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Non-"battle" combat operations

An issue that's come up a few times now: our current guidelines call for all combat operations to be placed in the "Battles involving X" categories, even if they're not referred to as "battles" (this for fairly obvious reasons: the definition of "battle" has become extremely vague in modern warfare). We've always sort of waved the terminology issue away here, but I wonder if it might not be better to approach it explicitly by making the category names more inclusive? We could rename the "Battles involving X" categories for modern states (i.e. those likely to have non-"battle" ops) to the form "Battles and combat operations involving X".

Thus:

but:

Comments? Kirill Lokshin 13:49, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Sounds fine to me. I'm sure there is a great deal of confusion nowadays as to what constitutes a battle, as car bombings and aerial bombings, rocket attacks, and all sorts of other "combat operations" are undertaken that don't quite look like battles as we traditionally know them. Though, I am starting to think about trying to categorize "incidents" - things like the sinking of the USS Maine and the RMS Lusitania, the Namamugi Incident, and the Tiananmen Square Massacre, which were not proper battles, but involved the use of violence, or led to war. Obviously, there can be a somewhat blurry line between acts of terrorism, diplomatic incidents, domestic incidents, and what does and doesn't count as a "military history" event to begin with. But, anyway, I'm thinking about it... Sorry to go off topic - your proposal here sounds fine to me. LordAmeth 15:09, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps "Military operations involving ..." would be a better, broader and more generic phrasing? Askari Mark (Talk) 15:22, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
We already have those (see Category:Military operations by country), but they're a bit higher-level, since they include wars, battles, combat operations, non-combat operations, planned-but-canceled operations, and pretty much everything a country's military has done. (You can see what the full tree looks like at the moment at WP:MILHIST#Conflicts and operations.) Kirill Lokshin 16:31, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
That works for me - modern warfare really plays hell with the current categorization. Carom 17:11, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

For anyone interested, a preliminary list of the categories that would be eligible for the new naming:

I've taken the rather primitive approach of selecting the categories for all countries that were around in the 20th century; this probably results in a few false positives because some of those countries may not actually have been militarily active. If anyone cares enough about the issue to go through and get rid of the ones that didn't actually have any combat operations in the last hundred years or so, please feel free! :-) Kirill Lokshin 18:15, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Some "military operations" are simply not-so-easily classified. Even so, I'd prefer to see:
Let's see:
More generally, the overall category structure for a single country tends to look like this:
  • Military operations
    • Wars
      • Battles & other combat operations
    • Non-combat operations
    • Canceled operations
(The nesting of combat operations under wars is a curious point; it may be worthwhile unwrapping that, for clarity.) Kirill Lokshin 20:27, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
On a related point: perhaps we ought to explicitly toss campaigns into the mix as well, by having, e.g. Category:Battles and campaigns involving the Roman Empire and Category:Battles, campaigns, and combat operations involving the United States? Or would this be overcomplicating things? Kirill Lokshin 20:31, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
A thought, should there be a category for non-state actors? Since this change broadens out the category then it brings in issues like PIRA and the like?ALR 20:35, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
Well, they're currently in the "country" tree (c.f. Category:Battles involving Hezbollah), mostly because the state/non-state line is very blurry in, say, medival warfare (e.g. Category:Battles involving the Knights Hospitaller, etc.). I'm not sure that trying to split the category is going to bring us any more clarity, and it'll just cause endless arguments over whether something is an actual state or not. Kirill Lokshin 20:40, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

A different idea

A somewhat different proposal, taking into account some of the thoughts above: rather than combining battles and other operations, we combine battles and campaigns (in other words, "traditional" conflicts), and make that a sub-category of something broader for all combat operations. In other words, we get something like this:

  • Military operations involving France
    • Combat operations involving France
      • Wars involving France
        • Battles and campaigns involving France
    • Non-combat military operations involving France
    • Canceled military operations involving France

Or, alternately, with battles moved out a level:

  • Military operations involving France
    • Combat operations involving France
      • Wars involving France
      • Battles and campaigns involving France
    • Non-combat military operations involving France
    • Canceled military operations involving France

Or, alternately, borrowing Category:Military conflicts:

  • Military operations involving France
    • Military conflicts involving France
      • Wars involving France
      • Battles and campaigns involving France
    • Non-combat military operations involving France
    • Canceled military operations involving France

(But this is slightly more problematic in that someone will probably argue a distinction between "combat operations" and conflicts".)

Comments? Is this any better than the above? (Or does anyone have other ideas we could consider?) Kirill Lokshin 23:17, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

For me, the original proposal was good enough, but if it doesn't work for other editors, I prefer the first of these three. Carom 23:20, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
Heh. At this point, I'm just throwing ideas out for discussion; frankly, I'm not sure what we ought to be moving towards. ;-)
Really, we have two somewhat distinct issues here:
  1. How do we deal with small combat operations that aren't real "battles" (e.g. missile strikes, etc.)?
  2. How do we deal with large combat operations that are more properly "campaigns" than individual "battles" (and how does this intersect with the unfortunate habit of calling campaigns "Battle of X")?
Everything that I've been able to come up with so far has problems; if we change the category structure to resolve one of the issues, we make it impossible to accomodate the other one. If we could come up with a more-or-less usable way for deciding whether something was a "battle" or a "campaign", we could go with a more explicit structure, e.g.:
  • Military operations involving X
    • Wars involving X
      • Military campaigns involving X
      • Battles involving X
      • Non-battle combat operations involving X
    • Non-combat military operations involving X
    • Canceled military operations involving X
With an equivalent counterpart for wars, e.g.:
  • Military operations of the X War
    • Theaters of the X War
    • Campaigns of the X War
    • Battles of the X War
    • Non-battle combat operations of the X War
    • Non-combat operations of the X War
    • Canceled operations of the X War
Which would allow us to avoid mass renamings entirely, and simply add in extra steps in the scheme for the (relatively few) countries & wars that require them. But it doesn't work if we can't make the battle/campaign distinction, since we're then forced to combine things into a "battle and campaign" form.
(If anyone sees some clever way of solving this that I've missed, suggestions would be very appreciated.) Kirill Lokshin 23:53, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
How about "Category:Military actions" for minor or limited-scale military operations, such as an airstrike or missile strike, insurgent, counterinsurgent or counterterrorism event, firefight or border clash, etc? We already have categories for campaigns, such as Saratoga campaign (Category:Campaigns of the American Revolutionary War) vs. Battle of Saratoga (Category:Battles of the American Revolutionary War). I have no idea why people want to mash-up the two distinct categories. --Petercorless 01:14, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
The main reason, as I've said a number of times now, is that they're not distinct in modern warfare. Is the Battle of Normandy a battle or a campaign? How about the Battle of Gallipoli? (And does the answer change if I link to them as the Normandy campaign and the Gallipoli campaign?) At what level of scale does a modern "battle" stop being placed in the battle categories?
As far as "Military actions" is concerned: wouldn't that be ambiguous with "Military operations"? I could see someone interpreting either of those as the top-level category for every military activity. Kirill Lokshin 02:13, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
Few small-scale military actions are the result of named operations ("Overlord," "Crusader," "Desert Fox", etc., tend to be large-scale efforts). Many are accidental or incidental, or are otherwise isolated. If they were the result of a named operation, there is obviously the ability to list them as both military actions and military operations. I fail to see a crisis. --Petercorless 06:44, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
What does whether the operation has a codename have to do with anything here? The question is whether someone browsing through the categories would be likely to correctly understand the distinction between "Military operations involving Germany" and "Military actions involving Germany". It's my contention that they would not; the names do not unambiguously describe the contents of the categories, since "military actions" is neither a technical term nor limited in usage to small-scale activity in historical literature. Kirill Lokshin 06:51, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
Actually, why not use a simple descriptive name: "Small-scale combat operations" (or "Limited-scale combat operations", but that seems somehow more artificial)? Kirill Lokshin 13:24, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Yet another idea

On further thought, maybe I'm just being stupid here. Why not just place large modern "battles" in both battle and campaign categories? Using the current setup, this would be somewhat bizarre, because we'd be violating the principle of placing articles into the most specific sub-categories possible; but that's only true if "battles" are considered to be a sub-category of "campaigns", and there's no reason why that really needs to be the case. In other words, if we have a non-nested setup:

  • Military operations involving X
    • Wars involving X
    • Military campaigns involving X
    • Battles involving X
    • Non-battle combat operations involving X ← still need to figure out what to call this
    • Non-combat military operations involving X
    • Canceled military operations involving X

the problem basically goes away; we can place, say, Battle of Normandy in both Category:Battles involving the United States and Category:Military campaigns involving the United States without conflicting with any general categorization principles. It also becomes trivial to mirror this scheme for wars, since each war can now have campaign/battle/etc. sub-categories. (Granted, this means that some articles will have a few more categories; but I doubt that's a serious issue, really.) Comments? Kirill Lokshin 03:12, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. We can have both "battle" and "campaign" categories for certain large-scale battles, or articles where both the overall campaign and the resultant battle are both described in the same article. --Petercorless 06:47, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
Yep, that seems doable. Kirill Lokshin 07:01, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
So what does everyone think of this proposal? Kirill Lokshin 13:45, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
It's OK. Wandalstouring 18:35, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
Anyone else? (Particularly anyone with objections?) Or should we start moving forward with implementing this (not that it's going to be that much work, at least initially)? Kirill Lokshin 13:50, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
I'm tempted to say that before we change our categorization, we clean up our definitions. I'm a bit confused personally as to the criteria we use to define "battle", "campaign" and "war" (not even getting into "incidents"...). Is it just based on what the conflict in question is popularly called? Is it a recursive relationship where Y can contain Y (ie. sub-wars, sub-campaigns, sub-battles etc.)?
Well, we're trying to avoid having it done by name (c.f. the issue with campaigns called "Battle of X"), as that's a major part of the problem. Beyond that, I'd say that we go by whatever the sources say; each of these categorizations is equivalent to a statement in the article ("X was a war...", "X was a campaign...", "X was a battle..."), so the question really boils down to what would justify such a statement in the text itself.
(With the flat-tree proposed here, of course, we can tag a single event into multiple categories if needed. So if some historians refer to X as a battle and some as a campaign, we can add it to both categories.)
As far as recursiveness goes, I would say yes. Wars can obviously "contain" sub-wars (e.g. the Seven Years War and French and Indian War), campaigns can contain sub-campaigns (very common), and large modern battles (which are really campaigns, but will likely wind up being double-categorized) can contain "sub-battles" (e.g. the Battle of Normandy and the Battle of Villers-Bocage). Kirill Lokshin 14:32, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
It would seem that we are advocating that a conflict in question can be more then one of the above, does this mean that some can be all of them? For example the Eastern Front of World War II has been called a battle (The Battle of Russia, [1]), campaign, and a war. Would it then go into all of the categories? Oberiko 14:33, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
In theory (although I would be careful in terms of undue weight and so forth; here, for example, I don't think the Eastern-Front-as-a-battle view is widespread enough—do we, for example, call it a battle in the article?). Personally,I suspect that campaign+battle double-tagging will be somewhat common, but not the other types. Kirill Lokshin 14:38, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
Good Lord, I think we're missing the obvious here: regardless of what certain Old World radio personalities like Churchill called them (and you'll find that these are almost completely his inventions), things like the 'Battle' of France and the 'Battle' of Greece, etc. are campaigns. Sedan, Dunkirk, etc. were the battles. We're dealing with rhetorical simplification here, not malleable definitions. I've done a lot of reading on the American campaigns, and I never hear talk of a "Battle of Tunisia," "Battle of the Pacific," "Battle of Australia," or "Battle of Japan." In fact, I think all the confusion here warrants serious thought on whether the current names for these operations are acceptable. Albrecht 15:46, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
Well, many of these are the most common names used in historical literature; abandoning that as a baseline naming convention because the names aren't "correct" is going to be a huge can of worms. (Not to mention that the country-wide "battle" is just one issue here. Even something like the "Battle of the Somme" or the "Battle of Stalingrad" is really a "campaign" in the sense that it can be broken down into component "battles"; so I don't think we're going to be able to draw a very exact line separating the two.)
I am, of course, open to other ideas here. (But, incidentally, I think that un-nesting "Battles involving X" from under "Wars involving X" should be done anyways, simply because it makes the sub-category relationships a lot neater for essentially no cost.) Kirill Lokshin 16:57, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
Certainly the accepted historical names should be respected; I'm not suggesting we move "Battle of Britain" to "German bombing campaign over the United Kingdom (1940)." But I suspect that in many cases "Battle" is used with a knowing wink and nod to Churchill's ghost and not as serious nomenclature, i.e. the writer might say "Battle of Greece" offhandedly, in an introduction, or to place the campaign in the historical context, but will invariably revert to "invasion," "campaign," or individual actions when describing its essentials. But I'm well aware, as you say, that in trying to rename these fights we're liable to start a new one. ("Battle of the Battle of France," or rather, "WPMILHIST invasion of the French Campaign (1940)".)
In any event, I don't think the line between battle and campaign need necessarily be so blurred; many classical or neo-classical battles consisted of several engagements in different locations, much like the Somme or Stalingrad. In brief, I think your latest plan works fine: Let's categorize campaigns as campaigns, battles as battles, and rare ambiguities as both. After all, accuracy is fantastic, but do we really want to bury what should be simple categories under this much jargon: "Category:Battles and combat operations involving Denmark"? Albrecht 17:53, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
So, leaving the exact scope of each level to further discussion (below), are there any objections to the general structure? Kirill Lokshin 04:42, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Classification guidelines

Would it be possible then to start a separate discussion which attempts to resolve / classify the matter? A WPMILHIST set of accepted principles and guidelines for classifying battles, campaigns and wars? If we don't, my prediction is that we are going to end up with a snowball effect with a lot more multiple-entries then we might be currently anticipating.

For example, if the Battle of Normandy can be classified as a "Battle", why not the Western Desert Campaign (which I've seen referenced as Battle of the Desert), or, more easily, the Battle of Tunisia? I believe the three are roughly comparable in scope and objectives and would defer in classification primarily by common-name, which is something I think we can all agree is not a good way for things to be categorized. If we start classifying these campaigns as battles, then other campaigns could follow (why the Battle of Normandy and not the Battle of France, why the Battle of France and not the 'Battle of Russia' etc.). Your other point brings this up quite nicely as well, someone could try to classify Stalingrad as a campaign (which many sources do) which could then lead to many other large, multiple-engagement battles (Kursk, Iwo Jima etc.) being also classified as such. Oberiko

Well, assuming that the classification would be oriented primarily towards categorization, rather than an attempt to actually determine article content, I don't see a problem with our putting together some guidelines. If anyone has suggestions for a more-or-less straightforward way for people to decide which of the operational level categories (wars/campaigns/battles) an article should be placed in, please feel free to draft something up! :-) Kirill Lokshin 16:44, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
As a starting point, a few possible general principles to follow:
  • A war is a conflict bounded by periods (however brief) during which the combatants are formally at peace with one another; it generally consists of multiple distinct component operations such as battles or campaigns.
  • A campaign is a coherent series of smaller operations, which may be other campaigns or individual battles.
  • A battle is a single, distinct military engagement generally limited to a narrow geographic scope—typically no larger than a single city—and typically characterized by the opposing forces encountering one another, engaging in some form of combat operations, and then separating.
  • Categorizing an article in more than one level should generally be avoided unless doing so substantially adds to a reader's understanding of the topic. For example, a single article about a war consisting of only one battle may be categorized as both.
These are, obviously, quite sketchy; comments and suggestions would be very appreciated! Kirill Lokshin 04:38, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
Semantics are a sketchy thing, like drinking Buckley's it a pain to swallow but once your down it will clear up the system. In the MilHist casse, getting a set guidline for what we mean by the prevailent terminology should help reduce any misunderstanding over the terms. The end definition though should be a generally accepted concept of the word but rendered clear enough, even if that means cutting other viable understanding.
Basicly, if an Engagment means 20-200 combatants in close quarter combat (over simplification, I know but its an exemple bear with me, its the idea not the symbol that counts), then we stick to the communal definition even if Engagement could mean larger events or long ranger encounters in legal of literal circles.
Why bother with this? Becuse once people know our definitions they will know what we mean by them when used in the future. Forgoing any need for futher explinations every time it is used and eliminating possible conflicts of concept between editors. This is something most philosophers do to make sure that their words aren't misconstrued by the reader.
As to the namings and categorisation, we keep the names most used and known (as we've always done, no?) and categorize by name and by our definiton. In the end, doing what Kirill Lokshin's been proposing with his un-nested tree.
Where getting big and when things get big they enevitably hit bureaucracy. Although guidelines will be good, I think were still all close enough to understand one another, therefore this set of defintions if more for the un-initiated readers than the members themselves.--Dryzen 15:26, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
I would avoid categorizing by name. The Battle of France wasn't a "battle" per say, it was a campaign; also, as mentioned above, the Eastern Front has been called The Battle of Russia. If we dismiss "The Battle of Russia" as a battle, then we have to start justifying which names/sources we will use for categorization, and which we will reject; something I think will become very subjective very quickly. Additionally, we will end up with situations of confusion (how can the Battle of France be a battle and the Norwegian Campaign can't be one when the Battle of France was larger, had more troops, etc.) if we have multiple "or" criteria (name or characteristics etc.).
If I may, my preference would be to start off by getting a consensus on a few questions:
  1. What role, if any, should the name of an article bear on its categorization? Do other, also prominent, names (such as redirects) affect categorization, or only what the article is called?
  2. Are we going to include "Theatre" in our classifications as something with the same relative degree of mutually-exclusiveness as "Battle", "Campaign", and "War"; or will it be something decided independently?
  3. How do we define a sub-war? What differentiates a sub-war from a campaign or theatre?
  4. Can something be both a sub-war and a campaign or theatre?
  5. Is a participant who is only involved a sub-war(s) also categorized as being involved in the larger war, or only the sub-war? (ie. The Iroquois participation in only in the French and Indian War part of the Seven Year War)
  6. How do we define battle, campaign and war?
  7. Can a battle have multiple different engagements?
    • If so, what separates a protracted multi-engagement battle from a campaign?
    • Can an event (article) be both a protracted multi-engagement battle and a campaign?
  8. Can an event be both a battle and a war?
I apologize if the questions seem a bit nit-picky, but I think it's important we have something quite specific to refer to for something as potentially grey as the categorization of military conflicts. I'll branch this off to a sub-page if it gets to large. Oberiko 17:18, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
My personal opinions are such:
  1. The name should have no bearing on categorization.
  2. I think Theatre should be categorized independently, as it refers only to the geographical area. Thus, one theatre might potentially have only one campaign and in that case they would (likely) not have separate articles.
  3. A sub-war should be differentiated from a campaign in that the sub-war should have at least one combatant who is not actively militarily involved in the larger conflict outside of their specific sub-war. In taking the French and Indian War (FIW) example above, from a Native American point of view, the FIW was a full war; from the view point of the European powers, it was just a campaign of their larger war. A sub-war loses this status if the conflict merges with the super war.
  4. This also answers the latter point, an event can be both a [sub] war and a campaign, but not both to the same party
  5. All participants involved in a sub-war would be listed both in the sub-war and super-war with "Wars involving [nation]". All parties involved in both the super-war and the sub-war would also have "Military campaigns involving [nation]" in the sub-war. The reason for both is that, from the campaign'ers point of view, all parties were in a campaign; from the war'ers point of view, all participants were in a war. A participant in the super-war but not the sub-war would, obviously, not be listed in the sub-war.
  6. I'm going to pretty much use Kirill's definitions above. The only changes I'd advocate is that, IMO, a campaign is a heavily interlinked set of battles/operations with a set goal (which can change) from the campaign initiator from the onset. This would remove something like Stalingrad as a campaign, as capturing the city wasn't a German goal in and of itself, it was a quagmire they got caught in on the way to their goal.
  7. Since I believe it's possible (though not frequent) that a campaign can have just one multi-engagement battle, an event could be both. I think this is what we see with something like Kursk.
  8. I don't think it's like that we'll see any thing where a war is a battle, as it would have to be a war with the one battle, and only the one battle (not even including all the preliminaries for the war itself such diplomacy etc.). This would work for ant colonies, but not really applicable here. The main reason I wanted this point was to prevent potential sticking points. Oberiko 17:18, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Let's see:
  1. If we're going through all the trouble of coming up with guidelines here, I think we ought not to categorize only (or primarily) by name, since it's the inconsistency between the event's name and what it actually was that's at the root of the problem here.
  2. Theatres are something of a special case, because they're relevant for only a few wars, very few in number, and generally quite well-defined by historians.
  3. Okay, that seems sensible; but there are probably any number of curious edge cases here (e.g. Pacific War as a "sub-war" of WWII, etc.) where article editors will just need to go with whatever makes sense rather than relying on literal guidelines.
  4. Okay.
  5. That seems okay; basically, the "super-war" will be a "Wars involving X" for everyone, while the sub-war would be a "Campaigns involving X" for the broaders participants and a "Wars involving X" for the narrower ones.
  6. Okay.
  7. That seems fine.
  8. There's a distinction between the event per se and the article covering it. There's certainly quite a few wars that only had one battle (worth writing about, anyways); the question is whether there would be two separate articles for the battle and the war (which could then be categorized separately), or a single combined article (which would presumably keep both sets of categories), and whether that combined article would be "X War" or "Battle of Y". So, for example, if we merged Third Punic War into Battle of Carthage (c.149 BC), the resulting article might have both sets of categories, but if the we merged them the other way, the battle categories could be removed. (This is, admittedly, not that common of a scenario; I'm not sure whether it's even worth noting it explicitly.)
Kirill Lokshin 17:45, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Diplomatic incidents

In light of the above discussion spurred by Kirill, I have come to think more seriously about better categorization of those events which, though not military in nature, have crucial effects upon diplomacy. There are already complex trees of categories for terrorism, state terrorism, assassinations, and the history of foreign relations of many separate countries, but I still think it may prove useful, and pertinent, to create, and populate a complex of categories for diplomatic incidents, and particularly for events which, even when not directly "military" or "diplomatic" in nature, have profound effects upon those spheres. (Some examples include the sinking of the RMS Lusitania, the USS Maine, the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, the kidnapping of several Israeli soldiers last year, and the Namamugi Incident, just to name a few.) Thoughts, ideas, suggestions? How might we best label these articles so as to indicate their roles in spurring greater diplomatic or military events? Thank you. LordAmeth 17:42, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Just to further explain a bit. Category:Diplomatic incidents currently has a mere two articles in it - if people think this is a worthwhile category to maintain, it should definitely be populated. There is of course the issue that some things (like the Maine and the Lusitania) are ship articles, not event articles on the sinking, and thus perhaps do not belong in such a category, while things like the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, the Mukden Incident, and the Arrow Incident which spurred the Second Opium War are submerged into, or conflated with, the articles of the military events which they spurred, making these again difficult to categorize as the incidents themselves, and not as the battles/wars. Nothing comes without roadblocks. Nevertheless, what do people think? LordAmeth 17:42, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
Well, off the top of my head, there are two obvious possibilities:
Both of these may be worthwhile. Kirill Lokshin 17:57, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
I'd think it would be better to simply use the Category:Diplomatic incidents category. and see Category:Diplomatic incidents involving the military as unnecessary. --Petercorless 01:17, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
Is it worth distinguishing between incidents that were actually participated in by the military (e.g. incursions over borders, etc.) and purely diplomatic incidents (e.g. the various 18th century court intrigues)? Kirill Lokshin 02:19, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
Referring to the above, this is where we might mark the article as a "Diplomatic incident" and a related "Military action." Alternatively, we could use the term "Military incident" instead of "Military action" if we want to speak about singular, small-scale or limited engagements which are sub-battle, sub-campaign, sub-war and sub-operational. I'm ambivalent between "Military action" or "Military incident," as both seem to apply to the same class of events. --Petercorless 06:51, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
"Military action" seems needlessly ambiguous here; it could be applied to almost anything, up to and including an entire war. If we have to choose between the two, I'd go with "military incident"; but, really, wouldn't "Incident involving the military" make more sense for some of these (the ones that can't otherwise be categorized somewhere under Category:Military operations? (For example, the sinking of the Maine wasn't an action on the military's part; but it did involve the military.) Kirill Lokshin 06:58, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
Consider how it would evolve: "Category:Military incidents involving X" could apply to countries, insurgent movements, or even units. I'd prefer to keep it "Military incidents" rather than "Incidents involving the military," which seems a needless inversion and a weak paradigm. --Petercorless 12:31, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
Well, looking at the size of the category, it may be that such sub-categorization is unnecessary in any case, regardless of the name we want to use. Category:Diplomatic incidents is already going to be split by country, apparently; so we could likely get away just fine with simply categorizing individual aricles under the appropriate war/causes of war category in addition to that. Kirill Lokshin 13:20, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
I didn't realize there was a Category:Causes of war; good to know, and useful for this matter. I think perhaps the best thing to do for now would be to simply push for the population of Category:Diplomatic incidents. The more I think about it, the more I realize that many incidents will be found within the context of other, more far-reaching articles (e.g. Foo-Bar foreign relations), and not in their own separate articles anyway. Thanks to User:Historian for starting this category - now hopefully we can get it populated. LordAmeth 13:51, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Request a second opinion

I'm not well up on Federal conflicts, but the articel on the Battle of Miami Beach looked so completely suspicious that I had to ask someone knowledgeable: Is that real?! Is there any such battle by that name? 68.39.174.238 00:25, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Hoax, hoax, hoax. And not even a good one. Carom 00:50, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
Might be worth checking the user's other contributions... Shimgray | talk | 01:22, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
It's not even a good hoax :( I was looking forward to seeing something really strange, but all they've created is an infobox. --Nick Dowling 07:18, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
Checking htis user'S contribs I've foudn that most of the article created are all link to information gathered from the works of author John O'Shea. There is thus a strong chance that this hoax is a ficticious battle from one of this later's books (wich I've never read, anyone knowledgable on this ?). --Dryzen 14:28, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Help with Torb37 (talk · contribs)

Can someone from this project take a look at the contributions of this user? S/he seems to be an enthusiastic creator and contributor to various WWII articles that would fall under this project's scope. However, s/he doesn't seem to be a native speaker of English, and seems to be either translating literally or using a machine-translator, with results that are basically gibberish. I also wonder whether the numerous lists that this user has created are necessary. I've tried contacting the user, but I don't think the user does much in interacting with other editors. Thoughts? BuddingJournalist 03:29, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Hmm. Some curious stuff here; a lot of the lists don't seem like they're particularly useful. Kirill Lokshin 06:53, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
Yep. I also moved, for now, List of WWII foreign aircraft captured by German forces from "foreing aircraft". I'm not sure it's a notable entry, and it does not cite its source. --Petercorless 06:59, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Edwin Taylor Pollock now open

The A-Class review for Edwin Taylor Pollock is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 03:20, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Operation Igloo White now open

The A-Class review for Operation Igloo White is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 21:37, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Foreign Maps

In my attempts to find images and maps for so many of my articles which are missing them, I've come across a number of pretty nice tactical maps of various battles, created by Japanese Wikipedians. Obviously, with enough work I could edit the images to translate them... but for now, what do people think about the inclusion of foreign-language maps in articles? Is it alright for now? Should it be avoided? etc. LordAmeth 18:19, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

If the information on them is illustrative sufficient to show locations of troops, lines of advance or control without having to know the foreign language, then they are useful. Try to ensure you provide translations of key text if you can. If, however, even with a partial translation the user might be confused by the foreign language text, then we can wait for their full translation. --Petercorless 18:32, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
I would wait for translated versions, personally. Maps are nice additions to articles about battles, but not so neccessary that we need to include those in a foreign language, particularly if there are users willing and able to translate. Carom 18:51, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
On a precedence level, having foreign maps is acceptable. Just look at the number of francophone maps to be found in our articles. As already mentionned If the reader can understand the point of them ap and disern knowledge from it then its, in my mind, ok, perferable though to have translations.--Dryzen 18:57, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
You could also try to turn them into bilingual maps. This might be helpful for someone who wants to inform himself via Japanese sources. Wandalstouring 20:11, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
I only use maps from a different language as a las option. Kyriakos 20:39, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Consolidated review department

An idea that the coordinators have come up with: a consolidated review department that would include peer reviews, A-Class reviews, and FACs/FARs, all transcluded onto a single page for easy watchlisting and browsing. The obvious benefit is a better centralization of activity (particularly to things like the FARs, which haven't traditionally been directly visible anywhere in project space); the potential drawbacks are a larger page size and a more complex layout.

Comments? Would this be a good approach? Kirill Lokshin 04:42, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

I think that the increased visibility of external peer reviews and FACs/FARs would be a huge benefit; however, I also think that transcluding everything on a single page may be unworkable, given the number of discussions that are usually going on at one time. It might be better to simply provide a list on the main review page - something like "the following articles are currently Featured Article Candidates," with a link to each discussion. On the other hand, it wouldn't be as bad as, say, AfD, in terms of length, so that may not be a real concern. Carom 05:39, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
The total size of the page is about 400K, and we have rather more FACs/FARs active than we usually do; for comparison, the actual WP:FAC page is upward of 900K. Given that people aren't complaining about the latter, I don't think the size will be a technical problem here, at the least. Kirill Lokshin 05:43, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, that's kind of what I was thinking (at least, by the time I finished typing). At any rate, I think the potential benefits outweigh the potential drawbacks. Carom 05:47, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Initially I thought it perfect, but now I have an idea for a different approach: Just make a watchable list of review titles with links to the specific reviews. Wandalstouring 12:33, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
That's basically what {{WPMILHIST Announcements}} does already; the question is whether the full-transcluded page offers additional benefits beyond the simple link-list. Kirill Lokshin 17:09, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
It sounds like a good idea to me. Askari Mark (Talk) 17:19, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
But the announcement page isn't that much suited for keeping on a watchlist. Improving this might be helpful.Wandalstouring 18:04, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Eh, why not? The only changes made directly to it are (a) changes to the list of currently open reviews and (b) occasional project-wide announcements; that seems exactly suited for watchlisting. Kirill Lokshin 18:07, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
So, anyone else have an opinion? Should we implement this and see how it works in practice, or are there outstanding concerns that haven't been considered yet? Kirill Lokshin 17:33, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
I already palced my opinion in the original discussion, basicly: might be too big/bulky, better visability will benifit the less participated review types, Annoucements already a generic rieview visibility. Pretty much what eveyrone's already had in there minds. I dont think there are any outstanding concerns to stop the implimention for a trial run. Might be harder to keep both the old pages and this new one running though. Should the consolidate page function to expectations what is to become of the old review pages?--Dryzen 19:38, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
Well, for the purposes of the trial run, we can just redirect the old page to the new one and see how everyone reacts; if the reactions are positive, we just keep the redirect and go on, and if not, we simply revert the redirect and get the old structure back. (I'm not sure that a test with the old pages still fully active would really show anything, since people wouldn't have any reason to visit/try working with the new page.) Kirill Lokshin 19:42, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
Good point, I'dd completely forgotten about redirects. With this in mind I support the initiative for a trial run as you proposed. With the redirects in place we should get an excellent idea of the Cosolidated Reviews potential as well as the attention of all the reviewers who may not be up to date with this disscussion.--Dryzen 20:42, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
Okay, on that note: the new review department is open for business. Let's see how things go! :-) Kirill Lokshin 02:53, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

List of military disasters

List of military disasters has been listed on AfD. My suggestion is to move the article to 'military disaster' and use the current content to provide examples of such disasters. Given that there's a large literature on the topic of the causes and nature of military disasters I think that this is an article well worth keeping in some form. Thoughts? --Nick Dowling 22:50, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

I do think that an article on the general topic would be useful, but I'm not sure that the current list is going to be of any value as a foundation. The list currently uses an overly broad definition of "disaster", adn seems to conflate "military disasters" with "decisive defeats"; it may be easier to just start over, focusing on the more canonical examples covered in literature on the topic. Kirill Lokshin 00:06, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
Thats a tricky list since a decisive defeat wich became a disaster for one party certainly wans't a black day for the victors. The definition of Disaster will definitly have to be explained and carefully followed... --Dryzen 20:02, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
Delete it. It is no more than a marketing site for two books. Wandalstouring 20:11, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Operation Igloo White needs attention

A few more editors are needed to complete the A-Class review for Operation Igloo White; please stop by and help review the article! Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 00:10, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Still needs attention, if anyone has a bit of time to comment. Kirill Lokshin 05:26, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Poison gas in World War I FAR

Poison gas in World War I has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. LuciferMorgan 22:05, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Any guidelines and infoboxes for armed forces?

Certainly there are such guidelines and infoboxes for specific units and war factions, but I'm looking for similar advice for entire armed forces, including those of various states (e.g. the Roman Army as the army of the Roman Empire), mercenary units, and popular militias, as well as multiple armed forces. I've started a page on various Gothic armies and am at a loss... Jacob Haller 04:48, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

No, we don't have a strict guideline. The problem is rather that it is no good idea for premodern forces and even for today's armed forces it is quite difficult and controversial. You can take Military of the United States and British Armed Forces as examples, but the best option is probably to limit such infoboxes to dates when you have a primary source(ancient script) about the forces. Any modern approximations have to be sourced with more than one independent scientific source because these are highly controversial issues. I suggest to limit yourself to mentioning how many members they did possibly have in different battles at different times. Wandalstouring 11:35, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
Limiting myself to the most controversial issue? There is much more data on social origins, recruitment, weapons, etc. than on army sizes at specific battles. And why are articles on ancient or medieval militaries/military systems 'no good idea'? Jacob Haller 18:40, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
I'm a bit puzzled. There is nowhere said that you should limit yourself in writing the article, but limit the infobox to sourced and specific statements. Pray tell me where you get the idea from that articles about medieval militaries are 'no good idea'. In the examples of infoboxes on militaries you could see that they are focused on giving the number of troops and that is until now the pupose of this specific type of infobox.
I doubt the military unit box is useful, but I may stand corrected.
Sure there is much material on social origins, recruitment, weapons, etc., but there is no urge to create an infobox from that stuff, even more so because infoboxes tend to have simplistic statements while the mentioned issues tend to need more exhaustive explanations. Wouldn't it be more convenient to write them in a well-structured article first? Afterwards we could discuss your ideas for infoboxes much better. Wandalstouring 19:28, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
It's worth noting that the "boxes" that appear on some national military articles at the moment are simply raw HTML tables, not infobox templates. Kirill Lokshin 22:12, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
Yep. Basically, infoboxes are well-suited for presenting numbers and list of terms; but anything that can't be boiled down to a few words tends not to fit in with them so well. In general, the older the topic, the less likely it is that we have very specific data for it; filling in infoboxes with "Widely varying theories; see article text" for every field tends to be unhelpful. (Which is not to say that some of the field in an infobox designed for modern armies won't be useful for an ancient one; but many likely won't be, since there's really no way of designing around a true lack of historical information.) Kirill Lokshin 22:10, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
On a practical level, {{Infobox Military Unit}} has been adopted for national air forces fairly well, so you should be able to make decent use of it for national armies as well. (Feel free to drop a note on the template's talk page if you spot any obvious missing fields.) Kirill Lokshin 17:09, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Image of a toy soldier in FA

Llywelyn the Great has an image of a toy soldier that seems to be intended to serve as a kind of portrait, however, this could nevertheless be Duke Igthorn with his shiny new shield. There has been so far agreement to ban trivia and I stick to enforcing it. Naturally an article about the marketing of Llywelyn the Great can be created, but this is not part of the biography as long as he himself was in no way involved with this toy line. Wandalstouring 15:28, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

That's not a toy soldier. It's the statue of Llywelyn in the town square of Conwy, Wales. The statue looks to have been done in the 19th or perhaps early 20th Century to me, and apparently is painted on to make it look more life-like. See: Image:LlywelynFawr.jpg, or Llywelyn Fawr (Llywelyn the Great) for a picture of the statue in context of buildings and streetlights. You can also see Llywelyn Fawr (Llewelyn the Great) for a shot from directly below. --Petercorless 16:03, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
OK, my fault. But the image still looks like a action figure distributed by a fastfood company in addition to the kid's menu. Wandalstouring 16:15, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
Heh. It's an interesting style for a statue, that's for sure! ;-) Kirill Lokshin 17:11, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Request for Comment on World War II

Greetings! A request for comment/discussion has been started on Talk:World War II, in an attempt to help resolve an ongoing debate over the inclusion of specific countries in the World War II infobox. A wide range of input is sought to help bring fresh perspective to the debate, so, please, if you have interest or knowledge on World War II, please stop by, read the discussion, and provide your input. Thanks! ——Krellis (Talk) 16:51, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Consensus does not appear to be reachable in the above so I have initiated a vote. Oberiko 17:54, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Merrimack vs Virginia

I’m being accused by the editor Carajou of participating in an edit war in the article Ironclad warship over trying to identify the Confederate ironclad CSS Virginia by its historical name instead of long-popular but incorrect USS Merrimack. I would appreciate knowledgeable editors from this project visiting article, reviewing in the edit history the key pair of changes I made on February 16 & 17 that he reverted, and the “debate” on the talk page, and commenting on the issue neutrally and constructively. I myself will be out of town on business travel for most of the week, so I probably won’t be on Wikipedia until next weekend (or possibly later). Thanks, Askari Mark (Talk) 02:47, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Commented on article's talk page. Kirill Lokshin 03:54, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
Me too. TomStar81 (Talk) 04:01, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
Thank you both for your contributions. Askari Mark (Talk) 00:19, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Apparently missing topics

I have collected a list of missing topics related to military and military history. I have tried to check if there are any similar articles but I'd appreciate if others could have a look at it. Thank you - Skysmith 11:54, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Long list, but I doubt it has any use. The more general you keep things and the more topics you lump together the less attention it will receive. People do write articles because they want to inform about a topic or people write long lists and store them in some dark corners of wikipedia. The best you could do is split this list and adress the requests directly to a specific editor with an interest in the topic or specific task forces within this project. However it can take years or forever until the issues get solved. Another criticism is that there are more and better search engines than google. Wandalstouring 13:23, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
Incidentally, all of those topics were copied into {{WPMILHIST Announcements/Requested articles}} a few weeks ago. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 13:50, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
Then you better update it, because I updated the page two days ago. As for the use of Google, I mainly used the standard {{search|}} - Skysmith 13:55, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
Given the sheer numbers involved, there's probably no point in spending too much time on synchronization. Once we get a decent proportion done, then we can start looking for stragglers. Kirill Lokshin 13:57, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
It really shows dedication to keep such lists updated, although it would be more beneficent if you tried to provide these lists with specific material that can be used to write articles, a google search is not sufficient and hardly helps. Write 3-5 sentences what the topic is about or why the guy was notable, etc. Wandalstouring 14:18, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
If we had 3–5 sentences for each, we could presumably just produce stubs for them, no? Kirill Lokshin 16:20, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
We could do that, but several stubs grouped in an article with redirects to these chapters might keep things more manageable. Wandalstouring 16:40, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
Pending full articles we could bunch up these stubs in themed articles(Generals, Battles, etc..), somewhat like the editors did for Minor characters. That way all the stubs are in one place, easier to find and travel as well as reducing the amount of independant articles to keep an eye on pending devellepment. ?--Dryzen 15:42, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Mass moves to revert

Looks like we have someone who's enthusiastically renaming articles to include acronyms in the title; can somebody please go through Special:Contributions/Aeh4543 and revert the things? Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 20:55, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Damn, I didn't notice he'd moved United States Army Special Operations Command twice so reverted his first move first; it needs an admin to fix. Really sorry. Trebor 21:33, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, there are several in there that are chain moves through three or four different pages. If you can just list the ones that wind up needing an admin here, I can move those myself. Thanks for your help! Kirill Lokshin 21:50, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
It's possible to correct them, but it has to be done in order of moves (which is rather confusing at times). He edited the redirect for Military District of Washington (MDW), so I can't do that myself. Trebor 21:52, 19 February 2007 (UTC) Another at United States Army Corps of Engineers. Trebor 21:55, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
Fixed all three. Kirill Lokshin 22:02, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
United States Army Acquisition Support Center and Installation Management Command have edited redirects, and I think U.S. Army Network Enterprise Technology Command/9th Signal Command (Army) (NETCOM/9thSC(A)) is empty and can be speedied along with its redirect here. I think that's all of them but I'll double-check (and am going slightly crazy with all the abbreviations). Trebor 22:15, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
Military Surface Deployment and Distribution Command (SDDC) is also empty, redirect is here. Trebor 22:17, 19 February 2007 (UTC) United States Army Acquisition Support Center is actually just an external link so speedy. Trebor 22:22, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
Okay, I think that's all of them (again!). Trebor 22:35, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
Yep, that looks like all of them now. Thanks a lot! Kirill Lokshin 22:42, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

To prevent that happening again, if the redirects are even remotely likely to be plausible, leave the name plus acronym versions as edited redirects, so people can't do this sort of thing by mistake, unless they are an admin. I think that has been done anyway, but the talk of deleting redirects above got me confused a little bit. Carcharoth 13:18, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

This brings something else to mind--something that's been bugging me for a while now. The article was changed from U.S. 3rd Infantry Regiment to 3rd United States Infantry Regiment (TOG). Is the (TOG) really necessary at the end there? Can I remove it without there being a hubbub over it? --ScreaminEagle 22:10, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
I think so; looking through their webpage, it seems that "The Old Guard" isn't technically part of the unit's official name. (And even if it is, I'm sure somebody will point it out once you move the article. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 22:27, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
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