Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Archive 27

message: Soldats et camarades!
Our Cartography Department needs you...well one or two of you, to serve as its Cartographer General/Director/Head Librarian/Numero Uno/Give it any name you wish. If accepted, your mission will be to oversee and maintain our  growing map collection. This mainly involves keeping track of the maps, updating the lists and seeing that everything is tagged and sourced properly (which disqualifies me unfortunately:). The perks include; being able to choose your own job title, as per above, and appoint any assistants you deem fit. Additional perks may also be uncovered as a result of a job well done. In seeking out suitable candidates, I have been authorized to conduct auditions, use bribes of beer or even employ Press gangs if necessary. But, please let's not have it come down to that...YET:> R.S.V.P.--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) 22:41, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If only I had more time, I'dd take the job on the spot, or at least draw up some maps. Dryzen 18:19, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: CALLING ALL CARTOGRAPHERS!

message: Could the authors of the (stub) article please provide a source, proving that this battle actually took place? The main source on the byzantine-sassanid wars doesn't give ANY information about a battle of Nisibis between the battles of Dara and Callinicum, but a battle of Satala.
:--139.11.6.203 14:56, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The only mention of Nisibis I could find in Norwich referred to the surrender of the city to the Persians in 363.  Maybe this is an alternate name for some other battle? Kirill Lokshin 22:25, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Nisibis (there is no Nisbis but I'm not quite sure if this is an alternative transcription) is located in higher Mesopotamia, whilst after the Battle of Dara Sassanid attacks were concentrated in Armenia. I guess, whoever changed the article to "Battle of Nis[i]bis" misunderstood Procopius, who indeed mentioned the 4th century capture of Nisibis only, in order to describe the geo-political background of the byzantine-persian frontier. There indeed had been skirmishes around Nisibis, but 1) before the Battle of Dara 2) without actual battles; the Romans/Byzantines simply crossed the border and caused some trouble. --139.11.6.207 09:17, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Battle of Nisbis]] 

message: I notice that there is an explanatory article containing a list of last stands, but no category. If nobody has any objections, I would like to go ahead and create Category:Last stands under Category:Battles by type. Any thoughts before I do it? Humansdorpie 14:14, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Seems like a good idea, but do we have a working definition of "last stand" to go from?  Kirill Lokshin 14:32, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: looking at the list, two things stand out - the defending force loses the battle, and is either almost wiped out before capture or killed to the last man as the phrase has it. That the battle takes longer than expected given the dispropionate numbers of troops on each side may also be a factor. GraemeLeggett 14:52, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hello. Anyone can make the point that deciding what is to be considered a last stand will always seem problematic. Was Stalingrad a last stand for the Germans in the same way that Sevastopol was for the Soviets?  For most members of the VI Army, the last stand took place not among the ruins of the city, but in the Soviet POW camps. Then what about Verdun 1916? It was definitely a last stand for the two French divisions and the couple of chasseurs à pied which where on the receiving end of the German assault on Feb 21, 1916, and which where indeed wiped out. Still, how many military historians would refer to it as a last stand? Those are some random examples of inherent problems that a list of last stands can face. Regards. Andrés C. 15:43, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If the battle fits the description then is goes in the pile. I'dd consider the destruction of a trapped army to be a last stand the same for divisions anihilated while trying to hold a front. Dryzen 17:17, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I guess the problem will come up with larger-scale modern battles, sometimes spanning significant time and geography.  Was the Battle of Kursk a last stand?  It probably was, for some smaller units; but not for the main bulk of the forces involved.  I would presume that we would not categorize it as a last stand, in that case; is that a valid assumption, or are we going to use some more complicated metric? Kirill Lokshin 02:32, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Problematic. If Waterloo was a last stand for Napoleon's Imperial Guard, then you'll have to say the same thing for the Newfoundlanders on July 1, 1916, or for the British airborne troops around Arnhem in Sep. 1944...instances of troops making a last stand while on offensive operations. Then you have the Tawakalna Iraqi Republican Guard Division, entirely destroyed in a matter of hours on Feb 27, 1991: a clear case of a last stand, but without the abovementioned prerequisites of numerical inferiority or a battle taking longer than expected. Andrés C. 07:00, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

text: A last stand could be seen as a recognition by the majority of those involved that the chances of victory (or survival) are slim or even non exisistant, but that they would still fight on, a commitment to stay and die? A last stand seems to me to have an element of choice. This could remove some of the larger battles like Kursk or Stalingrad where there was little or no choice for the majority? Tristan benedict 10:11, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What choices were available to the French paratroopers, the Légionaires, and the auxiliary Vietnamese troops at Dien Bien Phu? Not that Custer's troopers at Little Big Horn had a plethora of available choices. Come on guys, finding a working encyclopædic definition for a last stand may become a difficult exercise in abstruse metaphysics. Andrés C. 17:48, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: And we can't go by pure casualty counts either, I suppose; otherwise, every medieval siege will qualify as a "last stand".  It might be that the definition is vague enough that a list (which can have explanatory notes for questionable cases) is more suitable for this than a category (which boils things down to a straight yes-or-no question). Kirill Lokshin 18:07, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe battles typically referred to in at least one language/by at least one combatant as a "last stand"? Although that does beg for explanation and as such the category may indeed be moot. UnDeadGoat 00:55, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Last stands? 

message: Since our project tag is now feeding the various categories appropriately, Mathbot can generate some nice statistics for us; the current set is visible at right.  Two obvious points:
* We need to assess more articles.
* We need to tag more articles.  I would guess that there are at least 10,000 military history articles on Wikipedia; we have only about 3/5 of them tagged at present.
On the other hand, the sheer size of our worklist is beginning to dwarf the other WikiProjects involved ;-) Kirill Lokshin 03:52, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If one is lazy, where might one click to look at other projects and laugh? (Also, I have need of procrastination, so I shall wander off and categorize some stuff . . .) UnDeadGoat 00:53, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Links are available here.  There's only four projects that have fully converted to this scheme so far, though. Kirill Lokshin 02:17, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: At this size, the term dwarf seems to lack some strength. To tag article we simply need to put them in a military category and have a project banner in the discussion? As for assessment we enter the data within the confinds of the  table?Dryzen 18:26, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, both the tagging and the assessment are done directly through the project banner on the talk page; the exact syntax is here.  There's no need to edit the table directly (and the bot will overwrite the changes if you do).  Hope that helps! Kirill Lokshin 18:30, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article statistics