Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Archive 120

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Donation request for a book

Hey everyone! Would anyone have use for the book, "The Military History of California: The Chronicle of California's Historic Presidios, Forts, Camps, Stations, Fields, Bases, and Cannon from the Pre-Spanish Occupation to the End of the Cold War, 1579-1974 the Defenders of the Western Front"? I just received a request from them to donate the book on OTRS (2013060510013469), which is extremely comprehensive, so if anyone or a project would be interested in this, I would be willing to see the capacity in which he is willing to work with us. Here is some more information about it, but it looks like a very comprehensive book from the looks of it. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 00:57, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

I think it looks interesting. Is it a physical book or is it in electronic format? I would need to wait a month or two for my schedule to clear a bit before I could use it, but it looks like a valuable reference for improving California related articles. Mojoworker (talk) 01:12, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

I think he wants to give it to us verbatim, from the looks of it. It's a huge book, so I think it would be a valuable resource. I'm hoping we'll get an electronic resource, as it would be easier for multiple editors to work on it, but I will let you know. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 01:59, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Australian World War I edit-a-thon on 28 and 29 June

I posted about this last year, but as a reminder, there will be an online-only edit-a-thon on 28 and 29 June concerning Australia's involvement in World War I. This edit-a-thon will be focused mainly on the social context and impact of the war, as well as women's involvement in Australia's war effort - these topics were selected as they're currently under-represented. Further information is available at Meta-Wiki here, and editors are warmly encouraged to sign up and post articles on the work list as well as suggested references ahead of the event. Non-Australian editors are very welcome to participate. Nick-D (talk) 01:44, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

I have put my name down. Hawkeye7 (talk) 01:11, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

War art

Does war art such as Whaam! (Roy Lichtenstein's most famous painting and likely the most valuable 2-dimensional piece of military-themed art in the world), Torpedo...Los!, As I Opened Fire, Grrrrrrrrrrr!! and Blam fall under WP:MILHIST? If so, are they A-class eligible even though they have minimal military content?--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 15:26, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

In case you are wondering about my motivation, the 50th anniversary of Whaam!'s first exhibition is September 28th and I am shooting for WP:TFA. It is currently at WP:PR and I can use more feedback on the article. I was hoping I could list it at A-class as well.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 15:30, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

I have put Whaam! in the A-class queue without tagging Torpedo...Los!, As I Opened Fire, Grrrrrrrrrrr!! or Blam for MILHIST. Still sort of awaiting feedback on his other works, but feel Whaam! may be a special case.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 00:06, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

For what it's worth, to me they feel rather like war memorials and similar war-related art - probably within scope. Hchc2009 (talk) 20:05, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

They seem different from memorials, but like war-related art if you ask me. I was just not sure how much military content was required in the prose for them to be within scope. I have tagged all 5.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 20:41, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Upon second thought, if I were a fighter pilot, I might see Whaam!, As I Opened Fire or Blam as a memorial. And if I were a navy torpedo gunner maybe Torpedo...Los! would be a memorial and if the military still has canine crews, maybe Grrrrrrrrrrr!! would be a memorial.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 01:22, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Spaces above navboxes

I noticed some uniformity but also some controversy related to manual spacing in certain articles of this project. See Special:Contributions/91.10.19.237 for example. I have opened a discussion at the general MOS talk page about the issue. 86.121.18.17 (talk) 11:47, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

"Britain"/"United Kingdom"

I and another editor are currently discussing the use of the terms "United Kingdom" and "Britain" here – whether to use one over the other, and, if so, which and when. All thoughts appreciated. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 23:55, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Task force idea

Have you ever had discussions of a Military art, music and sounds task force. Military art would cover posters, photographs, paintings and sculptures. The sculptures would overlap with the Wikipedia:WikiProject_Military_history/Military_memorials_and_cemeteries_task_force, but obviously there are many military posters, some of which are notable enough for articles, many historical photographs worthy of articles and many military themed paintings worthy of articles. In addition to the articles all the sound and image files would be a part of the task force. Most of my prior contributions to the project are art and sound work. Military music would cover songs like Semper Fidelis (march), Battle Hymn of the Republic and such. Military sounds would cover a lot of the sound files of drum cadences, and speeches. I would not be an active member of such a task force, but I am just suggesting its creation.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 02:48, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

I recall that we've discussed something along these lines before—perhaps when we first created the war films task force?—but there was no real interest from anyone in actually being an active participant of such a group. Unless that has changed, I don't think a new task force is going to be particularly useful; the infrastructure isn't difficult to set up, but it's of little value if nobody is planning to use it. Kirill ^[talk] 08:25, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

O.K., I am then going to start assigning task forces to articles I have worked on:

• Maritime: Torpedo...Los!
• Science: Torpedo...Los!
• Aviation: As I Opened Fire, Blam (Roy Lichtenstein), Whaam!, Red Tail Reborn, Flight of the Red Tail, The Restorers
• WWII: Red Tail Reborn, Flight of the Red Tail
• US: Willie Gillis, Red Tail Reborn, Flight of the Red Tail, The Restorers
• Films: The Restorers
• Weaponry: As I Opened Fire

I remain unsure about Grrrrrrrrrrr!!, which may be a military attack dog, bomb sniffer, and may be out of scope for the project.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 14:10, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

New ammo infobox

Hi. I have created a new ammo infobox that adds two additional, optional, maximum pressure parameters, along with parameters to specify test method. The parameter to specify test method can be used with a single pressure as well, optionally. This is important especially in military cartridges because there are significant variations in maximum pressure specifications depending on whether the test method used was SAAMI/US MIL-SCATP or CIP/EPVAT/NATO. I am not proposing to add CIP pressure data to every ammo article, unless there is consensus to do so.

The idea behind this is that infobox data should be able to be compared between articles, per Help:Infobox. There is an additional kink in that sometimes there are SAAMI standards, CIP standards which are equivalent pressures to SAAMI, except different numbers due to method differences, and EPVAT pressures which are specified higher than CIP using a comparable methodology (i.e. they are actually overpressure by civilian standards). This is the case for 9mm NATO vs 9mm Luger. That is the primary reason I included up to three pressures, though we may choose not to specify that way in practice.

• User:Gigs/sandbox - Three infoboxes, one showing two pressures with methodology, one showing the backward compatible existing behavior, and the last showing a single pressure with method specified.
• Template:Infobox_firearm_cartridge/sandbox This is where the modified template is right now. It should be safe to roll out since it's backward compatible with current usage, and should not necessitate any changes to existing articles.

Gigs (talk) 03:17, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

The new version looks fine to me. (Having said that, I'm not really an expert on ammunition, so I may not be the best person to evaluate whether the implementation is technically correct.) Kirill ^[talk] 08:27, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

The new version looks good. One caveat from me: the pressure testing standards. I'm not expert either, here, but I'm unfamiliar with both. That said, most of the articles I've ever seen quote a number but not a spec; some have named a spec, & I believe that's the SAAMI standard. If, as you say, the pressures can differ based on methodology, I'm seeing a potential can & worms... TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 10:50, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Outside my area of expertise but wouldn't it make sense to keep the amount of detail in the infobox down and have it in a specification section of the article.GraemeLeggett (talk) 11:33, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

I agree that we shouldn't go too crazy, but knowing the methodology is essential to making sense of the numbers when comparing them. It's basically part of the "unit of measurement". Kind of like dBi vs dBd for antennas or PSIg vs PSIa, except worse, because there's no easy way to convert CIP to SAAMI or vice versa. Like I said, just having this ability doesn't mean that we necessarily need to add CIP pressures to every article that has only SAAMI now, that can be a separate discussion. Gigs (talk) 14:56, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Articles in Spanish Wikpedia

I was translating this template into Spanish and I found this two articles that don't exist in English:

• es:Expedición de Drake y Hawkins (Expedition of Drake and Hawkins)
• es:Invasión española de Inglaterra de 1597 (Spanish invasion of England in 1597)

Best regards,--Kizar (talk) 23:50, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

• Interesting. Some of this is covered in Battle of San Juan (1595), Battle of Pinos, and Battle of San Juan (1598), with more general coverage in Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604), but there doesn't seem to be an article exactly matching the former, certainly not one of that length. I may at some point take this on, but couldn't possibly now. Cdtew (talk) 01:12, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

There are several English piracy expeditions that are not here in the English Wikipedia. The one with John Oxenham (which had some participation by Drake) is an important one; but even the Oxenham article links to another person (William Arthur Dunkerley) who had nothing to do with the pirates. I'd contribute to it, but would probably not be able to work on them for over a year.--MarshalN20 | ^Talk 01:26, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

AfC submission

Another one for you guys and gals: Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Ellard A Walsh. Regards, FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 02:04, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Wartime powers/wartime authorities

Hi all, at an FAC review we noted that neither of these subjects have articles. Is there anything extant which they can be redirected to, or should an article be created? — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:05, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Wouldn't that depend on what war you're talking about? And whether you mean legal powers or military alliances? -- 65.94.79.6 (talk) 02:29, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

• As a phenomenon, rather. For instance, "Wartime powers (also known as wartime authorities) are the extraordinary powers granted to political or military groups on a temporary basis in times of war or civil unrest," etc. I'm not quite familiar with the literature on the subject, but it's probably notable enough for an article. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 06:01, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Martial law?—Odysseus1479 07:47, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

These titles appear to be too general in scope. Suggest the subject be narrowed down to more specific subjects. Bwmoll3 (talk) 08:14, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Martial law isn't the same thing at all - its governance by the military, while 'wartime powers' are additional powers assumed by a civilian government as part of its war effort. Nick-D (talk) 08:16, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

• Definitely, although in the article in question it was the military which requested additional powers. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 09:39, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

• The topic we do have an artcle on is emergency powers (which redirects to state of emergency); in many countries this is the general term and "war powers" may simply be a specialised case of emergency powers. In some there is a specialised legal concept for wartime - see, for example, the German State of Defence or the French fr:état de siège - but in most they're all bound up together, war and unrest and disasters alike, so it's probably best to discuss the general concept in the emergency article and only split out on a per-country basis. Andrew Gray (talk) 17:36, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

• I like Andrew's suggestion, but there still seems to be a slight difference in a "State of Emergency", which may trigger highly specific powers of a government, and "Wartime powers" which, depending on the government, may be broad and permit vast swaths of the government to circumvent usual checks and balances. The State of emergency article is huge, and in many parts it discusses wartime restrictions (ie: Ex parte Milligan), but it also talks a lot about true States of emergency (disasters, terrorism, etc. - which are all more limited restrictions that are imposed or lifted). I think a broad Wartime powers article, referencing similarities to State of emergency, would be helpful. This is also a topic we should consult with WP:Wikiproject Law on, though, as this is almost as much their domain as ours. Cdtew (talk) 18:07, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

• A lot of the UK acts granting various powers already have articles like Defence of the Realm Act 1914, Emergency Powers (Defence) Act 1939, Treachery Act 1940. There's room for expansion but the basics are already there, if there is a need for Wartime powers then perhaps it ought to be by country to avoid getting too big. NtheP (talk) 18:15, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
• Conceptually, I think they're much the same thing. I don't think there's a scope difference - emergency powers may be very specific or they may amount to comprehensive and indefinite martial law. The powers granted to governments by the particular context vary between country, and we should distinguish between wartime and peacetime extraordinary powers when writing about a specific country, but in general I think we'll confuse the matter by trying to claim there's a meaningful difference in all cases. Note, for example, that India's three States of Emergency occured both in wartime and in peacetime, with the same legal powers... Andrew Gray (talk) 20:47, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

• I agree that, in effect, they're much the same, and are most times two sides of the same coin. With all due respect, though, I think you'll find that most countries with some form of longstanding legal precedent will differentiate between the two types of powers; in addition, war powers contain a whole realm of powers very rarely found in emergency powers - namely those concerning the requisitioning of materiel (and men) for military use, directing military conflict, and rules setting up terms for engagement with the enemy. In British law (and by extension, in American jurisprudence), the war powers are derived from a different font (that of the need for providing for common defense) than emergency powers (as such - derived from the need for preservation of the common weal). Sometimes they overlap (like Lincoln's suspension of the habeas corpus was an emergency power based on insurrection, but was tinged with the scent of war powers). I'm fairly certain this distinction can be found in most western countries, and possibly elsewhere. Now, naturally, this is all OR on my part, and I have no sources at hand to confirm this (for the moment - while I'm at my day job). That's another reason we need to get WP:WikiProject Law's opinion on this. Cdtew (talk) 20:58, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
• P.S.: Called in some other opinions at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Law#Input needed: Emergency powers v. Wartime powers/War powers. Cdtew (talk) 21:03, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Wikiproject Law dude here; I agree they're pretty much the same thing. If we look at UK legislation, for example (I see that's an example that has been used) the most recent law is the Civil Contingencies Act, which defines a state of emergency to include not only state and civil unrest but also war. The legal powers the government is authorised to use in the immediate aftermath of a nuclear attack are the same legal powers as would be used if it was someone falling asleep at a power plant and turning Didcot into a small pool of gently steaming human and nuclear waste although to be honest if Didcot ended up filled with shambling, dripping zombies and the ruined shells of buildings I'm not sure anyone would notice . TL;DR: they are, as Andrew says, pretty much the same thing. Ironholds (talk) 17:20, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

I guess I must respectfully disagree, not that they're similar in usage (as I've admitted before), but only in that they're vastly different in origin. But I'm not one to prolong a discussion where I don't intend to do the lion's share of any work, so I will concede to the consensus, whatever it may be. Cdtew (talk) 19:23, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

A couple of ACRs that need attention

G'day all, I know we're all beavering away at the drive, but there are a couple of ACRs that have been open since 3 May and could do with fresh set(s) of eyes.

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Robert Howe (Continental Army officer) (one support at this stage) and
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Helmuth Raithel (two supports so far - disclosure:my nom)

Regards, Peacemaker67 (send... over) 12:38, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

gun control rfc

There is an RFC that may be of interest to this group at Talk:Gun_control#RFC. Subject of the RFC is "Is the use of gun restriction legislation or other confiscations by totalitarian governments (Nazi, Communist etc) accurately described as "Gun Control". Are such instances appropriate for inclusion in the Gun Control article. (Details at RFC in article)" Gaijin42 (talk) 16:02, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Unidentified toy artillery

I need help identifying this piece here. Make, era? See also reverse side. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 19:00, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

American toy artillery

Renaming suggestion: Kamov Ka-50 -> Kamov Ka-52

I put this request on the article talk page

Since the Ka-52 is the main production version with planned naval versions and a supposed export version, while the Ka-50 was an earaly variant with only a few produced it would make sense to rename the article to Ka-52. The lede needs to be changed as well as it is the Ka-52 that is produced.D2306 (talk) 10:58, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

Operation Red Hat

Hi,

Could experienced editors please take a look at Operation Red Hat? This is a controversial topic (US deployment of chemical weapons in the Pacific during the Cold War) and I have a number of concerns about the article:

1. Lengthy digressions on topics that are only tangentially related to the topic, for instance detailed discussions of accidents involving American nuclear weapons, when the topic of the article is supposed to be about chemical weapons. There are also some mentions of allegations of CIA drug trafficking, CIA activities in Cambodia, the School of the Americas, etc. There is also a lot of text about Japanese/American collaboration on chemical and biological warfare that is only tangentially related to this specific operation which, if I understand correctly, had to do with relocated chemical weapons stocks from Okinawa to Johnston Atoll.
2. Dodgy sourcing such as Nexus (magazine) which, based on the Wikipedia article, looks like a fringe publication with no reliability
3. Massive use of primary source documents, including lengthy quotations from these documents, without the use of a secondary source
4. Enormous article length (200,000KB)

Your assistance would be greatly appreciated. GabrielF (talk) 15:09, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

I removed the Nexus sourcing except for one instance, since it was mostly duplicated. The length isn't too concerning, but if it does digress (which it does in a few instances), it should be trimmed or split apart. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 17:25, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

I've decided to AfD this article: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Operation Red HatGabrielF (talk) 16:19, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Extra opinions on the AfD would be very helpful. Buckshot06 (talk) 20:07, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Project 112

I draw attention to Project 112, the umbrella CW project whose stockpiles were ultimately disposed in Operation Red Hat. That precursor/larger project page was also expanded mainly by the same editor who has some trouble representing sources accurately. 86.121.18.17 (talk) 16:46, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Suggested articles

Someone should write US chemical weapons in Okinawa and US nuclear weapons in Okinawa covering the introduction, notable incidents and withdrawal of such weapons. There are plenty of sources. 86.121.18.17 (talk) 19:46, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Edgewood Arsenal experiments

Edgewood Arsenal experiments was nominated for deletion today. 86.121.18.17 (talk) 20:10, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Allegations of Agent Orange in Okinawa / Agent Orange

Can someone create that article? It's a mounting controversy; see for example www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2013/06/04/issues/as-evidence-of-agent-orange-in-okinawa-stacks-up-u-s-sticks-with-blanket-denial/ I'm asking because the same editor who filled Operation Red Hat with irrelevancies has also pasted that issue in at least three other articles, coat-racking them. 86.121.18.17 (talk) 11:04, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

The Agent Orange article is the place for it. GraemeLeggett (talk) 11:27, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

It probably won't fit there because there are a lot of details to the allegations (and even more details in the DoD rebuttal report), but at least I've NPOVed the existing claims in that section. 86.121.18.17 (talk) 13:29, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

I see it was another favorite article of Johnvr4 and he contributed to other sections there as well. Those need checking as well. 86.121.18.17 (talk) 13:32, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Hey, Anon, just a pet peeve I have, but if you're interested in helping out Wikipedia even further, why not just register? It's really easy to do, and it's easier (as another editor) to work with, rely on, and trust registered editors than IP editors, since there's some accountability. Just a thought! Cdtew (talk) 14:47, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Easy? I tired four times. In first three the user name was too similar to an existing one. Last time the captcha was wrong. It would be easy if the form did not completely reset if something is wrong. 86.121.18.17 (talk) 15:33, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Ok, I've registered. Someone not using his real name (talk) 14:48, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

Identifying some military material

In preparation for the WWI edit-a-thons that will take place on the 29th of June (so far confirmed in at least eight countries) I am connecting articles to a number of images; and I was hoping to get some help to identify the military equipment portrayed in them (and suggestions on articles that could be connected to them):

• 
• 
  [updated] Does anyone know what type of balloon this is?
• 
• 
  [updated] The dirigible?
• 
  What type of gas mask is this?

All help is welcome! Best, John Andersson (WMSE) (talk) 23:00, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

The tank in the first image seems to be a Renault FT.

The second image appears to be the same kid of German observation balloon seen in these images: File:Bombed balloon.jpg File:Bundesarchiv Bild 102-00321A, Westfront, Aufsteigender Fesselballon..jpg

Third image: If you get a better description than "two maxim guns on a truck", I'll be surprised.

The dirigible/aircraft contraption looks like the Astra - Ville de Paris Astra info (Hohum ^@) 01:43, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

For the airships, did you try asking at Commons:COM:WikiProject Aviation ? -- 65.94.79.6 (talk) 02:23, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

I'd agree, the tank is an FT17. I'd guess it's a captured example, but....

The balloon looks like a pretty standard observation type.

Other than that, I couldn't be any help. :( TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 05:13, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Based upon the photo's caption, the tank appears to belong to a unit of the American Third Army that was moving into the Rhineland for occupation duty via Luxembourg in December 1918 after the Armistice. Bwmoll3 (talk) 08:11, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes, the "balloons" are in fact one observation balloon of German design and the "blimp with airplane" is a dirigible balloon whose gasbag and gondola are separated by a rigid post. I have updated the original questions accordingly. Not convinced it's the "Ville de Paris" as such but it's obviously of the same parentage - as it is an artist's impression and unnamed, the details may even be a composite of several balloons the artist has seen. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 09:27, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

• the gas mask is a M1917 German one, known to the troops as a Lederschutzmaske. They had a range of slightly different canisters, but you can just make out the multi-pane eyelet. They came in a cylinder with a sling like this. Good detail on the mask here. Regards, Peacemaker67 (send... over) 12:51, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

• the tank is a US Army Renault FT, definitely. I believe the machine guns on the truck are Vickers, not Maxims. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 13:40, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Please note that the tank is a Renault FT, which the caption and the uniforms suggest is crewed by Doughboys. Also I think{{cn}} that the external fuel tank was only ever used by the US. However this tank is not an "FT-17" (this misnomer didn't appear until after the war) and it's certainly not a US "six tonner" or M1917, as they didn't serve in Europe during WWI. Mis-labelling the FT is a regular problem, especially as it frequently causes disruptive arguments on WP. Andy Dingley (talk) 14:07, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

My mistake about the machine guns, they are Vickers. (Hohum ^@) 17:14, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

I stand corrected on the captured nature of the FT. And FT17 was the first thing that came to me. :( TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 20:37, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

I believe the Germans referred to the balloon in the second illustration as the "Draken." I don't know if this was a generic name or one specific to a particular type of observation balloon.--Lineagegeek (talk) 22:48, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Regarding the balloon I found this images on Europeana 1914-1918: 1 and 2 from July and August 1916. At least the crashed balloon from July is called Drachen but as the caption is Drachen-Ballone (Dragon-Balloons) it seems to be the name of the type. Sadly the quality is not the best but from what you can see, even the balloons on the Europeana photos seem to be slightly different in design from the original requested photo and the Bundesarchiv photo. It is possible that all this balloons with minor design changes were called Drachen but that cant be said with 100% proof. --Bomzibar (talk) 09:18, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Thank you all! I hope all of you will participate next Saturday and write some WWI related articles! Best, John Andersson (WMSE) (talk) 17:46, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

Saturday 29 June: edit-a-thon about First World War in Belgium

On Saturday 29 June there are several edit-a-thons organized in several countries in Europe with the subject World War I. This World War had Belgium as chess board so it is great to announce an edit-a-thon in Belgium. This event where new and existing users can write and expand articles is held in Leuven (Louvain). The location is KU Leuven - AGORA Leercentrum and is located at the E. Van Evenstraat 4 on 15 minutes walking from Leuven railway station.

What is an edit-a-thon?

An edit-a-thon is a (small) event where people come together and work on articles on a particular topic. Often such edit-a-thon is organized for people relatively new to Wikipedia and held at an organization.

What are the ingredients?

• A short explanation/presentation about Wikipedia (encyclopaedia), the principles: a neutral point of view, free licensing, no original research, mentioning available sources.
• Cheatsheets/antisèche/spiekbriefjes
• Some literature, you may take it to the event and is very welcome
• An internet connection is present

How can I sign up?

Signing up is needed at wmbewikimedia.org

Be welcome! Romaine (talk) 02:32, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

the Netherlands

At the same time there will be an edit-a-thon in the Netherlands about the same subject, between 12:00 tot 17:00 in Doorn (near the city of Utrecht). More information at wmnl:WOI editathon. Romaine (talk) 20:51, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

Barbarossa OOB

Looking at the Barbarossa OOB page, I have noticed the German part is quite incomplete, when compare to the actual OOB. Gernally, the units completely missing are:

• Security divisions
• Army Group reserves
• OKH reserves

For AG North for example this translates to (using Glantz as source):

XXIII Corps (Army Group Reserve)

251th Infantry Division

206th Infantry Division

L Corps (OKH reserve Behind AG North)

86th Infantry Division

SS Police Division

Army Group rear lines

207th Security Division

281st Security Division

285th Security Division

Similarly for other Army Groups. Should this be added in? D2306 (talk) 00:03, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

If these form part of the OOBs in reliable sources, then they should be included. My understanding is that these units were follow-on forces, so they may have originally been excluded as they weren't part of the initial invasion force. Given that they formed a significant part of the German war effort (and were responsible for a number of war crimes) they should be included. Nick-D (talk) 00:38, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

I am adding it in then.

This in a reliable source, namely * Glantz, David M. (2002). The Battle for Leningrad 1941-1944. Kansas University Press. ISBN 0-7006-1208-4. in the German OOB section.

Although these divisions were not part of the "initial" force, they started to join the battle within days of the invasion and the soviet part of the OOB inludes reserve units the were not part of the initial fighting. Security divisions were not on the frontline, but nevertheless performed an important role in the overall campaign, by fighting partisans and keeping supply lines clear.D2306 (talk) 08:50, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

Twinkle wikiproject welcome

I notice that Twinkle has welcome options which are customised for Wikiprojects (Go to user talk page, click the TWinkle dropdown, choose WEL, choose the Wikiproject option in dropdown)

An example of the template it drops: template:welcome-videogames

Perhaps we could put a Template together, possibly with the current issue of the Bugle attached, and some other relevant text - and get it added to the Twinkle options? (Hohum ^@) 00:59, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

<crickets><tumbleweed> (Hohum ^@) 22:19, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Battle of Muong Khoua

Do you think this would make a GA? S.G.^(GH) _ping! 14:47, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

G'day, I only had a quick look, but it seems like it might have a chance. I'd suggest putting it up for a peer review first to see what a wider audience comes up with. If that is positive, then I'd suggest nominating it at WP:GAN. Good luck. Cheers, AustralianRupert (talk) 10:54, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Peer review/Battle of Muong Khoua/archive1

The Bugle: Issue LXXXVII, June 2013

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new Featured and A-Class content Book reviews: Works on the RNZAF, World War I in the Baltic, and British battleship construction Op-ed: Anchors Aweigh for the Majestic Titans

The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here.
If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 09:36, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Firearms articles based only on patents

I've nominated for deletion Storle machine gun, Fokker machine gun, Johnston machine gun, Clarke machine gun, and Hodges machine gun—all created by the same editor based solely on patents (which are WP:PRIMARY sources) and based on the appearance of said pattens in a list. The list indicates that the patents may have been influential and/or licensed to others, but it's a huge list. I hope we're not going to see a stub for every patent on that list, presenting the invention (which sometimes isn't even a gun, but some sub-mechanism thereof) as it were a real firearm. 86.121.18.17 (talk) 13:11, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Patents might be primary, but they also pass through a good deal of independent review (far more than many things we accept as RS). I see a dependence on patents as being an issue for cleanup, but not of itself for deletion.

A stronger case might be made for deletion if the weapon was only described and not produced. Although we surely wouldn't extend that principle to delete things such as the Puckle gun. Andy Dingley (talk) 13:19, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

The Puckle gun has at least one full-page coverage in a 2004 book (cited in the article) which counts as independent coverage, so it's not in the same boat. 86.121.18.17 (talk) 13:58, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

A couple more articles: Kovonalov machine gun, Neal submachine gun. 86.121.18.17 (talk) 19:33, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

I'm objecting to your PRODs, and rather than discuss it on each talk page, I'll do so here. I concur with Andy's statement above that Patents aren't strictly on the same level as other primary sources. These are documents that have a higher degree of reliability and less of a likelihood that they may violate NPOV or some other policy. Look, for instance, at how WP:WikiProject NRHP does things. Under their long-standing (and previously oft-argued-about) policies, you can base an entire article on a property's NRIS listing, which is a Federal record. It's obviously considered best to have additional sources to support NRIS, but not required. To my understanding, umerous AfD discussions have resulted in this being upheld. I therefore think that perhaps a Refimprove or BetterSource templates may be needed, deletion is a bit drastic. Citation to a published patent when mixed with other factors should, in my mind, be sufficient to establish verifiability. Now, if you take issue with the idea that it's not notable because it was never produced and may not have influenced other inventions, then object, but object on those grounds and not this primary source issue. Cdtew (talk) 20:00, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Fine, I will AfD them individually. There are millions of patents. Most of their topics are not WP:NOTABLE, not because the source is unreliable, but because it's not independent. Similarly the are millions of peer-reviewed academic papers. Their topics are not necessarily notable either. Prime examples include management methods, for which there used to be quite a spam in Wikipedia. Those usually have both some primary academic sources and patents, yet they get deleted. 86.121.18.17 (talk) 20:21, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Please, do us a favour and at least bundle the AfDs. Otherwise it's just creating work for everyone. Andy Dingley (talk) 20:27, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Well WP:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Firearms looks like quite a bit of work already. 86.121.18.17 (talk) 20:57, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

While you may be looking to impose and ad-hoc policy on patents, I think each of these articles needs to be evaluated indvidually, because there are some differences between these. And during the AfD additional sources may be found for some but not others. You don't seem to have any real interest in firearms based on your lack of participation in the ongoing AfDs of that type. So if 4-5 AfD are too much for you, sorry, you'll have to bear with me. Anyway, I'm having technical difficulties opening the AfD, so that will probably have to wait for a while anyway. Someone not using his real name (talk) 21:17, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Savin–Norov machine gun is marginal, but it has a bit of coverage in a book. 86.121.18.17 (talk) 19:54, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Also, if you're proposing an editor's articles for deletion, you need to leave them a talk page notice for each article proposed. And finally, before you get accused of socking, you may want to sign in -- just a friendly reminder. Cdtew (talk) 20:06, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

An article based solely on a patent would fail under the general notability guideline which asks for "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject". Patents are not independent of the subject "affiliated with the subject or its creator"; and a single patent would not stack up against "multiple sources are generally expected". GraemeLeggett (talk) 20:23, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying don't PROD an article because of Primary sources; nominate it for AfD because of notability. Obviously there are millions of patents, but I think there's some precedent that says that similar filings with the government can support a stub, if there are other indications of notability. That's the only reason I deprodded. I honestly don't care if they're all deleted, I just think AfD is the best route; plus, as Someone mentioned above, some of the articles might be rescued in AfD with additional sources. Cdtew (talk) 21:29, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

New book out on the 1918-1920 Syrian campaigns...

Just to say that if you're interested in the Transjordan campaigns (as I know several of our members are), John Grainger's "The Battle for Syria, 1918-1920" is now out. It has a middling sort of review out of the Times Literary Supplement, but seems interesting. Hchc2009 (talk) 18:30, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Battle of Flers-Courcelette

Does anyone know how to swap the hyphen in the title Battle of Flers-Courcelette to a dash (Battle of Flers–Courcelette)? ThanksKeith-264 (talk) 22:24, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

I would insert an ndash from the menu on a page, then cut and paste that where needed, such as the move/rename menu. -Fnlayson (talk) 22:32, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Will that work on the page header?Keith-264 (talk) 22:53, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

• What do you mean? The Infobox maybe? -Fnlayson (talk) 23:18, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

No, the title in brown above "A start-class article from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia"....Keith-264 (talk) 23:27, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

• You'll have to move (rename) the article from "Battle of Flers-Courcelette" (w/ dash/hypen) to "Battle of Flers–Courcelette" (w/ ndash) to change that. See WP:Move, How to move a page. -Fnlayson (talk) 23:37, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Had a go, I think it's OK although it showed up twice in my watchlist. Thanks mate.Keith-264 (talk) 00:07, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Moves always show up twice (because you've effectively altered two pages - the article plus the old title, now a redirect). It's to be expected :-) Andrew Gray (talk) 17:53, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Brunei

I found this picture on the Brunei article. It is quite obviously not of George Wootten. Anyone know who it is of? Hawkeye7 (talk) 11:54, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

G'day Hawkeye, I reckon that is CAPT R.J.D. Wright, Allied Translator and Interpreter Section, 9th Division. See [1] Peacemaker67 (send... over) 12:30, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Several ACRs that need attention

G'day all, I know we're all staggering towards the finish line of the drive, but there are several ACRs that have been open for six weeks and could do with fresh set(s) of eyes.

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Robert Howe (Continental Army officer) (open since 3 May, now two supports, just needs one more)
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/French ship Vengeur du Peuple (open since 7 May, also has two supports)
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Operation Crossroads (open since 9 May, one support so far)

Peacemaker67 (send... over) 12:13, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Operation Southeast Croatia (Open since 12 May, has two supports)
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Minefields in Croatia (Open since 12 May, has two supports)
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/509th Composite Group (Open since 26 May, has two supports)
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/List of sunken battlecruisers (Open since 7 June, has two supports)
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/List of Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross recipients (R) (Open since 10 June, has two supports)

Hawkeye7 (talk) 12:21, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

What is an AFV

An editor is concerned about the scope of Armoured fighting vehicle and that it includes vehicles that are not AFVs as defined by some sources (NATO and government documents have been given). So far I have given my view that usage of AFV in sources I am aware of tends to be quite inclusive of just about anything that has been armoured and propelled itself across the ground for the purposes of man waging war upon his neighbour. I think more opinions and access to more sources would be conducive to finding a (quorate) consensus. Discussion here Talk:Armoured_fighting_vehicle#Confusion_in_article_-_general_revision_and_change_is_needed, if you have time to join in. GraemeLeggett (talk) 15:55, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Targets achieved so far in the June 2013 backlog reduction drive

G'day all, excellent work, we have already exceeded our targets for:

• Wikipedia requested photographs of military history, and
• Military history articles with incomplete B-Class checklists.

The target for Military history articles needing expert attention is very achievable, only needing two more articles to receive attention.

Not long to go now... Peacemaker67 (send... over) 04:26, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Talk:Japanese battleship Musashi#ENGVAR

Input requested, here or there. - Dank (push to talk) 20:22, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

• Hah, you beat me to it Dan. Basically the problem is that although this was first written in British English, somewhere along the line it has been changed into American English in contravention of WP:ENGVAR. There might be an argument that this is an inherently American topic; I'm not sure if that was the current editors' argument in talk and I am not sure I buy it if it was. Any other thoughts? --John (talk) 20:27, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
  • Being a Japanese ship, obviously no strong national ties are involved and I don't put much weight on any argument that AmEng should be used because the primary opponent of the Japanese was the US. But my issue is that I don't care what an article was written in when it first began however many years ago; only about what it used when I started work on it. As far as I'm concerned it's not worth my time to check and certainly not to convert it back, especially since I'm only somewhat fluent in the other varieties in the Anglosphere.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 20:40, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

IMO If a ship from a non-English locality is involved in fighting only with British forces, then use British English, if it is involved in fighting only with American fores, then use American English. There are actual WP:TIES due to engagement in battle against forces using one type of English or another. If the ship is involved in fighting amongst multiple English using forces, for which there are multiple English variants, then use one of those variants, and not some other English dialect which has no ties to the ship. -- 65.94.79.6 (talk) 06:27, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Proposed navbox template: WWII Soviet aircraft guns

At least the following qualify: ShKAS machine gun, Berezin UB, ShVAK cannon, Berezin B-20, Volkov-Yartsev VYa-23, Nudelman-Suranov NS-23, Nudelman-Suranov NS-37. Someone not using his real name (talk) 16:58, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Artillery in a current main page hook

An editor just made this edit to Takka Takka, which is currently on the main page, swapping the phrase "heavy artillery" for "machine gun". I have reverted to sourced, which is what I think is the right thing to do. The user left a note on my talk, which explained the decision. I think we are suppose to go with RS over a WP:OR contribution by a user. Comments welcome.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 19:26, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

The source for the heavy artillery attribution is seriously confused since the painting depicts a machine gun firing and has nothing to do with heavy artillery, says somebody who's fired both. However, and you were correct to revert under WP:Truth, the change needs to be sourced and cannot stand until it has been. So I'd tell the guy to find a source that correctly attributes the sound to machine guns, not heavy artillery.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 20:05, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

I think it is correct now with a WP:RS that you will support.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 21:37, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

OK--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 22:06, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Fishing Creek confederacy

Hi. I was wondering if anyone might be able to provide some feedback on how to get Fishing Creek confederacy to WP:FA standards. Thanks! ^King Jakob _C2 13:52, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

If you wanted to put it up for Peer Review, I'd be more than happy to give it a thorough once-over. I think one of the biggest initial problems you might encounter with FAC is with 1(c)/2(c) because your inline citations, while citing to reliable sources, don't point to specific pages, but instead point to wide ranges of pages (in one, several hundred pages). I fear that this would cause problems with WP:VERIFY and WP:UNSOURCED. We can discuss further in a peer review. This sort of topic always fascinates me, although admittedly I stick to colonial and antebellum topics generally. Cdtew (talk) 15:03, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick feedback. Would sourcing the statements to individual chapters be good enough? ^King Jakob _C2 15:56, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

If you read WP:VERIFY, it says to cite pages if applicable. So, for instance, I think you'd need to cite to individual pages for the Fishing Creek book. Cdtew (talk) 16:08, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Fixed for the most part. ^King Jakob _C2 16:40, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Naming of artillery articles

I've just noticed from my travels that there may be quite substantial number of artillery articles' names that are inconsistent within the project, and also that because of that, some are not compliant with external sources nor with out MOS:HYPHEN. To illustrate, we have Category:World War I artillery of the United Kingdom and Category:World War II artillery of the United Kingdom, where we have a mixture of "6 inch Gun Mk XIX" coexisting with "BL 8-inch howitzer Mk I–V", whereas Sheldrake, and our own MOS would hyphenate. This enthusiast's website also hyphenates universally. There are plenty more examples of cross-category inconsistencies in related categories. Before I tread on any toes with mass page moves, I thought I would raise the issue here. Regards to all, -- Ohc ^¡digame!_{¿que pasa?} 03:31, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

I think they should be hyphenated, as compound adjectives, even if some sources neglect to do so. Same goes for the metric calibres: “88-mm anti-tank gun”, “12.7-cm naval gun”, &c.—Odysseus1479 07:59, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

There should definitely not be a hyphen between the number and the unit in metric measurements - "88 mm or 12.7 mm" is correct, "88-mm or 12.7-mm" is wrong. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 20:54, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

MOS-HYPHEN mandates the hyphen between the number and the unit expressed in full but not when it's abbreviated. It doesn't seem non-compliant or inconsistent therefore to change "6 inch Gun Mk XIX" to "6-inch Gun Mk XIX" and to leave “88 mm anti-tank gun”, “12.7 cm naval gun” without hyphens. -- Ohc ^¡digame!_{¿que pasa?} 01:20, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Order of battle graphics

I'm hoping there is some way I could contribute in the area of order of battle graphics. I've already made quite a few, still working on some minor kinks but all in all I believe they're turning out quite nice. That being said I have an immense working knowledge in the symbology used for these graphics and would to be able to contribute wherever I get requests. My specialty is historical formations but I'll be more than happy to give my hand to any modern day establishments.Dmanrock29 (talk) 15:24, 27 June 2013 (UTC)Dmanrock29

Hi, welcome to MilHist. I took a look at the battle graphics displayed on your userpage, hope you don't mind me making a couple of critical suggestions and observations. Transparent backgrounds are preferred over white ones (PNG not GIF), and if you have the right software (Adobe Illustrator, for example) SVG formats are becoming more "in demand" due to their scalability. Plain fonts are better, in graphics, sans-serif fonts like Arial, rather than Times New Roman, and definitely not "Military" font because it is not always easy to read, bold Arial with other labels non-bold is better, as it gives a uniform appearance. Finally, the use of bright pink, orange, blue – neon tones – and bold colours such as red can be very hard for colour blind people to see text against. Would recommend using pastel tones, paler shades of colour, which are less imposing, although I'm not sure if colour is needed in a tree structure relating to one organisation, only when used on battle maps to help identify sides. If you're familiar with NATO symbols, then I'm sure there are various articles in need of graphics. Cheers, Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 15:50, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Ask the advice of User:Noclador, who is pretty much the expert on military graphics for the project. Regards Buckshot06 (talk) 11:12, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

I agree with the editors above as examples of best practice, but those graphics on your user page look quite good to me :) Are you taking requests? Regards, Nick-D (talk) 12:03, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Thank you everyone for the advice. I'm in the process of changing them as we speak. And Nick-D yes I am. What did you have in mind? Dmanrock29 (talk) 12:44, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Another military DYK from the pseudo MILHIST guy

As most of you here know, I am no expert on WP:MILHIST. I am giving you guys 13 hours notice that Crak! will be on the main page in a DYK hook. In order to avoid a redux of what happened with Takka Takka, I am letting you know in advance so that you can clean up any controversies before it hits the main page.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 02:50, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Tony! Much appreciated. The article looks OK to me. I would vaguely wonder if that's really a rifle, but then I'm rather unclear exactly what sort of weapon it is. And describing it as a "long-barreled firearm carried by one person" would be silly - most likely it's intended to represent a rifle rather than a shotgun or similar. Others here may be able to be more precise about what exactly is depicted. (Your Takka Takka link here is wrong, btw.) --Demiurge1000 (talk) 03:03, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Which Project template parameters need to be added...

...to an article about a South African military radar manufacturer? "African=yes" is obvious but do technology manufacturers get the "SciTech=yes" parameter or something else? Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 11:44, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

SciTech makes sense to me. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 12:18, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! Take a look at Reutech Radar Systems, I've just "saved" if from being a piece of corporate PR puffery. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 12:26, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

BTW the template documentation could do with some explicit advice about how to template defence sector companies. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 12:30, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Luftwaffe Ace Walter Schuck is 92 but still alive - how to take advantage of his ongoing existence on earth to make a good article about him?

Luftwaffe Ace Walter Schuck is 92 but still alive - how to take advantage of his ongoing existence on earth to make a good article about him? Most of the Luftwaffe aces are dead! I was surprised to see that this one is still alive (albeit aged 92). I feel this must be urgently addressed somehow, as he could die at any minute. Can someone in Germany go interview him? Please?! THank you for your time. Azx2 16:05, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure a wikipedian could interview a veteran and then attempt to use it in a wiki article, as it would be a primary source, and could be considered original research, because it would be the result of selective questions and answers that have not been verified. I've seen no previous examples of interviews, except when quoted from texts that count as reliable sources due to being handled correctly, and published with supporting materials. Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 16:38, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Germany has a very active Wikimedia organisation (Wikimedia Deutschland) and they might be able to contact Mr Schuck to see if he's interested in contributing to an article on him (eg, through donating photos or inviting a volunteer to take a photo of him). However, Wikipedia doesn't publish original research such as interviews (please see WP:OR). Doing this may duplicate previous oral history programs as well - Australia has had several major programs over recent years in which veterans (especially prominent ones) were interviewed with the transcripts and tapes being deposited in archives, and Germany may have something similar. Nick-D (talk) 23:41, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

FACs requiring attention

Hi all. There are a couple of articles in the MILHIST scope that have been sitting at FAC for over a month now. If anyone has a little spare time, reviews against the FA criteria for any of the following articles would be greatly appreciated:

• Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Operation Winter '94/archive1
• Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Alan McNicoll/archive1
• Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Artur Phleps/archive1
• Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Voivode of Transylvania/archive1
• Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Military service of Ian Smith/archive1

Many thanks, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 03:21, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Category:Military history articles with incomplete B-Class checklists

This category still has over 20,000 articles in it. 198.252.15.202 (talk) 21:51, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

There are now less than 20,400 articles in this category. Any and all help with reducing this category is appreciated. 64.6.124.31 (talk) 16:23, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

A drive would be good. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 10:12, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

A drive would certainly clear out the backlog a lot more quickly than a single user doing a few articles at a time. Any volunteers to set one up? 64.6.124.31 (talk) 16:40, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Got this category down to 20,275 articles. Again, this is a bit much for any single person to do. This would go a heck of a lot faster if several people did this, like a drive. 64.6.124.31 (talk) 17:46, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

One reason progress is slow is because there are editors who create Talk pages and insert {{WPMILHIST|class=Start}} instead of taking a moment to insert something like {{WPMILHIST|class=Start|B1=n|B2=n|B3=y|B4=y|B5=n}} and thereby increase the number of articles in this category at the same time others try to reduce the backlog. Either way the editor is assessing the article, as start class. Is there a rationale for this?--Lineagegeek (talk) 20:20, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Is there some reason this can't be handled by Bot requests ?— Maile (talk) 20:30, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

It has to be assessed by a human. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 20:33, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Category down to 20,100 articles. Who is taking care of starting that drive? 64.6.124.31 (talk) 17:38, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Getting there very slowly. Still needing a lot of help in order to empty this category. there has to be at least 400 battles articles alone. 64.6.124.31 (talk) 21:18, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Closer to the 20,000 mark. Usually I can only edit for a few minutes at a time, so this is going slowly. Any and all help would be much, much, much appreciated and NEEDED. At the rate I am going, it will propably be years before this category is emptied. By the way, how is that drive coming along? 76.7.231.58 (talk) 15:11, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Milestone The backlog may now be under 20,000, but absolutely a milestone is that articles starting with the letter B now appear among the 200 listed on the first page.--Lineagegeek (talk) 23:13, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

It's (at least temporarily) below 20,000, so a

Barnstar of Diligence

to those who are working on this (feel free to cut and paste this to your talk page if you contributed). I have noticed on my last couple of edits that editors using the template where a yes or no answer is required have left an item with a yes/no response. This makes the article show up in the backlog, so if you're helping on this, use the Show preview button and open up the list to make sure there are no question marks. --Lineagegeek (talk) 23:24, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Almost to the 19,900 mark. Who's in charge of that drive? 76.7.238.180 (talk) 14:38, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Gday. I've proposed a drive here: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Military_history/Coordinators#Drive_proposal_for_June. Will see if there is any support. Happy to be lead planner. Anotherclown (talk) 04:06, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

IRT the backlog there has definitely been some progress since I started tracking it at least:

Click on [show] for progress bar
100% complete Backlog: Military history articles with incomplete B-Class checklists Goal: 0 articles Current: 3 articles Initial: 24,689 articles

Well done so far, hopefully if the drive gets off the ground we can reduce this further. Anotherclown (talk) 21:40, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm willing to help with the drive. Will this be starting on June 1st or is this still in the planning stages? Wild Wolf (talk) 16:44, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Thank goodness that somebody is actually trying to encourage multiple people to take care of this. Still 19,825 articles in the category, so this will take all the help available. 64.6.124.31 (talk) 17:37, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Howdy. The drive starts at 00:00 UTC on 31 May and runs through 23:59 UTC on 30 June. Pls see docs at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/June 2013 backlog reduction drive. Anotherclown (talk) 09:36, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Is it possible to rearrange that category in subcategories for each task force? I may help more easily if I could work with a category where I'm more or less familiar with most articles or their context Cambalachero (talk) 02:18, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

And another thing, do we really need to assess start-class articles? An article that does not even fill the screen may have good accuracy and grammar, in its small size, but would need more work to be ready for higher levels, and surely after all that work it would have to be re-asessed anyway. Perhaps if the template is fixed to categorize only the articles tagged as C or B with incomplete assesments, the sze would be dramatically reduced. Cambalachero (talk) 02:40, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Since C- and B-Class assessments are automatically generated based on the checklist, it's simply not possible to have a C- or B-Class article with an incomplete assessment; the article will automatically be assessed as Start-Class if any part of the checklist is incomplete. Kirill ^[talk] 10:57, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Question on scoring; so if I take a stub to B class, I get points for all applicable categories?--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 03:50, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

I would have thought it would only be the categories that weren't already at B-class that you would get points for. Any other thoughts on this? Anotherclown (talk) 22:02, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Pushed it past the 20% mark. Still needs plently of help. 76.7.238.180 (talk) 16:10, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Still working on it. Got the battle articles down to the first two pages. Still need TONS of help to get this category cleared. 76.7.238.180 (talk) 17:26, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

Apropos of which, a quick reminder about the amazingly useful User:Kephir/gadgets/rater tool - it easily halves the time & page-loading needed to assess an article. It won't add blank B-class fields if they don't already exist, but that might be something amenable to a bot run. Andrew Gray (talk) 19:33, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

Thank goodness other people will start helping with this. Did a bunch of articles on Thursday, got it down to 19,595. Checked it the next day, went up over 19,600, got it down to where it was the previous day. Checked it today, back over 19,600. At this rate, it would take years for me to clear out this category. 76.7.238.180 (talk) 15:28, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Below 19,000 now. Fantastic job. At this rate, the category just might dip below 14,000 before month end. 76.7.238.180 (talk) 16:20, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Almost to 18,000. Over one quarter done. 76.7.238.180 (talk) 15:19, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Subcategories

Any chance of subdividing this category by task force? I think someone mentioned that possibility above. 64.6.124.31 (talk) 14:12, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Any chance at all? 64.6.124.31 (talk) 20:48, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Anyone there? 76.7.238.93 (talk) 16:01, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

We'll add that to the feature list for the next major banner update. Kirill ^[talk] 01:13, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Kirill, of course people can filter their task force table by "Start Class" and category if they want this information. That's how the Balkans task force got down to zero "Military history articles with incomplete B-Class checklists" during the drive... Peacemaker67 (send... over) 02:40, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Article name for similar units

I stumbled onto these and figured this has come up before with a consistent solution rather than the duration of service. Hoping there is style guideline out there somewhere.

• 1st Michigan Volunteer Infantry Regiment (3 Months) - active May 1, 1861 to August 7, 1861
• 1st Michigan Volunteer Infantry Regiment (3 Years) - active September 16, 1861 to July 19, 1865

I've seen ship articles titled with the year of commissioning on the end, but that wouldn't work in this case as they are both 1861. Ideas? — MrDolomite • Talk 16:11, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

This actually might not be an issue depending on the history of the specific units. In lineage terms this would be a successor regiment, so the history could be combined. That might be a better option than retaining two separate articles. Intothatdarkness 16:20, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

• 1st Michigan Volunteer Infantry Regiment (May-August 1861)
• 1st Michigan Volunteer Infantry Regiment (1861-1865)

could work -- 65.94.79.6 (talk) 00:49, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

G'day, I think it would be best to merge them into one article as per Intothatdarkness' suggestion. It could be named "1st Michigan Volunteer Infantry Regiment" and cover both periods, as in reality it seems they are the same unit and currently the articles are both quite small. Of course, it would be good to get other opinions, though, before implementation. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 01:14, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Combine. The lineage (linked only from the "three-month" unit) references both periods of service.--Jim in Georgia Contribs Talk 02:08, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Suggest you consider the way I built 1st Provisional Marine Brigade. Episodic units sometimes see different levels of coverage, and there's nothing wrong with putting seemingly different units with the same name into one page if it's appropriate. —Ed!^(talk) 02:09, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

There needs to be more research done into the first instance of the regiment. If the 3 month term 1st Michigan was anything but "stricken from rolls" then yes, merging the two articles is appropriate. BUT, I must emphasize if the 3 month 1st Michigan WAS listed as "stricken from rolls" then it completely ceased to exist and the second incarnation of the 1st Michigan would be considered a completely separate entity and both regiments would therefore need to have separate articles.Dmanrock29 (talk) 03:53, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

According to Frederick H. Dyer's compendiums if multiple units/regiments etc with the same assigned number was either differentiated by (3 months) or (3 years) in length of service. Or by means of another name of their commander or another unit number etc. Adamdaley (talk) 08:21, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

As Adam mention, Dyer's Compendium is a reliable source to support that the 3-month and 3-year formations were separate entities, typically with the 3-month being the initial formation at the start of the war, because we know no one expected the war to last that long, and the 3-year formation with the same number assigned ("recommissioned" the right word?) once it was evident that the war was going to last beyond anyone's expectations (and even 3 years wouldn't be enough). If these articles were merged it would create a false article suggesting that there was just one regiment carried that name, rather than two, albeit at separate times. Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 09:12, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

While Dyers Compendium is quite valuable text unfortunately it does not always hold fast to regulations. I'm currently researching the regiment to determine the actions taken by the US government in regard to it at the close of it's three months of initial service. The best research I can come up with is Civil War Archive Regimental History Which describes BOTH incarnations of the regiment as being "mustered out" of service. While this is an archaic term looking at US Army Center For Military History Organizational History Appendix A I would say "mustered out" could have a few ramifications. Using the appendix I would say that in modern terms the 3 month 1st Michigan was "withdrawn from Federal records" and then immediately "reconstituted." THAT being said I would fully support a merging of the two articles in that the first instance of the regiment was NOT "disbanded" meaning the second instance of the regiment is 100% a continuation of the service of the 1st instance of the regiment. Dmanrock29 (talk) 16:13, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

The first URL that Dmanrock29 gives us, is not a valid URL. Therefore I have a similar one Civil War Archive Regimental History. As for the second URL it points to a PDF file which seems to have good information to it. The size of this PDF is 6.12MB. Adamdaley (talk) 06:16, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Sorry about the first link, but I've tried from multiple devices and logged out for the second one and it should take you to an HTML site for the US Army Center For Military History. Dmanrock29 (talk) 16:14, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

That's right. The downloadable file is at the top, then the html follows the file. Adamdaley (talk) 02:50, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

New Campaignboxes for World War II in the Arctic Ocean

Hello! I made these campaignboxes in an effort to make Arctic naval operations of World War II and related pages easier to navigate. I made four of them, tell me what you think!

1. User:Howicus/Campaignbox Arctic Ocean Campaign of WWII Basic version.
2. User:Howicus/Campaignbox Arctic Ocean Campaign of WWII (Convoys) This one includes an entry for each convoy action that resulted in a loss of ships on either side.
3. User:Howicus/Campaignbox Arctic Ocean Campaign of WWII (Convoys, Norway) This one includes the convoys, and a section about naval actions off the coast of Norway.
4. User:Howicus/Campaignbox Raids and Commando Actions in Norway Unrelated to the first three. I noticed that some of these articles had no campaignbox at all.

So let me know what you think. Are these good? Any engagements/battles/things I missed? Howicus (talk) 19:36, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

I think I'll probably move these to mainspace and add them to the articles tomorrow unless anyone has a pressing objection. Howicus (talk) 17:17, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

I'm going to put Template:Campaignbox Raids and Commando Actions in Norway on all the articles listed in the template, but I'll wait on the other one for now. Howicus (talk) 18:03, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Category:Tactical development on the Western Front in 1917

Whilst doing something else, I came across Category:Tactical development on the Western Front in 1917 which User:Keith-264 created a couple of weeks ago. At the moment it has no articles to do with tactical development, it's just a bunch of battle articles. I couldn't see any equivalent categories elsewhere, so I thought I'd give it a mention here for other people to look at and think about whether it needs to go to WP:CFD or whatever.Le Deluge (talk) 23:10, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Someone noted that I hadn't added sufficient category links to several pages I'd worked on so I had a try at it and that was one of the consequences. I don't know enough to go further so would be happy to defer to your judgment. ThanksKeith-264 (talk) 06:48, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Categories for Operations on the Ancre, January – March 1917 Details here.Keith-264 (talk) 07:08, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

You've already been pointed at WP:Categorization, and you should have a good read of WP:Overcategorization to get a feel for what works/doesn't work as a cat. It was the mismatch between the category name and the nature of the articles within it that grated, I was expecting articles on eg the development of artillery tactics, tank tactics etc, instead I just got a list of battles that presumably are already in Category:Battles of the Western Front (World War I). As an aside, the reason I was alerted to it was because you'd not categorised the category - if you'd tried to do so you would have found that it doesn't really fit anywhere in the existing hierarchy. I suspect probably the best thing to do is remove the cat from the articles and then you can request deletion using {{db-self}}.

To be honest the best thing to do if you're inexperienced with categories is just to clone them off an existing article like Battle of the Ancre in the first instance. That way you should at least be roughly right; you don't have to catalogue them down to the last detail. Likewise if you're inexperienced, it's probably best to stick to existing categories or at the most only create new categories that are clear homologues of existing categories - have a browse around the existing category tree. Given that WWI is pretty well-trodden ground the category structure should already be pretty good, if you were working on tribal battles in Abyssinia or something then you might need to do more of the ground work.Le Deluge (talk) 11:49, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

I did this: "clone them off an existing article" and in the process got a red link, not knowing how I made it. WP:Categorization was unhelpful as there was too much "why" and not enough "what" and "how". Pity I didn't suppress it instead of having a go. ThanksKeith-264 (talk) 12:13, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

PS do you use "tribal" to describe European societies?Keith-264 (talk) 12:24, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Why I do not like military history people

Because of the prevailing WP:BATTLEGROUND, arguments-ignoring, and WP:ownership mentality or, in short, an uncollaborative one expressed like [2], but note that it is a long-time grievance. Now I proceed to remove few military-related articles from my watchlist and will not make any further incursions. I hope English Wikipedia is large enough to avoid crossing paths. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 04:55, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

I did not notice that Darkness Shines (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is a user with numerous recent blocks who, of course, is not a typical military history editor. I apologize for my negative rhetoric related to military historians in general. BTW, do you see problems with my edit? What should I change, if any, to reinstate it? Incnis Mrsi (talk) 09:16, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

I presume you mean this revert, what you should change is the fact that it has no sources, hence the edit summary "Addition of unsourced content, removed per WP:V" Darkness Shines (talk) 09:24, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Is there a reason why this needs to be on the project's talk page? I'd suggest discussing the matter on the article's talk page and, if that doesn't work, pursuing dispute resolution using the good advice at WP:DR. Regards, Nick-D (talk) 09:34, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Would love to know who put this (http://specialops.yolasite.com/operation-storm-333.php) as a "reliable source" given that it's a tatty free-host webpage with no sources (because the RT.com ones it links are 404s) and utterly fails WP:V also. You both might want to stop bickering until at least a proper reference is cited to bicker over. I say "bicker" only because "Now I proceed to remove few military-related articles from my watchlist and will not make any further incursions" reads as very WP:DIVA sounding; it's hard to take anyone seriously with that attitude in their OP, almost defeats the purpose of bringing a content dispute to the project's attention. Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 18:14, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

“ It was later confirmed that the Russian soldiers were ordered not to take any survivors ”

LoL… ordered by whom and why elite troopers disobeyed? Or, possibly, they didn’t? And confirmed by whom: after 33 years these historians may not refer to their sources? IMHO it is another tale about bloodsucking monsters. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 19:01, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Well, if you think there's a non-neutral POV here, deal with it. As an uninvolved editor, I have replaced the crappy freehost ref with 2 reliable sources: a BBC article, and a book. It's a start, if anyone wants to make headway now, they can... Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 20:06, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

I just noticed the "title" of this thread.. you're really mature, Incnis, have a crayon for the next article you colour in. Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 18:19, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

I’m sorry, I was very upset about twinkling of an obviously positive edit with an obviously false pretext. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 19:01, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Okay Hot-Shot, Okay! source images

I apologize for not getting other projects involved in this, but I thought consensus would be reached at WP:WPVA, but it has not. The debate at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Visual_arts#Okay_Hot-Shot.2C_Okay.21_source_images seems to be unresolved regarding fair use images at Okay Hot-Shot, Okay!. Please come by and comment.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 11:55, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Battle of Muong Khoua

... is at GAN. --S.G.^(GH) _ping! 12:46, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Category:Military history articles with no associated task force

Hi all, I am currently clearing out the backlog here, and hope to make a significant dent in it by the end of today. I'm just posting this here as an invitation of sorts, that you are all welcome to come join the unofficial quasi backlog drive. We only need to remove 200 or so articles to remove the backlog, shouldn't be too hard ;) ★★RetroLord★★ 16:34, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Ok, I'm done for tonight. I managed to clear 60 or so out of the backlog of 200. Hopefully I'll get another chunk cleared tomorrow. ★★RetroLord★★ 19:35, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Did a half-dozen or so for you.. I know it's not a lot, but I get bored easily with samey edits. Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 20:22, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Advice sought on source

I am currently editing the Ulster Defence Regiment article. I seek advice on the possible use of a book in my possession as a source: "Echo Company" (The History of E Company 5th Battalion of the Ulster Defence Regiment) by Ronnie Gamble, ISBN 978-0-9558069-0-2

This book was commissioned by the Royal British Legion Branch, Coleraine, written by a former member of e Coy, 5 UDR who is also a local historian with one other military history to his name and published by the Coleraine Branch of the Ulster Defence Regiment Association.

As can be seen from discussions on the talk page here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Ulster_Defence_Regiment#New_Edits my editing partner feels the books is not a suitable source for the wiki. He is a much more experienced editor than I but I am of the opinion that the books credentials would make it suitable as a source of facts for life at company level in the UDR at least if not beyond.

I'm aware of the trepidation some may feel about enjoining any discussion about the UDR as the article has been the subject of much edit-warring in the past and so I am very keen to point out that the discussion and editing this time round has been conducted in a calm and collegiate fashion.

I very much appreciate any opinions given, even if they're not positive. SonofSetanta (talk) 12:19, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

My advice would be to perhaps look for any reviews of the book or at Ronnie Gamble's previous research. If there are strong reviews of the book by neutral sources, or if Gamble has a strong reputation in the wider field for neutral, authoritative research, you'll have a stronger case for the book forming a reliable source for the wiki. Hchc2009 (talk) 21:18, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

I can't find any reviews for the book at all but what I did find is that the author has four books to his name, all are available through Amazon and other sources, and is a member of the Coleraine Historical Society committee. His books are also stocked in libraries outside Northern Ireland. SonofSetanta (talk) 12:56, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

I have now found out that the Northern Ireland library service holds 20 copies of the book in various branches throughout the Province. If it's good enough for them, it should be good enough for the wiki. Linky: https://opac.librariesni.org.uk/02_Catalogue/02_004_TitleResults.aspx?page=1&searchTerm=Echo+Company%2c+the+history+of+E+Company+5th+Battalion+of+the+Ulst&searchType=1&media=&referrer=02_002_AdvancedSearch.aspx SonofSetanta (talk) 13:14, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Obscure Soviet/Russian assault rifles

I got myself a copy of История русского автомата (The History of Russian Assault Rifle) by Монетчиков С.Б. (Monetchikov, Sergei) ISBN 5-98655-006-4. It turns out that many of the articles recently deleted at AfD were actual weapons, including ones for which nothing can be found on the web, e.g. 2B-A-30 (this is on p. 89 in the book if you wonder). However, many of these guns were just prototypes that failed to be accepted in the various AK (47, M, 72) modernization programs. The coverage in the book is not extensive for each such gun (a paragraph to a page), but there are literally over a hundred such guns. I wonder what would be a good way to deal with them. Including them in the main article for each gun that was accepted would probably unbalance them too much. The book presents them in chapters organized by modernization program. Perhaps creating a sub-article along those lines for each of the AK-47, AKM and so forth might work. Someone not using his real name (talk) 19:16, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

My suggestion would be to update or create articles about the manufacturer of those weapons, rather than giving each model an article, such as has been done with Winchester rifle, as it packs the notability and few sources available into one page and reduces the chances of another AfD occurring. There's no benefit in always having individual models on separate pages unless they have an extensive history, such as Colt Single Action Army and many others. As time goes by, that single page may grow and split into by model pages as new sources and details arise that warrant such a move. Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 20:16, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

That's not possible because the Soviet designers were organized differently; grouping the designs by state-plan is much more sensible. Someone not using his real name (talk) 20:24, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Oh, okay.. sorry, I'm not familiar with Russian weapons, though I should have expected them to do things... uniquely compared to western countries. So I gather the Russians didn't have the same open-market for firearms manufacturing companies given that Category:Firearms manufacturers in Russia is but 6 articles, compared to say, Category:Firearms manufacturers in the United States having 114 (though no one can admit to being too surprised by that), and had independent state-approved designers? Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 20:31, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Well, obscure prototypes produced as part of a state-led program are not completely absent in the West either; see Project SALVO for example; someone created Springfield Armory SALVO from that. Someone not using his real name (talk) 20:53, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

What would prevent you from stacking them under one title, such as Russian prototype firearms, if sources are few, making notability harder to sustain? At least under that title you might be able to argue that Russia was highly involved in producing prototype firearms, and then your sources serve as inherent examples of that fact, rather than the main focus of the article, which obviously hasn't worked previously if AfDs were raised. All you would need are a few reliable references that discuss the history and development of firearms in Russia, and the conceptual models that resulted from the industry, to make a solid basis for the article. That book you mention in your first post must have some background, a couple more books like that, to prevent single-source claims, would probably do. Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 21:05, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

I would go for mentioning them in passing as part of the background to the "winning" design. As an example EM-2 rifle#Background mentions three other designs (two of which are redlinks at the moment and likely to stay that way). Mentioning them in a sentence or two does not imbalance an article while showing that other approaches were considered. Similarly several articles on 1930s British military aircraft mention designs that were proposed by other companies to meet the specification but were not given a contract to even build a prototype (eg Westland_Whirlwind_(fighter)#Design_and_development - though I did write the paragraphs I am referring to) GraemeLeggett (talk) 21:10, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

I could support that, too. The same would apply to competitors for the M1 Garand.

That being true, would it be possible to create daughter pages, like Failed compeitors for the AK-47 program? TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 03:17, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

It might be possible to cover the unsuccessful weapons in an article on the competitions that resulted in there design.Nigel Ish (talk) 17:16, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

MoD photos

Hi folks, it's been brought to my attention that the British Ministry of Defence have released thousands of photos under the Open Government License (which has terms broadly equivalent to CC-By-SA) and that these have been uploaded to Commons at Commons:Category:Images from MoD uploaded by Fæ. There are some fantastic images in there that have huge potential for use in articles (not just British—many will be useful for articles on concepts, vehiles, aircraft, etc), so I would highly recommend people have a browse and see if they can make use of any of them. Best, HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 15:00, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. While these images are mainly of UK forces, they also include some pictures of foreign forces. It's an excellent resource. Nick-D (talk) 23:38, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I would just like to say that this is an absolutely amazing development; thank you to all those who have made this possible and who shall be integrating all this new content into our articles, particularly those of an aviation background. Kyteto (talk) 15:32, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Balloon Photo

Can anyone identify the type of balloon this is?

File:Observation Balloon demonstration - Coblenz Air Show - April 1919.jpg

All I know is that the photograph was taken at the Coblenz Air Show in April 1919. Thank you for your help :) Bwmoll3 (talk) 18:30, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

According to this, it is a Caquot balloon, of which the US produced a thousand during the war

www.westernfrontassociation.com/great-war-on-land/73-weapons-equipment-uniforms/313-ob-bal-west.html

Monstrelet (talk) 18:46, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Thank you :) Bwmoll3 (talk) 19:05, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Incorrect NARA description

Hello

On pl.wiki user find that File:Northampton (heavy CA26). Aerial, starboard beam, underway, 08-23-1935 - NARA - 520786.tif have incorrect description. Description says that this is USS Northampton (CA-26), but Northampton class have 2 turrets on front and 1 on back - and on image there is clearly visible that there are two turrets. Probably its some Pensacola class ship. What is correct way of solving this problem? PMG (talk) 12:34, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

British military history articles needing attention

Capture of Trônes Wood has been revised so has probably had the attention it needed. Zeebrugge Raid has had attention to references and bibliography.Keith-264 (talk) 13:13, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Ka-52K mock up

On Instagram http://instagram.com/p/bS9kOYJwnN/ Do I need to ask for permission to use the photo on Wikipedia? Or is the Instagram licence enough?D2306 (talk) 13:37, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

You need permission from the copyright holder. Photos held on Instagram are not public domain, the licence they are held under is between the uploader and Instagram allowing Instagram to use the images. NtheP (talk) 16:14, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Can someone with an instagram account please post on the image commets to ask for permission? I do not use instagram myself and you need to be registered to post. D2306 (talk) 06:55, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Notability

Hi all, I am here to ask what you would all think about the notability of List of field marshals of the Third Reich? It is currently derived from the parent article, List of German field marshals, but I hope to expand it and take it somewhere (FL, who knows?). Before starting any serious work I just wanted to check, this subject matter is notable enough to warrant its own article right? ★★RetroLord★★ 15:46, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Also, Is Third Reich the correct term? IMO it is more "correct" than its unnoficial name "Nazi Germany" or the like. ★★RetroLord★★ 15:48, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Both articles are in serious need of referencing, to the point of a reliable reference per name if you're going to meet FL standards, but not all from the same source. I suppose "Third Reich" would be the right term if not all those marshals were members of or directly affiliated with the Nazi Party, e.g. naval officers, German Army officers not in the Wehrmacht, SS, etc. (such as Rommel) who fought for Germany but not for promoting Nazism. Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 16:03, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Afghan National Army

Third opinions would be very welcome at Talk:Afghan National Army#Merge proposal to NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan, where a proposal to move the vast majority of material on U.S. and allied training of the ANA is being considered. Buckshot06 (talk) 02:09, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

• Comment: I bring this to the attention of WP:MILHIST because I believe it is effectively trying to remove the information most critical of the ANA to a less viewed article, in effect creating a WP:POVFORK. Buckshot06 (talk) 02:09, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Battle of Quebec (1775)

Today's featured article, Battle of Quebec (1775) is having ENGVAR issues, particularly, it's using American English, not British or Canadian. See talk:Battle of Quebec (1775) -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 02:27, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

If the original author of the article wrote it in American English, the general rule is not to change it to another, unless WP:TIES gives strong enough reason. Given that there is mention of the original U.S. colonies in the article, as well as Canada and Britain, it would be unfair to enforce one over the other, and makes more sense to stick with what was originally used, in the interest of not creating disruptions or disputes. Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 02:48, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

It also used American English went it was listed as an FA. Hot Stop talk-contribs 02:53, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Designing a WWI Barnstar

Is there anyone that would be interested in designing a barnstar (or medal or something) for the Europeana Challenge that will take place on Saturday 29th this week? It would be a fun addition!

Best,

John Andersson (WMSE) (talk) 08:13, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Suggested barnstar graphic, featuring a poppy

Here’s what I came up with. I’m not fond of the flag-collage approach where multiple combatants are involved, and this was the first single symbol that came to mind. Two obvious criticisms that might be levelled are that the poppy is less well known outside the Commonwealth—for all I know, nearly unknown, or inappropriate for continental Europe in particular—and that it’s no longer specific to W.W.I. Any better ideas welcomed! I’m not experienced with templates, but am willing to have a go at modifying an existing one for the appropriate text & image.

John, If you’d like something more specific to the Challenge, using media from the collection or whatever, I‘m game to try and execute whatever concept you may have.

Meanwhile, I might as well mention here that I was prompted to revive an abandoned project, the following set of ribbons:

• 
  For The WikiChevrons: existing ribbon for comparison
• 
  For The Airborne Warfare Barnstar
• 
  For The Tank Badge
• 
  For whatever award may be developed …
• 
  For The World War Barnstar

In general the gold bars of the WikiChevron ribbon have been preserved in each variant, with additional colours suggested by the barnstars. The blue circle in the W.W. ribbons is intended to represent the globe divided, with a figure-ground effect to suggest the Roman numerals. I observed that the name & description of the existing award imply it covers both World Wars, but the graphic on the Awards page is specific to W.W.II. Perhaps it could be issued in variants by the respective task forces. (Personally, I find the present W.W. Barnstar graphic doesn‘t communicate what it’s for.) Anyway, all suggestions welcomed.—Odysseus1479 00:14, 30 June 2013 (UTC) P.S. I considered posting to the Awards talk page, but since that appears to be a nomination board I thought it would be out of place there.–Odysseus1479 00:27, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

A suggestion? Reverse your barnstar/poppy, so the poppy is at star's center. TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 20:29, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that would be best. The way you have it, it looks like a tomato. Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:54, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Name of "Britain" in 1914-1918

Does anyone know the collective name or title of the collection of kingdoms, empires, territories, dependencies, colonies and dominions, known as the "British empire" at the time?Keith-264 (talk) 13:18, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

An offical name, I guess you mean. Since you have given the "common name". Well there was a "Committee of Imperial Defence" and "Chief of the Imperial General Staff" at the time, so what's wrong with using "British Empire"? GraemeLeggett (talk) 13:42, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Capital E implies a legal entity like "German Empire" or "United States of....". There wasn't a state called British Empire but there was a thing called the British empire. You might have noticed that I take a dim view of promiscuous additions of Dominion flags in infoboxes for constituent parts of the empire 1914-1918 and this not being done for Ireland, Scotland, Wales, German or US states. http://www.sfu.ca/~aheard/324/Independence.html is interesting on the point at which Canada can be called sovereign, plumping for 1919.Keith-264 (talk) 13:50, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

What do the sources use. Norman Davies uses a capital E in the The IslesGraemeLeggett (talk) 14:27, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

The ones I read use unit titles - 1st Division, 2nd Cavalry, 3rd Australian, 4th Indian etc, they don't acknowledge national labels which didn't exist or treat Dominion forces as allies. Keith-264 (talk) 15:16, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Davies also uses "the Isles", which isn't particularly mainstream ;-). I agree it's a terminological problem; I'm not sure there's an easy answer that works in every circumstance. Andrew Gray (talk) 17:23, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

The problem for me is twofold: I think that listing Dominions in the infobox is anachonistic, clutters it and I think it is inconsistent to fail to do the same with German and US states, parts of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires and the constituent countries of the UK/GB (or whatever it's called this week). I wouldn't object to a note on the page if someone really wants to explore the constitutional niceties of the empire but I don't notice advocates of Mexico, Scotland, Baden or the West Indies complaining about being left out. I propose that for a matter like the Somme or 3rd Ypres there be a union flag for forces of the crown, a tricolour for the French and a horizontal one for Germany. It would be nice if they could link to pages which treated them as empires so the union flag doesn't link to the UK page but one which covers all the territories, colonies Dominions etc.Keith-264 (talk) 17:54, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

No, that is not acceptable. Each of the dominions was a sovereign state with its Army, quite separate from the British Army. Hawkeye7 (talk) 19:42, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

No it wasn't, not 1914-1918 anyway.Keith-264 (talk) 20:28, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

The Dominion governments (Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa) each declared war and signed the Treaty of Versailles in their own names separately from the UK government. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 20:43, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Some Dominions signed the T of V in 1919. Is there a legal ruling on when the settler colonies became independent? Statute of Westminster 1931 say? Or is this matter to be decided by opinion? "The Supreme Court of Canada reflected this uncertainty when it said in Re Offshore Mineral Rights of British Columbia that Canada's "sovereignty was acquired in the period between its separate signature of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 and the Statute of Westminster, 1931..."[1] "Keith-264 (talk) 21:10, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Keith, you and I have briefly discussed this on my talkpage in the past I recall but I'll put my two cents here. Have to agree with Hawkeye and oppose this. The constitutional status of the Dominions evolved over time and was a little grey in the early 20th century. Not sure about your equating each of the Dominions to a similar legal status of a German or US state, as they were clearly more than that (although what they were is unclear). Each of the Dominions raised and administered their own distinctive national armies, although integrated under mostly British operational command. While they weren't completely independent during the First World War neither were they governed by Britain directly either (they became self governing colonies a while before then - if not technically in a legal sense, then certainly in practice). Attempting to select a date when they suddenly became "independent" doesn't work either. I'm not a constitutional expert but the Statute of Westminster was probably more about codifying reality anyway than changing anything.

Regardless, given the way this discussion has panned out elsewhere I don't think there will ever be a suitable agreement on this anyway so I would advise on the path of least resistance. Personally I don't see the issue with including the Dominion flags in the infobox (as long as they were the ones flown at the time, i.e. historically accurate). There is no rule that says an infobox is only for sovereign states anyway, it is simply used to convey information to the reader on the main belligerents. Given the significant contribution the Dominions made to the Allied war effort in general it would seem to me that they fall into this category and should be include in the infoboxes of battle articles where they were a significant participant. IRT the other question I don't have a problem with use of "British Empire", with the Dominions under that as bulleted belligerents like we seem to do in most of these articles already. This seems to have been the approach that has been developed slowly over time without formal discussion across MILHIST and the one that is the least challenged, so perhaps keep the status quo? Anotherclown (talk) 22:14, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

I'll agree to ahistorical flags if the people who put them in are consistent and put Baden and the West Indies etc flags in. Nigeria made a significant contribution so will the flag go in? If the criterion isn't sovereign state, what is it? If things have evolved over time why not evolve a bit further towards historical accuracy or at least consistency?Keith-264 (talk) 22:43, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Well I don't share your viewpoint that these flags are ahistorical, they cleary were in use at the time (hence my cmt above). No issue with either West Indies or Nigeria being included (indeed I've seen West Indies in a few articles already, although using the West Indies Cricket Board logo!), although neither were Dominions as far as I'm aware. Baden - obviously I disagree per my comments above as to me it doesn't seem an analogous argument. Keith, I have enjoyed working with you to this point on a few projects and think you are a very valuable contributor to the project. I can see you are passionate about this point, but I disagree with your proposal (and I don't really see why its that important at any rate). In the interests of being able to continue to work together I will not comment further on this topic. I have made my point so whatever consensus develops, if indeed there is one, is fine by me. Agreeing to disagree and accepting the approach currently used seemed like an uncontroversial solution to me that's all. Anotherclown (talk) 01:52, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

I'm not passionate, I'm pedantic about accuracy that's all, it's nothing personal, you and several other editors have been godsends. I brought the point up here because other editors suggested it during the debate on the 3rd Ypres talk page a few weeks ago. The flags mentioned were in use but not for the purpose implied when they're in the infobox. The German Empire was federal and the constituent kingdoms had their own armies, which came under the command of the Imperial army (mainly Prussian) in time of war, which on reflection doesn't seem analogous but identical. To be fair to non-British non-Dominion forces I have searched wiki pages to look for Saxon, Bavarian flagicons etc to add to infoboxes for consistency but haven't found them. If anyone can point me in the right direction I'd be grateful.

• (Just in case anyone's wondering, I'm not a splenetic Colonel Blimp who's a century behind the times, I'm an anarchist and hold the Union Flag in contempt, my point is that a lot of people at the time didn't and many of them were living in Dominions in 1914.) Keith-264 (talk) 07:28, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

I don't know about the other former colonies, but Australia became an independent country with the passing of a British law, the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act 1900, which passed the UK Parliament on 9 July 1900 and entered into force on 1 January 1901. From that time on, Australia was an independent country. Where Australian forces were in action after the King approved it (1902 sometime), I consider the Australian flag should be used to represent Australian involvement. The Union Flag has represented all the constituent countries of the United Kingdom since 1801, so there is no need to represent Scotland, Wales and N.Ireland separately. I do not know about the German empire, so I won't offer an opinion. I am strongly opposed to the course of action you are suggesting. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 14:13, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

South African independence dates from the establishment of the Union of South Africa on 31 May 1910. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 16:16, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

And to finish making the point, Canada does not celebrate its independence from November 11, 1931, as Keith-264 would have us believe. We celebrate it from July 1, 1867. Resolute 16:19, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

As an aside, I think we should be wary of taking cues on names and labels from Norman Davies' "The Isles"; some of that book is best described as WP:POINTY, I fear. We don't rename the English Channel as "The Sleeve". bobrayner (talk) 15:15, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

• If "From that time on, Australia was an independent country." is true, why did the Statute of Westminster 1931 give an Australian government power to declare independence?

I think I'm offering a reasonable compromise by asking about flagicons for German kingdoms. Does anyone know where they are or how to make them?Keith-264 (talk) 16:00, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

• • The Union of South Africa was a Dominion not an independent state. All this is beside the point unless infoboxes are vanity boxes rather than part of serious historical scholarship. Give me flagicons for German kingdoms and I'll be content.Keith-264 (talk) 17:07, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
    • Well there's the root of the problem - Dominions are/were independent states. They only share(d) the same monarch (but not monarchy) and had/have separate governments/constitutions/sovereignty. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 17:48, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
      • Not 1914-1918 they weren't.Keith-264 (talk) 17:59, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
    • This isn't a negotiation, dude. You've now been on the wrong side of consensus as it relates to the dominions at least twice now. But if you wish to discuss adding flag icons for German states, you are free to start another discussion and make your case for that change. Resolute 20:45, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
  • Try to be civil.Keith-264 (talk) 21:05, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
    • I am left to assume that you view anything that does not support your personal POV view as being "uncivil". Resolute 22:51, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
  • Does anyone know of a source which is definitive as to the legal relationship between the Westminster parliament and the territories, dependencies, Dominions etc between 1914 and 1918? The reference above to the Canadian Supreme Court seems pretty serious, for eg. If so will that criterion determine flagicons representing British (or military forces under the command of the British army) in Great War infoboxes? If another criterion such as individual preference or precedent is to apply, is that explicit or implicit?Keith-264 (talk) 06:58, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

First, this thread has gone astray from what to call certain forces. But, speaking of the Canadian Supreme Court, might I suggest that court system could provide a helpful indicator. When did it become impossible to appeal from a court in one of the Dominions to Westminster? Seems to me I remember studying cases in (US) law school involving appeals from outside the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (we're talking 1914-1918), but my memory is too selective to tell whether they were from places without Dominion status. If a political entity's court decisions are not final (particularly in a common law context in which courts determine law), it seems that it is not truly "independent." The analogy between Dominions and German Kingdoms seems apt to me (we can relegate the various duchies, counties, principalities to the status of other UK possessions, colonies, and condominiums). I have no idea what the legal system was in the German Empire was, but the same standard could be applied. If an appeal was available from the highest court in Bavaria, Prussia, etc. to an imperial court, they were not sovereign. Finally, why has no one talked about the Empire of India and how its status should be treated in the same context? --Lineagegeek (talk) 22:25, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Not too sure about this, Lineagegeek. Isn't the final Court of Appeal for the UK now the EU? Does that mean the UK is not independent? Hamish59 (talk) 08:16, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

• I suppose it has ceded a measure of sovereignty de jure but it's a protectorate of the US empire de facto. If EU membership came from a law passed in Westminster it could be repealed from the same place.Keith-264 (talk) 09:53, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

It occurred to try the {{flagicon|Bavaria}} flagicon template and I got these. As for India I'm not sure. It wasn't locally autonomous but the Governor General had executive power.Keith-264 (talk) 22:39, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

• Battle of Messines (1917) How about this?Keith-264 (talk) 23:01, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Since it's gone quiet I'll add the German flags.Keith-264 (talk) 16:11, 3 July 2013 (UTC)
    • Looking at it afresh, this multiple-German-flag-in-infobox approach really seems odd to me. I understand where you're coming from, but the way historians talk about Australian involvement in the war is very different from the way they talk about Bavarian involvement, and to put the two opposite each other like this is pretty confusing to a reader. Andrew Gray (talk) 16:41, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
      • I don't, I think that putting Dominion flags in can cause confusion, which is the point I've been making all along.Keith-264 (talk) 23:45, 5 July 2013 (UTC)
        • Is anyone actually arguing for including the German flags? I can't see any indication of this. Andrew Gray (talk) 16:45, 6 July 2013 (UTC)
          • No one is asking for them, and the issue raises concerns about WP:COMPETENCE and WP:POINT. Someone writing about WWI should have a clear understanding of the independent status of the Dominions. Hawkeye7 (talk) 00:18, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Category:Recipients_of_the_Dickin_Medal shamefully incompete

The Category:Recipients_of_the_Dickin_Medal is only about half complete; with many heroic animals still lacking articles about them. This should be rectified. Every carrier pigeon, horse, dog, and so on that has been honored with Dickin Medal should get its own article on Wikipedia. It's a shame given the fact that so many gave so much in service to their countries to be forgotten in this way. Chrisrus (talk) 05:25, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

You don't seem to understand that we only write about the things that interest us and I guess that not many editors are interested in Dickin Medal-winning animals. In short, you identified a problem, you can fix it. You spent the time and energy to write about them instead of taking the cheap shot by complaining about it.WP:SOFIXIT--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 05:48, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Do you understand the purpose of a Wikiproject page? It's for "to do" lists and such. Chrisrus (talk) 23:21, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

As a start, I'd suggest red linking the names of the animals at Dickin Medal as a means of reminding people that these animals are individually notable. But as Sturm notes, DIY tends to work best ;) Nick-D (talk) 12:03, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Good idea. Thank you very much. Chrisrus (talk) 23:33, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Ok, I did a few.

It was hard to do at first because I was trying to use the new system. Unfortunately, each time I created a red link, it automatically added "nowiki" symbols before and after each set of double square brackets, which got me frustrated and so I changed back to doing it the old way, which also was frustratingly hard to figure out how to do because the "old way" button only doesn't appear until you float over it with the mouse. Once I was back to the old way I tried to guess which were going to need "pipethrough" links, like an honoree only called "Bob", for example, [[Bob (pigeon)|Bob]] because there are tons of articles by that name but only one Scotch Lass. How'd I do?

All in all I'd just like to say that the new system makes creating redlinks much harder than the old way so I don't recommend it.

Anyway, I encourage you, any reader of these words, to have at it, have fun, but I don't think you'll like using the new interface as much. Chrisrus (talk) 03:33, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Ok, I've finished red linking the names of the animals at Dickin Medal. Once again, I've run into skepticism about creating articles for individual pigeons, but I think that can be overcome, especially with help from you, any reader of these words. Chrisrus (talk) 21:54, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Try creating the articles yourself and stop claiming some kind of Wikiproject backing for redlinking everything? All you're going to end up with is a bunch of one-line stubs and then no interest in expanding them. The Rambling Man (talk) 14:05, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

The guidance at the General Notability Guideline is that an article should have "significant coverage" in multiple (more than one certainly) independent sources. Without that articles created will be open to challenge through Articles for Deletion and without that sourcing it will be hard to carry the day in an AfD discussion. GraemeLeggett (talk) 14:46, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Review request

Army-Navy "E" Award Could someone check this against the B criteria? Currently it is rated as C, but I think I have addressed the issues mostly. I would do the review myself except I've never done one before and i am WP:INVOLVED. Thanks, ★★RetroLord★★ 14:28, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

@Retrolord: The best place to put this sort of thing is at WP:MHA#REQ. I've gone ahead and added it for you. Cdtew (talk) 14:31, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Much appreciated ★★RetroLord★★ 14:34, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

The WP:INVOLVED policy applies to admins using sysop tools where they are involved, which presents a bias. In terms of assessment, we don't mind if you review upto B-class, but if you feel there is a bias or conflict of interest in doing this, you are free to request a second opinion via the page used by Cdtew. The worst that can happen if you rate an article "B" and someone disagrees, is that they knock it back down to "C" (or less) and let you know why they feel it needs more work. Cheers, Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 14:42, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for that. I might go review it myself then now, :) ★★RetroLord★★ 14:49, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

I believe the "Michigan History", reference 2, needs improving. I put that into Google and Amazon and there are at least 25 volumes of this. It would be helpful to know which volume the page 22 reference applies to. I'm not sure that you were the one who added that citation, it's there before your recent edits, but if you have access to "Michigan History", it would be helpful if you could give that citation the correct volume number. Cheers, Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 15:28, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Unfortunately I don't actually have the book and didn't add that reference in, but thanks for your good work improving all my other refs. Much appreciated, ★★RetroLord★★ 16:34, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

FWIW, the shortcut link for requests is WP:MHAR. - Dank (push to talk) 17:10, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

June 2013 backlog reduction drive

Gday all. The June 2013 backlog reduction drive has now concluded. Some good progress was made in a number of areas, in particular reducing backlogs for incomplete B class checklists, requested photographs, supporting materials, and articles requiring expert attention. Thank you to all who contributed. Congratulations go to Wild Wolf who placed first with 4,000 pts, Peacemaker67 who placed a close second with 3,960 pts and PINTofCARLING who placed third with 2,515 pts. Each were awarded the Golden, Silver and Bronze Wikis respectively. Well done! Anotherclown (talk) 22:07, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks to AC for getting the drive up and running. And congrats to all who took part. Good work! Zawed (talk) 22:14, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Debate over a section of the NSA article about polygraphs

Hi! Please see Talk:National_Security_Agency#Polygraph_section to read a debate regarding the inclusion of a section about polygraphs as they are used in the National Security Agency. WhisperToMe (talk) 03:10, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Hyde carbines

Bendix Hyde carbine and M1944 Hyde Carbine need clean-up work; they were created by you can guess who. Since there are a lot more editors who can work on articles with English sources, hopefully someone other than myself is going fix these... Google Books has heard of the first of these two because of the Light Rifle Trials leading to the adoption of the M1 carbine. (There were something like 7 competitors.) It's not very clear to me how the M1944 model is related to earlier Hyde; sources on the latter are more scarce. Someone not using his real name (talk) 12:10, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Unknown World War I French monoplane

File:Morane-Saulnier AI - Front.jpg

File:Morane-Saulnier AI - Right Rear.jpg

File:Morane-Saulnier AI - Rear.jpg

I've obtained some photos of a French Morane-Saulnier high-wing monoplane that was apparently tested by the United States during World War I, but I haven't been able to identify the model. I'm hoping that someone can assist in identifying it.

I've uploaded three high-definition scans of it at different angles with the captions that were written in 1918, but other than that, I haven't seen any additional information when googling it. Thank you for any information you can provide Bwmoll3 (talk) 16:46, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

It looks like a Morane-Saulnier AI, probably a MoS.30, as they were used by the American Expeditionary Force as trainers.Nigel Ish (talk) 17:11, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

I would agree as it says on the tail it is a "MoS 30 E.1" serial no MS.3786 ! the third and fourth lines are to do with weights. MilborneOne (talk) 18:43, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

I've updated the image descriptions and categories. Thank you very much, as the caption on the photos said it was a pursuit aircraft Warmest Regards Bwmoll3 (talk) 20:23, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

• Cecil Arthur Lewis flew oneKeith-264 (talk) 20:39, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

I've finished uploading the entire catalog of aircraft high-resolution scans in Commons, in this category | Romorantin Aerodrome Bwmoll3 (talk) 20:57, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

I think the Sopwith 1B2 should be a Sopwith 1½ Strutter.Keith-264 (talk) 21:00, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

I concur. Also Breguet 14 - Front - 2.jpg is a DH4. The other two Breguet 14s are just that I think. Monstrelet (talk) 14:57, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Renamed the Breguet 14 - Front - 2 to a DH-4. My error there, and thank you :) According to its article, it says the SOP 1B2 was the French manufactured version of the 1 1/2 Strutter. Also looking at the tail of File:Sopwith 1B2 Strutter Right Rear.jpg in the photo it says DP.1.B2, hence the photo name. Bwmoll3 (talk) 20:05, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Apologies for misdirection - you learn something every day :) Though, oddly, the article says the American ones were all 1A1 or 1B1 subtypes, which clearly they weren't.Monstrelet (talk) 07:44, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

No apologies ever necessary around here :) Bwmoll3 (talk) 21:14, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Armed Forces Reserve Medal question

As I am working through the list of Audie Murphy honors and awards, there is one I cannot verify he actually got. I'm wondering if anyone on this project has personal knowledge of the Armed Forces Reserve Medal. The original list of Murphy's decorations from the main article was a good faith, but unsourced, edit by an IP in 2008. I have searched the internet, his service records, and the National Archives, and found no source that says he actually received this medal. I can source all the others, but not this one. I believe the origin of this one might be Audie Murphy Research Foundation, where they list it as one of his medals and provide a lot of detail on the medal itself and his reserve service. But they don't actually give any details of his having actually received this. I'm presuming, since Murphy's son is part of the AMRF, that the medal actually exists somewhere in the family memorabilia. But that doesn't help me cite it for Wikipedia. Feedback on this is requested, because I'm not sure if I should remove it from his awards or not. — Maile (talk) 15:59, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

He would have certainly been eligible according to the criteria for award of the medal by virtue of his service in the Texas National Guard. You might try contacting the Adjutant General of Texas and see if their office has any service record details. The link: http://www.txdirectory.com/online/abc/detail.php?id=86

Good luck. Cuprum17 (talk) 16:20, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Your best bet would be to send in a request to the National Personal Records Center. The only downside is it's going to cost $150. http://www.archives.gov/st-louis/military-personnel/public/persons-of-prominence.htmlDmanrock29 (talk) 23:37, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Well, this is the National Archives stuff. I've already seen everything they have. They don't have any mention of this award. In fact, towards the end of his life, there is some correspondence that lists every military award they have a record of. This is not among them. Here and there, things you think would come automatically, required Murphy specifically putting in a request. The government sure does love paperwork. His Good Conduct medal didn't happen until after his discharge, and he had to put in a special request to get it. There was some kind of law at the time that he could have his name listed on the "Medal of Honor" honor roll on his 50th birthday, and it would give him an extra $150 in retirement benefits - but had he lived, he would not have gotten it unless he specifically put in the request. Maybe this AFR medal was also something he needed to request, and never got around to it. — Maile (talk) 01:16, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Stuff like this is normally awarded by the unit; the individual only has to do it if he's retired and doesn't belong to a unit anymore.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 01:32, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

I've requested or help families request veterans records through the NPRC multiple times. Either the AFRM was not awarded to MAJ Murphy or the award was made after the date the NPRC covers. It's completely possible that just because he met the criteria for the medal that his unit did not actually go through the process of awarding it to him.Dmanrock29 (talk) 02:20, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

That's what I'm kind of thinking, too. He retired from the Army Reserve almost 2 years to the day before he died. And what was going on in his life at that time, requesting this award on his own was probably not among priorities for his time. — Maile (talk) 02:28, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

HMS Vestal (J215)

HMS Vestal is a warship article currently stuck at WP:DYK due to inadequate sourcing. Could some of our float devoted boat doters have a look and see if it can be salvaged? (The article, not the ship) Thanx. Hawkeye7 (talk) 00:23, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Source added and a little bit of cleanup performed.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 21:38, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Norman Foster Ramsey, Jr.

In this article the disambiguation checker reports a link to a redirect (Norman Ramsey) which point back. But I can't find it! Any help would be appreciated. Hawkeye7 (talk) 09:23, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

I just went through the article and I can't find the redirect. I think that this is an error in the toolserver report. I have a vague memory of reviewing another article that had the same sort of false positive.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 21:42, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

First day on the Somme

Tried to use "move page" but it won't accept a capital "D" for First Day on the Somme because of a redirect. Would someone describe what I need to do so I can put a capital D in please? ThanksKeith-264 (talk) 17:04, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Normally you would nominate the redirect for speedy deletion under Template:Db-move. However, I think the article is currently located in the right place. What was your rationale for moving it? Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 17:19, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

It's a title as well as a label so I wanted to put the capital D in.Keith-264 (talk) 18:46, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

There is the book The First Day on the Somme which uses the title and (based on a simple search) seems to compete for the capitalizaed version of the phrase. GraemeLeggett (talk) 19:26, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Map of the Battle of the Somme

New map

A map I recently recreated, File:Map of the Battle of the Somme, 1916.svg, I have nominated for Featured Picture status here. All input is appreciated, particular if there are any factual errors present. (I try hard to avoid these, of course, but occasionally the source is wrong or verging on unreadable.) Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 17:24, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Second opinion on tag

Whaam! got tagged with {{tone}}. Do people agree with this? Please get involved at either Wikipedia:Peer review/Whaam!/archive1 or Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Whaam!‎ to help sort this out.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 11:50, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Kudos to Ewulp (talk · contribs) for his ongoing copyedit of the article. Thanks for the support.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 19:05, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

UDR Militia Links

In the course of my research into the UDR I have come across several written items which suggest the regiment was a militia. Does anyone have enough knowledge to advise me on whether or not a section relating to this should be researched and included in the article? SonofSetanta (talk) 14:26, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

In what sense is the term being used? "Militia" has several meanings, and is sometimes applied to reserve or part-time units of military services (and was common usage for such units in Australia until about the 1960s). As the UDR was, as I understand it, an officially-formed component of the British Army this usage would probably be accurate, but the alternate usage of "militia" where the term refers to an unofficial (and typically ill-disciplined and trained) military force seems inaccurate. Nick-D (talk) 23:43, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

As far as I am aware a militia in the British sense is a locally raised force authorised by an act of parliament other than the Army Act. You can compare units like the "Sharpshooters", the "Yeomanry" or the "Fencibles". There was a territorial militia in England until the Territorial Army came into being. Irish history shows occasions when this has occurred too and in the 50's when the TA was part of the Special Reserve MOD gave Militia names to various territorial units. The UDR fits this category as far as I can see: raised by special act of parliament and although on the ORBAT didn't serve with the colours but instead had a specific "Home Service" contract. Nor did they train as line infantry but were totally theatre specific in training and deployment. I've got sources to support this but before adding a section on it to the article I'd like to explore opinion. SonofSetanta (talk) 13:09, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

While you can defend it on literal grounds (yes, the UDR was a locally-raised part-time military unit), it feels a bit odd to use the term in this context, IMO. Andrew Gray (talk) 19:57, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Is that because Nick has raised the spectre of Arab Militias? They've been around as official bodies for a lot longer than that in the UK, see Militia#United_Kingdom SonofSetanta (talk) 11:27, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

It's more that were you to say "a militia active during the Troubles", the first response of most people would be to guess a group like the UDF not the UDR! The term certainly has historic validity - and you can even find the politicians responsible describing the UDR as "a sort of militia" at the time it was established - but I think that if we use it now, it's going to give a somewhat misleading impression to the reader. YMMV, etc. Andrew Gray (talk) 16:36, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

I see exactly what you mean but in my view it's all down to the way it's written and if properly sourced and reffed then there can be no confusion with the armed insurgents of the middle east etc? It's certainly food for thought - would you agree? SonofSetanta (talk) 10:05, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Not really. To my ears, the word "militia" has a level of baggage (not just due to the contemporary groups!) that is going to cause some confusion in the reader, regardless of how we source it. Either we say "was a militia force", and risk being misunderstood, or hedge it around with so many caveats that it's simpler to find another term. A possible comparison would be "paramilitary"; by the dictionary usage, we can agree that the Ulster Special Constabulary - an armed, uniformed security force - were undeniably "paramilitary"... but actually calling them that would be exceptionally confusing because of the way that term has been used in the context of the Troubles.

Reading over your original comment again, I'm also not sure what you mean by "a section" - a section just titled "UDR as a militia"? A more general discussion on its historic/legal context? I'm not really sure what would (or should) go in here. Andrew Gray (talk) 22:47, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

I've pondered it for a few days now and I think I'll leave out the section within Ulster Defence Regiment and instead feed a new section into Militia (Great Britain) with inline refs to UDR. Then put a category at the bottom of the UDR page linking it to "Militia". Do you think that is a reasonable way to approach it? I'm not talking half a page here, just a section saying "the UDR was a modern militia in the UK....yadayadayada". SonofSetanta (talk) 08:52, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

MILHIST banners and taskforces on category pages

G'day all, are Category talk pages supposed to have MILHIST banners and if so, task forces allocated? Thanks, Peacemaker67 (send... over) 07:02, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Anyone? Peacemaker67 (send... over) 03:53, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

After a bit of looking around, I'd say yes on the MILHIST banner at least. Dunno about the task force, but I'd say probably best to add that too. Howicus (talk) 04:31, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Thai military in the Malayan Campaign

Can anyone in the project confirm whether or not Thai troops were involved in supporting the Japanese campaign inside Malaya? I know they helped the Japanese in northern Burma and Thailand had control of the northern Malay states from 1943 to 1945, but no other assistance. They were involved in clash inside Thailand with Commonwealth forces under Operation Krohcol when the Japanese invaded, but nothing beyond that. NealeFamily (talk) 09:18, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

I don't believe so. From memory, it took a few weeks for the Japanese and Thais to negotiate an alliance (of sorts) after the start of the Pacific War. Nick-D (talk) 10:41, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks - I've tagged the comment with a Cite Ref and will review in a month or two. NealeFamily (talk) 21:15, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Task force idea2

You may recall Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Military_history/Archive_120#Task_force_idea, where I asked if there was a task force for art, music and sounds. Since I always seem to get more than sufficient interest in A-Class reviews for my Art submissions (Fountain of Time, Four Freedoms, Willie Gillis and now Whaam!) to significantly improve the articles. Having recently created Bratatat!, Brattata, Mr. Bellamy, Okay Hot-Shot, Okay!, Varoom!, Takka Takka (Roy Lichtenstein), Jet Pilot (Roy Lichtenstein), and Crak! I was thinking about this some more. How about an "Arts and Letters" task force that would include Military books, art, music, speeches and sound.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 19:28, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

RfC

Discussion under way at Talk:Glenanne_barracks_bombing#Discussion. MILHIST comment and opinion sought. SonofSetanta (talk) 14:30, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Camp Harding

The section on a "Simulated battle" lacks a year. Should the section be removed? 76.7.238.93 (talk) 14:39, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

 Fixed Once the citations were properly formatted, it was easy to pull the correct date from the source. — Maile (talk) 15:25, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Dieppe

The usage of Dieppe is under discussion, see talk:Dieppe -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 04:05, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

CFB Vernon?

I don't know if that's what it was called, there was a base or camp there; I found this image on Commons File:Military training camp, Vernon, British Columbia, 1915, bird's eye view (HS85-10-30574).jpg and it's certainly not the only military camp in BC in that war, there's nothing on the Vernon, British Columbia article about it, so querying here to see if there's any article it might suit, or if a CFB Vernon article might exist under another name.Skookum1 (talk) 06:32, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Vernon Camp or Camp Vernon seems the best name (the former is the UK style, the latter the American, I don't know which was used at the time). There's a short summary here mainly focusing on WWII and postwar. Andrew Gray (talk) 19:45, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

and CFB isn't consistent with 1915--Lineagegeek (talk) 22:29, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Battle of Megiddo (1918) infobox

I am seeing some odd behaviour in the Battle of Megiddo (1918) infobox. The Belligerents are not split evenly: the Allied / Arab side is getting less than 1/3rd of the infobox width, whereas the Ottomo / German side is more than 2/3rds. Problem seems to lie in the casualties2 parameter: removing this, or blanking it, makes each side even up (50% of the width each). The existing parameter data

| casualties2 = Destruction or surrender of Ottoman forces, only 6,000 escaped capture

does not seem to be too strange. Is anyone else seeing this? Hamish59 (talk) 15:27, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Demo in my scratchpad User:Hamish59/scratchpad. 1st infobox is the existing one from Battle of Megiddo (1918), 2nd is with the casualties2 parameter blanked. Hamish59 (talk) 15:37, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Mauser Selbstlader?

Is it mentioned in some article? See [3] [4]. Someone not using his real name (talk) 05:46, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Odd article

British Land Units of the First World War - looks like a bare list of regiments, and probably needs redirected, but to where? Andrew Gray (talk) 18:29, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Now redirected. Andrew Gray (talk) 14:19, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

Advice on article title

Hi all! I'm not sure if the Battle of Osijek article carries an appropriated title and would appreciate some advice before taking this to WP:RM, if that is needed at all. The conflict primarily consisted of artillery bombardment, supported by small-scale infantry action during a part of the bombardment and occasional air strikes. Now if the aerial bombing were the primary component, I suppose "Bombing of Osijek" might have been a valid title, but now I'm not really sure. A Google books search turned up nothing on the topic. Should the title be changed and if so, into what?--Tomobe03 (talk) 17:59, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

What do sources call it? bobrayner (talk) 22:38, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

"Battle of Osijek" draws a blank on Google books, the English speaking sources I consulted (listed in the article) talk about the event in various descriptive terms. Croatian sources are useless because "bitka za Osijek" (literal translation of the current title) is used by journalists to describe local elections and so forth. I was thinking along the lines of WP:MILMOS#NAME suggestions for a generic title. The two examples cited there offer "Battle of X" and "Siege of Y" - except I'm not quite sure this qualifies as a battle or a siege (the city was not fully besieged and was accessible by road and rail throughout the event). I've also seen examples of Bombardment of Yeonpyeong and Bombing of Darwin - the former involving artillery just like this case, and the latter air force attack. Following those examples, "Bombardment" would fit better, except for occasional air raids and minor infantry/armour action on the ground, which were absent in the Korean example. That is precisely why I'm unsure if it may qualify as a "Battle".--Tomobe03 (talk) 22:51, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

How about you call it "Osijek in the Croatian War of Independence"? 23 editor (talk) 23:47, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

I think a descriptive term would be best. How about "JNA attacks on Osijek (1991-92)"? WP:ACRONYMTITLE applies here, and the JNA included the army, navy and air force (did it not?). The disambiguation may not be necessary, depending on whether there were other JNA attacks on Osijek. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 00:39, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

I'd prefer not to call the article "Osijek in the Croatian War of Independence" because it describes a specific event (bombardment and its circumstances) in a specific period (August 1991 - June 1992) rather than encompassing everything related to the city in March 1991 - November 1995. It would be reasonable to expect in an article of called "Osijek in the Croatian War of Independence" to discuss availability of utilities and public transport along with any combat etc. I'm not bent on a particular title but I think that one is too imprecise.

As far as "JNA attacks on Osijek (1991-92)" are concerned, I'm, as pointed out above, not bent on any particular title describing the event with sufficient accuracy. I find "JNA attacks on Osijek (1991-92)" to be fine, although such a title would require an additional sentence or two on JNA barracks in the Osijek - there was some shooting from the barracks into the city, capture of a couple of the barracks and a JNA evacuation from the third one. I, for one, wouldn't mind such an addition and would therefore support "JNA attacks on Osijek (1991-92)" as the article title.--Tomobe03 (talk) 14:06, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Material added as described above. Oddly enough, after the extra combat information is in, I feel the current title might even be sufficiently accurate per WP:MILMOS#NAME.--Tomobe03 (talk) 12:09, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

Help debugging infobox

Can someone figure out why the "number=" parameter is not having the desired effed in the infobox of PPD-40? It's not showing up in the rendered page. Someone not using his real name (talk) 06:34, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

No, I futzed around with it and it appears to be entered appropriately. I looked at a couple of other weapons and they're showing the number built, so it's not the template itself.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 07:21, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

I actually copied the line from PPSh-41 and only changed the number accordingly [5], so I have no clue why it's not working in this other page... Someone not using his real name (talk) 07:45, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

(stalker) "number" was twice in the parameter list - and the infobox apparently takes the last value in such cases. GermanJoe (talk) 14:16, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. Someone not using his real name (talk) 08:13, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

U.S. Army Bronze Star

I need somebody who knows the correct terminology on this, due to this being one of the areas of the Feb-Mar 2013 edit war at Audie Murphy and my not having the knowledge to make a judgement call on this. An IP edit has made this change. Military Times shows two awards but says "...a Bronze Oak Leaf Cluster in lieu of a Second Award of the Bronze Star Medal". Did this IP change it correctly, or do I need to revert the change? Please advise. — Maile (talk) 23:47, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

In the US Army when a medal is awarded for a second or multiple times it generally is represented by an oak leave cluster or some other device attached to there on to represent the subsequent award. I would say that revision is extrenuous and is not needed and would revert it.Dmanrock29 (talk) 05:07, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. — Maile (talk) 11:39, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

The last of my pseudo MIlHIST art going through DYK

If they stay to the 12-hour cycle that they are on, Template:Did you know nominations/Brattata, Jet Pilot, and Okay Hot-Shot's four new articles (Brattata, Jet Pilot (Roy Lichtenstein), Okay Hot-Shot, and Mr. Bellamy) will be on the main page in less than 44 hours. These are the last of my Roy Lichtenstein art brood of articles that will run through DYK. Just hoping not to have any misleading MILHIST content in any of them.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 04:51, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

"Mr. Bellamy depicts an air force soldier" grates a little. (It makes me imagine a junior member of something like the RAF Regiment - example pictured.) "An air force pilot" (as in the hook) would be better, or "an air force officer" if supported by the source, or (worst option) "a member of the air force".

I just went by the source, which is accessible to you. You can see that source says "the air force soldier in Mr. Bellamy". If you feel strongly make a point at either the DYK or main page talk pages.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 05:32, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

The helmet in Okay Hot-Shot doesn't really look like any cosmonaut, astronaut or air-force pilot's helmet I've ever seen, but I don't think this is a big problem.

Again. I am going by what I can source.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 05:32, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

Otherwise these (and the hook) are all fine. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 05:15, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

If you're going by what you can source, then why are you asking here? If "air force pilot" is acceptable for the hook according to the sources, then why is it not acceptable for the article? --Demiurge1000 (talk) 05:36, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Whaam!/archive1

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Whaam!/archive1 is underway.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 21:23, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

Good to see - can you please add it to the project tasks template at the top of the page (if a coordinator doesn't beat you to it). While we used to post FA notifications as new threads here, we ceased doing so a year or two ago as they were clogging up what can be a busy noticeboard :) Nick-D (talk) 02:05, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

I've noted (wearing my FAC delegate hat) that the Whaam ACR should have been closed before commencing the FAC, and (wearing my MilHist coordinator hat) I'm going to archive it now. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 02:23, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

A couple of ACRs needing attention

G'day all, in case you get a chance, the following ACRs have two supports and could do with one more set of eyes:

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Operation Southeast Croatia, two supports, open since 12 May (my nom)

Regards, Peacemaker67 (send... over) 12:18, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/David M. Shoup, two supports, open since 4 June

Regards, Peacemaker67 (send... over) 10:17, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Article name

A Swiss self-propelled gun project stands at Tank gun 68. Anyone know of a better name for the article? I suspect that anyone after info on it is unlikely to use those words and it might get overlooked.GraemeLeggett (talk) 18:43, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Panzerkanone 68 seemed as good a bet as any. Andrew Gray (talk) 20:27, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Same regiment?

I came across the articles 1st Regiment New York Mounted Rifles and 7th Regiment New York Volunteer Cavalry. From the intro paragraph, it looks like these are the same regiment with differant designations. Wild Wolf (talk) 14:03, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Doesn't look like you'll be getting any help. 64.6.124.31 (talk) 15:03, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

What you're likely seeing is the same regiment under its state designation (mounted rifles) and its recognized War Department designation (7th NY Cavalry). This isn't unusual, especially with regiments raised early in the war. Intothatdarkness 15:17, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Canadian Official Histories

Just stumbled across this; PDFs of the Canadian Official Histories for WWI, WWII, and Korea. Andrew Gray (talk) 19:48, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Nice find! Hchc2009 (talk) 19:54, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=198029 might have something to interest you. Keith-264 (talk) 19:58, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Interesting! Not sure why they're linking to EThOS rather than the local repositories, but useful nonetheless. Andrew Gray (talk) 22:32, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

That's excellent - thanks for posting this Andrew Nick-D (talk) 23:59, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Not Canadian material, but excellent nonetheless -- Anabasis, Kenneth Estes' look at volunteers in the German forces during World War II. W. B. Wilson (talk) 05:28, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Invitation to Wikimedia chapter members and ex-members to participate in an interview for the next edition of The Bugle newsletter

In the upcoming edition of The Bugle Ian and I would like to run an interview with editors who have an interest in military history topics and are also active, or were active, in Wikimedia chapters about their experiences with the chapter(s). Editors who are interested in participating are invited to answer some or all of the questions at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/News/July 2013/Interview by Monday 22 July. Thanks! Nick-D (talk) 11:09, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Categorization of military vehicles

I've created some proposed guidelines at Wikipedia:Categorization of military vehicles - comments/improvements welcome. The following military vehicle categories are currently at CFD: Category:Tracked armoured recovery vehicles by country (delete), Category:Tracked armoured recovery vehicles of the United States (upmerge), Category:Heavy armoured personnel carriers (upmerge), Category:TMG - Truck Mounted Gun (delete), Category:Cavalry tanks (delete), Category:Self-propelled anti-aircraft weapons (rename), Category:Patria Pasi (upmerge). DexDor (talk) 06:00, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

The proposed guidelines look reasonable to me.

On a logistical note, would it perhaps make more sense to add these to WP:MILMOS directly rather than having them on a separate page? I can't imagine these particular guidelines growing to any great length, and the general consensus within the project has traditionally been that having the various guidelines centralized on a single page is easier for people to use than having them spread out over individual pages. Kirill ^[talk] 17:12, 16 July 2013 (UTC)d

Further comment welcomed at Kenilworth Castle#Thomas Chaloner...

Further comment from any additional parties would be welcomed at Kenilworth Castle#Thomas Chaloner... It's been a long debate, and could do with some third party voices! :) Hchc2009 (talk) 18:45, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

AirSea Battle

Finally split AirSea Battle article out. Hcobb (talk) 21:09, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Ulster Defence Regiment

I thought the day would never come but I've just nominated the Ulster Defence Regiment article for A Class. Fantastic feeling of satisfaction. Even if it doesn't pass at least it'll be at the final stage. SonofSetanta (talk) 16:52, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

I'd like to thank all the guys who've mucked in to help me get this article up to scratch before the A Class Review. I'm learning some useful wiki skills which I hadn't previously come across and I'm deepening my knowledge of how to properly present an article. SonofSetanta (talk) 14:28, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

Request for help from AfC

A subject specialist is requested to help review Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/South Korea Ballistic Missile Range Guidelines. The ability to read Korean would also be useful as most of the cited sources are in that language. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 11:20, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

The article has been passed, thanks to Nick-D for responding to this request. The article is now at South Korea Ballistic Missile Range Guidelines. I have provisionally rated it as Start class. Task forces and other Project paramaters I have left to more experienced editors. BTW Nick-D suggested that the article title might be improved. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 12:22, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

Big Problem - help needed

Folks I've got a real issue here. A copyright editor has commented out all the infobox badges on 16 of the 17 articles concerning the Ulster Defence Regiment. All the articles are accessible from the list here List of battalions and locations of the Ulster Defence Regiment, which is also affected. My view is this: the Harp and Crown badge is the only symbol of the Ulster Defence Regiment and to the best of my knowledge when used in an infobox to signify that the unit is UDR, fair use is permitted.

What can I do to resolve this issue? Here is the image location: File:Cap Badge of the Ulster Defence Regiment.jpg.

Whilst awaiting an answer I'll read up some on copyright. SonofSetanta (talk) 15:14, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

See the SAS cap badge that should help - they are Crown copwrite File:Special Air Service cap badge.jpg Jim Sweeney (talk) 16:23, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

@Jim Sweeney - have looked and will copy the licence. Do you think this can be used in infoboxes for all 16 battalions? SonofSetanta (talk) 16:48, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Ask the editor involved the same question? (Hohum ^@) 16:32, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

He originally gave the reasons that the source was incorrect and there was no fair use rationale for each usage so I corrected all that, then he deleted all the fair use rationales I had put on the image page and came up with WP:NFCC#8,WP:NFCC#3 and WP:NFC#UUI which to me don't apply. What other choice do I have to illustrate the correct insignia for a unit but to put its capbadge in the infobox? If the unit had 16 battalions then 16 instances of use is fair use - correct? SonofSetanta (talk) 16:48, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Are all the battalions notable ? Jim Sweeney (talk) 07:45, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes all the battalions are notable. The regimental history provides a complete record of the actions each battalion was involved in and the casualty lists. The regiment is so big and the history so comprehensive that it would be impossible to maintain an informative article of the right length at the parent article Ulster Defence Regiment. Some of the notable actions and events would warrant single article pages such as Glenanne barracks bombing. Plans are being discussed to create an article for the "Attack on the Deanery at Clogher" one of the notable actions of 6th Battalion, Ulster Defence Regiment and the largest IRA attack carried out during The Troubles. It'll take months for me to bring individual battalion articles up to wiki standard but it's a course of action I've set my mind to.

What I'm really concerned about here is the apparent censoring of military infoboxes. As I've said above, 16 battalions means 16 articles and 16 infoboxes, plus the parent article. To my way of thinking that's still minimal use. SonofSetanta (talk) 11:37, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

An argument against this is that it isn't necessary to have the image in each article. Use in the parent article on the UDR, no problem, but for all the battalions, if you want to know what the cap badge looks like then refer back to the parent article. NFCC#8, in particular, is quite subjective "Non-free content is used only if its presence would significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic, and its omission would be detrimental to that understanding." How is it detrimental to understanding of the article by not having the image in the battalion article when it's available in the 'parent' article? NtheP (talk) 12:36, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes that's a reasonable argument. My comments to that would be that, with so many articles on the regiment, it's helpful to the reader to have the same image visible in the infobox, linking all the articles together through that one image. I believe it can be argued that it is detrimental to the reader not to have the badge, or other recognisable symbol there. At the moment I'm using a free image there but the same copyright editor has raised objections to that too (see Commons:Deletion_requests/File:The_Badge_of_the_Ulster_Defence_Regiment.jpg ). With 16 battalion articles, a parent article and one other I believe the situation could become confusing for non-English speaking persons in particular without the common theme of the recognisable badge in all the infoboxes. SonofSetanta (talk) 13:29, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

I've now got a further problem. I've created a free use image and substituted that on the articles but the other editor is suggesting I'm telling readers lies by using it whilst simultaneously telling me it's a derivative work which breaches copyright. This guy doesn't get the military info box thing at all. I've left a message for Sodacan to see if he can sort something out but in the meantime any suggestions from here would be great. SonofSetanta (talk) 17:12, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

Location map for castles?

Hi, Do you have guidelines or a position about the use of a location map in an infobox for articles about castles?

There's been a short conversation about the use of location map in articles about castles, specifically related to the Newport Castle article and the discussion at Talk:Newport Castle#Location map.

Thanks.--CaroleHenson (talk) 17:29, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

I've left a message on that page. Hchc2009 (talk) 20:05, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

Lemuel Cook.jpeg

image:Lemuel Cook.jpeg has been nominated for deletion. This is a photo of one of only 7 veterans of the American War of Independence to have been photographed. -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 05:45, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

This should be moved over to Commons. I'll take care of it. Bwmoll3 (talk) 15:51, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

issn/isbn needed

* {{cite book |ref={{harvid|Kahn|1970}} |title=Purnell's History of the First World War |last=Kahn |first=L. | authorlink= |year=1970 |publisher=BPC Publishing Ltd|location=London| edition= |isbn=}}

Looked all over for this but nothing, can anyone help please?Keith-264 (talk) 08:12, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

(Has a look at my copy) It has no ISSN or ISBN. Sorry. OCLC: 9091594 OCoLC: 705750160 Year was 1969-1971. Hawkeye7 (talk) 11:00, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

Before 1975 or so, it's not unusual for there to be no ISBN; you'll get a handful of UK-published material with an SBN (nine digits; converts to an ISBN by adding a leading 0) from 1965 onwards, but ISBNs didn't start at all until 1970 and plenty of publishers didn't bother to include them until the mid-seventies. Andrew Gray (talk) 11:15, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

It would also be worth checking WorldCat and the catalog of the British Library. Nick-D (talk) 11:33, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

Expanding on what Andrew Gray said, providing an ISBN was not mandatory nor a legal requirement when it was introduced, nor is it now. Some of the smaller/specialist publishers and book clubs don't use them, despite the small cost of applying for one. Usually, in those cases, the books are being sold from their own sales departments, and not through suppliers such as Waterstones, Amazon, etc, so it's not necessarily worth paying for one, from their viewpoint. They don't seem to care that those books usually end up on Amazon one day, or used by students, researchers, etc, as references, making the lack of an ISBN frustrating to everyone else concerned, given the international reach an ISBN has. Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 11:59, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

• I had a look in world cat but for the particular issue. Hawkeye's oclc will do though, thanks all.Keith-264 (talk) 13:52, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of badge for spurious reasons

I have recently created a new "Free" image of the Ulster Defence Regiment at File:The Badge of the Ulster Defence Regiment.jpg. A copyright enforcer has (wrongly I believe) taken exception to this and doesn't want the badge used. A discussion has been started at Commons:Deletion_requests/File:The_Badge_of_the_Ulster_Defence_Regiment.jpg and I would appreciate if as many as possible could examine the facts and vote fairly.

This could help me resolve the long running argument concerning the use of a badge in the military info boxes on Ulster Defence Regiment related articles. SonofSetanta (talk) 11:56, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

Panzer 68

There are no less than six separate articles covering the Swiss Panzer 68 and its variants. Having checked articles about several well-known tanks (e.g. Crusader, Centurion, Patton, Leopard), it seems that specialist variants warrant no more than a single line in the article about the primary vehicle. I propose redirecting all the variant articles to the primary, but is there an AFV-specific style guide or a consensus-building discussion I can use as justification for doing this? The reason I ask is that the variant articles' creator has exhibited rather strong WP:OWN-ish tendencies with Swiss Air Force-related articles and IMO is fairly likely to revert the redirects to full-blown articles. YSSYguy (talk) 13:51, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

A reason for integrating is that there is insufficient content/coverage in sources to justify a standalone article that could progress beyond stub/start. A likely contender for merging is Target Tank 68 whereas 35 mm anti aircraft tank B22L is more substantial (but still undersourced imho). I would start with giving each variant and the parent article a good cleanup first and then consider what the resulting merge would come out as (eg in a sandbox?).

The Panzer 68 article could use a summary of these variants.

You do need to be clear in your communications with the article creator about your reasoning and I'll suggest proposing your ideas to them first. They are brining otherwise obscure but valid information to the fore albeit in a presentation that needs polish. GraemeLeggett (talk) 06:39, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

Need project tag fixed

G'day all, Have returned to sorting out these slippery little suckers, and am drawing a blank on most of the current ones. Some aspect of the dark side is causing the project tag to set off alarm bells. Could someone with more skills and knowledge re: the banner have a look pls? I'll go and allocate some task forces, where I cannot feel the force so strongly... Peacemaker67 (send... over) 09:12, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

@Peacemaker67: All fixed now; most of them were either mismatched ACR links/tags or talk pages of deleted articles (the banner will detect if the actual article page doesn't exist and throw up an error). Kirill ^[talk] 10:22, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Kirill. I knew you'd know what was going on... Peacemaker67 (send... over) 10:25, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

File:Canadian Ramped Cargo Lighter.jpg

File:Canadian Ramped Cargo Lighter.jpg is under discussion concerning its copyright status at WP:NFCR -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 06:06, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

Notability question

An editor has created Louis N. Stodder, a man whose only significance seems to be his service aboard the USS Monitor as a junior officer. Comments on how or if this article meets the notability guidelines are invited.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 08:16, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

Chinese supersonic intercontinental stealth bomber?

According to the Voice of Russia [6] China's developing one. Do we have an article on that? The expected search term Future Chinese bomber doesn't get a redirect (unlike Future Chinese aircraft carrier or Future French aircraft carrier etc) -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 08:20, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

Probably because it's impossible to write an article on aircraft that are in the realm of speculation, and not in physical existence. Bwmoll3 (talk) 08:51, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

Question concerning leaders in infobox

There is a dispute here concerning whether a leader of a political group who has no power over any military force should be included in a military infobox. I've tried explaining to another editor that the infobox of a war article is only for significant leaders that actually have command over military forces.--FutureTrillionaire (talk) 23:00, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

An example of political leaders being cited in a military infobox in a war: Irish War of Independence. As in the Syrian civil war case, in the irish war the de facto command of military forces was mostly in the hands of local leaders. But the major characters in the war were also cited in the infobox. Coltsfan (talk) 23:22, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

1st Long Island Volunteers

It looks like from the article that this unit was actually named the 67th New York Infantry. Should the article be moved? Wild Wolf (talk) 14:11, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I think it should be moved. Mojoworker (talk) 04:32, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

You'll find more and more of these as you go through the Civil War regiments, I think. Especially on the Union side. Intothatdarkness 15:19, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

The reference that's best for that is an 1885 publication of the Adjutant General, available here. It has the whole run of alternate names for various regiments, battalions, and companies in the US Volunteers during the war. Confederate unites that had non-standard names usually just stuck to those, with no alternate "official" designation.IcarusPhoenix (talk) 07:45, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Link that doesn't require login here. Intothatdarkness 15:50, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Brothers von Blücher

I found this article but I don't think it merits an article of its own. The encyclopedic info should be intergrated into the Wolfgang Graf von Blücher article with a redirect to the article. Comments? MisterBee1966 (talk) 09:46, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

The article on the Battle of Crete has better references than this article does for the brothers -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 12:16, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

The "author" of the article removed the "citation needed" templates, and is mixing references with footnotes. Fixing it resulted in a revert by the author (thus the removal). -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 07:13, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

This is ticking me off. People are (probably the original author, and not being logged in) removing the citation requests without adding citations. The article is mixed with glosses in line and footnotes. Whenever I try to fix the two different glossing styles, someone reverts it. If the article can't be fixed, it might need deletion, being an ownership problem. -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 04:36, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

AfD? I don't think it meets notability criteria. The same material is repeated in the Battle of Crete article. Wiki-Ed (talk) 09:42, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes, probably. The "owner" original author of the article is calling me a troll, and saying that I have to add a ref for every citation needed I add?!?!?!!??! This is ridiculous. The removed "citation needed" templates have still not had citations attached. -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 05:21, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

AND he's removed the citation needed templates at Battle of Crete and called me a troll again. -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 05:23, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

He's quoting from something I used a few days ago against a persistent troll who likes to add CN tags to sections (including some which he originally inserted) that he views as being POV, regardless of whether the information is referenced elsewhere in the article or not. I revert any CN tags he adds unless he adds a reference somewhere else, but there hasn't been a single occasion where that's happened yet, presumably because this would require some work on his part. Anyway this section has now been removed by another editor altogether. Wiki-Ed (talk) 09:55, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

Battle of Crete

The section Battle of Crete#Brothers von Blücher is poorly referenced. There's a lot of text, and only one real reference, to one sentence. Everything else is unreferenced. -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 05:09, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

The "citation needed" tags have been deleted from that section without any references being added. The person who did it seems to say that you need to add a ref to add a citation needed. This seems odd, to say the least. If you add a reference, why would you need a citation needed template? If it isn't referenced, why wouldn't it have a citation needed attached? -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 05:27, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

The section has been removed. For other reasons on another page, Hyperboreer (talk · contribs) has been indef blocked for copyright violation. -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 05:30, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

World War I centenary at DYK

Hi there, I thought I should post a reminder about the plans for the Did You Know? section for the World War I centenary on the 28th July 2014. Earlier in the year it was decided that we should collate hooks throughout the year preceding that in the same manner as those are collected for the yearly April Fools hooks. This means that any article created or expanded which is nominated at DYK and meets the other requirements can qualify to be held for the centenary from 28th July 2013 onwards.

Articles should be nominated at DYK in the usual manner, and once approved, moved to Wikipedia:World War I Centenary/DYK. What is done with those hooks depends entirely on just how many are received and what the hooks are. I know ideas muted included to hold back themed sets for various centenaries of important events throughout the first year, or just to fill as many sets in a row from the 28th July 2014 onwards. To be honest, we'll probably decide around April-May next year as to how exactly they'll be used. Miyagawa (talk) 16:20, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Energy usage of the United States military

This article could be improved, and rated. Please help! Bearian (talk) 17:49, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

This may be helpful: [7] Rmhermen (talk) 18:21, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Does anyone have a script...

...that can easily add the hyphens into ISBN numbers? I'm sure I've seen it done on other articles, and was keen to update the ISBNs at the Peasants' Revolt article, but loath to do it by hand... Hchc2009 (talk) 16:57, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Not automatic, but that's http://pcn.loc.gov/isbncnvt.html my favorite ISBN converter (10 <-> 13 incl. hyphenating). With copy/paste back and forth it is relatively easy to do. GermanJoe (talk) 07:24, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Will give that a go, cheers! Hchc2009 (talk) 17:45, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Talk:Gallipoli Campaign/GA1

I'm going to need someone to take over for me on this one, I'm in over my head. - Dank (push to talk) 20:24, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

I'll deal with it. - Dank (push to talk) 13:33, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Invitation to join a discussion

Through this way, I inform I inform I've come here to inform you that there is a discussion at WT:Disambiguation about partially disambiguated titles, known as "PDABs". This subguide of WP:D affects articles in this WikiProject. There At the discussion page you can give ideas or thoughts about what to do with this guideline. Note this discussion is not to modify any aspect the naming conventions of this WikiProject. Thanks. Tbhotch.^™ Grammatically incorrect? Correct it! See terms and conditions. 01:13, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Establishing notability for USMC Leftwich Trophy recipients

Hi guys, need some help establishing notability for Leftwich Trophy recipients. Particularly for Timothy Ryan Sparks and Ben Middendorf. Please have a look at their AfD and state your opinion, whatever that may be. —Ahnoneemoos (talk) 11:14, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

See Also / Similar Units / Comparable Units

A lot of the articles for various units have a section for similar units. The list is always incomplete and always scatterbrained. A good example of the is the JW GROM article. Instead of having a separate list for each unit why not just have a policy of linking to the categories. So instead of the list for units similar to GROM a link to

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Counter-terrorist_organizations

or

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_special_forces_units

Editors time would be used more efficiently if the comparable units lists were kept in one place and then each article could make use of the centralized list.

Does this sound reasonable? I have never taken part in a wiki project so I am not sure if this is the within the scope of this project, or if the suggestion is even possible. Please let me know if I should bring this up somewhere else.DouglasCalvert (talk) 20:05, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Corbit's Charge

Should this article be renamed "Battle of Westminster"? Wild Wolf (talk) 21:57, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Which is the more common name in RS about the campaign? I'd default to that one. Intothatdarkness 22:01, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

The Bugle: Issue LXXXVIII, July 2013

Your Military History Newsletter Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results Articles: Last month's new Featured and A-Class content Book reviews: Nick-D looks at Australia's frontier wars Interview: What Wikimedia chapters can offer military history editors

The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here.
If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 16:13, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

New infobox for the Arctic Ocean Campaign

Hi everyone! I was noticing recently that the Arctic Ocean World War II articles need a campaign box to make it easier to navigate them. For this purpose, I have created three different options for a Arctic Ocean Campaignbox. First is User:Howicus/Campaignbox Arctic Ocean Campaign of WWII, a basic version I made by finding all the battles in Arctic naval operations of World War II. The second is User:Howicus/Campaignbox Arctic Ocean Campaign of WWII (Convoys), which contains everything in the first campaignbox, plus every attack on a convoy (that we have an article on) that resulted in a loss of ships on either side. The third is User:Howicus/Campaignbox Arctic Ocean Campaign of WWII (Convoys, Norway), which includes all of the things in the other boxes, plus a section for naval actions around Norway throughout the war (even after the fall of Norway). Any opinions? Anything I missed? If no one objects, I think I'll start adding User:Howicus/Campaignbox Arctic Ocean Campaign of WWII (Convoys) in a few days. Howicus (talk) 21:19, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

All of those look good to me. I would suggest listing operation names without the "Operation ..." prefix, however; see, for example, {{Campaignbox Western Europe 1944–1945}}. Kirill ^[talk] 00:09, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Good idea. I'll probably used User:Howicus/Campaignbox Arctic Ocean Campaign of WWII (Convoys), since the Norway section in my third box can be covered by Template:Campaignbox Norwegian Campaign and/or the underused Template:Campaignbox Norwegian Campaigns (1941 - 1945). Howicus (talk) 00:56, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

And I'm adding the template, now at Template:Campaignbox Arctic Ocean Campaign of WWII. Howicus (talk) 22:56, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Co-leads

Coordinator elections are coming up in September. Last year, there was a 3-way tie for lead coord, so we've had 3 co-leads. IMO that's worked out well, so I'm proposing that the top three vote-getters become co-leads (unless they don't want to be co-leads, of course). Rupert's "got no dramas" with this proposal, and Nick is for it. Thoughts? - Dank (push to talk) 15:33, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

If I recall correctly, the co-lead arrangement we've had this year was a result of the actual vote (i.e. three candidates in a three-way tie) rather than something planned beforehand. Without knowing the results ahead of time, I would be hesitant to support a particular arrangement; we can certainly continue with the current one if we have a three-way tie again, but I think that other possible results (e.g. a single clear winner, a two-way tie, etc.) should be handled individually, without trying to have a one-size-fits-all approach. Kirill ^[talk] 15:52, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

I am in support of the idea, but could you please present at least three major benefits that this "3 co-lead" structure has brought for the project (in comparison to the prior system)? Regards.--MarshalN20 | ^Talk 15:56, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

If I could answer your question, Marshal, then I wouldn't be in favor of 3 co-leads; I'm in favor because neither "co-lead" nor "lead" means anything. None of Milhist's co-leads has ever asserted "power", nor has anyone asked us to; we're spokesmodels ("Step right this way to find what you're looking for.") It's not at all the same thing as the hats Kirill, Ian Rose, The_Ed17, and many other Milhisters are wearing, hats that carry actual responsibility. Not that Rupert, Nick and I don't act responsibly (if I may say so) ... but if you took the hats away, it would probably be very much like How the Grinch Stole Christmas! ... I doubt you'd notice any difference. - Dank (push to talk) 16:45, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

That read like a poem. (^_^)

I assume parts of your message are aimed at others. It has me confused. Above you write that "IMO that's worked out well". My question was, essentially, to elaborate on that statement. Your response (or my understand of it) goes along the lines of "we're spokesmodels with no responsibility and do nothing that is noticeable". If that's it, then what is the point of even having one coordinator?

Regards.--MarshalN20 | ^Talk 18:47, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

On further thought, your statement implies behind-the-scenes work ("nothing that is noticeable"). Perhaps it is something secretive that the rest of us should not know about (à la 007)? But, seriously, if you want support for the continuation of something new, you should provide examples on why it is better than the old system. If there's nothing better about it, then Kirill is right.--MarshalN20 | ^Talk 18:59, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm not comfortable "running for office". You asked me to list three three jobs we did, and I gave you one (though I should have been less self-deprecating: we fielded questions and hooked people up with the support they needed). None of us can say, of course, whether people came to us because they knew us or because we were identified as co-leads or for some other reason. All I can say is that Nick and I, and maybe Rupert, think that the co-lead designation may be useful for whoever winds up getting it. We tried to do a good job in the role, each in our own way, and if you'd like to form your own opinion on that, then read our talk page archives and see; a campaign speech would be overkill, since it's a relatively minor role. - Dank (push to talk) 18:49, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps the obvious one is that you shared the "lead" across the year, rather than having one having to be available all the time? I'm not conscious of how you "shared the lead", as you all seemed to be present all the time, but my impression has been that you've backed each other up pretty instinctively. I did think it was a one-off, but I am not opposed to a lead triumvirate consisting of those candidates attracting the top three vote tallies. Regards, Peacemaker67 (send... over) 23:03, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

From my perspective, the co-lead worked as I was away for about two and half months this year. Given that it seems no one realised I was gone, this means one of two things: either Dan and Nick covered for me brilliantly, or they didn't need to because I don't do anything discernable anyway. I jest, of course, but there could be a grain of truth in either of those two points of view. ; - ) AustralianRupert (talk) 03:45, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Secretive, Marshal? There's literally nothing secretive about being a coordinator. Literally. Not figuratively. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 05:11, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

You clearly are omnipresent, AR. ;-) Peacemaker67 (send... over) 05:19, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Milhist A-class reviews that need attention

G'day all, if anyone is free, the following Milhist A-Class reviews need some attention:

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Francis Nash: needs another reviewer;
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Casimir Pulaski: needs two more reviewers;
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/George Juskalian: needs another reviewer;
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Frank Worsley: needs another reviewer;
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Torpedo...Los!: hasn't yet received an initial review.

If you are new to reviewing at A-class, the A class criteria can be found here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/A-Class. If you are unsure about how to review at A-class, I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have. Cheers, AustralianRupert (talk) 11:25, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Stonewall Jackson

Expertise in Stonewall Jackson requested at Talk:Stonewall Jackson#File:Stonewall Jackson boyhoodhome.jpg.--GrapedApe (talk) 11:59, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

The last Phantom flies into history

The USAF prepared its last QF-4 Phantom drone for an aerial target. I just uploaded a photo of it File:McDonnell Douglas RF-4C-40-MC Phantom 68-0599.jpg to Commons. Bwmoll3 (talk) 16:50, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

Nice shot. Hchc2009 (talk) 16:58, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Agreed, great photo! Mztourist (talk) 06:07, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Jefferson Davis

A GA review of Jefferson Davis was interrupted this week because of an indefinite block on the reviewer. Are there any American Civil War fans here interested in reviewing this one? The nominator's worked hard on the article, and I feel bad for her/him that the review was stalled by an outside situation. Thanks, -- Khazar2 (talk) 16:41, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Discussion of whether sanctions are still needed on Syrian civil war articles

The discussion of whether articles on the ongoing Syrian civil war should continue to be subject to 1 revert rule restrictions at WP:AN#Request to amend sanctions on Syrian civil war articles may be of interest to members of this project. Editors who are unfamiliar with the administrators' noticeboard should note that non-admins are always very welcome to post there, especially in relation to general topics such as this. Nick-D (talk) 08:41, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Separate articles for World War II histories of World War II US aviation units

An editor has opposed the merger of several stub or start articles on World War II US Army Air Forces units into the articles on the same units under their most recent designations. Discussion is at Talk:622d Expeditionary Air Refueling Squadron, including links to the other article mergers opposed. You are invited to join in. Note that this discussion potentially applies to hundreds of other articles. Lineagegeek (talk) 20:31, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Italicisation of the German words "Luftwaffe" and "Waffen"

G'day all, I'm looking for some guidance on whether the German words "Luftwaffe" and "Waffen" should be italicised as foreign words not yet in everyday use in non-specialized English. These German words are used in the majority of sources in preference to "Air Force" and "Armed" respectively. However, neither German word is in Merriam-Webster Online, per luftwaffe and waffen, and MOS:Ety. Thoughts?

in English language military history writing--and that includes Wikipedia-- "Luftwaffe" is very common & I have never seen it in italics. I think "Waffen" is not often used. Rjensen (talk) 01:51, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

I've never seen them italicized either...Oh, and by the way, I mostly see "Waffen" used in the phrase Waffen SS. Howicus (talk) 03:21, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Don't bother to italicize Luftwaffe as that's very common in military histories. Waffen, if used as part of Waffen-SS, should also not be italicized as that's also common. If used with other words, then it's probably worth italicizing. IMO, of course.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 04:32, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

I was thinking along those lines too, Sturm. There were several "foreign" Waffen-SS divisions where the title format was "XXth Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Fooish" as distinct from the "Germanic" Waffen-SS divisions where the title format was "XXth SS Panzer/Panzer Grenadier/etc Division Fooish" or similar. I'm thinking in those cases, "Waffen" should probably be italicised, ie "XXth Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Fooish. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 04:57, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

As foreign words, IMO they should be italicized, common usage be damned. TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 06:27, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

I agree with the Stormbird. Luftwaffe is used to distinguish the German AF of the Third Reich from prior and subsequent German air arms quite commonly in English language historical works without italics. The same applies to the names of Waffen-SS formations. I'm not quite sure I'd be able to apply the distinctions suggested by Peacemaker. Maybe a little too technical? --Lineagegeek (talk) 20:49, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Italics. They are foreign words and, as they are more familiar to WWII history readers than to the lay public, can be considered technical words. I certainly don't remember them in any of my school textbooks. - Boneyard90 (talk) 23:09, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Non-italics. When referring to the Luftwaffe, the Waffen-SS, the Bundeswehr or any other organisation (or anything else that's being referred to by its name) don't use italics. That it's a name made up of non-English words is irrelevant (e.g. we don't italicise references to Baden-Baden). DexDor (talk) 04:33, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

DexDor, That seems contrary to MOS:ITALICS#Foreign_terms and MOS:FOREIGN. (Hohum ^@) 19:17, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

"Luftwaffe" is virtually a loanword in English now, IMHO. "Waffen", however, should be italicised. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 20:16, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Hohum, The very guideline you linked to (MOS:Ety) says "A proper name is usually not italicized when it is used...". DexDor (talk) 20:29, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

The MOS entry is a little ambiguous. It says that since Gestapo is an anglicized loan word, it shouldn't be in italics, implying that italics would be used otherwise, yet surely it's a proper name anyway... The WPMILHIST manual of style is also confusing, showing examples of unit names in italics. (Hohum ^@) 11:26, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

This manual of style is a little clearer than our own. Not italicizing "Personal names, place-names, peoples and tribes, institutions and organizations, holy days, festivals, and titles of persons " may include foreign military ranks.. which would mean Obersturmbannführer and several other similar articles shouldn't have italic titles. Thoughts? (Hohum ^@) 11:36, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

DYK review?

I've expanded the Nudelman-Suranov NS-45 article a fair bit, and it apparently qualifies for DYK. Could someone review it before the deadline expires? The nomination is here. Thanks. Someone not using his real name (talk) 19:40, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

The review will take as long as it takes; the clock stopped once you nominated it.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 20:06, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Caption for 'Japanese Naval Landing Force, waiting for attack order with wearing a gas mask.jpg'

The caption on File:Japanese Naval Landing Force, waiting for attack order with wearing a gas mask.jpg is under discussion at WT:CHINA -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 04:11, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Royal Lancashire Regiment

We seem to have a few articles that refer to the Royal Lancashire Regiment but no article of that name. Does anyone know of a suitable link to use for the RLR as it was during the period 1806-1811? I'm writing an article about a doctor and would like to link his military service to something. Ta (as we say in Lancashire). - Sitush (talk) 13:30, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Maybe the King's Own Royal Regiment (Lancaster)? -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:06, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Hm. That article says it was known as the 4th (King's Own) Regiment of Foot between 1751 and 1881, when it became The King's Own (Royal Lancaster Regiment). This might present a problem because I have numerous sources that refer to the 1st Bn, Royal Lancashire Regt. These names, and the changes to them, baffle me sometimes. - Sitush (talk) 14:13, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

For the dates given, you need to look for a Regiment of Foot, that may have had a county affiliation. A number of Regiments (pre- and post- 1881) had a Lancashire affiliation. Try List of Regiments of Foot. Notably, ensure you are not mistaking "Royal" for "Loyal".

You say a few articles that refer to the Royal Lancashire Regiment. Can you point to a few of them so I can get some context. Hamish59 (talk) 14:22, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

They are shown in this search result, which also includes "Loyal" despite my attempt to limit it. I've just put my own article into mainspace, although I am in the process of expanding it - see Joseph Jordan (doctor). - Sitush (talk) 15:15, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

This is his appointemnt as Ensign

Commissions in the Royal Lancashire Militia, sgned

by the Lord Lieutenant.

First Battalion.

...

To be Ensigns,

Joseph Jordan, Gent. Dated December 12, 1806.

Further discussion has taken place on Sitush's talk page. Hamish59 (talk) 11:44, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Air Combat Information Group (www.acig.org) as reference for military aviation articles

Having searched for "acig" in the search box came up with 357 page hits. However www.acig.org is a WP:SPS and as such cannot be used as a reference. Should all these references and material supported by it be deleted? One such article where [www.acig.org] is referenced is Mirage F1. Another similar site is called vectorsite.net. AadaamS (talk) 15:24, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

It is actually used 542 times whether that be as a source or not. You shouldn't go round and delete all of these references immediately. As SPS indicates, not all SPSs are bad or should be nuked on site. Each page needs to be checked because as noted in the guideline " Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications." Some of the articles on that website seem to be well informed and the authors may happen to be experts in their field and publish on this site. There are some sites and some information that should be nuked on site but on first glance this doesn't seem to me to be one of those. (with the obvious exception of BLPs where no SPS should be used as a ref). Woody (talk) 16:04, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes if it can be proven that the author on ACIG is an established expert in his field then of course the reference can stay. So I see no problem with challenging those references, it would then be up to the person who added the statements to prove that the author writing on ACIG is in fact an established expert. It isn't in Wikipedia's interest to let editors use links from Wikipedia to promote the Google rank of a fansite - unless of course the author is an expert. AadaamS (talk) 16:32, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

I think that is somewhat assuming bad faith. I think it more likely that people have searched for a reference for some information in an article and came across that page. It looks semi-professional and to the layman it may be assumed that it is reliable. You are right that it is up to the editor wanting inclusion to provide sources but it is not hard to search google for a reference to the particular information. If a suitable ref cannot be easily found then remove the information and place it on the talkpage and someone may be along and find it and be able to provide a reference. Woody (talk) 17:18, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Most of the articles by named authors on ACIG are by published authors examples here - to use the example of the Mirage F1 article linked above, citations are made to articles by Tom Cooper and Farzad Bishop, both of who have been published in this field by reputable publishers (and the article also uses a book written by these two authors as a source). The third citation to ACIG is a list of air-to-air victories by the 'ACIG Team' which may be less certain.Nigel Ish (talk) 17:47, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

To pile onto the above, at least some of ACIG is clearly a RS as its written by authors who have had works on the topic professionally published. I think that I've also seen it used as a source in books (albeit not for a while). Nick-D (talk) 08:02, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Of course, all claims of reliability only apply to the articles on ACIG. The ACIG forum is not reliable at allNigel Ish (talk) 21:50, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Category relevant to the project...

Category:Royal Navy courts martial is under discussion here. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 07:02, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

DNB naval biographies redlink list

At Wikipedia:WikiProject Dictionary of National Biography/Naval biographies there is now a classified list of missing naval biographies based on the subjects covered by John Knox Laughton in the Dictionary of National Biography. Charles Matthews (talk) 08:25, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Article Alerts bot

The Article Alerts bot hasn't run since 29 July. Queried at WT:Article alerts, but in the meantime if reviewers could remove articles they promote from Template:WPMILHIST Announcements as that happens, that would be helpful. Thanks, Peacemaker67 (send... over) 09:48, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Information requested for copyright licences on medal images

Does anyone know the correct way to licence images of medals?

My understanding is this:

1. If the medals are awarded to an individual and he/she photographs them and puts them on the wiki then no licence is required but acknowledgement must be made somewhere that the designs are Crown Copyright. Is this correct?

2. If the medals are pictured on an MOD website then the image can be reproduced using an Open Government Licence. Is this correct?

All help really appreciated. SonofSetanta (talk) 11:05, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

You might find WP:Media_copyright_questions a helpful place to ask this. (Hohum ^@) 12:26, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. I'll give that a go. SonofSetanta (talk) 12:51, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Bugle alignment on Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Open tasks

The Bugle seems to be stuck in the left column on the subject page. Doesn't it usually span the page? Peacemaker67 (send... over) 07:13, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

It does. The full-width span is there in its subpage -- maybe something's changed on the Open Tasks page... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 07:19, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

The issue appears to have been caused by an unclosed HTML comment on the Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/News/July 2013 page; it should be fixed now. Kirill ^[talk] 10:42, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Kirill! Peacemaker67 (send... over) 11:26, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

Submarines of World War II Specifications

Not my area but just noticed Submarines of World War II Specifications which is a comparison articles, I didnt think we did comparisons like this but just thought I would mention it for others to have a look, thanks. MilborneOne (talk) 13:55, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

The creator has said on the article talkpage "This is an attempt to create a summary overview of the main submarines of World War II for easy comparison. It is not an attempt to list all possible types nor is it to list in extreme detail the specifications of each. Rather this page can be a link point to other pages that have more detail." GraemeLeggett (talk) 15:21, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

It certainly lists a lot of detail for the chosen types, and also "main submarines" is not clear, but not being my area of interest I am not sure if these comparisons are done for other ship/boat types hence I will leave it to others if action is required. MilborneOne (talk) 15:26, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

♠It hits the essentials for the boats it covers, but omits a couple of important classes (like the British U-class & Japanese Ro-type, & arguably the U.S. S-boats).

♠What makes for "notable" is unclear; the number of Type VIIs with tonnages over 100K tons could easily reach a dozen alone (& not even U-47 or U-99 was there!). (I'm also not sure about the T-boats having 11 TT, since only 5 or 6 were internal...)

♠That said, I'm not going in & fix it, since I really suck at fixing tables... :( TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 11:31, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Map of the Battle of the Somme (2)

Original – Map of the Battle of the Somme, considered one of the deadliest in history and probably the best-known battle of the First World War.

I've renominated this file here. All comments welcome. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 11:40, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Images

I came across a Flickr user that has some nice images you may wish for your articles. http://www.flickr.com/photos/expertinfantry/ I find them easiest to upload with http://wikipedia.ramselehof.de/flinfo.php --Canoe1967 (talk) 12:59, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Anyone fancy taking a look at the Finnish Civil War...?

It became a Featured Article back in 2006, but is now looking in need of a little gentle editing - the lead is seven paragraphs long, for example, the captions no longer meet with MOS standards and some of the text could benefit from a bit of copy-editing. Not really my specialist field, but thought I'd flag it up. Hchc2009 (talk) 17:52, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

8th Hussars Cromwell destroyed during the Battle of the Imjin River, April 1951

File:Destroyed8H Cromwell.jpg

Anyone know the provenance of this image? It is currently under discussion for deletion here as possible unfree. Its an excellent image but without source information it will probably need to be binned. I've looked through the IWM and AWM collections, and the British official history, without luck so if anyone knows where it came from and could add it that would be great. Anotherclown (talk) 23:11, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

G'day, if anyone has access to this source, it might be in this source (I only have preview access, unfortunately): [8]. If not in there, these sources also seem likely candidates, although I can't view them unfortunately: [9] or [10]. I will keep looking. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 00:20, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

I was the uploader, under a different identity. I can't remember where I got the image from and I've searched for it online and can't see it. It may belong to my regimental association so I'll e-mail the regsec and ask him if they own the pic. SonofSetanta (talk) 10:36, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

AR - thanks for having a look. Unfortunately I only have snippet and previews available from those links too. Anotherclown (talk) 11:56, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

This link claims it is a free use file but unfortunately it seems to have acquired the image from Wikimedia Commons. http://ookaboo.com/o/pictures/picture/610674/A_British_Cromwell_tank_of_the_8th_Hussa SonofSetanta (talk)

Interesting website, hadn't heard of it until now. Best of luck with the image, I will keep hunting around too but I'm not having much luck. Anotherclown (talk) 11:56, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

I just wish I could remember where I got it from in the first place. 2008 seems such a long way away. I feel such a fool. SonofSetanta (talk) 12:45, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

I've now had it confirmed that the copyright of this image is the 8th KRIH themselves and as such the image is now owned by the Queen's Royal Hussars Regimental Association. I have applied today for permission to use the image. SonofSetanta (talk) 10:56, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Permission granted, the image should be safe now. Perhaps someone else would give it the once over to ensure I've done it right? SonofSetanta (talk) 16:32, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Wayward comma

Main articles: Battle of Verdun, Brusilov Offensive, and Battles of the Isonzo

Does anyone know how to get rid of the comma? Thanks.Keith-264 (talk) 10:38, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

I'm missing something. What comma? (Hohum ^@) 16:19, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Ah, produced by the template - I was looking at the articles themselves. (Hohum ^@) 16:20, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Apolly-logies, yes I meant the Oxford comma before "and" on the template.Keith-264 (talk) 16:23, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

The template doesn't seem to have an option without serial/Oxford commas. Is there an ambiguity problem caused where you want to use it, or just your style preference? MOS:SERIAL is ambivalent. (Hohum ^@) 16:27, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Don't like 'em, don't like 'em at all. ;O)Keith-264 (talk) 16:53, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Wikidata

I don't know much about the Military History WikiProject but I have been working on Wikidata and I noticed that there doesn't seem to be anyone there working on Military History. Tasks that need doing:

1. Propose the additional properties which will be needed to record military history infobox information and other structured data (timelines?) in WikiData format.
2. Add these properties and associated info to the various wikidata pages.

If you have any questions about how this would work then ask away. I'll hang around here to see if I can answer. Otherwise questions can be asked at Wikidata:Project_chat. filceolaire (talk) 19:35, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

New PTSD suicide biography could use attention

The new Daniel Somers biography, about a US Army PTSD suicide resulting from service in Iraq, could use some work to get it into Start class, especially with regard to article format in sections. There is no early life section, for instance, perhaps because the sources are largely quiet. A non-free photo could be uploaded. The bio can be taken to DYK. Binksternet (talk) 01:17, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Category:Light armoured vehicles

Category:Light armoured vehicles and its subcats are under discussion at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2013_August_7#Category:Light_armoured_vehicles. DexDor (talk) 05:14, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

George S. Patton up at FAC

Anyone want to take a crack at "Old Blood and Guts"? He's up at FAC. —Ed!^(talk) 11:50, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Information regarding Jones Morgan

Hi, I recently created an article about a man who was argued to be the last surviving veteran of the Spanish-American War. At one point, (I specify more on the article and the 2nd citation) a bill was proposed to congress about 10 months before his death that would've granted him honorable discharge and therefore recognition of his service, which was disputed. I have researched far and wide but as of yet cannot find the outcome of this bill or if it survived at all, etc, etc. Help would be much appreciated. Thanks! -1Matt20 (talk)

65.64.177.101 (talk) 19:43, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Review Request

I have created a depiction of Sgt. Thomas Ricketts showing the action for which he was awarded the Victoria Cross. It can be seen at

http://ronbennett.deviantart.com/art/Tommy-s-Run-311399464

Would it be appropriate to post with the article?

65.64.177.101 (talk) 19:43, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Notification template for project coordinators

Hello everyone! To help improve communications within the project, we've created a joint notification template for the project coordinator team.

The {{@MILHIST}} template will allow anyone to easily send a notification about a discussion of interest to all of the coordinators. The template can be used similarly to the {{ping}} template, as shown below:

{{@MILHIST}} This is a question for the coordinators. ~~~~

Please feel free to use the template whenever you need input from us in a discussion, and let us know if you have any other ideas for improving communications within the project! Kirill ^[talk] 01:42, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Image creation query

I'd like to get a free (GFDL) copy of 'Implantation geographic des FAT' off this page - http://forcesarmees.tg/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=13&Itemid=33 - to assist in Wikipedia's coverage of the Togolese Armed Forces/Military of Togo. Can anyone suggest any of our graphics experts who might be able to help? Buckshot06 (talk) 06:23, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Stars and Bars

Is there a way to adopt a consistent usage across military articles concerning the historical Confederacy, avoiding presentism of the CSA,Inc.? Confederates served under the "Stars-and-Bars", so history articles at WP should picture the flag of its time, the "First national flag with 13 stars", 1861-1865. Jefferson Davis was the last Confederate citizen, the only man not included in the general amnesty. Heritage Auction offered the original Stars-and-Bars flown by Jefferson Davis at Beauvoir “since 1865” – that is 1867-1908 until his death. Modern commemorative societies since, should not recolor the past at Wikipedia.

David Sansing, professor emeritus of history at the University of Mississippi at “Mississippi History Now”, online Mississippi Historical Society observes in his Brief history of Confederate flags, that the “Bood stained banner” was “unlikely” to have flown over “any Confederate troops or civilian agencies”. He quoted the author of “Confederate Military History”, General Bradley T. Johnson, “I never saw this flag, nor have I seen a man who did see it.” -- the BSB. In contrast, Ellis Merton Coulter in his The Confederate States of America, 1861-1865, published in LSU’s History of the South series, on page 118 notes that beginning in March 1861, the Stars-and-Bars was used “all over the Confederacy”.

The alternate image description for the Blood-Stained-Banner suggests the BSB is in use “since 1865”, yet in Jefferson Davis' Short History of the Confederate States of America, p.503 it is said that the Confederacy “disappeared” since 1865, in the words of Jefferson Davis. Is there a way to adopt a consistent flag usage across military related articles concerning the Confederacy that is linked to reliable sources? -- The First National Flag with 13 stars. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 11:00, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Is there an option you'd like to suggest for other editors to consider? Nick-D (talk) 23:44, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

"First national flag with 13 stars", 1861-1865. -- which I seem to have successfully placed at Confederate States of America, -- In that when the modern CSA, Inc."Blood Stained Banner" is substituted, others restore the "First national flag". There a BSB the size of Ft. McHenry's "Star Spangled Banner" flying from the I-95 roadside in Georgia -- impressive but not the flag flown throughout the Confederacy of American history which ended 1865. It was not flown by Jefferson Davis.

At Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis and Battle of Fort Pulaski, the BSB is periodically, often anonymously, over the course of months, put up in place of the banner which actually flew in sight of those actual persons or places at the time of the respective article's scope. You can see the anachronistic BSB shown at Confederate States Army, which the historian of the Confederate Army, B.T. Johnson, observed, “I never saw this flag, nor have I seen a man who did see it.” -- as quoted in Professor Sansing's Brief history of Confederate flags. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 08:37, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

GAR

BGM-75 AICBM, an article that you or your project may be interested in, has been nominated for a community good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Snowman (talk) 14:31, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Latin America

I've noticed for a few weeks now, that "Latin America" isn't coming up in the WP:MILHIST template on the talkpages. I am finding this weird since the couple I've done, I have said "yes" too, it still doesn't display. Has anyone else found this small problem? Adamdaley (talk) 00:11, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

I just checked the template, and there doesn't seem to be anything obviously wrong with the Latin American section. Do you have an example of a page where you saw the error? Kirill ^[talk] 00:24, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

I looked at the template also and tried to find some examples without luck. -Fnlayson (talk) 00:27, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

the correct syntax for that task force is "Latin-American-task-force=" or "Latin-American=". Could that be the issue? Peacemaker67 (send... over) 00:40, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Okay, I've found the problem; the {{WikiProject Military history/Any}} sub-template was only recognizing five potential options, but "Latin-American" was actually the sixth variant for the task force. I've expanded the sub-template to allow six, and the flag appears to come up correctly now. Please let me know if you see any more problems with this. Kirill ^[talk] 06:21, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Good job Kirill—I'm glad to see that you're doing something useful with your time at Wikimania. ;-) Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 08:17, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Iraqi aerial victories during the Iran-Iraq war

Iraqi aerial victories during the Iran-Iraq war has just been created to match the similar 2012 created Iranian aerial victories during the Iran-Iraq war, both appear to be a list of individuals and details of each victory. First thought is to propose deletion but looking for other thoughts, can they be rescued by restricting the details (particular of non-notable pilots), any thoughts. MilborneOne (talk) 19:14, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps they should be merged? - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 21:19, 10 August 2013 (UTC)