Talk:Battle of Battle Mountain

The Alexander ref

I assume the multiple references to "Alexander 2001" refer to the first entry in the reference list? In this case, it should be changed to the right year, otherwise the Harvard reference style template does not produce a link. --Pgallert (talk) 15:30, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I must have put the wrong year in by mistake. Thanks. —Ed!^(talk) 16:49, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Fixed it in two more places. --Pgallert (talk) 12:17, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Notes

• I was doing some research on this when Ian promoted it; I'll continue my review here. - Dank (push to talk) 15:16, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
• Okay, now I'm confused. 24th Infantry Regiment (United States) says this regiment was in Japan at the start of the Korean War, and remained part of the 25th Infantry Division throughout the war, and it refers to the regiment as "24th Infantry" (which I'd expect) and the Division as the "25th Infantry Division". This is reflected in the main infobox for the article being reviewed here, Battle of Battle Mountain. But the text here says something completely different: "at the time the closest forces were the 24th Infantry Division, headquartered in Japan. The division was understrength however, and most of its equipment was antiquated due to reductions in military spending. Regardless, the 24th was ordered to South Korea. ... The 24th Infantry Division was the first US unit sent into Korea with the mission to take the initial "shock" of North Korean advances, delaying the much larger North Korean units to buy time to allow reinforcements to arrive. The division was consequently alone for several weeks while the 1st Cavalry Division and the 7th and 25th Infantry Divisions ...". Our article on 24th Infantry Division (United States) says nothing about this. Which is right? - Dank (push to talk) 15:16, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
  • I know it's very confusing, but both are right. The 24th Infantry Division (With the 19th, 21st and 34th Infantry Regiments) was the first unit into the conflict, but the 25th Infantry Division (24th, 27th and 35th Infantry Regiments) was the second. Both were in Japan on occupation duty. The 24th Division was the one which took the beating at Osan, and the 24th Regiment is the one that fought at battle mountain. —Ed!^(talk) 19:50, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
    • I didn't know that, thanks. - Dank (push to talk) 02:13, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Good lord. The refs are just as bad ... and they're written by generals! Sometimes they say regiment, sometimes division, sometimes they don't say. What a mess. - Dank (push to talk) 16:59, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
    • I've had a lot of debates about this with military types, and I'm not sure there's been a consensus. In military circles, "24th Infantry" refers exclusively to the regiment. Every other unit size has its size specified, but for some reason the historical nomenclature is to usually refer to the regiment without a "regiment" designator. Other users have wanted me to remove the "regiment" altogether because it is always "assumed" to refer to the same thing, but I believe it is thoroughly confusing for non military people to understand the concept. —Ed!^(talk) 19:50, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
      • I agree. Since we've got a 24th Division and a 24th Regiment in this article, could you search for "24th" and make sure there's either a "Regiment" or "Division" each time? - Dank (push to talk) 02:13, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
• "Komam-ni-Haman-Chindong-ni road": Assuming that those links will turn blue at some point, I get that the reader can figure out that this is 3 locations if they hover over each of the links, or if they notice the slightly different tint to two of those hyphens ... but not everyone will. WP:MOS will tell you that using dashes fixes the problem ... but even Wikipedians, much less readers, rarely notice dashes, so IMO they don't fix the problem. I changed this to "the road from Komam-ni to Haman to Chindong-ni". - Dank (push to talk) 15:27, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
  • That probably works better. Thanks. —Ed!^(talk) 19:50, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
• "US 25th Infantry Division emplaces": It's best if headings are a noun phrase, not a sentence, per MOS (one of the first sections). I'll fix it. - Dank (push to talk) 15:54, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
• See the discussion about the performance of the 24th in the last section of one of your refs, that is, http://www.history.army.mil/books/korea/20-2-1/sn11.htm, pp. 179-181. It's clear that the 24th performed poorly, but to say that and nothing else strikes me as non-neutral, given the POV of at least this high-quality ref. I'll remove the sentence; feel free to revert. I haven't gotten to the corresponding part of the text yet. - Dank (push to talk) 16:51, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
  • I did a more in-depth look at the 24th Infantry's performance at its first Korean War battle, the Battle of Sangju (1950). I didn't feel it was necessary to keep repeating the same analysis on each battle it was involved in - all that seemed directly relevant here was how it performed poorly at this fight, and that wasn't surprising. —Ed!^(talk) 19:50, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
    • Agreed that it's best to keep the analysis in one article. In the lead in this article, that sentence seemed too out-of-the-blue to me; it didn't smell right. The corresponding text seems fine. - Dank (push to talk) 02:13, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
• "Forces of the 3rd Battalion, 29th Infantry Regiment, newly arrived in the country, were wiped out ...": After reading the relevant article, I decided to go with "massive casualties", but feel free to tweak. - Dank (push to talk) 13:48, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
• I'm seeing a lot of "feet" that should be "foot". Add "|adj=on" to the convert template wherever the units are used as an adjective right in front of the noun. - Dank (push to talk) 14:19, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
• "the Sibidang–Komam-ni area": I changed this to "around Sibidang and Komam-ni". Same argument here; not many readers notice the dash, and for those that don't, "Sibidang-Komam-ni" isn't going to make any sense. - Dank (push to talk) 22:02, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
• Since sometimes you're talking about the 24th Division and sometimes the 24th Regiment in this article, could you make sure it's clear which you mean every time you say "24th"? It's not necessary to write out "the 24th Infantry Division" each time; "the division" will be clear enough in some contexts.
• Add second commas to battalions, for instance "3rd Battalion, 24th Infantry".
• "Bloody Knob.", "Rocky Crags.", etc.: WP:LQ.
• "The turnaround time for trains": link to train (military), and give an extra word or two so that careless readers don't think you're talking about choo-choos ... maybe "supply trains". - Dank (push to talk) 02:15, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
• Okay, I got a little more than half done, down to August 21–26 attack. Good work; this should go to FAC. - Dank (push to talk) 02:24, 7 September 2011 (UTC)