Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history

Please add requests for MILHIST participation to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Requests for project input. This includes requests for comment, requested moves, articles for deletion, and more.

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Summary of Military history WikiProject open tasks watch · edit · full list News and announcements The July newsletter is now available. Editors are advised that Featured Articles promoted before 2016 are in need of review, if you had an article promoted to Featured status on or before 2016 please check and update your article before they are listed at FAR/C. Current discussions No major discussions are open at the moment Featured article candidates Melisende, Queen of Jerusalem • Siege of Brest (1342) • Prinz Adalbert-class cruiser Featured article review Augustus • Edward Teller Featured picture candidates Thorsten Nordenfelt A-Class review Maximiliano Hernández Martínez • Tailhook scandal • HMS Hyperion (1807) • Operation Matterhorn • First Jewish–Roman War • Manhattan Project feed materials program • SMS Fürst Bismarck • Battle of Jackson • Battle of Guam (1944) Peer reviews Florence Nightingale • Battle of 42nd Street • First Jewish–Roman War • Francis L. Sampson • German AB-Aktion in Poland Good article nominees Pete Hegseth • Allied prisoners of war of Japan • Prisoners of war in World War II • Aaron Burr • July 1936 military uprising in Barcelona • Java War • Hugh Roe O'Donnell • Organization of Yugoslav Nationalists • Fernald Feed Materials Production Center • Cuscatlán Battalion • Killing of Yahya Sinwar • Donavon F. Smith • Beaune-la-Rolande internment camp • Arthur Herbert Thompson • Gordon Klingenschmitt • Soviet submarine L-4 • Joint Geological and Geophysical Research Station • HNLMS Piet Hein (1927) • Battle of Edington • SMS Iltis (1878) • Joe Kent • Émilienne Morin • James "Spanish" Blake • Raid on Tybee Island • Airport of the Pacific • Prince of Ning rebellion • Edwin Boxshall • John S. Bennett • CRINK • M1844 32-pounder howitzer • Vinod Bhatia • HMS Heroine (1783) • Guy of Lusignan • Kanawha Valley Campaign of 1862 • Ahmad Shah Durrani • Pikysyry campaign • New Coimbra Fort • SMS Habicht (1860) • Owodo • SMS Jaguar • SMS Scorpion (1877) • SMS Hay (1881) • James E. Jackson • Trichy assault rifle • HMS Sepoy (1918) • William J. Fox • Proclamation 4483 • Baldwin I of Jerusalem • John S. Westcott • Alan Macfarlane Sloan • Battle of Manupur • Song Sanghyŏn • French ship Suffren (1803) • United States Naval Sea Cadet Corps • Lam Sơn uprising • Battle of 42nd Street • Mukund Varadarajan • Battle of Mynydd Hyddgen • Cuthbert Collingwood, 1st Baron Collingwood • Siege of Jerusalem (70 CE) Good article reassessments Oleg the Wise • Siege of Fort William Henry • Manuel Belgrano • German submarine U-853 • Haapsalu Castle • Satake clan • British Army during the First World War • Max Boot • The Good, the Bad and the Ugly • Suharto Articles that need... work on referencing and citation (151,925) • only work on referencing and citation (43,096) • work on coverage and accuracy (127,985) • only work on coverage and accuracy (19,951) • work on structure (32,333) • only work on structure (346) • work on grammar (8,178) • only work on grammar (53) • work on supporting materials (33,124) • only work on supporting materials (407) • assessment (8) • assessment as lists (0) • project tags fixed (1) • assessment checklists added (0) • assessment checklists completed (3) • task forces added (3) • attention to task force coverage (647)

Requests for project input

Please add requests for MILHIST participation to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Requests for project input. This includes requests for comment, requested moves, articles for deletion, and more.

Requested move at Talk:2025 Cambodia–Thailand border conflict#Requested move 26 July 2025

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:2025 Cambodia–Thailand border conflict#Requested move 26 July 2025 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. TarnishedPath^talk 01:22, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Siege of Carthage (Third Punic War)#Requested move 11 July 2025

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Siege of Carthage (Third Punic War)#Requested move 11 July 2025 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. TarnishedPath^talk 08:28, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:2025 Dhaka fighter jet crash#Requested move 22 July 2025

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:2025 Dhaka fighter jet crash#Requested move 22 July 2025 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. TarnishedPath^talk 04:50, 29 July 2025 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Wahhabi war#Requested move 22 July 2025

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Wahhabi war#Requested move 22 July 2025 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. TarnishedPath^talk 06:14, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Southern Syria clashes (July 2025–present)#Requested move 25 July 2025

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Southern Syria clashes (July 2025–present)#Requested move 25 July 2025 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. TarnishedPath^talk 04:25, 2 August 2025 (UTC)

Peter R. de Vries

I have created Against All Currents, a memorial for slain journalist Peter R. de Vries. I think he should fall under this project and his bio may be in need of a military infobox.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 18:00, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

Sorry, but I do not agree that Peter R. de Vries belongs within the scope of this project. Please note Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history#What topics do we cover? b3 Note 3 which reads "Military service does not in and of itself place an individual within the scope of the project—particularly in the case of service in modern militaries. To qualify them, an individual's military service must have been somehow noteworthy or have contributed—directly or indirectly—to their notability." The only mention of de Vries' military service in the articles is that he served for two years as a sergeant. I will not archive this reply for several days, although, of course, someone else might do so. I try to always be open to the possibility that someone will show that I have made a misinterpretation or mistake. However, in this case I doubt that any other current or former coordinator will disagree or suggest that my conclusion should be changed or over-ruled. Good work by you, as always.Donner60 (talk) 05:38, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

Not a coordinator, but I tend to agree with this assessment. The article says he was conscripted in the late 1970s, and during his two years of service reached the rank of sergeant (probably late in his term). There's no indication he did anything other than serve his single term and then got on with his life. Intothatdarkness 11:56, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

Thanks. I should not have limited my comment to coordinators. Donner60 (talk) 03:35, 27 July 2025 (UTC)

Regarding special forces templates

I previously made Template:Chinese Special Operations Forces and have seen many similar templates before, but I would like to ask whether police tactical units should be included. I see this being done on similar articles about Pakistan, Iran, Japan and Thailand.

My personal opinion is that if the police they are part of are considered "military", such as for iran, it is okay to keep them; When I made the chinese template I avoided SWAT of the People's Police(Which by the way, a draft is being made about it) and stuck with the People's Armed Police(since they are one of china's 3 armed forces per article 22 of this law, the other two being the PLA and militia, and are treated as active service members).

Could I hear your opinion on this? Thehistorianisaac (talk) 18:09, 16 July 2025 (UTC)

I don't know that I'm comfortable with some of these, especially the one for Japan. If there's military involvement in the chain of command (such as Iran) that's one thing, but I see no indication of this with Japan. To get back to your question, I think it's ok in the instance of the People's Armed Police for the reasons you give. Intothatdarkness 12:02, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

I'd think it's probably OK in certain cases for a specific national template in which there is a direct military connection either organizationally or through chain of command; but not for non-country specific templates used across a broad swath of special forces related articles, as the general usage of that term does not include police and the exceptions to a general rule shouldn't be driving the template.⇒SWATJester ^{Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat!} 20:02, 23 July 2025 (UTC)

If the police tactical unit is part of a gendarmerie-style force under the authority of a defence ministry then adding the unit to a military template would be appropriate. Melbguy05 (talk) 07:12, 24 July 2025 (UTC)

@Swatjester@Melbguy05@Intothatdarkness

So we have consensus regarding the ones on China(Since I am Tbanned, I can't really get much further than what I said prior to the tban), Japan(Remove the PTUs) and Iran(keep)?

May I ask for your opinion regarding the thailand and pakistan templates?

I'm no expert in regards to those nations, but IMO for the pakistan template a lot of them seem to be of civilian local police units, so unless they are under the military in terms of command or are classified as active service members I would suggest removing it

I'm much more hesitant for thailand, as the RTP has close connections to the military, have ranks similar to the military and also are far more paramilitary in nature. Thehistorianisaac (talk) 05:30, 25 July 2025 (UTC)

With Thailand they're still shown as being under police command (or at least in that chain of command). They may be similar to the military, but there's no indication that they fall under military command and control. Intothatdarkness 11:59, 25 July 2025 (UTC)

I would remove both. Neither perform a special operations or special forces role. Their missionset and usage, while somewhat paramilitary in nature, are police missions, under police control, for policing purposes. Very much different. I'd also remove the Iranian entry too -- both for the same reason (not under the military, not performing special forces missions) and also because the articles are extremely poorly written and poorly sourced. ⇒SWATJester ^{Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat!} 17:00, 25 July 2025 (UTC)

I see very little need for the expanded template because whether police units are considered military units is not an all or none category and can vary by or even within a country. I think this requires information on the command structure and duties of the units to make the call about whether an article is under this project's scope in line with the Which topics do we cover? guidelines. That is how individual assessors, especially active for B level assessors would try to determine whether an article is within the scope.

I stand to be corrected if I am misinterpreting this and the template will be so specific that errors would be rare, if they happen at all. I think my comment is in line with some other comments above. I surmise that level of specificity needed to avoid is unlikely to be achieved by a template. Also, perhaps less experience assessors could misinterpret such templates as always correct when they may not be. (Not the end of the world either way, I suppose.) Donner60 (talk) 03:08, 27 July 2025 (UTC)

Unreferenced articles

WikiProject Medicine has reached a milestone of zero unreferenced articles. I checked our list, and we have 37 unreferenced articles in our project. Can we sort through these and either find references or delete them? Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:31, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

I'm not sure of the difference but [1] lists 1,150 articles as "Cites no sources". I checked a few and they all seemed to be tagged with template:unreferenced. If it is the larger number seems like a good target to eliminate in a drive? - Dumelow (talk) 21:06, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

That's a big difference! A drive might be fun. Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 21:08, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

It's been a while since we had a drive. Let's do it. I smell barnstars. Gog the Mild (talk) 22:31, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

Strangely, the link from the Wikiproject:Unreferenced articles page only gives the list of 37 articles that Hawkeye7 cites. However, the link that Dumelow cites, which appears consistent with a category list of unreferenced articles, gives the larger number. There are a few articles on that larger list that are assessed B and at least one is a GA. I saw two or three of those B/GA articles which had unreferenced templates but did have some citations. There are some C assessments that lack citations on the list as well but the great majority of the articles are stub or start class. So the longer list appears to have close to the number of unreferenced military history articles despite a few erroneous templates. As we know, the category on the project talk page with articles only needing attention to referencing includes both articles with no citations and articles with insufficient citations. So it is much longer. The next Wikipedia:WikiProject Unreferenced articles/Backlog drives is scheduled for November. FWIW. Donner60 (talk) 06:38, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

Right, do we want to have a discussion about the drive over on the coord page or would people prefer it to happen here? Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 18:51, 23 July 2025 (UTC)

I don't see a need to have a specific coord page discussion - this is certainly a worthwhile task and there's not been any opposition to a drive and quite a bit of support. It's been too long since we've had a project-wide drive. Hog Farm _Talk 02:54, 27 July 2025 (UTC)

I've referenced a couple of articles here over the weekend, and enjoyed it, and would be very happy to join a drive on this. Nick-D (talk) 08:03, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

Any idea why the 37 articles includes 1966 Neftyanik Baku season? This seems to have no military content and doesn't seem to be tagged to MILHIST. Monstrelet (talk) 11:32, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

Obvious mistake. I see no option to edit. I may be missing something but it appears that only members of that Wikiproject can edit the list. Donner60 (talk) 04:44, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

I am not sure, but according to this Media Wiki page there is some sort of machine-based guesswork involved in assigning the "articletopic" categories, so presumably it occasionally throws up a few oddities like this. It's been a while since we had a drive, I think. Does anyone who's done it before want to set a page up? I'd be happy with whatever date we want and presumably a month in duration - Dumelow (talk) 17:35, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

• I was playing around today to look at the age of some of the oldest unreferenced articles (as opposed to when they were tagged) and this list is 77x milhist tagged pages, with no sources, created over twenty years ago - if anyone wants a challenge! Andrew Gray (talk) 15:33, 26 July 2025 (UTC)

  Thanks. I looked at a few. Some may be content forks or articles that were superseded by later similar articles, yet remain in place. Campaigns of 1798 of the French Revolutionary Wars looks to me like an example of this. I raise this because I think that might be a preliminary issue before even getting to the absence of citations problem for some such old articles. FWIW. Donner60 (talk) 03:19, 27 July 2025 (UTC)

  We'll go for a drive! Hawkeye7 (discuss) 04:42, 27 July 2025 (UTC)

B-Class Assessment Request: Charles Thau

Hello, I’d like to request a reassessment of the article Charles Thau, currently rated C-class. I believe it now meets the B-class criteria and would appreciate a review. Below is the checklist:

B-Class checklist

B-Class checklist

| 1 = N
| 2 = y
| 3 = y
| 4 = y
| 5 = y
| 6 = y

Comments

The article covers the life and military history of Charles "Chaim" Thau, a Jewish partisan during the Holocaust who later served as a Red Army translator during World War II. It is structured with appropriate sections (Early life, Partisan resistance, Red Army, Postwar period, Recognition), is well-sourced using reliable publications (e.g., *Der Spiegel*, *Freie Presse*, *The Forward*, *Military History Now*, *Milwaukee Journal*, *Dayton Daiy News*), and includes a historical image with proper licensing. All six criteria appear to be met. The article has been stable and neutrality was last confirmed in June 2025.

COI has been declared on the Talk page.

Thank you! Milwaukee911 (talk) 15:07, 24 July 2025 (UTC)

I have added three citation needed tags. All paragraphs, even if they are only one sentence long, need to end with a citation. When those are added, the article will meet B class criteria. Requests for assessment should be made at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Requests. They are more likely to receive faster attention from editors who regularly assess articles for B class. Thanks. Donner60 (talk) 01:48, 27 July 2025 (UTC)

Thanks much Donner60! Appreciate your guidance! Milwaukee911 (talk) 03:53, 27 July 2025 (UTC)

Completed in later item below. Donner60 (talk) 04:27, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

2025 Cambodia–Thailand border conflict and 2025 Cambodia–Thailand clashes

There's discussion over whether the recent escalation should be a separate article or covered in the broader conflict article. Maybe Milhist regulars could give some pointers on how best to deal with this sort of thing? --Paul_012 (talk) 18:34, 24 July 2025 (UTC)

There is a broad consensus to merge the two articles. I agree. It should not be split off based on speculation that it might need to be a longer, separate article in the future. (I also agree that the two articles that one commenter said are similarly split also should be merged. See Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid on discussion pages#What about other content? with respect to the merit of the "other things exist" argument in the discussion about this merger.) Since there is no doubt that there is a broad consensus to merge the articles, presumably the user who proposed the merger, or if necessary, one of the supporters, should note that they are closing the discussion and merging the article in line with the overwhelming consensus of (in this case, quite many) commenters. Donner60 (talk) 02:00, 27 July 2025 (UTC)

Kingdom of Italy vs. Fascist Italy

Does anyone remember a debate about which to use, after someone began to change Kingdom of Italy to Fascist Italy in infoboxes then had them changed back? I'd like to refer to it but don't know where to look. Thanks Keith-264 (talk) 10:48, 26 July 2025 (UTC)

Ahem! Didn't bother to check first. ;O) Keith-264 (talk) 10:50, 26 July 2025 (UTC)

Technically, my own stance was to use the Kingdom of Italy on infoboxes but we should not forget about Fascist Italy either, instead, we should list it on the body of the article (if it is supported by reliable source) since I believed Fascist Italy is the common term used by historians to describe the Kingdom of Italy during the Fascist period from 1922 to 1943. Suggestions?.... PrimeNick (talk) 23:30, 27 July 2025 (UTC)

Fascist Italy is not a country. It is a term equivalent to "Edwardian England" or "Biden administration", which are also common terms used by historians to describe a country in a particular period. Do not use it in the Infoboxes. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:26, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

I think you put that rather well. Pity that infoboxes excite such interest. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 07:07, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

Indeed. It looks like we got an agreement here but I think we need others about their opinion...... PrimeNick (talk) 15:22, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

Support just having Italy in infoboxes. I notice every German WWII ship infobox has Nazi Germany as the country, to my mind the same logic should apply and these should just be Germany Lyndaship (talk) 17:10, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

Yes indeed, it should be just Italy on infoboxes, but what link should we use, is it either the Fascist Italy or the Kingdom of Italy?

Italy (Fascist Italy)

---

Italy (Kingdom of Italy)

PrimeNick (talk) 23:25, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

Eyes needed at List of military operations on the Eastern Front of World War II

An editor has added a large number of unsourced list items, whose names are either red links or links to disambiguation pages - ie there is no sourcing supplied in this list. (I was alerted when I had a report of a link to a disambiguation page I'd created.) PamD 09:38, 27 July 2025 (UTC)

Delete them. They can be added back when the article is created. A long list of red links to articles that do not exist and may never exist is of no use to the readers. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:29, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Government of the Grand National Assembly#Requested move 20 July 2025

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Government of the Grand National Assembly#Requested move 20 July 2025 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. TarnishedPath^talk 10:51, 27 July 2025 (UTC)

Request for 2nd for B-Class Assessment :Charles Thau

Hello All, This is a 2nd request to assess this article to B-class: Charles Thau

As indicated in the below grading, the 1st request was satisfactory with all checklist items except Referencing and citation.

B-Class checklist

1st attempted results to satisfy B-Class checklist

| 1 = N
| 2 = y
| 3 = y
| 4 = y
| 5 = y
| 6 = y

All known shortfalls to the citations and references are now corrected, as well as the addition of more than three (3) new citations as your reviewers clearly conveyed as lacking.

This article now was re-verified against the B-class checklist, and believe all the criterion are met.

Comments: The article covers the life and military history of Charles "Chaim" Thau, a Jewish partisan during the Holocaust who later served as a Red Army translator during World War II. It is structured with appropriate sections (Early life, Partisan resistance, Red Army, Postwar period, Recognition), is well-sourced using reliable publications (e.g., *Der Spiegel*, *Freie Presse*, *The Forward*, *Military History Now*, *Milwaukee Journal*, *Dayton Daiy News*), and includes a historical image with proper licensing. All six criteria appear to be met. The article has been stable and neutrality was last confirmed in June 2025.

COI has been declared on the Talk page.

Respectfully request a 2nd assessment toward meeting B-Class rating. Milwaukee911 (talk) 12:38, 27 July 2025 (UTC)

Assessed B class. Thanks. 04:18, 28 July 2025 (UTC) Donner60 (talk) 04:18, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

Strength of subdivisions of Roman Legions and calones

The edits by 2603:8081:4D08:3642:936:C3F8:1AEB:D090 include "support staff" among the strength of various sub-divisions of the Roman Legions. This "support" refers to the calones, military slaves discussed in some detail in e.g. this source. That's problematic. Firstly, sources generally do not include the calones when discussing these strengths. For example, the contubernium as set by Augustus is given by the same source as "eight men" (p. 21), which does not include any calones or "support". Secondly, some of 2603's edits, e.g. this, include the calones not just in the count of "men" but "legionaries", which the unfree calones weren't. Thirdly, there is little clarity in sources about the number of calones per sub-division, and none of the edits by 2603 cite a source confirming the given numbers. For these reasons I'll partially revert those edits and give the strengths of subdivisions on a legionnaires-only basis while noting that they were accompanied by unfree support staff. Huon (talk) 22:35, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

Which article(s) are we discussing? Gog the Mild (talk) 22:53, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

Contubernium (Roman army unit), Centuria and List of Roman army unit types, as given in Special:Contributions/2603:8081:4D08:3642:936:C3F8:1AEB:D090. The edits to Cohort (military unit) had been reverted immediately, so I didn't need to edit that one. Huon (talk) 23:23, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

U-boat.net user generated?

Since when is u-boat.net considered [2] user generated? I know that there have been discussions about its reliability before, but I've never seen it concluded that it is user generated.Nigel Ish (talk) 18:08, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

See the about page where they are advertising for contributors. They list some of the contributors here. I see no indication that the contributors are recognized as established experts, and no mention of editorial control of contributions. It sure looks like a user-generated site to me, just as Wikipedia is a user-generated site. Donald Albury 22:55, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

It doesn't look any of that is actually done yet. It's taken major steps forward in referencing sources for warship movements, etc. in the last few years. It got a very favorable mention as a exemplary website in the Northern Mariner a couple of years ago. So I believe it to be RS; this new content that they're soliciting contributors for will have to be evaluated on its own merits.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 10:49, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

U-boat.net is very extensively cited in professionally published works, including some by very well regarded historians, so is a reliable source. The snippets in Google books include some high praise from various historians - Robin Prior, for instance, states that "this invaluable resource has technical details of the different kinds of U-boat models built, the career of every U-boat, sinkings, U-boats lost and much more." Nick-D (talk) 10:55, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

There are still significant errors on the site, such as here, so double check the information against more reliable sources. Llammakey (talk) 13:10, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

Potential protection needed for several articles

@Buckshot06

• 1st Armoured Division (United Kingdom), 1st (UK) Division, History of the British 1st Division during the world wars, List of commanders of the British 1st Armoured Division, List of commanders of the British 1st Division

I no longer have the time to engage in my little hobby. The above pages were pretty much the final ones that I was really working on. As I am sure anyone can find, looking through my contributions, there has been extensive back and forth discussion about these pages. I happened to log-in today and saw that Buckshot basically waited me out before editing them again (they had previously adhered to a 'gentlemen's agreement' to leave them alone). Throughout the prior discussions, Buckshot admitted that they have no sources to support their opinion (that some sort of new division was formed in the 1970s or whatever). The same argument was made about the 2nd Armoured Division (United Kingdom) and 2nd Infantry Division (United Kingdom) several years prior, during their reviews, and that position was shot down by other editors. Looking at their edits, it looks like no new sources have been brought to light. I'm not interested in rehashing the same discussion, or asking in vain for Buckshot to cough up a source (or their inevitable counterargument about how they disagree with every source on the subject and their goalpost shifting - I believe the last one was that every published source should be ignored and we should email the army for them to chime in; quick edit to note that the the army's website is still claiming that the 1st UK Div was formed in 1809 and fought in the Gulf War etc., which specifically goes counter to Buckshot's claim), so could either the pages be protected or someone engage and resolve this once and for all. It should also be noted that their edits extend to a bunch of other articles, such British Army of the Rhine redirecting users to the wrong articles etc. Thank you.EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 21:30, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

Page protection is not a good tool for dispute resolution. What we need here is editors familiar with UK unit lineage, rather than page protection. Hog Farm _Talk 22:40, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

@Buckshot06, EnigmaMcmxc, and Hog Farm: Although Hog Farm is correct, for other information on dispute resolution see Wikipedia:Dispute resolution. Note in conclusion, as shown on that page, arbitration is the last resort for serious cases in which a resolution cannot be reached by other methods. It is used mostly in cases involving uncivil user conduct such as harassment and personal attacks, generally also in a range of articles. For more information see Wikipedia:Arbitration Donner60 (talk) 04:07, 2 August 2025 (UTC)

EnigmaMcmxc it's good that you've returned, though it's unfortunate that you do not appear to have seen the file I have linked here next to this text, which I inserted in List of commanders of the British 1st Division, which you reverted from that article, seemingly without noticing it.

File:List of commanders of the 1st Armoured Division (United Kingdom), 1939-44 and 1978-92.jpgList of commanders of the 1st Armoured Division from Page 64 of Wilson, Peter Liddell (1993). The First Division 1809-1993: A Short Illustrated History (2nd ed.). Herford, Germany: 1st Division. OCLC 29635235.

This is the divisional history that neither of us were able to find when we were acrimoniously debating the issue several years ago. The way the successive authors have treated the subject, updating every so often the same text, the book would be better titled "The First Divisions." I found it in the Staff College Library, and it's pretty unequivocal: there are separate sections for "1st Division" and "1st Armoured Division" in a number of places from 1945. The cincher is this divisional commanders list, which clearly separates the two divisions. I had no idea that you were ever going to come back, and I was sorry, because I wanted to make you aware of this, now discovered, most reliable source. I think the most reliable source that you put forward was Lord & Watson, the Sigs history, which was not focused on the Division, and this source, from the Division itself, is clearly more reliable that Lord and Watson.

I will thank you to stop reverting when you have not reviewed newly available information.

Should you wish to see the whole Wilson First Division 1809-1993 book, I found that in addition, it's in the British Library in London (legal deposit requirements) and if you wish to come to the Staff College to see it there, I can link you up to the librarians, probably escort you onsite. Kind regards Buckshot06 (talk) 10:31, 2 August 2025 (UTC)

Use of ADM files as references

I've just spotted HMS Phoebe (43) which has been revised to be primarily based on ADM files (i.e. Admiralty; Board of Admiralty (1799–2008). "Admiralty, and Ministry of Defence, Navy Department: Ships' Logs" (Document). Kew, London: British National Archives. ADM 53. and Admiralty; Board of Admiralty (1922–1968). "Admiralty: War History Cases and Papers, Second World War" (Document). Kew, London: British National Archives. ADM 199.) Are these sources appropriate to use as references? Should we be basing so much of an article on primary sources (and primary sources which are very difficult to verify - verification may need someone going physically to the National archives at Kew)? Nigel Ish (talk) 07:57, 2 August 2025 (UTC)

I doubt it, apart from sparing use if there are no secondary sources and only for a small part of an article. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 08:12, 2 August 2025 (UTC)

I also wonder how listing a file with a 200+ year date range and over 100,000 pages as a reference is helpful.Nigel Ish (talk) 08:21, 2 August 2025 (UTC)

My interpretation of WP:PRIMARY is that the primary source has to be "reputedly published", so that rules out anything from The National Archives. The editor has bastardised the catalogue records by putting them in the sfn template, so, for example, "ADM 53, p. 116455" should be rendered as "ADM 53/116455". —Simon Harley (Talk). 08:34, 2 August 2025 (UTC)

Nigel Ish, I'm looking into this for a different reason, prompted by their hundreds of unexplained edits at German designations of foreign firearms in World War II--but it makes me question whether that article has encyclopedic value in the first place: it's basically a catalog lacking any secondary sources that can attest to this as a notable topic. This is Wikia material. Drmies (talk) 17:43, 2 August 2025 (UTC)

I think that there is a place for a more general article about Nazi German use of captured weapons - Germany did seem to make and the Kennblätter Fremdengerät that listed foreign equipment and assigned the designation (whether the equipment was captured by/in use by the Germans or not), but I'm less convinced there is benefit in these list articles - if German use is significant, the Fremdengerät number can go in the article for the equipment (assuming it can be reliably sourced).Nigel Ish (talk) 18:32, 2 August 2025 (UTC)