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Potential new task forces?

Over the past few months, there have been a number of potential task forces mentioned in various discussions. I'd like some comments on how viable any (or all) of these would be; obviously actual statements of willingness to participate are best, but vague promises to round up enough editors from the article pages in the area may also be acceptable ;-)

Australian military history
Chinese military history: (now created)
French military history: (now created) Kirill Lokshin, Dryzen, Andrés C.
Latin American military history: Laserbeamcrossfire
Medals and decorations
Weaponry: Dryzen, Laserbeamcrossfire
World War I: Andrés C., Mike McGregor (Can)

Comments on these—or any other proposals, for that matter—would be appreciated! Kirill Lokshin 13:15, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hello. As I said before, I think a World War I TF wouldn't be a bad idea. In contrast to more general subjects like weaponry perhaps, the risk of the TF encompassing so many articles to the point where it becomes unmanageable is reduced. Please count me in in case it is implemented. To gauge the potential membership (and hence viability) of these various TFs, it may be a good idea to put up a message on {{WPMILHIST Announcements}}, informing editors of this proposal, so those who become interested can come here and "register" in the proposed TF of their choosing. In about a month (or even less depending on the case) you can have an idea of the viability of each one of them. Andrés C. 14:18, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Good idea on the announcement box; I'll do that.

As far as overly broad task forces, I'm not sure if "Weaponry" is necessarily any more broad than "Middle Ages"; both constitute substantial—but not overwhelming—portions of "Military history" as a whole, and the larger period-based ones seem to have been working well so far. Kirill Lokshin 14:20, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like weaponry might end up getting a large amount of pre-written information. Many article conserning armies or soldier types already describe the weapons in useage. I'm unsure about Weaponry as a task force, at least in my expertise of pre-Napoleonic armament since most of those have there own complete articles, but should one be made I would join up. Dryzen 18:43, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If anyone interested in taking part in one of the proposed task forces could just list themselves under the appropriate one(s), that'd be great! Kirill Lokshin 17:27, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I sent out some messages before Kirill raised this, to assess the level of activity we can expect for a Chinese military history task force. I got some feedback already, others will probably reply soon. I'll inform everyone what the outcome of that it. -- Миборовский ^{U|T|C|M|E|Chugoku Banzai!} 22:34, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I've got some feedback and I think we can count on maybe 4-6 editors to contribute meaningfully to a Chinese milhist task force. I'm not sure if that is enough. If the task force is just a notice-board thingy then I think it can survive with less activity, but if it is to be a HQ for coordinating Chinese milhist articles, I doubt we can keep it going for long without fresh blood (which is darned difficult to get with the mofo-ing Great Firewall). (I probably missed a few people too, just messaged those whom I've talked to and/or seemed to be willing to contribute in this area. If anyone else can contribute it would be much appreciated.) -- Миборовский ^{U|T|C|M|E|Chugoku Banzai!} 22:59, 19 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'd say that's plenty to start off with; an initial round of tagging articles might bring in a few more, and then it'll be all set. Given the way recruiting works, anyways, it's probably much easier to find additional people once the simple "go to page & sign up" method is available ;-) Kirill Lokshin 23:03, 19 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

True, but I'm a bit apprehensive as the China-related topics notice board died of neglect and I fear the task force might as well, given that membership would be even more exclusive. But I suppose a task force no matter how inactive would not hurt, so do I have the go-ahead? I'll come up with a banner and whatnot asap, and make sure to mention it in the next newsletter ;) -- Миборовский ^{U|T|C|M|E|Chugoku Banzai!} 23:07, 19 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Too late ;-)

You probably should find a better image for the banner, though; the only one I could find offhand is rather non-military. Kirill Lokshin 23:24, 19 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hehe, thanks. Anyway, I changed the icon to the Chinese character for "martial". Still not quite satisfactory though. Anyway I'll start tagging stuff and start editing the project page. -- Миборовский ^{U|T|C|M|E|Chugoku Banzai!} 23:59, 19 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Even if a "Weapons" task force is a no-go, I think there ought to be some sort of guidlines about how to write articles on weapons and military technology, and a "Weapons" task force might be a starting-point for those guidelines. I think I'd like to see something about tactics as well; the article on ambushes, for a semi-random example, is kind of seriously weird, and doesn't mention ambuscades in the first paragraph, despite the redirect. UnDeadGoat 02:04, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I've created a French military history task force; based on interest, it's likely that at least the WWI and Weaponry task forces will be created within the next week or so. Kirill Lokshin 18:10, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've gone ahead and created the Weaponry and WWI task forces. I'm also currently discussing the merger of an external project here to create something like a "Cemeteries & memorials" task force; anybody have any objections to that? Kirill Lokshin 13:17, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, we now have a Memorials and cemeteries task force courtesy of the former Commonwealth War Graves WikiProject. Kirill Lokshin 16:58, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Military people categorization

Now that the top-level categorization scheme seems to have achieved a certain minimal level of sanity, I think it's time to re-start the earlier (abortive) discussion on categorizing military people. Since trying to lay out a full scheme last time resulted in nothing actually getting decided, I suggest taking things in small chunks and trying to make only a few decisions at a time.

To start off, I think there are two natural root categories to work from:

Category:Military people by nation
Category:People associated with wars (currently nominated for renaming to Category:People by war)

These provide a breakdown by country and by conflict, similar to how we categorize battles. So, to start off, three questions:

Should the naming convention for sub-categories of Category:Military people by nation be "Military people of Foo" or "Fooish military people" (or even "Fooish military personnel", as some are titled now)? The second option seems to match most of the other biographical categories, but will present some problems with those historical states that have unusually obscure adjective forms.
Should the naming convention for sub-categories of Category:People by war be "Fooish War people" or "People of the Fooish War"? I think the second option matches the other by-war categories better, and might allow a more natural sub-categorization (e.g. "Fooish people of the Bar War"), but I'm open to other suggestions.
Do we need to retain Category:Military leaders by nationality, or can we merge it directly into Category:Military people by nation and have a separate scheme for sorting people by ranks?

Any comments or suggestions would be very welcome! Kirill Lokshin 16:01, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'd go for Fooish Military people and people of the fooish war. A separate scheme for sorting people by ranks would be a very useful tool for sorting. Are we categorizing Fooish military people by there birth or alligience? Some military leaders have jumped sides while other where borth in one country while served there entire carriers in one or more others.Dryzen 20:02, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And I'd go for "Military people of Foo". "Military people of Foo" would pertain more to geography, "Fooish military people" more to nationality. For example, refer to Tadeusz Kościuszko. On his talk page it says "In the United States Library of Congress, a letter from Kosciusko states specifically that he is from Poland, but of Lithuanian nationality." So while it would be inarguable that he would be in "Military people of Poland", there might be argument from some quarters as to whether he should be one of the "Polish military people" or "Lithuanian military people". There might be better examples of this, of a person who may be identified with a state, but not its nationality. I prefer the "Military people of Foo", myself, since it would indicate the country the military person served, not necessarily his/her nationality/ethnicity. SigPig 20:25, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I favor the syntax of "military personnel" over "military people". (How many current/former military "people" here use "military people" in real conversation? ;-) The current parent category is Category:Military people by nation, with the subcategories all being Fooish military personnel/people, with the exception of Argentina. As SigPig notes, there can be confusion about categorization by nationality/ethnicity versus nation served. I prefer nation served, as it is more straightforward and easier to determine. So, I'm in favor of Category:Military personnel by nation, with subcategories Category:Military personnel of Foo. —ERcheck @ 21:24, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'd say that critical to this categorizations of people by nation is the matter of editors choosing retrospectively the nation that any given military person served. See for example how G. K. Zhukov has been categorized. Another example: Clausewitz. A German General? Then again, how do you categorize Attila or Alexander? Keeping things in the adequate historical context would be very important, and not too easy. In fact, most military people will belong to categories of political entities or "nations" no longer existing. Categorizing Alexander under "military people from Greece" and/or "military people from Macedonia" will be both right and wrong at the same time. Any thoughts? Andrés C. 06:10, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

We could follow the model we've used (pretty successfully, I think) for battles and create categories for historical states. In other words, "Military people of the Soviet Union" rather than "Military people of Russia", "Prussian generals" rather than "German generals", and "Military people of Macedon" rather than "Military people from Greece". The proviso here is that a lot of these may not have good adjective forms, which would make a "Fooish military people" scheme more difficult to implement. Kirill Lokshin 12:13, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Military personnel" or "Military people"?

I favour the use of "military personnel" over "military people" Brian | (Talk) 21:46, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- As I noted above, I also prefer "personnel". —ERcheck @ 00:38, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Personnel" may be a more official-sounding/real-world-applicable/etc term, but I'm not sure it's an altogether approprate term for the category tree we're working with. For example, Women in the American Civil War currently leads up into the military people category tree, as well it should. However, there are many individuals in that category (e.g. Clara Barton) who could not appropriately be categorized under "military personnel". UnDeadGoat 02:38, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting. I'm not sure if we want it to lead up the military people tree, though; we could simply leave it under both Category:Women in war and Category:American Civil War people, for example. Kirill Lokshin 02:49, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it may not necessarily be under the scope of the project, but Category:American Civil War people does lead up to one of the categories with a proposed rename, namely Military people. UnDeadGoat 02:54, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I would say that that's a problem with the current scheme; wouldn't the more appropriate nesting be Category:People associated with war → Category:People by war → Category:American Civil War people? If we put the "by war" categories directly under Category:Military people, we'll always run into the issue of non-military—but still involved in the war—individuals. Or am I overthinking this? Kirill Lokshin 03:03, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There is a problem with the scheme if Clara Barton would be classified under Military people. Though she was associated with the military during the American Civil War, I don't think she should be categorized as military. Taking an example from WWII, we currently have Category:American World War II people with Category:American World War II veterans as a subcategory. "People" could be a parent category that would also hold non-military. Subcategories could include "personnel" and "veterans". —ERcheck @ 04:48, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What would the difference between "personnel" and "veterans" be? Both seem to refer to people actually in the military; is there some distinction as to place of service being used here? Kirill Lokshin 04:54, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The American WWII people category page indicates that the use of "veteran" should apply to those who actually fought in the war. Whether or not both personnel and veterans are need for a "war" category is another issue althogether. —ERcheck @ 05:43, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

We could use the "veterans" label for by-war categories (e.g. "Veterans of WWII") and the "personnel" label for by-country categories (e.g. "French military peronnel"), but that would create the question of whether a second-level category should be named "French WWII veterans" or "French WWII military personnel". The simpler option would be to dispense with "veterans" entirely and standardize all of the names on some variation of "personnel"; are there some other reasons why the use of "veterans" would be needed? Kirill Lokshin 22:32, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

(Aside: Have we settled on Fooish WWII <people/veterans/peronnel>? Or is it Military people/veterans/personnel of Foo?) I support your suggestion to omit veterans in favor of personnel. —ERcheck @ 03:18, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think we've settled on a particular variation yet. I'll start another section below to finish that off. Kirill Lokshin 03:30, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

IMO, "veterans" seems to exclude casualties and "personnel" sounds awkward more than a couple hundred years ago. I think we need to look at whether we want to completely overhaul the war categories so that personnel/veterans are seperate from people, because the categories as they currently exist could not be renamed; Anne Frank, for example, is part of Category:Dutch World War II people. If we do have a name change, we're not talking about a huge renaming effort, we're talking about creating a (basically) completely new category tree. UnDeadGoat 02:21, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think we'll need to revamp major portions of the category tree no matter what we do, since it's basically ad-hoc categories right now; so we might as well try and come up with a good naming convention from the start.

As far as people/personnel: we could have the by-country categories (all sub-categories of Category:Military people) use "personnel" (e.g. "Military personnel of France") while the by-war categories (all sub-categories of Category:People by war, which may include non-military people) use "people" (e.g. "People of/in World War II"). The question of which term the second-level categories (which could include both a nation and a war) would use depends in large part on how we arrange the two parts of the category name. (And this is simplified, to an extent, by the introduction of rank/type categories; "Generals of Russia" or "Military engineers of Germany" both avoid this question completely). Kirill Lokshin 02:58, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Adjective form versus noun form

As an aside from the question of "personnel" versus "people", we still need to decide if we should (1) use "Fooish personnel" or "Personnel of Foo" for country categories and (2) use "Foo War personnel" or "Personnel of the Foo War" for war categories. The adjective form has the advantage of seeming more "natural", at least for the commonly encountered countries; but it tends to become more complicated for either countries that have very obscure adjectives or for wars whose names don't lend themselves to being used that way.

Conversely, if we decide to use "of Foo", it's not clear what we'll do about second-level categories; "Military personnel of France of World War I" is rather convoluted. Maybe we should explore other terms (e.g. "Military personnel of Foo during the Bar War" or something like that)? Kirill Lokshin 03:30, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

So, any ideas? Kirill Lokshin 03:59, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

For starters, I went on with Category:Military people from France. I guess in the end it will always depend on the case. I'd say that, when possible, we should stick with nouns. Andrés C. 04:24, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Do we want to tie the term to where the person was born or where they served, though? "from Foo" works for the first, but it might be confusing for the second; conversely, if it is the first option, how do we deal with expatriates? "Military personnel of France from Italy" is rather a mouthful, and adding a war in there (e.g. "Military personnel of France from Italy during the Napoleonic Wars") would make it even worse. (On the other hand, it does have a certain logical structure, even though it is long; if all else fails, we could go with something like this.) Kirill Lokshin 04:44, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The answer would be "both" :) We have to consider three separate things here:

Fooish people serving Foo
Fooish people at the service of a foreign nation
Foreigners serving in Foo's military

How do we come up with a category title that encompasses these three different situations? In the end, whatever name we choose, at least one of these groups is going to be left out. I favor of Foo or from Foo, with the latter perhaps sounding a little better. As for the personnel/people thing, I'd go with "people", even admitting it sounds a little bit awkward. For one, we already have the parent cat Category:Military people in place, and it seems to be working fine. Andrés C. 05:12, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Meh. If we're going for deliberate ambiguity, "of Foo" is probably more applicable than "from Foo", since, in general, military people tend to be associated with the country they served more than their birthplace. We could then allow for an article to have "of Foo" categories for both countries if the editors thought it appropriate.

The other question, if we go with the noun form for the nation, is how to deal with wars? "People of Foo of the Bar War" is possible, but seems a little strained. Kirill Lokshin 12:45, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, on second thought, I was perhaps too bold. I am asking for a speedy rename to Military people of France. No need to complicate matters more. On the matter of subcategories, we may need to reword things a bit. What about Military people of France/World War I? Andrés C. 14:31, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Are slashes even allowed in category names? I'm not sure if that'll trigger some sort of funny subpage creation. Kirill Lokshin 14:33, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I would dodge the "of Foo of the Bar War" by simply having "Joe Foo" be in both the categories Military people of Foo and Military people of the Bar War, rather than a concatenated category. I suspect that for older wars, with fewer people known to internet users, this won't be a problem. Also, some WWII veterans would have to be in many groups in we concatenated, like Miltary people of the United States of World War II, Miltary people of the United States of the Korean War, and Miltary people of the United States of the Viet Nam War. That sounds like mouthful, but William Westmoreland would need all of those. --Habap 14:48, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That would work quite well from a categorization standpoint. I don't know if people will complain that the resulting categories are too large, though; Category:Military people of World War II would likely contain hundreds of entries, for example. Kirill Lokshin 14:56, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just thinking about what prepositions should go where, I suggest "of" for country served, "from" for origin/place of birth (should probably be used sparingly) and "in" for wars, for ease of figuring out what you're looking at. The problem with "from", though, is that I can see lots of weird categories being created with just one or two people -- off the top of my head, I know "[Noun we use for people] of France from Corsica in the Napoleonic Wars", though . . . The big problem with Fooish people is that some people may have multiple adjectives (British? English? Both?), and some contries don't have adjectives (Mozabiquen?). UnDeadGoat 02:30, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My usual example of something with a bad adjective form is the Holy Roman Empire, but I suppose African countries can work just as well. ;-)

Maybe we should just have a single "of Foo" set and assume that expatriates will be picked up by non-military categories? Napoleon, for example, could be under "Military people of France in the Napoleonic Wars" and "Corsican natives" (or whatever the general category name for Corsicans is); the second category wouldn't be under the military people categorization, but rather directly under the main category tree for people. Kirill Lokshin 03:01, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Let us go for common sense. For this particular project, the gentleman from Corsica will end up under the general category of France, just as the one from Braunau will be listed as of Germany, and the Georgian will end up in the of the Soviet Union' category. The guys doing biography can take care of the categories by place of birth. More and more I am convinced that of Foo is the best compromise solution. Andrés C. 03:27, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough; although the Georgian would likely find a category for Georgia already existing, filled with medieval military leaders ;-) Kirill Lokshin 03:39, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Redundant categories

Can we merge Category:Warriors, Category:Military leaders, and Category:Soldiers (and the similarly-named sub-categories) back into the main military people/personnel tree? They're pretty much unused; and while I can see the point of categorizing by rank or branch of service, I think it ought to be done with names that are somewhat more obvious than these general terms. Kirill Lokshin 04:44, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Don't see why not . . . UnDeadGoat 02:22, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. Still, while Marshals of Foo and Generals of Foo are viable, "military leaders" will come in handy when categorizing lieutenants, captains, majors or colonels. Andrés C. 03:34, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Presumably "Officers of Foo" would be a better name in that case? Kirill Lokshin 03:38, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

True. Still, we will need some kind of leaders category for quite a few individuals, and for different reasons. That is true, especially for political-military leaders. Consider the following cases, picked at random: Attila, Timur, Alexander the Great, Hitler (which otherwise would have to go to cat corporals of Germany), Churchill, Charlemagne, that gentleman from Georgia (again)...Any suggestions for categorizing all those military leaders that never went to their local Sandhurst? Andrés C. 14:53, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Good point. Maybe we should retain the "military leaders" categories and make all the specific rank ones sub-categories of them? So each "Military people" category could (optionally) have a "Military leaders" sub-category with the same name (e.g. "Military people of France" → "Military leaders of France" → "Admirals of France" and "Military people of WWII" → "Military leaders of WWII"). Kirill Lokshin 15:14, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If I understood you right, this is how it'll work: Parent category: "Military people of France", with subcategories "Military leaders of France" (here would go Vercingetorix, Charlemagne, William I of Normandy, Godfrey de Bouillon, Philip IV, Joan d'Arc, Emperor Bonaparte, de Gaulle, others...never mind if Vercingetorix never heard of the word "France"), and then "Marshals of France", "Admirals of France", "Generals of France", "Officers of France", and "Soldiers of France". Am I correct? If so, let's get to work and see how it turns out. Andrés C. 03:48, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think that's what I meant ;-) Presumably everything except for soldiers could be a sub-category of "Military leaders"; do we even need an explicit "Soldiers" category, then, or can we just assume that anyone not explicitly categorized as being a leader of some sort is a regular soldier? Kirill Lokshin 03:53, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Describing battles in articles other than the article about the battle

Wuff. That's a heck of a section title. Here's what I'm trying to get at... The Hannibal article is too long and one of the reasons is that there are detailed discussions of various battles that Hannibal fought. There is a need to trim the battles out of that article but there needs to be something left behind since the discussion of the battles is the core of the article.

Here are guidelines that I've put together for what essential facts need to be in the sections on the battles. I think that these guidelines can be used in any article that is about a war, campaign or person. Your feedback and suggestions are solicited.

I would propose that each battle section be trimmed to one or two paragraphs that answer the following questions:

Why did the battle take place? Who was attacking, who was defending, why was it worth fighting the battle instead of avoiding it? What was at stake?
What was the troop strength of each side and approximate composition of the forces?
Who won? How decisive a victory was it?
Were there any important personages that were captured, wounded or killed?
Were there any notable strategies or tactics that make this more than just one of many battles? (e.g. Cannae was particularly notable for thousands of years afterward). Don't describe the strategy or tactic in detail, just give a one or two sentence summary as to why the strategy or tactic was notable.
Were there any brilliant moves or notable errors that contributed to the outcome of the battle?
What was the impact of the battle on the overall campaign? Did it make any difference or was it just another battle?

Anything that is not a direct and concise answer to one of these questions should be left for the article on the battle. I'm sure that I've left something out but I think this is the first cut.

--Richard 16:37, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Not bad, but I think you left out the most important part: what role did the subject of the article play in the battle? ;-) Kirill Lokshin 16:39, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Seems to take into account space and synopsis, pretty good. ~~Only on the fith point would I add, in the case of the notable strategy, more detail on what this person deveised.~~ Dryzen 19:23, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is actually a good guideline for articles about battles as well. If it is possible to create articles about such battles, you could even reduce the content in the person's article and rely more on reference to the battle-article. --Habap 19:33, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting. We already have some guidelines for article structure on the project page; ~~should we just combine them, or do we want to have separate sets for articles about battles versus articles mentioning battles?~~ Kirill Lokshin 19:53, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In retrospect, a rather silly question on my part, since the guidelines for actual battle articles need to include narrative structure not present in the summary version. Still, a number of the elements mentioned here should be mentioned in the main article guidelines as well. Kirill Lokshin 20:15, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Since the reception seems to be positive, I've added a (somewhat compressed) version of these to the project page; hopefully, I've gotten the point across without too much repetition. Comments are very welcome! Kirill Lokshin 04:37, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Change of icon

As an outsider to military history, I find difficult to recognize as a piece of a map, at the small sizes used in templates. Would anyone object to its being changed to something more universal? I suggest a pair of crossed swords, maybe or . Seahen 22:14, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know, I'm fairly indifferent towards both. I agree that the map section is somewhat difficult to recognize, but I feel it helps to emphasize the academic/scholarly element of the study of military history, rather than the military aspect. Maybe I'm just looking into it too much. The map's been around for a bit, and I've grown a bit fond of it, but if others wanted to change it, I wouldn't care. LordAmeth 22:59, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I tend to like a map, but not necessarily the map. Before/instead of switching to swords (which my mind associates with a videogame, sorry), could we try to improve a map image to make it more obvious as an icon? ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 23:15, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

From a strictly aesthetic standpoint, the swords look a bit Playskoolish (they're not the correct shape, for one, and the garish colors don't improve things). I'm open to adopting whatever the members of the project want to use, though. Kirill Lokshin 23:16, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As usual, my line of thought follows Kirill's to the letter: I'm not prima facie opposed to a change of icon, but I'd prefer not to have to work with something out of Final Fantasy. Albrecht 23:20, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not really concerned either way, but if a change were to be made, better swords are needed ;) --Loopy ^e 04:34, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Additionally; I just saw the swords used on some articles in the milhist stub. Gaudy and distractingly big, methinks. --Loopy ^e 04:40, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think the size got bumped from 30px to 40px when the image in the stub tag was changed. No idea why, though. Kirill Lokshin 12:47, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think the map's not all that bad. Of course there could be better, but I would perfer something other than weapons.Dryzen 13:58, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Say no to the Prismatic Elven Daggers of Doom and Destruction +3. :D -- Миборовский ^{U|T|C|M|E|Chugoku Banzai!} 06:17, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No, they're dual Headstrikers... :P -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 12:02, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I've changed the stub template icon to

. They may still be daggers, they may still be of doom and destruction, they may still be elven, and they may still be +3 (not sure how to tell), but they're definitely not prismatic anymore. Seahen 22:16, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest you decrease the size. A one-liner stub doesn't need a picture 2 lines tall. -- Миборовский ^{U|T|C|M|E|Chugoku Banzai!} 07:19, 19 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not in favor of swords or daggers. They don't invoke the thought of "military" to me; rather they bring to mind medieval "street fighting" or duals of honor. If the community consensus is to keep this visual, it needs to be much smaller. —ERcheck @ 11:27, 19 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I say keep the previous icon. I don't think the idea of the swords is bad, but the ones chosen look to me a bit too videogamish. Andrés C. 14:35, 19 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think the old one should be kept because it's so familiar; changing the identifying image of a task force just because it's not immediately transparent to outsiders kind of sticks in my craw. UnDeadGoat 01:20, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Do we have any good pictures of a military officers formal hat? Something obvious like one with a hackle. That'd be immediately recognizable and should still serve to portray a rather academic look. Oberiko 17:20, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

All I could find offhand was

. I'm not sure whether it would be an improvement. Kirill Lokshin 17:25, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A bit dark, but IMO, much better then the cartoonish crossed swords. Oberiko 17:40, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree - it is too dark. In icon size, it looks much like a bucket with a shovel in it. It is hard to identify as a military cover. —ERcheck @ 19:47, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Worse than the daggers IMHO... just stick with the map. -- Миборовский ^{U|T|C|M|E|Chugoku Banzai!} 19:53, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What should the icon show? If there is going to be a change, it should naturally be to something that is "iconic" for military, easy to identify when the image is small, not be tied to a particular nation, span as long a time period as possible. Medals are easily identified with the military, but various versions of medals are used as "barnstars" on wikipedia. "Combat boots" would work - easy to identify in profile or silhouette and have been around for a long time. But, my best suggestion is chevrons, like the one for this WikiProject's Distinguished service award. The award is identified with WikiProject Military History and the icon for the project page would be tie the two together. —ERcheck @ 20:03, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I suppose we could use the chevrons (minus the barnstar image at the top) for the icon. My only concern would be that the yellow image wouldn't show up too well against the banner background (at least in the default skin). Could anyone perhaps repaint the chevrons in another color (such as lightsteelblue, perhaps)? Kirill Lokshin 21:57, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have a feeling this might be one of those things people Have Opinions about, so if we're seriously contemplating changing our time-honored icon thing, maybe this should get thrown up in the Announcements as something people ought to look at. UnDeadGoat 00:43, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Thanks for the idea! Kirill Lokshin 00:58, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Project Icon: Chevrons?

Not being a graphics expert, it took me awhile to figure out how to make the color change suggested by Kirill. I tested a few colors - black (which looks ok, though a bit bland; a dark red (which looks ok); here is a blue (uploaded to Image:Triplechevron_icon.png; —ERcheck @ 04:12, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This article is part of the Military history WikiProject, which aims to improve Wikipedia's coverage of military history. If you would like to participate, you can visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks.

I'dd still rather use the older map cut out, rather than Chevrons, these also have the not so pleasent possibility of proping up arguments: why use British chevrons over American chevrons, or vise versa, why enlisted, etc? The map might not be hte most recognisable but once you've seen it you understand why its there and its in my book a rather neutral image. Humanity has over 5000 years of recorded warfare... finding an iconic image that represents that, is not going to be easy. I'll be gone on an extended voyage soon, therefore I wish you, fellow participants, best of luck and resolve in this quest.Dryzen 18:48, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ain't broke, no need to fix it in my view. Agree with Dryzen. Nothing of what I have seen suggested thus far strikes me as better than what we have at the moment. If there is a view to go with crossed whatevers, I would go for sabres (the bent ones, don't know the word in English), at least those were used in warfare in many ages and places and are often used to indicate a battle location on a map. Andreas 20:09, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Something representing hoplite combat maybe? It's a bit too small, but something similar would look pretty cool. Rmt2m 20:34, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

An Issue with the project banner & some thoughts on the Military aviation Task Force

As I was merrily assessing articles, I discovered that the template has no parameter for the Military aviation taskforce. This appears to be A Significant Omission. UnDeadGoat 00:40, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oops! Now added as "Aviation-task-force"; thanks for catching that! Kirill Lokshin 01:06, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Kirill. Now the only thing the Task Force is still missing is its own userbox for members of the project. BTW, now that the parameter has been created, do expect to see a significant increase in the number of articles belonging to the project (on the order of a few hundred) :) Andrés C. 03:41, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Great! Hopefully the tagging will make the task force grow a bit as well; it's surprisingly small for such a large topic at this point. Kirill Lokshin 03:47, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, that may have to do with this overlapping situation. Consider that the articles that should be included on this Task Force (actually a a four-digit number!) are already being taken care of by the members of the well organized WikiProject Aircraft. In fact, I do wonder if this Task Force is viable at all. Anyhow, I will put Wikiproject Military History on its list of related projects. Andrés C. 04:05, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Fair point. I guess the question would be if the Aircraft project deals with pilots, air battles, aerial units, and so forth (the task force having been intended to cover all these topics), or only with the aircraft themselves? Kirill Lokshin 04:13, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think that for the sake of clarity of purpose, this task force—if it's going to survive at all—should devote itself to articles on aerial warfare (battles, campaigns, significant strike attacks, tactics, units, pilots, etc.), and let the guys from WP Aircraft cover the aircraft themselves. In that regard, I suggest that the objectives of the task force be restated in a way that clarifies its real purpose. As they stand now, the objectives may be too broad and a bit vague. Andrés C. 13:03, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Feel free to rewrite them, then ;-) Kirill Lokshin 16:39, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Could you guys take a look at it? Andrés C. 22:08, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestion for a possible future task force

I noticed this project recentely introduced two new taskforces by my count, and I was just thinking that a good taskforce to start for the future would be a "Asia military" taskforce or something of that sort. Chinese military history already exists but I dont believe it covers all the other military histories of countries such as India, Vietnam, Mongolian, Korean etc. What you guys think? - Tutmosis 15:39, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Seems a little too broad to me; "Asia military" could include things like Russia, Persia, Babylon, etc. that really have no connection to each other except for being on the same continent. Perhaps a "Southeast Asia" or "India" task force would be better; but I'm not sure if we even have enough interested editors to work on either of those topics. Japan and Mongolia, for example, are both basically single-editor efforts at the moment, as far as I know. Kirill Lokshin 16:13, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Infobox

I just noticed that War of the Spanish Succession is a featured article, yet it doesn't contain an infobox. Rmhermen 18:21, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. Infoboxes are completely optional. They are certainly not a prerequisite for an article to reach featured status. In fact, many articles about wars/campaigns/battles do not lend themselves too well to infoboxes. Andrés C. 19:44, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Quite true. At the same time, I suspect that this article would be fairly well-suited to an infobox, if anyone had the time and inclination to add one. Kirill Lokshin 20:41, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Naval Vessel infobox?

I was poking around various navy ship pages, and noticed that there was some differences (sometimes major differences) between different ship infoboxs. I was curious if there was a standardized warship infobox. I mean, I may just be blind, but there isn't a listed box on the project's main page. --Laserbeamcrossfire 02:19, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That's generally handled by Wikipedia:WikiProject Ships; I'm not sure if they've changed infoboxes recently, but they had a pretty complicated modular one some time ago. Kirill Lokshin 02:23, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I see. Why are warships not under Military History preview? --Laserbeamcrossfire 02:33, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oops, these Task forces just keep on coming! :) Andrés C. 02:43, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Practical reasons, mostly. The ship project developed independently (and, to some extent, prior to this one), and we haven't really tried to absorb their material (since there's far too much of it for us to handle gracefully at this point). If we were starting from scratch, warships might have been handled by a task force of this project; but it's probably counterproductive to try and throw our weight around at this late stage. Kirill Lokshin 02:46, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Conflicts by year

I apologize if this has been covered already, but the current project requests that battles should always be placed in a category by year, but these categories are becoming unmanageable. I would like to propose that battle article should always be placed in a conflict category by year, such as Category:Conflicts in 1876 or Category:1876 conflicts. I prefer the latter, but someone started off with the former, so I continued the convention. I don't think it's realistic to continue placing military conflicts in the category of the year itself. I'm not particularly attached to that name, so if anyone has a better name in mind, I'm open to suggestion. The category appears to have been created by User:Mikkalai in July, 2005, and I've asked him to comment here. —Viriditas | Talk 22:55, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Do we want to go by years or by centuries (or perhaps both)? Years are good for battles, but not particularly useful for wars, unless we want a dozen date categories on each article. Kirill Lokshin 00:21, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

One example: the world war cats are categorized by century, as are the lists of battles and wars articles. The ww cats are members of multiple year and decade cats. It makes sense to do it this way, since the main articles don't require date cats (already members by subject cat). I know that doesn't exactly answer your question, but it's interesting to look at the current scheme. —Viriditas | Talk 00:47, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting. As a side note, would we want to rename these to "Military conflicts in 1876" rather than "Conflicts in 1876"? I don't think we want other types of conflicts being tossed into the same categories as battles and wars. Kirill Lokshin 01:03, 24 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have an answer for you, but I can say that the Conflicts by year category is just that. Battles and wars will still be categorized as such. —Viriditas | Talk 01:19, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, yes. My question was more to whether the category had been intended for military conflicts, or for anything that might be termed a conflict (strikes? crimes? high-profile arguments between politicians?). Kirill Lokshin 01:22, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know, which is why I asked the creator of the category, User:Mikkalai to comment here. As it stands, the category appears to contain battles, wars, massacres, rebellions, uprisings, etc. —Viriditas | Talk 01:27, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Which makes sense, I suppose; but we can wait for Mikkalai to comment before deciding on the exact names to use. (The reason for the question is the persistent appearance of things like Category:War on something and its ilk within various parts of the warfare category tree that were really intended for military topics.) Kirill Lokshin 01:30, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I understand, which is why I hope this project will come to a decision not only on the naming conventions, but on category maintenance as well. The category in question is not that large, so if Mikkalai does not respond, and this project can come to a decision, I would be happy to help re-categorize articles. —Viriditas | Talk 01:38, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I see that Mikkalai has been online, but he hasn't responded, so I'm guessing he has no real interest in the outcome of the category. The subcategories were created by multiple editors, so I think this project should come to a decision, either through the use of a poll that chooses between multiple naming convention options, or reach a decision through discussion. I can make a suggestion as well. —Viriditas | Talk 00:49, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I see no problem with adopting this scheme in general (could we get a bot to create the categories for us, though?), probably with a two level-scheme (e.g. "Conflicts in the 16th century" → "Conflicts in 1512"). I still think that calling the categories "Military conflicts in ..." is better, since it reduces ambiguity about the purpose and matches the existing Category:Military conflicts. Kirill Lokshin 13:25, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Help with newsletter delivery

Would anyone be interested in helping to deliver the May issue of the newsletter (at some point in the next few days)? Kirill Lokshin 03:58, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

When? Time commitment? How? —ERcheck @ 04:14, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- Anytime before the end of the month; this is pretty flexible. The actual work requires subst:ing a message (one of two) to the talk page of every active project member (~200 edits); how much time this will take probably varies by person, but I managed to do the entire set in about 35 minutes last time. Kirill Lokshin 04:24, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  - Is it ready to go? Do you just go from the active list? (I'm willing to help; would do in the next few days.) —ERcheck @ 04:34, 25 May 2006 (UTC) (P.S. Please check out the color change in the icon for the project banner above on this talk page.)[reply]
    - Yeah, it's ready. There's somewhat clearer instructions here; it's actually two lists. About a dozen people who signed up for the full content version get that; then, everyone on the active list that hasn't gotten the full content version gets the link-only version. Kirill Lokshin 04:39, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      - Have you started delivery? How do you want to coordinate? This is Issue III?? —ERcheck @ 04:43, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        Haven't started yet (I just wrapped up the actual newsletter about an hour ago; and yes, it is the third issue). I suppose it depends on whether anyone else is interested, and when we want to do this; but we could probably just go through the list alphabetically. Kirill Lokshin 04:50, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        I just completed all the non-members on the list on the page you linked above. Do you want to start at the beginning of the alphabet or the end? —ERcheck @ 05:03, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        Great! If you want to start from the top of the list, I can go from the bottom. Or did you have something else in mind? Kirill Lokshin 05:13, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        Sounds good to me ... I'll start at the top. —ERcheck @ 05:15, 25 May 2006 (UTC) (I've done the first ten, but will really work in earnest tomorrow.) —ERcheck @ 05:23, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        Ok, sounds good. I'll probably be able to run through maybe 50 off the bottom tonight. Kirill Lokshin 05:28, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
May newsletter delivery complete. —ERcheck @ 01:13, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- Great work! Your help is very appreciated! Kirill Lokshin 01:25, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks again for the good work.--Dryzen 12:48, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal: Subcategory:Commando Raids under Category:Battles

I am interested in feedback on whether others think it is a good idea to create a sub-Category:Commando raids under Category:Battles. There are plenty of notable raids, and it might be good to categorize them... Georgewilliamherbert 05:27, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Would this category incorporate all subversive operations, including night attacks and raiding from all periodes, or would it comprise only of the more modern operations undertaken by special forces and intelliegence groups? --Dryzen 12:47, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Overlapping projects

Hey, I know the current fad is to place ones' project tag on as many articles as possible, but you guys are tagging a lot of aviation articles, and it sounds like a lot of maritime articles. These articles are already under projects, and have been for years. What's this going to result in -- ten projects claiming relevance? —Joseph/N328KF (Talk) 03:52, 27 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I wasn't aware that this was a significant problem. Are we getting articles with more than two project tags on them? (I'm not convinced that having two is a problem in of itself, since it seems to happen a lot even without our tags.) We can certainly change our tagging procedure if it's a major issue; but are you sure that it is one? Kirill Lokshin 05:22, 27 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Only insofar as WP:Air has standards for these articles. As long as we stick to these standards (or change them at the WP:Air talk page), I'm fine with that. —Joseph/N328KF (Talk) 19:23, 27 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 353: / Line 353: @@
 I am interested in feedback on whether others think it is a good idea to create a sub-Category:Commando raids under [[:Category:Battles]].  There are plenty of notable raids, and it might be good to categorize them...  [[User:Georgewilliamherbert|Georgewilliamherbert]] 05:27, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
 :Would this category incorporate all subversive operations, including night attacks and raiding from all periodes, or would it comprise only of the more modern operations undertaken by special forces and intelliegence groups? --[[User:Dryzen|Dryzen]] 12:47, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
-:I reckon it should comprise only those more modern raids. For one the idea or word (not sure?)commando came from the Afrikaaner battle formations used against the British during the Boer War and from that the British started using the word to describe their special forces during WWII.
-Although raidng has been around for centuries and i'm sure there are many examples of it over time; the Second World War proved to be the advent of Special Forces as a primary organisation (all sides in that war used such forces to a large extent), recognised as such, in most modern armies. You could i suppose create a category for the history of commando raiding and one for commando raidng in the 20th and 21st centuries, when it had become a recognised arm of any modern fighting force? [[User:Tristan benedict|Tristan benedict]] 18:36, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
 == Overlapping projects ==
@@ Line 362: / Line 360: @@
 :I wasn't aware that this was a significant problem.  Are we getting articles with more than two project tags on them?  (I'm not convinced that having two is a problem in of itself, since it seems to happen a lot even without our tags.)  We can certainly change our tagging procedure if it's a major issue; but are you sure that it ''is'' one? [[User:Kirill Lokshin|Kirill Lokshin]] 05:22, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
+Only insofar as [[WP:Air]] has standards for these articles. As long as we stick to these standards (or change them at the WP:Air talk page), I'm fine with that. &mdash;[[User:N328KF|Joseph/N328KF]] [[User talk:N328KF|(Talk)]] 19:23, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
-== "Coat of Arms" emblems for task forces ==
-[[User:Halibutt|Halibutt]] and I have been discussing using coat-of-arms-like emblems for the various task forces in {{tl|WPMILHIST}} (see [[User talk:Kirill Lokshin#Coats of Arms|here]] and [[User talk:Halibutt#Re: Coats of Arms|here]]).  For many of the task forces—particularly those dealing with countries (see [[Talk:War of the League of Cambrai|this example]])—the CoA to use is obvious.  In other cases (e.g. aviation) we may just take an obvious image and superimpose it on a shield-shaped background.
-The main questions, then:
-* Does anyone have strong objections to this style of image?
-* Does anyone have ideas for images to use on the CoA for the WWI & WWII task forces (really no ideas at this point) or the Memorials task force (some ideas, but possibly not very workable ones)?
-Comments on the designs themselves are, of course, also welcome! [[User:Kirill Lokshin|Kirill Lokshin]] 17:27, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
-: It is quite OK for me when applied to national task forces. However, using it for other task forces is hairy. Indeed, there is no common symbol for those, so we always run the risk of having some idiotic nationalistic POV-pushers waging edit wars on those.
-: For the Weaponry task force, I think the peacekeeper is OK, since it is small and can be considered as a shell or a missile...
-: For the Memorial TF, which currently has a weird logo from project remembrance, the best symbol would actually be the cross with a superimposed sword, as seen at the entrance of many war cemetaries. -- [[User:Grafikm_fr|<font color="Blue">'''Grafikm'''</font>]] <sup>[[User talk:Grafikm_fr|'''<font color="red">(AutoGRAF)</font>''']]</sup> 18:08, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
-::Wouldn't that imply a Christian POV, eh? -- <font color="#FF0000">'''Миборовский'''</font> <sup>[[User:Miborovsky|U]]|[[User talk:Miborovsky|T]]|[[Special:Contributions/Miborovsky|C]]|[[Special:Emailuser/Miborovsky|M]]|[[Wikipedia:Esperanza|<font color="green">E</font>]]|[[User:Miborovsky#Wiki-not-so-fun|Chugoku Banzai]]!</sup> 18:09, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
-:As mentioned CoAs might not be applicable for certain task forces, such as WW1&2, Chinese, aviation, etc. Also there might be problems with using CoAs that are anachronistic such as the [[:Image:Armoiries Grande-Bretagne 1800.png]] CoA for items before the [[Act of Union]]. Similarly Using either PRC or ROC emblems would reflect roughly 1% and 2% lengthwise of the entire military history of China, same thing with the Manchu dragon flag which was in use for less than 50 years (and therefore some 1%). It probably would not hurt to switch some task force icons to CoAs, but switching all of them would be overboard and not necessarily beneficial. -- <font color="#FF0000">'''Миборовский'''</font> <sup>[[User:Miborovsky|U]]|[[User talk:Miborovsky|T]]|[[Special:Contributions/Miborovsky|C]]|[[Special:Emailuser/Miborovsky|M]]|[[Wikipedia:Esperanza|<font color="green">E</font>]]|[[User:Miborovsky#Wiki-not-so-fun|Chugoku Banzai]]!</sup> 18:09, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
-::Fair enough. [[User:Kirill Lokshin|Kirill Lokshin]] 18:11, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
-:Out of curiosity, would the same objections remain to merely taking the current icons and trimming/superimposing them onto a shield-shaped background?  That way, we could have uniformly-shaped images on the template without actually needing to use real coats of arms. [[User:Kirill Lokshin|Kirill Lokshin]] 18:15, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
-:: Because having a Panzer or a Peacekeeper on a shield would be about as funny as drawing a Roman centurion with a Kalashnikov. Most modern shields (US army for instance) are not actual shields. :))))) This being said, I'm not opposed to it. -- [[User:Grafikm_fr|<font color="Blue">'''Grafikm'''</font>]] <sup>[[User talk:Grafikm_fr|'''<font color="red">(AutoGRAF)</font>''']]</sup> 18:18, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
-::: I recall there was some [[alternate history]] book that prominently featured centurions with Kalashnikovs ;-)  (And no, it wouldn't be very meaningful as an actual CoA, I suppose.) [[User:Kirill Lokshin|Kirill Lokshin]] 18:21, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
-::I don't think anachronism is a huge problem here as we're not designing logos for the project, but merely icons for them. Thus a shield design clearly suggests that we're dealing with history, while it's content is merely a pointer to the content of each particular task force. Thus recognizability is IMO more important here than historical accuracy - after all the icons are but a tool for us, at the talk pages, and not images to be put on article pages. Besides, it would be hard to find a specific symbol that would be representative to the entire military history of certain nation. For instance, the Polish flag is a symbol of Poland since 19th century - and before that was almost unknown. At the same time the French royal fleur de lys were dropped after the revolution. And still, these two are fairly recognizable - which should be the main purpose of the icons we use.
-::Anyway, I'll create some national arms and then we'll see what to do next. ''<font color="#990011">//</font>''[[User:Halibutt|Halibu]][[User talk:Halibutt|tt]] 18:30, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
-::: Fair enough for me too. -- [[User:Grafikm_fr|<font color="Blue">'''Grafikm'''</font>]] <sup>[[User talk:Grafikm_fr|'''<font color="red">(AutoGRAF)</font>''']]</sup> 18:35, 27 May 2006 (UTC)