User talk:Ryan.opel

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Hello, Ryan.opel, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful: I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes ( ~ ); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place  before the question. Again, welcome! Calmer  Waters  17:27, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
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Exact date of unit formation by title of article
Hi Ryan, thanks for your work on the Soviet rifle divisions. Just wanted to hilight I've reversed an edit of yours here. The title of the page is 85th Motor Rifle Division, and that formation was formed in 1957. If the page title was 85th Rifle Division, 1931 would be correct. Otherwise we have at the category page 85th MRD appears to have formed in 1931, which of course is incorrect. Cheers and Merry Christmas, Buckshot06 (talk) 06:22, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Please don't hesitate to ask for any help regarding the Red Army, either to me or to User:W. B. Wilson. Kind regards Buckshot06 (talk) 00:05, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for doing up the 41st and 57th. I have noted your concern re 45th Army and will fix that - it's on my too do list. Buckshot06 (talk) 05:41, 16 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your assiduous re-ordering of the infantry divisions of the USSR after 1957. However, after 1957, and especially after 1965, they form one series only - no divisional numbers were repeated. Take a look at List of Soviet Army divisions 1989-91, which follows the most authoritative Russian source, V.I. Feskov et al 2004. No Russian source separates divisions by Guards/non Guards after 1965. I can flip you a copy of Feskov should you wish, and it's actually surprising easy to follow if you know the rough order of battle. Would you consider following the order at the List of Soviet Army divisions article? Kind regards Buckshot06 (talk) 06:27, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Just wanted to thank you for all your hard work on Red Army cavalry divisions. Thanks !!! Buckshot06 (talk) 06:00, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

9th Tank Division edits
Hello, saw your edits this morning. Will you restore the citations I provided from Feskov's work? I can put them back in if you wish. Also, not sure what these weapons should be: "730th Antitank Battalion (12 8mm towed guns)." -- perhaps 85-mm towed antitank guns? Also, this may be a useful link -- shows the 9th TC with T-34/85's at the time of the Battle of Berlin. W. B. Wilson (talk) 06:45, 28 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Added back in your edits. Thought I'd gotten all those when I did it.  Thanks for the feedback. Ryan.opel (talk) 07:41, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

4th Army during Barbarossa
Hi Ryan, I've just had to reverse this edit. I very carefully copied out those statements cited from John Erickson's first book on the Eastern Front - one of the best sources then available. Should you wish to change the reporting of the division identity, you'll have to remove the entire section and cite it to something else, otherwise you are saying that Erickson is reporting a div identity which if someone looks up the book, they'll find is wrong.

You can see the original section I cited, thanks to Google Books snippet view, at

I'm not sure which division identity is correct, but we *must* report citations accurately, otherwise WP:RS is in danger. Kind regards Buckshot06 (talk) 00:30, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Couple of sources. First is the wiki page for 12th RD which states "At the beginning of the German invasion of the Soviet Union, it was stationed in the Blagoveshchensk area, and did not participate in the fighting on the Eastern Front of World War II. ".  Second is 42nd Rifle Division "With 28th Rifle Corps of 4th Army, Soviet Western Front in June 1941 and defended the Brest Fortress until wiped out in July 1941." Third is Craig Croofoot's Armies of the Bear which lists 12th RD as being in the Far East and states "On 22 June 1941, the Division was in the 28th Rifle Corps, 4th Army, Western Front, and was stationded in the fortress at Brest."    I have John Erickson's book, however it just got packed for my move so I can't go check the original text from the hardcover.  I can do cites from the sources I listed later his week. Ryan.opel (talk) 01:41, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
 * First, we cannot cite Wikipedia, so using the 12th RD page is of no help whatsoever. One can use the sources cited at that page, but not statements without sources.
 * Second, as I say, I'm not too worried about the division identity, but I am *very* worried about misattributing sources. Should your sources (plus possibly BSSA via tashv.nm.ru) indicate that the division identity seems wrong, then change away - but make very sure you remove all the Erickson text and citations. Buckshot06 (talk) 02:48, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

37th Army (Soviet Union)
One part of the 37th Army unit history that is interesting is that after the Germans were pushed out of Romania, this army was moved into Bulgaria near the border with Turkey and remained there for the rest of the war. Maybe I am making too much of this, but I find this deployment interesting considering the difficulties the Soviets had subduing the Germans in Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Cheers, W. B. Wilson (talk) 17:26, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Mid-Ocean Escort Force
Thank you for you interest in subject article. I am inclined to revert your last edit, but wanted to explain my reasoning and give you an opportunity for input before I took such action. As explained in the 5th paragraph, the organization started with fourteen escort groups rather than the sixteen described by your expansion to include the duplicated B-6 and B-7 groups which replaced the initial A-4 and A-5 groups. B-6 and B-7 groups are described in subsequent paragraphs which omit the American groups they replaced. Would you object to restoration of the original format? Thewellman (talk) 19:27, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I deleted the entries for B-6 and B-7 under the Initial MOEF Escort Group Composition section but left them and the links to their wiki articles below that.Ryan.opel (talk) 22:03, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

Soviet divisions
You may be interested in a discussion currently taking place centred on my talkpage about Soviet divisions. Buckshot06 (talk) 01:49, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Merry Christmas
Merry Christmas Ryan, and thanks for all your hard work over the last few weeks. Regarding disambigs for Soviet armies during the Russian Civil War, the convention is that they refer to the state, not a reference to the Army, and 'Red Army' existed under the Soviet Union from 1922. Thus suggest the state that they were actually fighting for from mid 1918 - the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic. That's a mouthful, so would suggest, eg, '18th Army (RSFSR)'. Have a great day !!
 * Do you want to coordinate our efforts a bit more, and fix all the Armies without articles first? There aren't many more left to do... Buckshot06 (talk) 02:38, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Buckshot06 Sounds like a plan. I show 16 armies needing completion.  I'll take 42, 48, 50, 53, 60, 61, 65, 69.   Can you do: 54, 55, 56, 57, 59, 66, 67, 68?  Ryan.opel (talk) 16:28, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I'll take responsibility for those armies if you like, but I meant working on one army at at time together - happy to start on 42nd Army. Above 60 you will note I have removed all the (Soviet Union) disambigs - unless we know there are other 61st Armies etc we don't need them, in accordance with the disambiguation rules. Buckshot06 (talk) 20:47, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
 * We can work together on them Let's get started on the 42nd.  China goes up into the upper 60's.  This shows up to the 68th which served in Korea. Ryan.opel (talk) 22:23, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

42nd Army
Do you mind if I mainspace at least the intro paragraph of your draft? Buckshot06 (talk) 02:05, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

5th Army (Russia)
Hi Ryan. Wouldn't it be best to start a new article on the present-day 5th Army in the Russian Federation ? All events before 1989 can be added in the article 5th Army (Soviet Union) and all events after 1989 in the new article. What do you think ? Regards. Filiep (talk) 17:55, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Filiep. Certainly a viable option.  The general problem and why it hasn't been done is generally the lack of information on Soviet and Former Soviet units after WW2.  We are starting to get more and more information on the WW2 activities of the units but other than basic locations, post war and post breakup information is difficult to find, even in Russian let alone English or any other language.  If you think there is enough info to split the article go ahead and do it, if not I advocate for the article title to reflect it's current name and then have redirects for older names. Ryan.opel (talk) 18:22, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

User:Ryan.opel/48th Army (Soviet Union) and others
I noticed that you some old draft at User:Ryan.opel/48th Army (Soviet Union) and others that were later created in mainspace (48th Army (Soviet Union), etc.). Would you mind either redirecting the pages to the current versions or requesting a history merge for them (or even delete, you can just ask me as I'm an admin)? The pages still show up in Category:Stale userspace drafts and other backlogs I'm trying to reduce. Thanks! -- Ricky81682 (talk) 21:31, 23 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Marked a couple of pages for speedy delete. Been busy with other stuff but I'm getting back into writing soon.  Thanks for the heads up. Ryan.opel (talk) 22:44, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

I took these off the Stale Draft project list. Legacypac (talk) 07:03, 26 March 2016 (UTC)


 * 1) User:Ryan.opel/1st Guards Cavalry Corps
 * 2) User:Ryan.opel/61st Army (Soviet Union)
 * 3) User:Ryan.opel/68th Army (Soviet Union)
 * 4) User:Ryan.opel/Barvenkovo-Lozovaya Offensive
 * 5) User:Ryan.opel/Brest Offensive
 * 6) User:Ryan.opel/Demyansk Defensive
 * 7) User:Ryan.opel/Demyansk Offensive
 * 8) User:Ryan.opel/Kalinin Defensive
 * 9) User:Ryan.opel/Kalinin Offensive
 * 10) User:Ryan.opel/Kingisepp-Luga Defensive
 * 11) User:Ryan.opel/Odessa Offensive
 * 12) User:Ryan.opel/Rzhev-Vyazma Strategic Offensive
 * 13) User:Ryan.opel/Soltsy-Dno Offensive
 * 14) User:Ryan.opel/Staraya-Russa Offensive
 * 15) User:Ryan.opel/Svir–Petrozavodsk Offensive
 * 16) User:Ryan.opel/Tallinn Defensive
 * 17) User:Ryan.opel/Vyazma Defensive

new Soviet army units articles
Hello, Ryan.opel. Comrade Buckshot06 said you were part of the Red Army editors group. Today, I created 12 new articles of Soviet army units that took part in the invasion of Poland. They are all corps and from the order of battle list. Please help to expand. My ability to read Russian is very limited (I normally do Chinese and Japanese articles). Zee money (talk) 13:13, 20 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Cool, put the list of the pages you did on my home page under working and I'll move them up on my things to do list.Ryan.opel (talk) 14:58, 20 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Here are the articles:

All of them need a lot of improvement, starting with the fact that almost all of them don't have references and omit the later GPW-era reformations. Kges1901 (talk) 21:19, 20 April 2017 (UTC)
 * 2nd Cavalry Corps (Soviet Union)
 * 3rd Cavalry Corps (Soviet Union)
 * 4th Cavalry Corps (Soviet Union) - I have already started expanding this
 * 5th Cavalry Corps (Soviet Union)
 * 6th Cavalry Corps (Soviet Union)
 * 5th Rifle Corps (Soviet Union)
 * 11th Rifle Corps (Soviet Union)
 * 15th Rifle Corps
 * 16th Rifle Corps (Soviet Union)
 * 17th Rifle Corps
 * 23rd Rifle Corps (Soviet Union)
 * 25th Tank Corps (Soviet Union)

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Wikitable error
Thanks for adding a table to List of Forgotten Realms modules and sourcebooks. Maybe it is just my browser, but the table is showing up in the wrong place, even though it looks like it should not be? I tried to fix it, but I could not force it into place. 73.168.15.161 (talk) 14:50, 22 December 2018 (UTC)

363d ISR Group
I see you rolled back two of my edits on this page. These edits (unlike yours) gave a reason for making them. Please review WP:OVERLINK before adding links to pages that have already been linked in an article. If you believe that there is a reason for the multiple links, it would be appropriate to start a discussion on the talk page – or at the very least give a reason for multiple links to the same article in an edit summary. --Lineagegeek (talk) 22:28, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Lineagegeek Sorry that was a mistake. I must have clicked it by accident.  I understand overlinking but "Duplicate linking in stand-alone and embedded lists is permissible if it significantly aids the reader."  Linking in the list of stations means the reader doesn't have to go search through the article for the link to where they were stationed. Ryan.opel (talk) 23:25, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm aware of the exception for lists, but my opinion on its usefulness in the station list differs from yours. Seems like the appropriate thing is to apply the "Ig it ain't broke, don't fix it" rule and leave it at its earliest version in the article (if that can be found).  --Lineagegeek (talk) 21:11, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

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