more on a broader historical basis than just by reference to the seven-decade Soviet Union or five-decade Soviet bloc. See Eastern Europe, Central and Eastern Europe, and East-Central Europe. A reference points might be the 1054 Roman Catholic–Orthodox schism, but the region was heavily influenced by the Central European Austrian empire and the Islamic Ottoman empire as well.

Thoughts?  —Michael Z. 19:00, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

Is there any reason why you could simply request re-splitting of the talk pages of whichever of the two task forces you prefer to use (out from this main talk page), to coordinate any activities you wish to focus on?

What matters is the coordination of article writing, not arguments about where boundaries lie. Every so often we have a long discussion about a new proposed task force - but all the attention is about creating the task force, and few more articles get created or improved.. Buckshot06 (talk) 23:27, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

The talk tab for both of those task forces redirects to this main MILHIST talk page. Changing anything about the configuration of discussion pages isn’t at issue, as far as I can tell.  —Michael Z. 23:30, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

Agree with Buckshot. The long-established reality of task forces within MILHIST is that they are more of a categorisation of articles than any sort of mechanism for concentrating editing effort. People edit where they choose, and examples of collaborative editing across more than a few articles or a narrow field are few and far between. IMHO, the effort of creating a new TF (and defining it in such a fraught area with already existing TFs like the Polish and Balkans ones) isn’t worth the effort and time. Cheers, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 01:12, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

Well right, article categorization is what I’m interested in, along with the aggregated article alerts and statistics. I am glad to put in the effort to set these things up

myself.  —Michael Z. 02:10, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

Well, my first question would be why just the modern states? That crosses over with the temporal TFs. That would create confusion when dealing with older entities like the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth etc. And what current states do you mean when you refer to Eastern Europe? Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 12:05, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

I’m not seeing the problems. Why are the Polish and Baltic states TFs defined by just modern states, what is the problem with that, and is it something that makes you oppose the existence of those TFs? Why is the European regional TF defined by a modern regional concept, etcetera? What’s the confusion about the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth which was clearly in Eastern Europe?

What would you suggest? What definition of Eastern Europe would you choose?  —Michael Z. 15:10, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

It’s your idea mate, why don’t you tell us what you are proposing? Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 21:58, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

I’m getting constructive input from interested editors before working out the full details. I’d appreciate an explanation to understand the concrete implications of your objections.  —Michael Z. 23:23, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

I see no problem with creating a new task force. Nor with it overlapping other task forces, since many of our existing ones do. The maintenance overhead has all but disappeared since I trained our MilHistBot to categorise them. The task forces have become more of a categorisation tool than the mini-project they were intended to be, but all it requires is interested editors to revive one. The special projects were different, but there has not been one for a while. We haven't created a new task force since 2016. What it would involve is some changes to our project template, to the Rater tool, and to the MilHistBot, and creating some more categories. (Anything else? This should be documented.) Hawkeye7 (discuss) 02:50, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

OK. If we were going to do this, my preferred scope would avoid as much overlap as possible. I would suggest defining Eastern Europe for TF purposes as the CIA World Factbook does, essentially the European part of the former Soviet Union less Russia, and therefore to include the following: Moldova, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. This is encompasses the current Baltic TF. Thoughts? Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 12:28, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

My initial thought was Belarus, Moldova, European Russia, and Ukraine. Their histories connect them to many other countries, of course, especially if we consider the conflicts and empires that involved their territories and peoples.  —Michael Z. 22:10, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

For information, here’s a survey of how Wikipedia articles cover Eastern Europe.

The main article Eastern Europe tells us that Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine are always included, and sometimes Bulgaria, Czechia, Hungary, Moldova, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia.

The main article’s lead also mentions the importance of the traditions of the Slavs and the Greeks, Eastern Christianity, the Eastern Roman and Ottoman empires, and the Cold-War Eastern Bloc.

The article's “Religious and cultural influence” section refers to Eastern Europe formed by countries with dominant Orthodox churches, including Belarus, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania, Russia, Serbia, and Ukraine, for instance, as well as Armenia, which is predominantly Armenian Apostolic. Some definitions mention that Greece is often omitted as it is tied more closely to Southern Europe and the Mediterranean.

The Catholic–Orthodox split is “a division that dominated Europe for centuries, in opposition to the rather short-lived Cold War division of four decades.” This might encourage us to include Southeastern Europe, which is the Balkan countries, Albania, and sometimes Greece and European Turkey.

There is also a “between” region of East-Central Europe: Hungary, and sometimes Czechia, Poland, and Slovakia.

The following country articles’ leads say their subjects are in Eastern Europe or at its intersection: Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Romania, Russia, and Ukraine, although two of these are specifically in the Caucasus, and one chiefly in Central Asia. —Michael Z. 22:06, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

I wouldn't worry about how individual WP articles define it, I would look for an academic consensus about it, or if that isn't going to happen, at least choose some external standard that won't result in never-ending discussion. That is why I suggested using the CIA Factbook as a basis. I would also recommend not overlapping with too many existing TFs, which the CIA Factbook version would avoid to a great extent, mostly capturing the post-Soviet Union countries that are not part of existing TFs. I'd be happy with Belarus, Moldova, and Ukraine, and even European Russia (presumably Russia west of the Urals?) leaving the existing Russia TF in place to cover all of current Russia, and leaving out the Baltic TF countries. In any case, articles can be in multiple taskforces, so if something happened in European Russia during the existence of the Soviet Union, it could be in the Soviet TF as well. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 22:34, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

Yes, Belarus, European Russia, and Ukraine existed as countries during periods when they didn’t have statehood. And their native peoples, including Indigenous peoples, have military histories. I don’t know Moldova as well, but it corresponds to the historical region of Bessarabia, and has an important relationship with Romania.  —Michael Z. 01:12, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

Hi all - Grieg2 (talk · contribs) and I have been discussing the best way to refer to naval guns, including conversions of bore diameter, how and when to include length in calibers, and squaring those considerations with the proper nomenclature of the guns themselves (see here if you're curious), and we've decided we need more input on how to treat these issues (and probably adopt a more standardized approach - which may be difficult). On to the specifics:

1. How should we convert bore diameters? On many guns, the nominal caliber is different than the actual caliber of the bore (so for example, the 21 cm RK L/22 gun is not actually 21cm in diameter, it is 20.92, so the conversion would go from 8.3" to 8.2". Not a huge difference, but one is more accurate than the other.
2. Should links include conversions? They obviously weren't in the nomenclature of the gun (the British manufactured RML 7-inch Armstrong Guns, not RML 7-inch (17.8 cm) Armstrong Guns).
3. Relatedly, should we include barrel length (generally given in calibers) even when not included in the name? Barrel length (and as a result muzzle velocity) is a significant factor in gun power, so perhaps it should. But it might also add to infobox cluttering (which I tend to oppose).

In any event, we thought it best to broaden the discussion, so please add your thoughts. Parsecboy (talk) 12:04, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

FWIW, for 1. and 2. I tend to use piped conversions like [[Škoda 7 cm guns|{{convert|66|mm|in|sp=us|abbr=on}}]] L/30 guns because I prefer the actual bore and conversion rounded to a sensible figure to the (in my view misleading) generalised bore used in some sources and article titles. I always provide calibre for the reasons you indicate. Sometimes the same vessel has two guns of the same bore but different calibres, or a gun is replaced by a long barrelled gun of the same bore. I have a FAC nom at present where both of those situations apply. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 12:37, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

I think the names are names, not spec sheets. If it’s called a “21-cm gun,” then an explanation/clarification/“translation” of the name can tell the unfamiliar reader what the name means in terms they understand – but the precise measurement and its conversion belong in the article, infobox, list of specs, etcetera. In fact it could make things more confusing, not less, to imply that 21 cm = 8.2 inches when that is not true.

Conversions can be added to names in redirects for the convenience of linking, but should not be added to names in article titles, as this would be contrary to the naming WP:CRITERIA.

Article titles should follow sources per WP:COMMONNAME regarding the inclusion of conversions or barrel length. References to the subject should generally follow the article title, but exceptions can be made if alternate names are commonly used in sources.

(These are just my responses in principle. Of course concrete examples of usage might point out other practical considerations.) —Michael Z. 16:26, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

I think it's a good point to note that "21cm = 8.2in" could cause confusion when that is not strictly true - that had not occurred to me. But I have seen quite a few instances over the years of people trying to fix conversions when the conversion templates rounded badly, so it does seem that people are looking at conversions. Parsecboy (talk) 16:45, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

Well of course, and where we offer figures, there should be conversions for everyone’s convenience where it’s warranted (although is it always warranted when even the USA has long used millimetres for calibre?). But the example of the the 21 cm RK L/22 proves that some figures are nominal, and do not need conversions. Seems to me they make sense in tables comparing specs. Not convinced there’s any reason to turn navboxes into data tables though.  —Michael Z. 23:10, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

Just to be clear, we're talking about the infobox, not navboxes, and they are inherently data tables. Parsecboy (talk) 23:22, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

Agreed with Mzajac that in this context these are names not specs and we should go with the common name. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:31, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

{| {{Infobox ship begin}}
{{Infobox ship characteristics
| Header caption = (#1)
| Ship armament = 2 × [[21 cm RK L/22|{{cvt|21|cm|1}} L/22 guns]]
}}
{{Infobox ship characteristics
| Header caption = (#2)
| Ship armament = 2 × [[21 cm RK L/22]] guns
}}
{{Infobox ship characteristics
| Header caption = (#3)
| Ship armament = 2 × [[21 cm RK L/22|21 cm (8.2 in) RK L/22 guns]]
}}
{{Infobox ship characteristics
| Header caption = (#3)
| Ship armament = 2 × [[21 cm RK L/22]] (8.2) guns
}}
|}

Just to be clear, I don't think anyone is suggesting the articles be renamed to include conversions of the gun diameter, so we can set that piece aside. The real question is how to treat them in infoboxes or the text of other articles. For example, which version of the infobox at right should SMS Friedrich Carl (1867) use? Parsecboy (talk) 16:40, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

Same answer, just use the name and don't do any conversion. In this case that looks like #2 but honestly I'd even leave off "guns" Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:52, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

The question I'd ask is, if you leave off "guns", how do you know what it is? Could be any number of other weapon types. Parsecboy (talk) 17:04, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

You will notice that the text is blue, that is because it is a link. One can either click the link or hover their cursor over it to cause a small preview box to come up to learn more about it. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:22, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

I don't think forcing readers to take another step to understand something is a good solution. Parsecboy (talk) 17:43, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

How would you propose to consistently also list, say Ordnance QF 25-pounder, Skif (ATGM), M142 HIMARS, Tornado (multiple rocket launcher)?  —Michael Z. 16:51, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

Those aren't exactly the same, since they wouldn't be in an infobox as part of the armament of a larger weapons system - a better example would be something like the QF 6-pounder 10 cwt gun. Were I to put it in an infobox, I'd probably list it as "[X] × 57 mm (2.2 in) QF 6-pounder guns", since the weight of projectile is less meaningful to most readers than a simple bore diameter (which can be more easily compared to other guns that may be listed (for another example, what does simply calling something a 100-ton gun tell readers?). Parsecboy (talk) 17:04, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

I was just thinking about a similar matter, i.e. that for a ship infobox, the caliber/bore seems consistently important, but the relevance of other characteristics seems to change over time.

E.g. when the grenade guns first appeared, it was important to know whether something was a grenade gun or a solid shot gun, because the caliber had a totally different meaning for these two types. When the rifled gun appeared next to these, it became important to distinguish between SBML and rifled guns of the same caliber. When the smoothbore guns had disappeared, etc. etc.

Mentioning the skif is actually relevant in this discussion, because for the Skif or Stugna, the caliber is relevant for the barrel fired version.Grieg2 (talk) 17:13, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

The Stugna tank-gun missile is a completely different thing: a 125-mm tank round.

But the Skif/Stuhna ATGM launcher fires rounds of at least two different diameters, that come preloaded in tubes.  —Michael Z. 02:23, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

To shorten the infobox, I generally don't name the gun, but I do link to it and give a conversion for its actual bore diameter, even if it's different from its name. I usually ignore caliber length measurements in individual ship articles and save them for the class article. I only use caliber length in an individual ship article if a ship had guns of the same bore diameter, but with different lengths, or if the length is formally part of the name. I do think that the bore diameter and the type of gun are the most important item for the infobox. Caliber length runs a distant second, IMO, not least since most readers won't have a clue what it means.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 17:57, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

Referring to Category:Military equipment by country and Category:Weapons by country, and their many, many subcategories. The second (subcategory of the first) gives inclusion criteria in its description (my emphasis):

Most weapons since the Middle Ages can be identified as having been developed by a particular country. This may be as a result of that nation's government or military driving development, or in some cases of private citizens or companies creating new technologies. In most cases, if successful, the invention will spread to other nations. In general, weapons should be listed under the nation that led the development of the project, even if use and production may have spread. In cases where development was the result of shared collaboration between partner nations, the weapon should be found in Category:International weapons

This makes good sense, because some equipment and weapons have been used by scores of states, but categorizing them thus would be unwieldy, unuseful, and contrary to the convention that categories are defining.

1. Perhaps this criteria should be promoted to the parent military equipment category.

I have been adjusting membership in subcategories according to this. But then found templates for defining categories that directly contradict the criteria in Category:Military category header templates. Many of these seem to state, for example ({{Cathead anti-ship missiles of}}): “Anti-ship missiles of [country] include anti-ship missiles designed, built, or operated in [country].”

Some of these templates are more in line with the criteria, e.g., {{Cathead artillery of}} says “Artillery of [country] includes artillery designed by [country].”

2. These templates should probably be changed en masse to conform to the parent category inclusion criteria, if there is no specific objection.

 —Michael Z. 16:41, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Libyan civil war (2011)#Requested move 16 August 2023 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. —Usernamekiran_(AWB) (talk) 22:09, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Battle of Khartoum (2023)#Requested move 21 August 2023 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. —usernamekiran (talk) 22:50, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

I've started a discussion about unofficial translations of otherwise RS uploaded on the Internet archive Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Unofficial_translations_of_works_on_Internet_Archives. Opinions would be welcome.Nigel Ish (talk) 07:53, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

Hello I am working on the Luxembourg rebellions, that was a rebellion that consisted of two smaller events including the Luxembourg communist revolution and the Luxembourg Rebellion. I have been doing research but I can not find that much information for an event that was very important in Europe. Anyone know where I can research or translate information. LuxembourgLover (talk) 12:43, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

Here are a couple of sources:1, 2.--Catlemur (talk) 15:16, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

A new article has been created on the Elmslie typology for Falchions. I have placed a banner on it and a holding class of start. It appears heavily cited but, on examination, most citations are essentially footnotes giving examples of different classes. Actual citations tying the typological classes to the general published sources are lacking. I do not know if this is acceptable in typology articles? I think this needs to be done before the B-class check list can be properly completed - I fear the bot will fail to recognise the referencing issues. I recognise the two main sources as correct but do not have access to them to check the class descriptions - I would hope a weaponry expert with access to these uncommon publications could do this. Thanks for anyone willing to give it a look. Monstrelet (talk) 16:29, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Abu Ali Mustapha Brigades#Requested move 28 August 2023 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. —usernamekiran (talk) 04:31, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:First Battle of Lyman#Requested move 28 August 2023 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 15:01, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

Hi, Looking at the Jackie Shroff article (an Indian actor, born 1957), it states that his mother moved to India due to a coup in Kazakhstan; the actor says the same in the cited interview. There is a clarification tag for when/which this is referring to. Can someone please identify whether a coup did take place in Kazakhstan before 1957, if so which and if not which incident this might be referring to. Thanks. Gotitbro (talk) 10:19, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

According to this, more than a million Kazakhs "fled to neighbouring Chinese territory" between 1916 and 1939 to escape purges and forced collectivisation. No mention of a coup but since the Soviets killed 1.5 million Kazakhs in the same period, that doesn't seem surprising. Alansplodge (talk) 21:52, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

That is what I was suspecting, added a clarifying note for the same in the article. Thanks for the help. Gotitbro (talk) 03:46, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

I have nominated Arena (countermeasure) for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" in regards to the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Schierbecker (talk) 04:59, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Cold war (term)#Requested move 31 August 2023 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 13:45, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

Due to poor quality of translation, I declined one of my students translations from Chinese at User:Wyyz02/The United States Helps and Beware of Taiwan . That said, the topic of American defence of Taiwan, which is what I think this is about, is notable. Chinese article is at zh:美国协防台湾. I have no idea when another student of mine (or anyone else) will tackle this, but frankly given the gravity of this topic this deserves attention from someone who can do the job well. Perhaps the links to the Chinse article and my student draft can help someone get started? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:58, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

Please see competing versions. Please see my note on Talk:First Dacian War. Also, there is but one (inaccessible) source. Perhaps more sources can be found. Thanks -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 16:30, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Gott mit uns#Requested move 9 September 2023 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. HouseBlaster^talk 00:42, 10 September 2023 (UTC)