Talk:Great Siege of Gibraltar

Expansion

This article is disappointingly brief for such a momentous battle, which, given the numbers of men involved, was the largest engagement in the entire [American War of Independence]. I understand there was a lot more at one point, but was deleted because of violations in copywright - so I will start to try and slowly build it up. It is an often forgotten part of the War, and deserves more than the stub it currently has. Lord Cornwallis (talk) 04:12, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I totally agree in that there is a lot that can be written about the Great Siege. I will try to help you out expanding it wherever possible. --Gibmetal 77^talk 09:25, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, this article could be expanded. I suggest to Gibmetal, who speaks Spanish according to his user page, to take a look at the Spanish article which is already quite good, and currently being expanded also.

Connection to American revolutionary War

It is unclear how this battle was part of the American revolution. The connection needs to be explained. Silverchemist (talk) 04:29, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm not really sure what you mean? Could you elaborate a little further, please. Lord Cornwallis (talk) 05:46, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Having had another look at the article I can kind of see what you mean as there wasn't a huge amount of context. I've added a little bit to the background section and will put some more in soon.

Generally the Siege is almost universally regarded as part of the American War of Independence, although it is quite often relegated to a relatively minor status in many accounts of the war which focus almost entirely on the American theatre. In fact the Siege of Gibraltar was a major part in the war because it sucked in precious Franco-Spanish resources that would otherwise have been used to invade Britain, or been sent to the Americas to capture the West Indies or Atlantic Canada. The British victory at Gibraltar was part of a sucsesfull year of 1782 for them, which allowed them to gain much more favourable terms at the Peace of Paris that ended the war, than they might otherwise have done.Lord Cornwallis (talk) 06:08, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. Silverchemist (talk) 15:38, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Box Misleading

The other wikipedia articles about the Siege count 40.000 troops plus ships in the franco-spanish side. It is misleading to sum up the land forces (40.000) plus the fleets' crews and manpower (30.000) while still including the ships themselves in the box.

While this is crystal clear in "The Grand Assault" section, it is not taken in account in the quick reference which the box is intended to be. Thus, misleading the reader. I have not seen any other wikipedia article where the belligerant forces are referenced like this. In order to improve the understandability of this article I propose to precise the strenght of the land forces, as the other wikipedia articles about this siege already do (at least the french, dutch, norwegian and japanese). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.129.53.209 (talk) 16:51, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Articles on other language wikipedias don't generally have a bearing on English wikipedia. Looking at your observation, I would agree it isn't ideally presented, but I'm not sure I'd call it misleading. Looking at a similar sort of siege Cartagena, the entire number of men are listed are first, while beneath it they are broken down into Land forces/Naval forces. That may be the way to go here, ultimately. Lord Cornwallis (talk) 22:00, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, Cornwallis. Let's improve it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cremallera (talk • contribs) 13:55, 21 January 2009 (UTC)