Talk:Battle of Pakchon

Untitled

While looking into the 187th ARCT I found an article that would improve this page. JamesESJ 14:13, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Example of plagiarism / copyright violation in article

I was asked to point out what appeared to be copied in the article, so that it might be edited.

For one example of blatant plagiarism in the current wikipedia article, consider the following passage: "The first air drop brought 6 X 105 mm howitzers and 1125 rounds of ammunition which was reinforced next day by a further 12 X 105 mm howitzers and 4 X 90 mm anti-aircraft guns. Nearly 600 tons of ammunition and other supplies were delivered during the operation."

This is word for word the same as what DAVID BUTLER, in KOREA REMEMBERED Chapter 2: BATTLE OF THE APPLE ORCHARD, wrote: "...the first air drop brought 6 X 105 mm howitzers and 1125 rounds of ammunition which was reinforced next day by a further 12 X 105 mm howitzers and 4 X 90 mm anti-aircraft guns. Nearly 600 tons of ammunition and other supplies were delivered during the operation."

Since the David Butler text is copyrighted, this is copyright violation as well as being plagiarism.

That's just one example. I don't believe that just changing the wording of this one passage in the article would improve the situation very much. The entire article as written is about the same length and written in the same tone as the Butler account. To avoid plagiarism and to be encyclopedic, the article should be a much shorter, condensed account including only newly worded statements based on 2 or more sources, using inline citations, and/or having same-size passages that are specific quotes from one source. But the Butler account is copyrighted, so long quotes from it are not appropriate. Thus, it would be better to have only a short version of the article and refer the reader to the Butler account for more detail. The short version could be the short version already written in the article Military history of Australia during the Korean War. Perhaps best, this article ought to be deleted in its entirety. doncram (talk) 16:03, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

How long before this is put up for deletion. I would like to do a rewrite, but have a couple of other projects. It would be a shame to lose the good stuff that is in it, like infobox etc... Robert Fleming (talk) 08:10, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I tagged the article for copyvio at 02:45, 24 February 2008. It's possible that i erred and did not further list it somewhere i was supposed to, then. Or it fell through a hole in the intended process. Because I am surprised it is still here, in the same state as it was. Robert, when would you do something with this article, and why not just copy the infobox to the suggested Temp location, now? doncram (talk) 01:48, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

I removed all the copyvio text. Jeepday (talk) 13:05, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Thank you! doncram (talk) 17:35, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Incorrect reference to Battle of the Apple Orchard

This article currently refers to the Battle of Pakchon (5 Nov 1950) as the battle know to Australian historians as the Battle of the Apple Orchard - this is incorrect. The earlier battle at Yongju (22 Oct 1950) is in fact known by this name. The Butler reference makes this perfectly clear as does the AWM website and other references (see for instance Chris Coulthard-Clark 'Where Australians Fought' page 258). As such I have removed this. Anotherclown (talk) 02:33, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Strength

The info box gives the 27th Bde's strength as ~300. Really? For a 3 battalion brigade? Similarly, ~1,500 for the Chinese 117th Division seems too small. Hamish59 (talk) 11:17, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

The name of involved unit does not equal to amount of men committed into battle by each side. I can't comment on Australian numbers, but I have the memoir from the Chinese commander that commanded the battle, which stated that no more than three battalions were involved in the battle, even through he did not state their exact unit name. So the 1500 Chinese strength from Australian estimate is accurate. Jim101 (talk) 12:31, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Fair enough. In which case, surely, the Chinese forces should be stated as "Elements, 117th Division" or "3 Battalions, 117th Division"? I have read through the article to see where this information is stated (I believe that the infobox should only be a summary of information in the article, correct me if I am wrong). I think that the "Opposing forces" section is a misnomer, not actually stating what the opposing forces were. Hamish59 (talk) 13:42, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

My understanding was that units involved = exact name of units participated in the battle, strength = resource committed to battle by each side. I don't see the need to be overly verbose and duplicate the strength information in the units involved fields (and vice versa) since those two fields should be concise and summarize distinct information. But that is a MOS question which should be better taken up with the Milhist project.

As for the section context. You have to wait for user:Anotherclown to comment back since he authored the original contents and layout. Jim101 (talk) 23:32, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Gday gents. I wrote this article quite a while ago so will have to go back to the references for this - unfortunately I am interstate for work and will not return home for another week. Will check then. I do recall that the strengths given were estimates of the actual size of each force that was involved in the fighting though. I think the infobox does follow the guidance in Template: Infobox Military Conflict but happy to look at changes if you think its required (although I too am not a fan of too much detail in the infobox). The layout of the article (I believe) also follows the standard layout suggested in the WP:MILMOS/C and the opposing forces includes quite a bit of detail about each of the forces involved, although I agree it could possibly be more specific (might just need an explicit sentence stating force x fought force y to provide context). That said I will need access to the references to do this (still have them, they are just at home). Anotherclown (talk) 10:45, 6 November 2013 (UTC)