Talk:152 mm howitzer-gun M1937 (ML-20)

self propelled mounts
Why is the Kv-2 not under self propelled mounts? the ML20 was used int he KV-2--174.0.51.118 (talk) 01:06, 26 August 2009 (UTC)


 * No, KV-2 mounted the 152 mm howitzer M1938 (M-10). Bukvoed (talk) 07:28, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Recent rename
Can I ask why was the article moved from "152-mm gun-howitzer M1937 (ML-20)" to "152 mm ML-20 field howitzer" ? (Same question about 37-mm air-defense gun M1939 (61-K)). Bukvoed 16:06, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Same question from me. The previous name was fine, and was a good translation of the official Russian name. Balcer 16:36, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
 * O-oh, The Old Guard said its word :-). I am also for returning the previous name. LostArtilleryman 16:44, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Firstly, I believe that we would need to make some sort of naming convention for Soviet/Russian weapon systems, and the artillery systems in particular. It is quite obvious that these names have been taken from some Russian language text. Firstly, the current version is overly complicated. The article names are right now a mix of different designation systems! I suggest that we start with naming them with caliber, then weapon system, and finally name, like "122 mm howitzer D-30". Alternatively, the GRAU system could be used if that is more familiar for the system in question. The system with model and year could be dropped altogether from the header, but mentioned in the first paragraph with bold text.
 * Secondly, the metric system should be written with a separating space in English, not with a hyphen like it is done in Russian (i.e. "122 mm", not "122mm" or "122-mm"). See --MoRsE 07:58, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Just to illustrate the current situation - we need to clean up and systemize the artillery systems here! --MoRsE 08:19, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

07:58, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, as a Russian artilleryman, I can say that Soviet/Russian designations were the subject of change several times. E. g. official Russian name for the D-1 howitzer in 1943 was 152-мм гаубица обр. 1943 г. - 152 mm howitzer M1943 will the English direct analogue. But in everyday language this name is difficult to say. So more brief developer index such as D-1 was used. So, Russian historians in their books (Shunkov, Shirokorad) use the cumbersome concatenation of official name and developer's index in parenthesis. In ruWiki, where I am one of artillery articles supervisor, we shared this approach but only for WW2 pieces. After WW2 'model 19XX' designation in new Soviet artillery pieces was dropped and developer index was instated instead. So 122 mm howitzer D-30 or 152 mm gun-howitzer D-20 will be correct English translation. But older pieces never renamed! For the end of their operational life they designated in official texts such as ballistic tables with their WW2-era name. For ML-20 English equivalent is 152 mm howitzer-gun M1937. No field attribute. It never has it at all. Either highly official 152 mm howitzer-gun M1937 or informal but also official ML-20 were used in Russian practice. Only 100 mm BS-3 officialy had 'field' attribute. And today, indices were again changed. In Russian Army everyday talk the names such as Acacia, Msta, Nona is used and GRAU indices were added in some cases. So nonformal but quite common concatenation 2S19 Msta-S is used in descriptive texts including ruWiki ones. LostArtilleryman 08:23, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Thank you for clarifying this. The most important thing is that we can get some order among these. I added some suggestions in the table above. Please correct them if you like. --MoRsE 08:58, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I offer to divide Soviet/Russian artillery into three naming categories. First category is a pre-war and WW2 pieces. I agree drop into the article name developer index, but model IMHO must retain. For example, 76 mm divisional gun M1942 will be right translation from the Russian official name for 76-мм дивизионная пушка обр. 1942 г.. This is a name which used in manuals, ballistic tables etc. But the problem is in the rarely historical conversational usage of such name. Ziska, ZiS-3, Divisionka is colloquial names for the piece. Of course, all of them we can describe in a first passage of the article 76 mm divisional gun M1942 (official designation) or ZiS-3 (developer designation, also official) is a WW2 Soviet... and so on. It seems to me include developer index in parenthesis for better "compatibility" with primary Russian sources and ruWiki, but if majority will agree with the names without developer index (by default, we have it as redirect), I will not protest, this is a conditional and disputable matter. The second category is most simple - postwar Soviet guns. They have official names like 122-мм гаубица Д-30 and 122 mm howitzer D-30 is a perfect name for the article in enWiki. Modern ordnance is more difficult to name. When I was in Army, I did not see any manual for modern SPG howitzers, only for towed ones such as D-30 or D-20. In conversations we called machines by name, e. g. Where is Capt. Ivanov now? He is on exercises with his battery of Acacias (not 2S3). But in ruWiki we have an agreement: articles about "flowers" and "rivers" are called with GRAU index first and then the Army name - 2S1 Gvozdika. But modern towed pieces officially retain old order but developer index is replaced by GRAU one, e. g. 152 mm gun 2A36. And I guess, the official name of SPGs will be something like 152 mm self-propelled howitzer 2S3 without Acacia, but this needs to be checked and verified. Another topic for discuss is Katyusha MRLSs. This name is common one for definite set of combat machines such as BM-13, BM-13N, BM-13SN, BM-31, BM-8-24, BM-8-48. LostArtilleryman 09:27, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Okay, I have tried to update the list. Could this be accepted? (please correct the list if you find something that is wrong there). Also, I am a user of the AWB tool, so I could do the changes relatively easily, as soon as we agree upon some sort of naming convention. --MoRsE 13:13, 14 May 2007 (UTC)


 * This is a very interesting discussion, which should probably be moved to a more general place where more people can contribute. We have Naming conventions (ships) and  Naming conventions (aircraft), maybe we should start Naming conventions (weapons).  Already plenty of good editors had to waste a lot of energy and nerves over naming (one example I remember well was the discussion over Talk:Kb ppanc wz.35).  Setting up formal conventions would make life easier.


 * Until such conventions are developed, all I can offer is my personal opinion. I could accept the above list. Still, in my opinion the previous title, 152-mm gun-howitzer M1937 (ML-20), was better.  It seems to me that in a Wikipedia article we do not have to use the official name of the thing described for the article title, instead the goal is to choose the title which makes it most easy for the reader to find the necessary information.  To give one example, the article about Panzerkampfwagen V Panther is under Panther tank. Same goes for Tiger I and Tiger II.  The place for the official name or names is in fact in the first sentence of the article, and that is where it is located in the articles about those German tanks.
 * To repeat my point, in my opinion the article title is just a tag to allow the reader to find information with maximum efficiency. Think of a reader who is scanning the list in Category:World War II Soviet guns, trying to quickly find the information about a gun he heard about somewhere. The title 152-mm gun-howitzer M1937 (ML-20) will serve him best here, I think.Balcer 02:10, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree with Balcer, but I also agree with changing 122-mm to 122 mm, more usual for the English/American reader. In the proposed new names table there are some inconsistencies - M-30 is a WW2 piece, so English equivalent for the official name is 122 mm howitzer M1938, for D-20 there is no буксируемый in official and common Russian name, so 152 mm gun-howitzer D-20 is better variant. I see that gun-howitzer and howitzer-gun is not a adopted term in English, but these words are the official terms for some ordnance pieces in Russian practice. Why we shall drop it? Moreover, even the order of the howitzer and the gun words had sense in Russian artillery history - first type is more correspondent to the piece design features. But, I've mentioned above, Balcer is right when the talk is about finding the particular piece in a roll. Both names are official, I remember by the way and none of them are too familiar for the most of enWiki reader such as Tiger or Panther tanks case. So including developer index in parenthesis is good thing IMHO. But this question should be definitely considered by more participants, Balcer is right again. I can not take the responsibility solely to define the naming rules. LostArtilleryman 04:08, 15 May 2007 (UTC)


 * 1) I have no problem with replacing a hyphen with a separating space.
 * 2) IMHO we should use gun-howitzer and howitzer-gun where these terms appear in the Soviet/Russian designation.
 * 3) I'm not sure about including the development index.
 * 4) As already mentioned by LostArtilleryman, in case we decide to drop the development index, it will be more consistent to name the article about M-30 122 mm howitzer M1938. Same with ZiS-3 - 76 mm divisional gun M1942.
 * 5) As for asking for more opinions... I'll give a link to this discussion here: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Weaponry task force.
 * Bukvoed 08:36, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Designations of Russian towed artillery - here some facts to make the right decision. LostArtilleryman 11:43, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I also have no problem with replacing the hyphen with a separating space. Maybe one compromise would be to include the development index only for those cases in which it can be shown to be widely used in English language literature (for example ZiS-3 and ML-20. Balcer 12:07, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Good luck with that. The article names for Japanese artillery and naval artillery are named after all sorts of fashions, without the slightest attempt to coordinate them all (the last time I looked, anyway). It was suggested years ago that this should be fixed, but AFAIK no action has been taken. You have some like Type 96 25 mm AT/AA Gun - that is the actual title of the article. Never mind that all the other IJN weapons are measured in cm, not mm, or that "AT/AA" is cumbersome and ugly, nor that the capitalization is wrong. People have been questioning the suitability of that title for at least 6 years, yet it still stands.

64.222.158.24 (talk) 02:55, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Resume on propositions
Well, after half of week only following participants said their words to the rename discussion topic: Balcer, Bukvoed, MoRsE, LostArtilleryman. All others are inactive, at least in mentioned time period. Now the opinions area is: So, when I'm writing this posting now, the supporters of including developer index have majority of votes. But I offer wait for coming weekend and if there will not be any other votes, make a decision, which is now like 122 mm howitzer M1938 (M-30). LostArtilleryman 04:08, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
 * All four agree to replace Russian xx-mm to more English traditioned xx mm (same for inches, lines, possibly puds and so on).
 * The opinions is divided concerning developer index in parenthesis. Balcer and LostArtilleryman are the strong supporters of this, MoRsE is in strong opposition, Bukvoed will agree with any prevailed point of view.
 * Sounds good to me. Balcer 14:15, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Now, there are now other votes and opinions and I begin renaming the articles to the mentioned above standard. LostArtilleryman 03:47, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Gun-howitzer
Sorry to come in late. To add to the above, gun-howitzer is a correct English term, and I believe it would be the correct translation of the Russian howitzer-gun. (Do the two terms g.-h. and h.-g. have different meanings in Russian?) See howitzer. —Michael Z. 2007-07-17 05:49 Z 


 * In Russian "howitzer-gun" is an artillery system where howitzer features dominate over gun ones. ML-20 is a good example of howitzer-gun: it has a good elevation but moderate muzzle velocity. "Gun-howitzer" means vice vesa case, where gun features dominate over howitzer ones. When A-19 gun was introduced, it often referred as gun-howitzer - it has moderate elevation (45 degrees, but it is equal to elevation of WW1 Russian short barreled howitzer) and high muzzle velocity. LostArtilleryman 06:14, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

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