Talk:Operation Compass

message: "men" in force strengths is opposed to guns or tanks or aircraft, not to women
"killed" in casualties, because total casualties are killed+wounded+captured+missing
"India" because there were forces of the (British) Indian Army - specifically 4th Indian Division - involved in this campaign.
Richard Gadsden 12:41, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  To Kurt Lehmann 

message: Both this article and the Beda Fomm ones are pretty short.  I think that, for now at least, the Battle of Beda Fomm can be a section in the main Operation Compass page. Oberiko 15:20, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Battle of Beda Fomm

message: Forces for Italiens: 100K
But somehow they got 130K captured. Did they spawn new soldiers during the battle by themselfs or is something hidden in the numbers? =) Zarkow 203.144.143.9 12:11, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: 100K in the Battle of the Camps - Compass proper; casualties are for the whole Cyrenaica campaign. Richard Gadsden 20:25, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Destroyed aircraft and vehicles were usually replaced, and if they in turn are then destroyed, the total lost will be higher than the original total number of aircraft or vehicles available.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.144.50.176 (talk) 09:19, 16 September 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: Stats

message: has got to be rubbish!
"31,000 soldiers(december 1940 250,000)[1]"
Forces involved in Compass:  7th Armour and the 4th Indian plus iirc some small other units, in December the Indian division transferred to East Africa and the Aussies took there role for the rest of the campaign.
So total of 2 divisions active at any one time .... how does that add up to 250 000 men!
To my understanding, there was other Aussies Divisions in Palestine, other British units based near the suez canal and at the forward base.  But including them which is the only thing i can see has happened is just wrong.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by EnigmaMcmxc (talk • contribs) 13:48, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Removed the piece of information, i guess who added it made a mistake and it was suppose to be in the Italian coloumn.
infor removed:
(December 1940 250,000)Christie, p. 86
--EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 13:12, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  British Army total number of troops 

message: I think that it is time to create some separate "battle articles" for this campaign.  The Camps, Bardia, Tobruk, Derna, and Beda Fomm all seem like good candidates.  This would allow "overviews" of each battle in this article and not the detailed sub-sections currently featured ( ... I may even be able to add a few more references here and there ... and add a little more about the air and sea aspects of the overall campaign).  I may start by working the "Invasion of Egypt" section down to what is absolutely necessary and allow that article to stand on its own.  Anyone mind if I get started? Mkpumphrey (talk) 15:38, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Another item I intend to clear up is a host of related Wikipedia articles is whether or whether not Graziani ever DIRECTLY commanded the Tenth Army.  Many writers (in Wikipedia ... including myself) have fallen into a pattern which has him as the commander of the Tenth Army.  I can find nothing in any documents supporting this.  He appears to have been the Commander-in-Chief of the Army when the war started and he got stuck with Balbo's jobs when he was killed (Governor General and Commander-in-Chief of North Africa).  Any book suggestions are appreciated.  I can brutally work my way through the Italian language if Italian sources are available.  Thanks! Mkpumphrey (talk) 18:03, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Playfair Vol 1 p. 208 has Berti commanding the 10th Army. On p. 281 it says that Gariboldi was acting commander in Berti's absence on leave (no dates given) and also says (p. 287) that Berti was replaced on 23 December by Tellera after the fall of Bardia. Stephen Kirrage talk - contribs 00:19, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Graziani left Benghazi on 3 Feb having appointed Tellera to command all forces in eastern Libya (p. 354). Tellera, having been mortally wounded, was one of the 25000 PoWs taken when 10th Army surrendered on 7 Feb (p. 361). Stephen Kirrage talk - contribs 00:27, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Breakout of battles into separate articles

message: They were covered by the 7th Armoured Division (which included companies of Free French Forces), which ensured that the Bardia garrison could neither withdraw nor be reinforced.[40]
I cant seen mention of Free French forces being part of the 7th Armoured Division in the reference supplied. however Jon Latimer (p. 25) states that a Motor Marine Company was attached to the Western Desert Force as a Corps assesst. The only other mention of them is on p. 53 when he states a minor attack, where they were supporting 6RTR (4th Arm bde) was a failure on the attack on Bardia. Sgt Harry Kirkham "Found our allies reluctant to attack. I looked beind at the FF ifnatry and there was not a man in sight".
Playfair's only mention of Free French forces supporting the British Army was during the Italian invasion and then not a peep about them.--EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 18:25, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The article is correct though. Long, p. 284 notes that the two French companies remained after the 7th Armoured Division was withdrawn. I'll pull an appropriate reference from Stockings next week. Hawkeye7 (talk) 08:38, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  French participation 

message: It was suggested last year that the various battles here should have their own articles, and the content here summarized.</br> 
I think it's a good idea; what does anybody else think? Xyl 54 (talk) 23:18, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Separate articles, again 

message: This is an odd phrase in the article to my eyes: 
"Due praise went to Italian anti-tank and artillery gunners who managed to destroy eighteen British tanks but eventually, 237 artillery pieces, 73 light and medium tanks, and about 38,300 Italian and Libyan soldiers were destroyed or captured."
I think we should avoid phrases like "Due praise" - this feels like a biased piece of reporting promoting the Italian point of view. Also describing the soldiers as "destroyed or captured" is rather strange. Is this a translation from an unidentified source?
I have changed the text to a more neutral sentence
"73 Italian tanks and 237 artillery pieces were destroyed or captured and approximately 38,300 Italian and Libyan soldiers killed or captured. 18 British tanks were destroyed."
The next sentence then says that "dozens" of British tanks were destroyed. Some cleaning up of facts is required here. Were 18 British tanks destroyed, or dozens? (18 = 1.5 dozen).
--mgaved (talk) 23:27, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Strange phrasing, not NPOV?

message: How did the Italians lose 918 more planes than they initially possessed? The footnotes are no help in this regard.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.22.21.143 (talk) 10:40, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Because the lost aircraft were replaced with new ones. The replacement aircraft were then lost and had also to be replaced.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.144.50.176 (talk) 09:24, 16 September 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Surprising thing that may be an inaccuracy 

message: In both the Wikipedia pages for Italian Lieutenant General Annibale Bergonzoli and Military Figures' Nicknames the Italian "barba elettrica" is translated "Electric Whiskers", rather than "Electric Beard," as appears in both this page's section on Bardia and on the page for the Battle of Bardia. I suggest making this consistent among Wikipedia pages.<BR><B>☺</B> Dick Kimball (talk) 15:09, 20 August 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bardia 

message: It's some time since I looked at this article. It has become somewhat bloated with much too much detail for an article of this level and huge quotes have appeared in the citation list. I will work my way through,tidying up the citations and moving quotes (where relevant) into the Notes section. I will also make a start in tightening up and removing some extraneous detail but I suspect a full review will be needed in due course. Stephen Kirrage talk - contribs 11:55, 13 February 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I wonder if the sections "Border Skirmishes", "Pursuit" and "Desert Operations" are necessary here? With Western Desert Campaign having 1-2 paragraph summaries (eventually) and there being articles for the operations conducted during the pursuit and bearing in mind that Compass was a five-day operation, shouldn't the exploitation be reduced to a Subsequent Operations paragraph? There's a Beda Fomm page (with Battle of... redirected here) with less on it than in this article.Keith-264 (talk) 23:21, 28 February 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Reduced the section on Beda Fomm now there's an article and took out lots of duplicate wikilinks.Keith-264 (talk) 18:57, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

text: Re-edited the Tobruk section.Keith-264 (talk) 09:23, 22 March 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Made a start on a ce, rm press reports as they would be better in an article on contemporary publicity.Keith-264 (talk) 23:37, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Tidy

message: Will transfer to article once tidied Keith-264 (talk) 11:36, 4 April 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Transferred to the article and continued the tidyKeith-264 (talk) 18:22, 4 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  10th Army oob 

message: @100men, while I don't reject newspapers as reliable tout court, a censored paper during a war is difficult to represent as reliable, particularly against the OH which was written later and the intelligence report which summarised the number and places that pow's were taken. Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources as local colour and as a guide to what Australians were being told about the war, a paper seems to me to be reliable but as a repository of facts I think not, hence moving the recent edit to a note. What do you think?Keith-264 (talk) 06:48, 11 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Newspapers as a reliable source 

message: @100Men I have corralled recent additions of contemporary news reports in notes, since they are of questionable reliability and done the same to lists of casualties, since they are contradictory and have no place in the narrative. Newspaper reports written under corporate and military censorship during a war are a curiosity not reliable sources. Adding a list of tertiary and quaternary sources about casualties is all very well but belongs in the casualties section where the discrepancies can be discussed. Breaking paragraphs and leaving sentences dangling without a citation is also a deplorable practice. If you must used newspapers as sources, I suggest you write an associated article where you can compare the contemporary disclosures of military censors to the press, what the press did with it and what subsequent revelations show about the censorship.Keith-264 (talk) 11:57, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I seem to have come late to this discussion; however, I have to say that I agree with Keith's approach here. There are numerous high quality sources available about this topic so we can afford to be careful in what is used. Whilst newspaper reports written at the time of the events may have some value (if only limited) they were of course subject to military censorship as stated above, in addition to the usual limitations of primary documents (pls see WP:PRIMARY). As such given that more up to date and reliable sources are available to us in 2015 I think they should be avoided where possible. Equally, consolidating the discussion of differing casualty figures in the casualties section (rather than the individual sections) is probably best (as now seems to have occurred). Even then we should be careful not to be too detailed here as this is an encyclopedia entry, not a blow by blow account of the fighting and as such we need to be careful not to provide undue weight to individual incidents (per WP:UNDUE). Anyway that's a bystander's viewpoint on this and given that I haven't had much to do with the ongoing effort to improve this article (which is great to see BTW) it may or may not be especially relevant. Anotherclown (talk) 08:54, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recent edits 

message: Please note that different numbers of casualties are endemic in articles like this and are best left to the separate casualties section rather than being strewn all over the narrative. Notice also that several of these sections are abstracts from a complete article where direpancies between sources should be discussed. This article is about Operation Compass and its sequel, the exploitation etc is covered in more detail in the individual articles, which are the right place for minutiae.Keith-264 (talk) 18:26, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Please stop ruining the article with fatuous interpolations and list them in the casualties section where they form a unified discussion. See what I'm doing there for you?Keith-264 (talk) 19:02, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Please look at the casualties section and the alternative numbers listed there with cites and references. This is the way to demonstrate that different authors use different figures, Once they're complete the paragraphs about Bardia or Tobruk can had a range of numbers, not an irrelevant list culled from everywhere without and test of quality or reliability.Keith-264 (talk) 19:18, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

text: Thank you for the Churchill amendment. As you can see, segregating the casualties discussion avoids endless lists at the end of short paragraphs summarising events. It also allows the references to go in the references section, rather than cluttering the text sections. I'll do the other bit tomorrow.Keith-264 (talk) 19:39, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

text: Yoo hoo! Now that most of the information is in the casualties section it needs sorting according to place and date (of publication) so we can have a teleological progression. The trouble with trawling lots of books is the upper and lower numbers get duplicated. Anyway, I'm off to bed, nighty-nighty.Keith-264 (talk) 00:25, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I've had a quick dash before work and will think about the rationale for looking in so many sources and why a reader can benefit. The line I'm toying with is that large numbers can become exaggerated by duplicate counting, diplomatic inflation and intelligence and counter-intelligence operations.Keith-264 (talk) 06:32, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: PS if you're missing bibliographical details,  Worldcat is a good place to look.Keith-264 (talk) 06:32, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Casualties section 

message: leslie morshead and rob scobie not in time on operation compass (1940), you can read at leslie and scobie time line. LlIlIIpowderIIlIl (talk) 17:35, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I think I put them back thinking I was taking them out. Keith-264 (talk) 17:49, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  commander & leader opt. Compass 

message: Per the Eric Dorman-Smith article:
"Dorman-Smith is credited by historian Correlli Barnett[33] with planning Operation Compass and with the discovery of a gap in the Italian lines south of Sidi Barrani.[34]"
33. Barnett p. 34 and 339, The Desert Generals
34. Greacen p. 162, Chink: A Biography
This seems worth mentioning?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thetweaker2017 (talk • contribs) 12:10, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Most of the WDF detail comes from the OH which has Wavell giving the planning to Wilson. I find Barnett to be a bit too much the professional enfant terrible to trust. What "Italian lines" and how was he supposed to find out about the siting of the Italian fortified camps from his office? I suspect that RAF reconnaissance and Ultra had more to do with it. Keith-264 (talk) 15:36, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dorman-Smith 

message: Filling the infobox when one side is a coalition and the other isn't unbalances the box, which is a summary not the article. Some of the Allied side were insignificant compared to the British and Empire forces and don't merit equal weight. British, Commonwealth and Allied is quite sufficient given that those interested can unroll the scroll. Keith-264 (talk) 13:01, 25 January 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: The "british commonwealth and allied" is also just as "equal weight", since the clearly shown countries also displays exactly the British, commonwealth and allied countries involved, with the only allied France being at the bottom just like "allied" is mentioned last in the text, thus giving thrm equal "weight" in both versions--Havsjö (talk) 13:05, 25 January 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Also, if you want to change the infobox, its really you who should check for consensus in the talk page, since the version showing them clearly (and cleanly!) has been longstanding for a very long time until you changed it--Havsjö (talk) 13:09, 25 January 2019 (UTC)

text: [edit conflict] : Template:Infobox military conflict combatant1/combatant2/combatant3 – optional – the parties participating in the conflict. This is most commonly the countries whose forces took part in the conflict; however, larger groups (such as alliances or international organizations) or smaller ones (such as particular units, formations, or groups) may be indicated if doing so improves reader understanding. When there is a large number of participants, it may be better to list only the three or four major groups on each side of the conflict, and to describe the rest in the body of the article. Keith-264 (talk) 13:16, 25 January 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: As per what you just said, it will list the 3-4 major groups UK (and commonwealth forces), followed by minor allies (FFF) (i.e. British, Commonwealth and Allied), the same amount of information, given in the equally clear way (equal weight give to each country in bother versions), only difference is avoiding cluttering the infobox with double information by having a box with that sentence and the content give the exakt same information (UK, Commonwealth and allied/france).Since this is also the very long-standing version of the infobox layout on this article (and is disputed), you can start vote in the talk section here tog get consensus if you want to make this big change--Havsjö (talk) 12:59, 30 January 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Infobox stuffing 

message: Pls note that France dropped out of the alliance when it made a separate peace with Germany in June 1940. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 09:49, 13 July 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: France as a state did, but 'Free France' refers to the French forces which were still fighting under the French flag, under the nominal command of the French government in exile. They didn't suddenly become British just because they were fighting alongside them. Calling this a "British victory" ignores their contributions, and also ignores the contributions of Australia, which became effectively an independent state in 1901. "Allied victory" is more encompassing, more accurate, and more neutral. (89.241.52.147 (talk) 23:53, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

text: ...No it really isn't. Not unless you can explain why. (88.108.251.15 (talk) 19:57, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

text: Unless you can back your claim with reliable sources it is OR and invalid. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 20:30, 23 July 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: You can't just accuse someone of a fallacious argument and then say "no, the burden of proof is on you". Why is the argument special pleading? It isn't in the slightest. This was an Allied victory, since it involved Free French troops, who were fighting under the nominal command of the French government in exile. Unless the Liberation of Paris is now somehow an Anglo-American victory too? (88.108.251.15 (talk) 14:33, 24 July 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Again, this also ignores the contributions of the Australian troops - Australia was an independent nation at this time. (88.108.251.15 (talk) 14:34, 24 July 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Chris Chant terms this an Allied victory https://cmchant.com/operation-compass/ (88.108.251.15 (talk) 14:41, 24 July 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recent edits 

message: A mass of Italian prisoners is hardly more representative of Operation Compass than the earlier pic. I'd put a map there instead. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 15:46, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok does cite mean references. Infomanfromearth (talk) 11:48, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

text: done http://ww2timelines.com/1941/january/01121941.htm was the source for it on January 1941 so i used that one. Infomanfromearth (talk) 11:57, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks babe; if you have a reference from a book, that would be better. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 12:00, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recent edits