User talk:Grant65/Archive Jan-June 05

C. Y. O'Connor an Australian engineer?

Hi Grant,

I can certainly understand your reverting my removal of C. Y. O'Connor from category:Australian engineers, but I disagree. category:Australian engineers is a subcategory of both category:engineers by nationality and category:Australian people by occupation. Clearly it is intended to contain engineers of Australian nationality, rather than engineers who did great work in Australia. Are we to introduce a falsehood into Wikipedia simply because it is convenient to do so?

I am pretty keen to revert your revert, but I have no wish to get into an edit war with someone who I recognise as a valued contributor, so I'll hold off. Any suggestions for a compromise?

Oh, and thanks for the New Zealand/Irish fix.

Hesperian 22:21, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

• Yes, I see your point. There are numerous categories along the lines of category:Australian engineers and category:Australian Prime Ministers, and I'm sure that many of them contain entries for non-Australians. Presumably it is standard practice to include people of importance to Australia, without quibbling too much about their actual nationality. I withdraw my objection.

I didn't mean to conflate Australian with Australian-born. Obviously there are many Australians that are not Australian-born. Possibly, O'Connor took out Australian citizenship and was therefore an Australian; since we don't really know, I am glad that the article itself doesn't assert that O'Connor was Australian. But I no long have any problem with his inclusion in Australian categories.

Hesperian 00:07, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Long Tan

Hi, I'm just saying g'day because I read the Long Tan article and I know that there will be a film made of it in the near future. According to the painting, most of the Australian soldiers were armed with SLRs.

A mate of mine was a sailor who was in the Malaysian Emergency and told me a story about SLRs vs M-16s that he had heard at the time. It goes like this:

A firefight between Australian troops and some Viet Cong ends with a VC retreat. One soldier, spying a retreating VC, raised his M-16 and fired a few rounds into the man's back. Incredibly, the VC kept running - the bullets had hit but did not stop the man from running. Frustrated, the Australian soldier fired again and hit the VC again. Again the VC did not drop. Totally fed up, the soldier threw down his M-16 and grabbed an SLR off a nearby soldier. He fired once, and the VC was killed instantly.

Do you know anything about the SLR vs M-16 argument? Do you know if Australian soldiers in Vietnam preferred one over the other? I'm just curious. --One Salient Oversight 08:30, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

M-16 v. FN FAL (SLR)

G'day back Neil. I'm not a gun nut, but the main difference between the two is calibre: the SLR, using 7.62mm (.308) ammo would tend to have a head start over the 5.56mm M-16 in terms of stopping power, although the Yanks claim otherwise, and terminal velocity (etc.) would also come into it. BTW I believe a major criticism of the SLR was that it was difficult to switch to full automatic fire and the recoil (from the heavier bullet) was so great that it was often impractical anyway. Grant65 (Talk) 11:42, Feb 8, 2005 (UTC)

I'm not a gum nut, I mean gun nut, either! Definitely calibre is an issue. If you go here (bottom of the page) you will find that the 7.62mm NATO round has more "stopping power" (in terms of energy when hitting the target). The FN FAL, however, was not a reliable weapon when being fired Automatically (its recoil meant that each subsequent bullet fired after the first would be at a greater height and more likely to miss its target). This meant that the Australian version (the L1A1 or "SLR") did not have automatic fire capability. If you wanted to fire more than one round, you had to press the trigger more than once.

The US military doctrine argued that the 5.56mm NATO round fired from an M16 had about the same amount of stopping power as the slower 7.62mm round, but only at short range. Moreover, because the M16 was automatic, it was more likely for an M-16 user to hit an enemy soldier with more than one bullet. Because the M16 was light ("Plastic fantastic" as my sailor friend says) there was less chance of an inaccurate burst of fire. Additionally, I have also heard it said that the 5.56mm round is more likely to wound than kill, which means that the enemy has to use up resources to rescue the soldier rather than use those resources to attack (which can happen if the soldier is dead, and not wounded). Finally, I have also heard that US military doctrine changed in response to the use of artillery and air support. The 7.62mm round was very effective over long distances, but engagements in Vietnam were usually in the jungle and were short range. Moreover, if longer range attacks were needed, the platoon could just call in air strikes and artillery barrages.

My queries concern the reasons why many Australian troops kept using the SLR in Vietnam despite these changes in military understanding by the yanks. The lack of Automatic fire on the SLR meant that Australian troops were more likely to fire accurately and to use up less ammunition. Since many attacks by the VC and NVA were "human wave" attacks by soldiers who were often fanatical, wounding them with lower calibre rounds was a bit silly since no one would rescue them anyway and they would just keep coming. The SLR killed rather than wounded these soldiers. The other concern - artillery and air strikes - often relied upon the good will of the US forces which were not always happy to oblige their Aussie allies.

What I'm trying to determine is a way to understand all this mush. Why was the SLR used so well in Vietnam, and only replaced by the Steyr in the early 90s, long after the US had decided that the 5.56mm round was better for military docrtine?

--One Salient Oversight 22:57, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The M-16 was eventually used by some Australian units (such as the SAS), prior to the Steyr being adopted. I know that the Steyr is available in both 5.56mm and 9mm(!) versions, which may explain why it replaced both of the older weapons in one swoop. But I'm no expert. Grant65 (Talk) 12:36, Feb 9, 2005 (UTC)

The M-16 was often used by Australian Infantry units as far back as Vietnam.(At least in 1969). Even if all a platoon carried SLRs, the forward scout (or pointman as the Americans would say), invariably carried an M16. The Australian troops were trained in its use during Infantry Corp training as a matter of course. The SLR was certainly effective as a killing weapon, as the rounds left a large fist-sized exit wound, so that an enemy hit in the upper body would be unlikely to survive.The SLR was very reliable and not so prone to stoppages whereas the M-16 needed a lot more care and was more likely to have a stopage due to dust or mud etc.There was an a simple method of converting the SLR to fully automatic fire by just inserting a matchstick in an appropriate place. (Not officially sanctioned).There was also an officially modified SLR that was fully automatic and mounted on a bipod like the M60 machinegun. This was seldom used or carried by Aust. troops during the Vietnam engagement.

The M-16 (Armalite) was comfortable and easy to handle in heavy jungle but not all combat situations were in such areas. We often carried out patrols and ambushes in open country such as rice paddies where the SLR was the weapon of choice. Conce 17:09, 2005 July 27 (UTC)

ketchup

Hello. I find it difficult to get worked up about ;o) What could be more foolish than two men having a protracted argument about a sauce ;o) I dunno. Certainly in my house and in the useages I can remember from people saying it there's a lot of people who do say tomato sauce. Maybe I've just got a weird family and friends (in fact I KNOW I have). But also people in the north often say "red sauce". But, do as thou wilt. You'll not get argument from me. --bodnotbod 03:58, Feb 21, 2005 (UTC)

WASP

Thanks for your addition on use outside the U.S. I have a question that you might know the answer to: In Australia, is the meaning more similar to the historic or the current meaning of "WASP"? That is, does it indicate a certain upper class descended from early settlers? (Since Australia is entirely peopled with criminals :), I imagine that it does not, but I may be wrong.) Or does it indicate any Protestant of European descent, or perhaps any Protestant whose ancestors came from the British Isles? Respond on Talk:WASP, if you would. Thanks. —E. Underwood 16:39, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

(Tannin knocks sand out of his ear!) Tannin

Civil War

See the sources for both of those battles. They are both considered battles of the American Civil War by the US Govt because they involved Union armies interacting with Native Americans during the Civil War. It is better to include them with the Civil War than to orphan them, and it won't confuse anyone (the combatants are clearly labelled Union and Indian). Removing the references to the Civil War serves no positive purpose. --brian0918™ 02:04, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

If you do a search on google for "bear river" OR "sand creek" battle "civil war", you'll see that these two battles are well-accepted to be parts of the Civil War. So far, I've only looked into the Sand Creek battle more, and it involved troops who were volunteers specifically for the Civil War, who were assigned to protect territories from Confederate or Indian attacks. Bear River was probably similar. --brian0918™ 11:11, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Submarine names

A question: is it Wikipedia style to italicise the names of Japanese submarines? The names of German subs aren't italicised, e.g. U-47.Grant65 (Talk) 00:00, Apr 13, 2005 (UTC)

They are in some articles, e.g. U-238, HMS Kite etc. Gdr 00:25, 2005 Apr 13 (UTC)

HMS Kite I can understand, but surely U-___, I-___ (et c.) by themselves are more like pennant numbers, as in the case of E-boats? I have just moved AE1 and AE2, which someone had turned into the entirely fictious "HMAS AE1" and "HMAS AE2"! *lol* Grant65 (Talk) 10:44, Apr 13, 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, I meant that HMS Kite is an example of an article that consistently italicises submarine names.

Anyway, it seems that authors who italicise ordinary ship names also italicise sub,arine names. To hand I have Business in Great Waters by John Terraine, which writes submarine names like U 29 (italicised, with a space). DANFS writes them like U-123 or I-10 (italics, with a hyphen; see e.g. [1], [2]). On the other hand, the Royal Navy's web site writes U-29 — but then it doesn't italicise ship names either; see e.f. [3].

So I think that since we have chosen to use italics for ship names we should be consistent and use italics for "nameless" vessels to. Gdr 16:21, 2005 Apr 17 (UTC)

Westies

Thanks for the help with the Westie page. I hope a Sydney-sider will spot the glaring gaps and help fill it out. That is why I banged out the characteristics bit under the header Auckland, I don't know if it is the same accross the ditch. Love your work. L-Bit 10:41, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Hal Colebatch

Hi Grant,

I had a couple of issues with your changes to Hal Colebatch, and have made some reverts that I would like to explain.

Firstly, The reason I removed the description of the wharf crisis is because I am currently working on an article specifically on the crisis, and I intended for Hal Colebatch to link to it. In hindsight, you are quite right to put the description back in; I can remove it or cut it down a bit once the article is written, but until then it should be there.

Secondly, in my research into the wharf crisis, it has become quite clear that it was not actually a "strike" in the proper sense of the word, as the lumpers never refused work at any time. It is also untrue that the ship was in breach of quarantine. The Labour movement has mythologised the event and there are a lot of inaccuracies floating around. If you're interested, This article exposes a number of Labor myths. Unfortunately it is heavily anti-labor biased, and perpetuates as many myths as it exposes. I have slightly altered the description to remove what inaccuracies I am aware of. I wasn't sure if you object to the use of the word riot, so I changed it to crisis.

Finally, I dispute your NPOV view on the quote. If I said that it is difficult to see how Colebatch could have acted differently, then that would be non-neutral editorialising and therefore inappropriate. However for me to say that De Garis said it, is an indisputable fact and entirely neutral. De Garis is a respected Western Australian historian whose Masters Thesis was a biography of Colebatch, and is therefore an excellent primary source from which to draw a quote. Furthermore, having said that public opinion was against him at the time, I feel that it is balanced to state that later historians have judged the matter differently. If it is biased to state De Garis's opinion, then it is equally biased to state contemporary public opinion. I have put back the quote, but changed "later historians have concluded..." to "later historians have argued that..." so as not to appear to be giving later historians the last word on the matter.

Hesperian 23:30, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Australian English

Thanks for your edit positively reworking Kylie into the article :-) and producing a much better sentence. In my defence, I offer up that it was late and the edit inserting her name was ungrammatical. --AYArktos 07:52, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (military units)

I noticed your cleanup work at Battle of Crete, and since you showed some concern for how units were referred to I thought you might want to join discussion of the proposed naming conventions for military units. — B.Bryant 18:44, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Football (soccer)

Hi Grant,

I like your new paragraph on football naming. The whole naming debate goes on and on around in circles, so I think it is good that we have acknowledged the fact that the sport has different names briefly without having to descend in to the usual petty debates.

On another note, I have reverted many of the changes by User:Bigeazy (especially where errors of fact were involved), though agree that a streamlined playing field section is warranted (with a specific article linked).

Thanks, --Daveb 07:14, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

3RR on State of Origin

I have blocked the anon who revert warred with you on this article because of a violation of the 3RR policy. You commented in the edit field that you could revert this forever, but that is something you might refrain from. If you break the 3RR policy, you will be blocked aswell. Just FYI. See Wikipedia:Three revert rule for more information. Inter\^Echo 12:39, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

You're welcome. :> Inter\^Echo 12:44, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

The empire strikes back

Grant you are probably watching it anyway but please see Talk:Middle East Campaign#The emipre strikes back. Philip Baird Shearer 15:51, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)