Talk:Battle of Burki

Some suggestions

Good work so far. I have assessed this article as Start class as I believe it needs a bit more work with referencing, coverage and grammar. I believe that it could be improved in the following ways:

• there is a spelling mistake in the infobox: "Failure of the Pakistani tank assault and courter attack towards Lahore" ("courter" should be "counter");
• are there page numbers for the books that are cited? These should be included as they help readers verify that the article is accurate;
• the bare urls in References # 5 and 6 could be formatted with the {{cite web}} template to give them a cleaner look;
• there is a mixture of English variation, for example: "armor" and "armour" - these should be consistent;
• there are a number of grammatical errors in the article. A couple of examples:
  • in the Prelude, "Pakistan operation launch Operation Grand Slam to relieve infiltrators who got surrounded after the failure of Operation Gibraltar and try to cut off the Indian supply". This should probably be: "Pakistan launched Operation Grand Slam in an effort to relieve infiltrators who had been surrounded after the failure of Operation Gibraltar and to attempt to cut off the Indian supply lines". (Also, you should probably include the date that Operation Grand Slam was launched in this sentence);
  • in the Aftermath, "Fighting Fifth battalion of the Indian Army which..." This should probably be: "The Fighting Fifth Battalion, which played an important part in capturing Burki, was later conferred with the battle honour "Burki" and the theatre honour "Punjab".;
• in relation to the grammar, I suggest requesting a copy edit from the Guild of Copy Editors. This can be requested at: Wikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/Requests, but I suggest waiting until the article has been expanded a bit further before making the request;
• in the lead, who is "Lieut-Colonel Bhullar"? What is his full name? Was he Indian or Pakistani? What was his exact role? He is not mentioned in the main body of the prose at all, which he should be if he was as important as the lead suggests;
• in the lead, the location of Burki is mentioned. That is fine but it should also be mentioned in the main body of the article too. I suggest adding it to the Prelude or a Background section, which could help provide more context to the article;
• in the lead, words like "enemy" should be avoided, as this creates the impression of a point of view;
• I suggest combining the two "Importance" sections into a broader "Background" section, or just rolling them into the Prelude;
• the Battle section is quite small and probably needs more detail. For example, take a look at the Battle of the Bulge and Battle of Gettysburg articles - these are quite detailed. Of course, the amount of detail that is possible is dependant upon the amount of coverage in reliable sources, so it might not be possible to include the same level of detail, but I think it should at least be possible to expand the article a bit further;
• the prose should mention the specific units that were involved on both sides (if they are known), as well as mentioning the strengths, casualties and the main commanders (currently the commanders are listed in the infobox, but these are not mentioned in the prose);
• in the lead and in the infobox it mentions airstrikes, but these are not mentioned in the main body of the prose. If it is known, more information about the size of these strikes, and the units involved, should be included in the Battle section;
• the infobox mentions that India lost four tanks, but this is not mentioned in the body of the article - could this be elaborated on?
• are the infantry losses known at all? Currently the infobox only lists tank losses;
• the Aftermath section should be expanded to discuss broader implications of the battle on the war and subsequent events. For example, did the Indians continue to advance to Lahore, or were they stopped before they got there? What was the next major battle that occured?;
• if possible, the inclusion of a map showing the location of where the battle took place and key adjacent localities would be a good addition;
• if you wish for further feedback, you might consider nominating the article for a Military history project peer review. Doing that might produce a few more suggestions for improvement, although currently there is a shortage of active reviewers, so it may not receive a full review unfortunately.

Anyway, good luck with expanding the article. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 01:27, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Good work addressing these suggestions. I've upgraded the assessment now. There are still a couple of issues, but I think it should be enough for B class now. I performed a light copy edit, but I still suggest requesting a copy edit from the Guild of Copy Editors and a peer review as these might help you if you are hoping to take the article further. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 01:21, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Battle of Burki was part of the Indian Invasion of Lahore

Since this battle was part of the Indian Invasion of lahore 1965 which itself was part of the 1965 Indo-Pakistani war, it's better to label it as part of the lahore front/Indian Invasion of lahore since this was an attack on undisputed land which should be highlighted. Pr0pulsion 123 (talk) 11:21, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

Technically, yes, it is part of the Lahore Front, but this was not such a large war that it needs to be dealt with in terms of various "fronts". Besides, the Lahore Front page is hardly enlightening. So I don't see anything served by subdividing things in this way.

On the whole, I am also pretty tired of numerous editors coming and wanting to tweak this and that tidbit, while the articles themselves remain in pitiable shape with no decent sources or coverage. On the whole, none of these efforts show any interest in building an encyclopedia. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 23:36, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

I changed some of the wording on the battle section.

I changed some of the wording on the battle section to this (as best as I can remember): "bombers with bombs and missiles" to "bombers", "of" to "on" (I don't remember why, but I'll remember why in a bit), Changed "ground strafing" to "strafing". You guys have any thoughts on these changes? Maybe some suggestions? Nunyanator (talk) 04:41, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

About claims

Hello guys! The claims are greatly exaggerated, as many Pakistani(https://www.thefreelibrary.com/In+Defence+of+Barki+-+Tank+Alert+(1965+Indo-Pak+War).-a0280556198) and neutral sources give us other claims. The claim mentioned there belongs to Indian General Harbakhsh Singh(https://ibb.co/FsMJCgV). So I request you to write there that they are Indian claims or also mention Pakistani claims. thank you.

Robort789 (talk) 11:45, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Neutrality and factual clarity

I'm starting this thread here on the talk page in hopes that this can be solved without a visit to the WP:NPOV/N noticeboard. Pinging involved editors: @Pax98 @Robort789 @Ratnahastin

There has been a lot of editing to this article over the past 15 days (beginning here) in regards to the casualties sustained by Indian and Pakistani military forces, with the same content being changed so much that I've lost track of what's reliable and what's not, and there was even some sockpuppetry involved, which definitely does not help when trying to determine what's right and what's not.

In an attempt to get this sorted out, I invite the editors mentioned here to reply to this thread with their proposed content, the source they got their information from, and their reason for why their information is correct. This has gone on for over two weeks and I cannot wait to not wake up to wondering whether this article is correct or not, so if your reply to this post contains attacks made against the validity of other users' contributions, that will not be tolerated and will be reported directly to WP:ANI.

I will review the information and sources presented and if required, obtain a neutral and uninvolved third party to review them as well. We're getting this settled here. Sirocco745 (talk) 06:26, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

I'll go first it seems. I'll cut straight to the chase here - I've recently made some edits to the casualties and losses section, and I've already specified the reason as to why I made those changes in the relevant edit summary. To reiterate, I've rummaged through a plethora of documents on this subject for any reference or even a claim made in support of the figure of 84 Pakistani tank losses and my searches so far have turned up nothing of that sort.

The documents I've gone through so far are listed below:

1. The official Indian Army history of 1965 war
2. War Despatches: Indo-Pak Conflict 1965 ISBN 978-81-7062-117-1 by Lt. General Harbaksh Singh, who was the then Western Army Commander of the Indian Army and was the man in charge of the overall operation
3. 1965 A WESTERN SUNRISE - INDIA'S WAR WITH PAKISTAN by Kunal Verma ISBN 978-93-90652-46-4
4. 1965 Turning the Tide: How India Won the War by Nitin A. Gokhale ISBN 978-93-85436-84-0
5. Last but not least, the incredibly detailed works of the renowned Pakistani military historian Major Agha Humayun Amin

Pax98 (talk) 14:51, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Well, sounds like you've done quite a bit of research here! I'll have to see if I can access those books, but the fact that you've been able to provide 5 sources is pretty impressive. Sirocco745 (talk) 22:32, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll be glad to send you the screenshots of the relevant pages if you want. Pax98 (talk) 01:24, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

That would be much appreciated, thanks! In the meantime, I'll do a bit of investigation to see how reputable and reliable your sources and their authors are. Always best to check that kind of stuff. You can learn a lot about conflicts by seeing who supports who and the reasons for doing so. Sirocco745 (talk) 03:47, 19 October 2024 (UTC)