Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tank Aces


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. Consensus is that this is a content fork of "Panzer ace" in popular culture. Discussion can and perhaps should continue whether that article is appropriately named...  Sandstein  08:36, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

Tank Aces

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This is fundamentally a dictionary definition. TheLongTone (talk) 12:27, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

I wrote the article, and I think I probably agree with the points raised here - I think it's better to merge this article with the Panzer Aces in popular fiction retitle it to Tank aces and make it cover all tank aces from various countries, not just German tank aces. Deathlibrarian (talk) 12:33, 13 October 2016 (UTC) No idea why this article has been included here fo AfD. Searching on the term brings up many hits in Google. The term is used by various books in discussion of the various historical tank aces, including the book "Tank aces: from Blitzkrieg to the Gulf War". There is any number of Tank aces.... in fact, I am wondering why there is no article on it already. Deathlibrarian (talk) 12:33, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Merge (Changed my vote to Merge) -
 * Yeah. Which is why you wrote this article. I'm not saying that the term isn't used; I'm saying that there is nothing to say on the subject that cannot more usefully be included in another article. There is of course Panzer Aces, an article probably justified by the fetishisation of the Nazi Military.TheLongTone (talk) 12:44, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Well, I guess we will have to agree to disagree, I think there is enough to substantiate it. Deathlibrarian (talk) 12:53, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Deathlibrarian's above comments appear to be deliberately misleading: this is a POV fork spun out of the history of the article they suggest merging it into. The material was rejected from that article after various discussions. Nick-D (talk) 23:26, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Nick-D As mentioned below, I have no idea what you are on about. I've researched some new material and included it from Robert Kershaw's book "Tank Men", Is there something wrong with that? Can you please elighten me and give me a link to this discussion of rejected material that I am supposed to know about???  Deathlibrarian (talk) 08:51, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
 * and where the material you added was removed (with you reverting the first removal). The material on the claimed number of tanks destroyed you tried to add to the previous article has been recycled in this article, along with material taken from the original article (including the complete misrepresentation of a source I added which I've removed in these edits - the source explicitly says that the wartime US Army didn't recognise "tank aces" and the author has written that the whole concept is nonsense). See also Talk:"Panzer ace" in popular culture and Talk:"Panzer ace" in popular culture (the two threads immediately before the one you started). Nick-D (talk) 09:01, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
 * So you are talking about the various web references that refer to the number of kills for the german tank commanders? You will note I raised this as an issue on the pages talk page, and *no one*, including you, had any issues with it, or even replied - . I came to the page, and did my original searches online to find that material, and then added it. As I told you, I wasn't aware it had previously been rejected, if that's the case. I told you before, I don't go and read the history of every page before I come to it to add material. Someone raised the point that the web references were innappropriate, and then following their removal, (which was fair enough) I spent *a lot of time* finding recognised book published sources which I inserted. Once again, as you are an admin, I would have assumed you were aware of this policy Assume good faith before accusing other editors.Deathlibrarian (talk) 22:29, 16 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. K.e.coffman (talk) 14:19, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Military-related deletion discussions. K.e.coffman (talk) 14:19, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Popular culture-related deletion discussions. K.e.coffman (talk) 14:19, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Germany-related deletion discussions. K.e.coffman (talk) 14:19, 13 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete and redirect to "Panzer ace" in popular culture as an unneeded & POV WP:FORK and/or recreation of Panzer ace moved at a recent AfD. Please see Articles for deletion/German tank aces. Sample content:
 * "The concept of the Tank Ace, during the war was mainly used by the Germans. The Germans were involved in large amounts of tank combat and had a number of successful Tank Aces that were highlighted for reasons of propaganda. The British (...) did not use the term tank ace because no individual British tank commanders acheived large numbers of destroyed enemy tanks." Etc.
 * K.e.coffman (talk) 14:18, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I don't understand this.... are you saying the Germans were the only people to have tank aces? During the war Germans and Russians mainly highlighted their tank aces, but after the war literature discusses tank aces from various countries, including people like Poole (from the US) and Sydney Valpy Radley-Walters (from Canada) Deathlibrarian (talk) 21:37, 13 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete, but... This is a mess, and I don't just mean the article under discussion. Clearly, this article is a content fork of the other article. I hate to speculate on editor motives, but I'd presume that it was created out of an objection to the "in popular culture" retitling over there, and that's understandable. Frankly, I think that editorial decision was... unhelpful (and not entirely accurate; the 1943 Hoo Hsien-Chung reference is not really a "popular culture" reference). The handful of legitimate historical issues aside, we don't name articles like that one is named, even for primarily-cultural topics. If this were entirely up to me, I'd delete Tank Aces as a content fork and move "Panzer ace" in popular culture back to Panzer ace (because that's clearly the WP:COMMONNAME in preference to Tank ace, which should redirect). The article's content makes it clear that the concept is largely an ahistorical romanticization of WWII tank combat; we don't need to use the title as a brute-force instrument to make that point. However, I strongly suspect that were anyone to unilaterally make those moves, it would evoke some discontent. A discussion at requested moves or an outright RFC on the article naming is probably wise. In any case, the version currently under discussion here at AFD, is duplicative and inferior, and we delete content forks. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 16:42, 13 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Comment Guys deleting this doesn’t make any sense. How can you delete a broader category (tank aces) and keep the narrower category (German tank aces)? Were the Germans the only ones that used tanks? If anything, the Panzer aces page should be renamed Tank Aces and info about the other tank aces from other countries no longer excluded. Frankly, the fact that the concept is only addressing German tank crews seems to be a WP :BAL issue... isn't it? I'll note that even Wikipedia uses the term, for two Russian Tank aces, Dmitry_Lavrinenko and Zinoviy_Kolobanov and there is at least one book on Tank aces, that covers tank aces from various countries, from ww2 to the modern era - "Tank aces: from Blitzkrieg to the Gulf War". I understand that German tank aces (people like Wittman destroying 150 tanks) were a lot more succesful than "western" allied (like the top American tank ace, Poole, who only destroyed 15). However, the top Russian aces destroyed around 50 tanks or so and were recognised with awards during the war, so fairly comparable...so I don't see any reason why they should be excluded.  Deathlibrarian (talk) 21:37, 13 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete Apart from the WP:CWW-issues: The term "Ace" was not used in German military contexts at all. It surfaced well after WW II in some military history books for the popular market (with publishers like Motorbuch). The term brings up many google hits, because it has been used in amateur military historiography. But is there any reference in material published in reputable peer-reviewed sources or by well-regarded academic presses, in completed dissertations or theses written as part of the requirements for a PhD, which are publicly available? (WP:SCHOLARSHIP) So far I have seen none. And neither did I read the term "Panzerass" in any German primary source, including propaganda. Not only the British and the Americans did not use "the concept" (whatever that means), but neither did the Germans. Thus an article which poposes that such a "concept" actually existed during WW II is historically inaccurate. Once again I argue that the diverse articles on fighter, submarine, tank and other military aces should be wrapped up to become Ace (military).--Assayer (talk) 02:40, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment So should the "tank ace"article should be changed to cover post WW2 use of the term "tank ace"? Of which there is quite a bit, including .....our own Wikipedia articles which use it.... Running a search on "tank ace" gets 258,000 results on Google Deathlibrarian (talk) 03:48, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete and block article creator This is a bad-faith POV fork of what's now the "Panzer ace" in popular culture article, which was itself subject to an AfD which was closed as keep 3 days before this article was spun out of its history. There's been a consensus in previous discussions concerning the main article that the material on 'Successful Tank Aces' and the like was rubbish as the whole concept is based on no or bad references, and this article appears to have been created to reinsert it as factual claims rather than as a popular culture concept, which is how serious works treat it. Deathlibrarian, this is awful and highly disruptive conduct. Nick-D (talk) 23:21, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Nick-D- mate you need to get off your high horse and give me an apology. If you check my history, and that of the page, I have had very little to with the Panzer aces page, and all the history/shenanigans associated with it. I only came across it recently, and started adding in some references. I knew the "panzer aces in popular culture" article was there when I created this one, but as far as I was concerned, from the rather odd title, it seemed to be specifically about *german* panzer aces, and how they appear in literature (?). I was writing a broader article about Tank Aces from all nations....and that's about the third time I have explained that, so may be you should actually read the comments before you start casting aspersions about wikipedia contributors. People are allowed to create new articles on wikipedia, they aren't always aware there is some big backstory to a page when they create one.Deathlibrarian (talk) 03:39, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
 * This article recycles content which you tried to include in the "Panzer ace" in popular culture article, as well as material added by other editors to that article. You have edited that article no fewer than 71 times, which actually makes you the second most frequent editor of it both in terms of edits and the amount of material included in those edits. Nick-D (talk) 06:08, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
 * As I said, I have only been on "Panzer ace" in popular culture recently...for the last 5 weeks, CHECK THE HISTORY OF THE PAGE, and most of my edits are in *one section*...I had just been finding references for German tank commanders... because that section had a note on the top of the section asking for references, so I added a whole lot to help out the article (and my comments on the talk page were about that section). I have not been involved in any of the discussions about the politics of the page... you can check the history to confirm that. I was not involved in the discussion about the deletion of the page either. And yes, I did add some material, from the German tank aces page to my new page, because, not suprisingly, one page is about "German tank aces in popular media" and the one I wrote is about "tank aces"... so of course there is *some* cross over. May be you should check your facts, and read this policy before throwing accusations around about people, because people trying to contribute to Wikipedia don't deserve to be treated like shit Assume good faith...... Deathlibrarian (talk) 06:42, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete (and also "Panzer ace" in popular culture). Tank ace and Panzer ace are meaningful terms, but where the line is to be drawn between aces and other tank commanders seems to be to be a POV issue.  I would see no difficulty in principle with converting the article(s) into a definition + a list (table), and that list might include a the number of kills, but if an individual is notable he will have an article, which can be included in an appropriate category for WWII tank commanders by belligerent country.   "Popular culture" articles and sections used to exist when I first worked on WP about a decade ago.  They attracted large amounts of NN trivia, but were deleted en masse, long ago.  We should not encourage the revival of such trivia.  Peterkingiron (talk) 16:21, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment based on people's suggestions... I have suggested that the ("Panzer ace" in popular culture) be retitled to "Tank Aces" on that page, any material here that is worthwhile can be transferred to that page, and this page can therefore be deleted. If you support this, or have objections, that conversation is here Deathlibrarian (talk) 21:45, 18 October 2016 (UTC)


 * I'd incline to go the other way, keep the in popolar culture, any non-ww2 stuff could be included in tank warfare. (just to be difficult!)TheLongTone (talk) 22:10, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
 * So put a section on tank aces in the tank warfare section?Deathlibrarian (talk) 23:57, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Your welcome &#124; Democratics Talk 11:43, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete "Truth is the first casualty of war." There is no reason to think any of the records of "tank aces" are accurate and the whole concept seems to be made up after the fact, as the related articles make clear.  The "tank ace controversy" then turns out to be a minor item which should be mentioned somewhere, but not have its own article.Kitfoxxe (talk) 22:54, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment Not sure if the term was used during the war, but post war, the concept certainly has been....and is not simply "made up". It's referred to in a range of various books, its been used by newspapers to refer to the various tank aces including Poole, Radley-Walters, Wittmna, and Bach. It's used in documentaries, it's also even used by Wikipedia itself, to refer to the various tank aces, for eg on the pages for Michael Wittmann, Lafayette G. Pool, Dmitry Lavrinenko and Sydney Valpy Radley-Walters and others. As for your comment that the records of tank aces are not accurate, that is the opinion of some historians it would seem, but there is no general opinion from Historians that the German records are generally innacurate, certainly not to the degree that they still wouldn't have qualified as a "tank ace" Deathlibrarian (talk) 02:48, 24 October 2016 (UTC) Most importantly, it's a legitimate concept that the average user and would come to wikipedia expecting to find encyclopaedic information, about at least. Deathlibrarian (talk) 02:48, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I was actually thinking as much of the Soviets when I said that. Kitfoxxe (talk) 15:23, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Ahhh, I don’t know how accurate the soviets were, possibly less accurate than the Germans(?). In any case, if you have official reports saying a tank ace destroyed 150 tanks, and they actually only destroyed 130… it’s still indicative of them as a tank ace. Deathlibrarian (talk) 23:47, 25 October 2016 (UTC)


 * "Tank ace" as a concept has not been covered by serious historiography. It mostly likely originated with the publication of Panzer Aces by Franz Kurowski in the early 1990s. The whole "tank ace" concept seems dubious, same as "U-boat aces" and (even) "Infantry aces". The reason I say this is the "tank ace" is not shooting and driving all by himself -- what about the crew? Are they "aces" too? The fact that some popular history writers call certain tank commander "aces" does not mean that the concept exists. K.e.coffman (talk) 04:02, 26 October 2016 (UTC)
 * K.e.coffman Not sure what you regard as "serious historiography" but the concept and term is discussed by a number of books, that would meet wikipedia guidelines and WP:RS. You can run a search on Google Books and you will find a number of books that use the term. In addition, at least one of these, Robert Kershaw's books "Tank Men: The Human Story" *is* reliable historiography and discusses the term (as referenced in this article). Deathlibrarian (talk) 12:13, 26 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Mergeto "Panzer ace" in popular culture. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 09:25, 27 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Merge to "Panzer ace" in popular culture - for my previous reasons, as above. Deathlibrarian (talk) 05:06, 28 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I've stricken the duplicate !vote above. K.e.coffman (talk) 16:22, 28 October 2016 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.