Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Archive 2

North American wars
I was just looking around at some of these projects...this one seems to be one I'd like to help out with :) I could do some of the North American ones, like the War of 1812, since I wrote a bunch of stubby articles about that war. Adam Bishop 14:00, 6 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Question regarding this project: Military Operations
Greetings all.


 * My question is simple :
 * &mdash; should Military Operations be part of this project or a project apart?

I'm thinking of proposing a new project regarding military operations and would like to know the opinions of other Wikipedians before writing it.


 * For example, the Project Tree would be something like this :
 * WikiProjects
 * WikiProject Military
 * WikiProject Military Operations
 * United States military operations (an article)
 * "U.S. Army Rangers operations" (an article with a timeline of the unit's operations, each operation will have a brief summary to avoid duplications)

The project will rely on experts reviews and advise of former soldiers / combatants. There will be a protected page on the Wikipedia namespace with a list of credits of experts that reviewed the project. However, the article itself will be –as it should be– available of edits by anyone.

The credits' page will inform that the experts reviewed the article on a certain date, and that the article may have changed since his former review. By doing this, we will create a "trusted" point of view on the article, and at the same time protect the expert's integrity. They will not point out personal experiences on the article, they will just give a nod or refuse to the articles' validity.

For example, one credit could be:


 * 1) Doe, John (January 1, 2004). Article review, data submission, and data confirmation. Former combatant on Operation Desert Eagle. Private First Class at the time (retired).

Where "January 1, 2004" is the date where he reviewed the article and "combatant" is the combatant's unit or branch's name at the time of the operation.

Before you start pointing out issues, have in mind that former combatants are usually eager to comment on the operations/battles they served in, as they beleive it is their duty to pass out the history of humankind so that future leaders don't make the same errors. If asked to, these men and women are capable of expressing a neutral point of view regarding the matter.

Feel free to move this discussion to User_talk:Maio/Proposals/Military Operations.

Thanks for your replies and concerns regarding this,

--Maio 00:26, Jan 13, 2004 (UTC)


 * An interesting idea, but a nonstarter for several reasons. First off, if a page is protected, who is going to get permission to modify it? Second, how do you verify the claimed credentials of the experts or participants? Third, why would you give any special credence to the opinions of the participants? It is practically axiomatic that eyewitness accounts of combat are often faulty, as witness the WWII reports of Tiger tanks everywhere, when later research usually shows there was absolutely no possibility that any were at the reported location. Fourth, if anybody can edit a reviewed page, then any reviews from before the edit are invalidated - after all, the edit might have changed "did" to "did not".


 * But the #1 problem is that WP is not a primary source and does not do original research. Getting input from participants is what historians do as part of their research work; they then write the results into a book and publish it, at which point we have something that we can use here. For instance, I have a lot of first-hand experience with the GNU project, but can't add it to WP until it's been published elsewhere first. (See No original research.) Stan 18:10, 14 Jan 2004 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your reply Stan; I totally missed out that policy, thanks for pointing it out. I have several questions now regarding this, would you please email me? I checked your Talk page but didn't find any info, my e-mail is on my talk page. I guess I will just propose the usual project formal, but for military operations instead of battles. Thanks again. --Maio 18:32, Jan 14, 2004 (UTC)

Colour schemes
I understand it has been suggested that battles from different wars or regions use a different color in the taxobox. Whenever this is formalized, please make certain it is reflected at Taxobox (where there has been discussion about duplicating colors between projects and such). Tuf-Kat 02:44, Feb 5, 2004 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure if we actually have a system, except for the suggestions...personally, I've followed those, using grey for Europe, yellow for Asia, and pink for North America. But I'm not sure if that's official or anything. Adam Bishop 06:18, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I've been using grey because that was the colour used in the first box I copied as a template. Personally I would like to be able to group battles by conflict, rather than geography (or as an alternative to). I think this makes sense for global conflicts with lots of battles. If we want to adopt a scheme, perhaps we using a pale background colour with black text for battles categorised by geography (the current "scheme") and a dark background with white text for battles categorised by conflict. See First Battle of Krithia for my proposed WWI colour scheme.

Also can we agree the current battlebox template should be accepted as the standard? If so, we should promote it to the main project page. And probably make a wiki table markup version of it. Geoff 06:38, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * I agree. But then I created most of it so I'm biased. :) --mav

Way too many conflicts to have any sort of meaningful color scheme. IMO, we should stick with the continent/ocean set-up. --mav


 * I would only recommend using the conflict scheme if there were a large number of battles involved. Would someone be more interested in knowing that the Battle of Romani was in Egypt or happened during World War I?  Personally I like the colour of mud being associated with WWI... Geoff 11:44, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * But people do not normally land on articles at random - they follow links. Thus any WWII battle will be linked from a WWII-related page (the 'before' and 'after' links being one set of such links). That bit of info has already been established. So yes, it would be useful to know in which part of the world a battle happened during a world war. And everybody is going to have their own favorite war and will want to have colors for their conflict as well. I don't think that will be useful. --mav


 * Fair enough. The proposal is gracefully withdrawn.  I'll come up with some provisional colours for the remainder of the geographic scheme.  Feel free to modify it. Geoff 21:14, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * I like your color scheme. :) But we should discuss what "Ocean" is defined as. IMO it would be any battle that is mostly fought outside of the 12 nautical mile territorial limit of any nation on a continent. Alternatively, we could use the 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone of continental nations as part of the definition. --mav


 * I've got no experience with ocean battles. I'll add your possible definitions as notes for the "Open ocean" category.  I just realised my "Europe" example (Battle of Naupactus (429 BC)) is a sea battle.  I'll change it to Battle of Lützen (1632) to avoid confusion.  Geoff 22:00, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)

The Oceania2 color does not fit with the others. It is a strong (IMO obnoxious) color while the others are pastel. --mav


 * Most of these are up for grabs anyway until someone comes along and writes a battle entry using them. I've made the scheme a bit more consistent in tone but some of them are a bit close to one another. Geoff 23:45, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Naupactus was a sea battle, but sufficiently close to land that it should probably be considered a "Europe" battle. But now that I think of it, I'm not sure what to consider a naval battle, since they are almost always fought near land in some way. Maybe battles that actually have a body of water in the name...but then, say, Battle of Lake Erie, or Battle of the Coral Sea, were close to land. (I can only think of the Battle of Atlantic as one that wouldn't fit.) Adam Bishop 00:29, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * One option would be to have an alternate colour scheme for sea battles. So for North America land battles we could have black text on pastel red and for North American sea battles we have white text on dark red.  The light-on-dark sort of matches the scheme used for Taxobox. Or this is just making things needlessly complicated... Geoff 01:17, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * Please just make it simple: Use the continent/Ocean scheme for all battles. If most of a battle was fought on any body of water, then the text in the filled headings would be white. But keep all the fill colors the same. That way people know, at a glance, that Battle X was fought in/near continent Y and was a naval battle. --mav


 * White on those pale colours doesn't work too well. I guess we leave it as a single scheme for land and sea battles. Geoff 10:11, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * How about medium to dark blue text on the pastel color for sea battles near land? Gentgeen 11:38, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * Hm. That just may work! Maybe we could have navy blue for sea battles and a lighter shade of blue for lake/river battles. --mav


 * I've modified Battle of Naupactus (429 BC) as a test using "color:blue". It makes the heading look a bit like a link which might be a problem.  "color:navy" is a bit hard to distinguish from the black of land battles.  Geoff 23:41, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * It is not underlined, so it does not look like a link to me. Perhaps a slightly lighter shade than navy then (dark blue)? BTW, I've used a blue text color for elements that are liquid at room temp. See mercury (element). Seems to have worked fine so far. --mav


 * I've defined a scheme using #2222cc for the blue. Paler than "navy" but not as bright as "blue".  We'll see if anyone uses it... Geoff 02:25, 7 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Air battle colour scheme
Next question. What about purely air battles, such as the Battle of Britain or the Doolittle Raid? I'd suggest a grey or silver text over the appropiate color. Gentgeen 07:29, 7 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * I've got a battle box up for the Doolittle Raid using #2f4f4f for use in air battles. Any comments? Gentgeen 18:24, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * Just a question (unrelated, I suppose), is there a reason the picture captions are dropped for this project? RadicalBender 18:33, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * I find #2f4f4f a bit dark to distinguish from black. Perhaps #0084c4 .  Also should Battle of Jutland become the example using the "open ocean" scheme? Geoff 01:24, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Wiki table
On my browser (Konqueror 3.1.3) the 'Battle before' and 'Battle after' lines are left justified to the text. But I see it works fine on Galeon 1.3.8 though (a Mozilla-based browser). --mav


 * I like the idea of just using the "|+" markup for captions. It keeps the whole template pretty simple.  There's nothing wrong with left-justification either, as long as it's consistent. Geoff

I'm not very fond of: Possible definitions of "open ocean" are any battle that is mostly fought outside of: - the 12 nautical mile territorial limit of any nation on a continent - the 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone of continental nations Instead, I'd suggest that blue is used for every naval battle. The reason that it is often hard to determine what the exact distance of a fleet, let alone both fleets, was from the closest cape.

Also, cannt we right align the troops and casualties? TeunSpaans


 * If you like. Geoff

Btw, Gsl, what did you have in mind for the image? We don't have art images of many battles, I'm afraid. TeunSpaans


 * My interpretation is that if there's an appropriate image, include an image. If there isn't, don't.  For some of the Gallipoli battles (2nd Krithia, Lone Pine, the Nek) there are associated paintings made by the official artist (I think) so I included those.  If there's nothing appropriate, I leave out the image.  The caption and image are optional, as far as I am concerned. Geoff 00:02, 8 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * I think 'll leave them out. I don't like them, they add no real info, and artists impressions are rarely accurate. TeunSpaans 16:07, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Example article

 * I'd suggest one of our featured articles, Attack on Pearl Harbor, which has no battle box, but that could be fixed; Battle of Aljubarrota, which has an older version of the battle box, again easy to fix, or First Battle of the Stronghold, which is a small battle that not many people have heard of, so might not generate much interest. Just my nominees. Gentgeen 19:58, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Battle of Iwo Jima on the Main Page
Anybody want to create a battlebox for it? ;) --mav
 * Done. Gentgeen 11:23, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * Cool - thanks! --mav

Battlebox images
On reflection and based on others comments, I am wondering whether the image should be removed from the standard battlebox template (Battle of Lützen (1632) at the moment).


 * It doesn't have universal support (some like it, some don't)
 * The image doesn't have a caption
 * It can be hard/impossible to find a suitable image
 * It complicates the template if most of the time you have to delete the image row

We could point to Lützen as an example of a battlebox with an image but I now think the standard template and its example shown on the project page should be image-free. Any thoughts? Geoff 09:21, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * An image should not be required at all...if there happens to be a related image, that's fine, but that will be a very rare case, I would think. Adam Bishop 15:03, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * The first image for any article has many of the same issues. Simply add a caption, find a better image, or just leave the image cell blank (so somebody else can come along and add an image later). But images are important in that they make articles look nicer and thus help get the interest of the reader. --mav 03:02, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

WikiProject Wars infobox
Interesting infobox based on the battlebox at American Civil War. There also was an idea for a per-nation war navigation footer table too, but the author reverted herself for some reason (see this diff) Please direct discussion to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Wars. --mav 02:58, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Battle of Sävar and Ratan
Just want to say, I upgraded the article Battle of Ratan and Sävar with the new info box. I also fixed the erroneous causality numbers (basically a mix up between total KIA and KIA in Ratan), I also found a very precise source for the causality numbers. Kinslayer 21:07, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

Naming coventions for battles in the same place
I've moved the Indian wars question to this section as it is about the same thing. Philip Baird Shearer 05:31, 18 May 2004 (UTC)

Battles in the same place (was US Indian wars question)
I've been doing some work on the US Indian Wars, and I was wondering what the naming convention was for a particular case. In the Modoc War there were too battles called by the same name at the same place, one in January and one in April of the same year. Any help would be appriciated. Gentgeen 09:23, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)


 * When battles have the same name and are part of the same conflict then usually the first battle has First appended to the name and the second battle has Second. --mav 09:45, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)


 * That's what I was planing on doing, but wanted to make sure. The current naming convention is Battle of PLACE (year), so you have Battle of Ticonderoga (1776) and Battle of Ticonderoga (1777) for the first and second battles at Fort Ticonderoga in the American Revolutionary War.  If I was to follow that convention, then I'd have Battle of the Stronghold (1873) as the titles for both articles, but might use Stronghold (January) and Stronghold (April).  I prefer First and Second myself.


 * On a side note, how was your trip to almost Oregon? That's a long drive for an Angelino, about 13 hours, right? Gentgeen 10:14, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)


 * The (year) disambiguation is to distinguish betweeen battles by the same name in different conflicts. My trip was fine but from where I live it only took half that long. --mav

Battles in the same place and year. eg Second Battle of Zurich
I wrote a small stub for 2nd Battle of Zurich because Jean-Baptiste Drouet (Napoleonic soldier) fought in it. I used a link I found on the André Masséna page. But now that I know about this page :-) I have a question.

The battle is known as the Battle of Zurich II or the 2nd Battle of Zurich so how should the page be entitled, as Zurich I and Zurich II took place only 3 months apart in the same year 1799 and the second battle was over 2 days? Philip Baird Shearer 05:21, 17 May 2004 (UTC)


 * There don't seem to be any instructions regarding numbering battles. Perhaps something should be added if there is agreement.  I have always used "First Battle of...", "Second Battle of...", "Third Battle of..." and I think that spelling out the number rather than using "1st", "2nd", etc. is preferable for the main article.  That said, it probably makes sense to create redirects to cover the alternative.  I've also seen "Battle of First..." titles too (Battle of First Bull Run).  I guess the article should use the most common name for the battle so if "Battle of Zurich II" is the way it is usually named, put the article there and redirect to it with "2nd Battle of Zurich" and "Second Battle of Zurich".  If there have been other battles of Zurich, then the 1799 battle articles/redirects should have "(1799)" appended to the title.  A "Battle of Zurich" disambiguation page should be created to cover all the possibilities. Geoff/Gsl 23:54, 17 May 2004 (UTC)


 * I should also mention that when you create a battle disambiguation page and fix any article links that point to it so that they now point to the correct, unambiguous battle, the disambiguation page should be added to Links to disambiguating pages so that it doesn't appear as an orphan. Geoff/Gsl 04:59, 18 May 2004 (UTC)

I think all that you have written is sensible. I did a quick WWW google on Battle Ypres and it seems to be listed every which way. So if the battle is usually listed by number and not year, unless there is accepted alternative then "First Battle of..." seems to be the way to go. My only quibble with what you wrote above would be, that if there are 2 or more battles in a year or the battle lasts into a new year, then the month(s) as well as the year(s) should be included in redirects (as in the Ypres page).

As two diffrent authors have had the same problem, I think that there should be something added to the WikiProject Battles page to give others guidance for three cases: Philip Baird Shearer 05:31, 18 May 2004 (UTC)
 * A good example are the battles for Ypres as there a number of battles and they also have other names (eg Passchendaele).
 * Also what to do if there are two English names for the same battle and the names are contentious eg Bull Run/Manassas.
 * Battles like First and Second Battle of Zurich where they occur on the same year.


 * Some thoughts... For the sake of the person who one day will write articles for the twelve Battles of Isonzo, I agree we should decide on a naming policy.


 * I like the policy that an article about a battle is obviously an article about a battle. That's why I (have come to) prefer Battle of Gallipoli as the article title, despite the fact that no one actually calls it that (instead "Gallipoli", "Dardanelles Campaign", "Battle of &Ccedil;annakale", and so on).  However, given that anyone searching is going to type in one of the latter, these have to be redirects or have links to the battle article.  For the same reason, I would prefer "Passchendaele" to be at "Third Battle of Ypres", especially considering it itself contained the First and Second Battles of Passchendaele.


 * I've tended to use the most common name for a battle so, for the 1917 Battles of Gaza, they are First, Second and Third Battles of Gaza rather than Battle of Gaza (March 1917), Battle of Gaza (April 1917) etc. Likewise the 1915 Battles of Krithia.  Because its the most common name, its the way people tend to link to them (though in this case, I'm the only one linking...)


 * Another problem is battles with the same name in different theatres, such as the Battle of Hill 60. In this case, the articles have some geographic location in brackets to distinguish them.


 * My attempt at some rules:


 * A battle should be known by its most common name
 * A series of battles of the same root name in the same war/campaign/offensive (eg., "Battle of Gaza") should be distinguished by prepending "First", "Second", etc. unless this breaks the first rule (such as the 1916 "Battle of the Somme")
 * Battles of the same name in a different war/campaign/offensive should be distinguished by appending the year (and possibly month, if same year) in brackets.
 * Battles of the same name but referring to a different place should be distinguished by appending the location in brackets
 * Where the battle has more than one common name, the article is at the most common name and the alternative names are redirects
 * For each battle root name there should be a disambiguation page linking to all derived battle names
 * Where the battle name is contentious, I don't know...


 * My "battle naming" experience is mainly from WWI battles, so I could be missing at lot of the subtle problems. Geoff/Gsl 23:38, 18 May 2004 (UTC)

Categorization question
Should naval battles be in both Category:Naval battles and Category:Battles? If so, should all battles be in Category:Battles? Currently WWI & WWII battles are in their own sub-categories. Geoff/Gsl 04:20, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * No, the general rule is that articles should be placed in the most specific applicable categories. The category hierarchy represents the fact that all Category:Naval battles are also Category:Battles too. No doubt one day there will be a feature to expand sub-categories. Gdr 14:10, 2004 Aug 9 (UTC)

A job for you guys
World War II wikireader/articles is a list of articles to be used in the upcoming WIkipedia World War II reader. It is to include (at least) the following battles:
 * 1) Battle of Berlin (complete)
 * 2) Battle of Britain (complete)
 * 3) Battle of Dunkirk
 * 4) Battle of France
 * 5) Battle of Guadalcanal (complete)
 * 6) Battle of Iwo Jima (complete)
 * 7) Battle of Kursk
 * 8) Battle of Leyte Gulf (complete)
 * 9) Battle of Midway (complete)
 * 10) Battle of Monte Cassino
 * 11) Battle of Moscow
 * 12) Battle of Normandy (complete)
 * 13) Battle of Okinawa (complete)
 * 14) Battle of Peleliu (complete)
 * 15) Battle of Savo Island
 * 16) Battle of Singapore
 * 17) Battle of Stalingrad (complete)
 * 18) Battle of Taranto
 * 19) Battle of the Bulge
 * 20) Battle of the Coral Sea (complete)
 * 21) Battle of the Kasserine Pass
 * 22) Battle of the Philippine Sea (complete)
 * 23) Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands

Many of those articles are lacking complete battle-boxes, if any at all. I've been trying to do them all myself, but it's slow and tedious work. I'd appreciate whatever help you guys can give me. &rarr;Raul654 15:56, Aug 6, 2004 (UTC)

header obsolete?
The project page says:
 * All battle entries should begin using the header

It seems to me that this header has been made obsolete by the category system and shouldn't be recommended. The category system is more flexible and easier to maintain.

I propose to remove this recommendation from the project page. Comments? Gdr 14:13, 2004 Aug 9 (UTC)

Yeah, I think that's obsolete now too. I think it was used very rarely anyway - I usually forget to include it. Adam Bishop 16:57, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Strongly agree. &rarr;Raul654 17:46, Aug 9, 2004 (UTC)

Should the header instruction be replaced with an instruction to categorize the battle? Should we be instructing people to place new battles in the Category:Battles category? Geoff/Gsl 22:53, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * Category:Battles will get too big if all battles are added. The category system means that we can subdivide things along several axes, for example:
 * By war: Category:World War II operations and battles, Category:Battles of the Second Punic War etc
 * By country involved: Category:Roman battles, Category:British battles, etc
 * By type: Category:Naval battles, Category:Sieges, etc
 * By period?
 * Battles that don't fit neatly anywhere else can go in Category:Battles. Gdr 23:04, 2004 Aug 9 (UTC)


 * What is the recommended category naming scheme? We have "World War II operations and battles" (based on which I created Category:World War I battles).  Category:Second Punic War battles is OK, I guess, but Category:Napoleonic Wars battles is not as nice as Category:Battles of the Napoleonic Wars.  Should we be consistent?  Does it matter?


 * How keen are we to categorise all battles by country? Some coalition battles are going to require a lot of categories.  Should country categories be sub-categorised, such as Category:British World War I battles?


 * Categories are wonderful things but organising them makes me very confused... Geoff/Gsl 23:14, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I wrote a section at WikiProject Battles explaining how to categorize battles. I think that we can use the hierarchy of categories to avoid having to categorize each battle by countries involved. For example, we don't need to put the Battle of Agincourt in "Category:English battles" because Battle of Agincourt belongs to Category:Battles of the Hundred Years' War which in turn belongs to Category:English history.

I renamed some categories so that World War II is now the only one that doesn't fit the naming scheme. I will change that too but there are a lot of battles so it will take a while. Any comments? Gdr 14:09, 2004 Aug 10 (UTC)


 * Excellent work. Thanks very much for tackling it.  In the case of the history categories, there are some "military history" sub-categories that are probably more appropriate, such as Category:Military history of the United Kingdom rather than Category:History of the United Kingdom.  Perhaps use of a "military history" sub-category should be encouraged.


 * Is it worth having Category:Battles by conflict (if that's not tautological) and Category:Battles by nationality (for things like Category:Swedish battles) so that that top-level Battles category only has a few sub-categories: by-conflict, by-nationality, naval battles, sieges, fictional battles? Geoff/Gsl 22:42, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * Category:Military history of the United Kingdom seems wrong for, say, the Battle of Hastings. Would Category:Military history of England would be better? Or should the category system not worry about such historical distinctions between countries? I see there's also a Category:British wars which is well used but ill-named as it includes some non-British conflicts like the Hundred Years' War. This seems like a tricky issue and maybe one for WikiProject History to sort out. I'll query this at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject History.


 * As for Category:Battles by conflict and Category:Battles by nationality, I don't object. If you do implement it, please update the diagrams at WikiProject Battles to reflect your recommendations. Gdr 11:14, 2004 Aug 11 (UTC)


 * I didn't mean to suggest UK military history should replace English (military) history. Just that battles go in the military history category, if there is one.  As for conflict/nationality sub-cats, I'll give it some more thought. Geoff/Gsl 11:37, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I should have said that you're quite right: if there is a Category:Military history of X, then clearly categories of battles or wars involving X should go there rather than directly in the parent Category:History of X. Gdr 12:36, 2004 Aug 11 (UTC)

Just to let you know, I will be deleting this very soon. - Ta bu shi da yu 06:57, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Image captions revisited
I accept that captions on the signature images are necessary. Can we establish a style that makes them a bit less ugly than the plain text? My suggestion is something like centred, 90% font-size and perhaps some sort of background colour, as below:

Also, I think a requirement should be a maximum of two, or perhaps three, lines in the caption. Geoff/Gsl 00:02, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * That looks fine to me. You might consider using CSS for this, for example by writing
 * class="battlebox-image-caption"
 * instead of
 * style="font-size:90%;text-align:center;background:#eeeeee"
 * together with the appropriate CSS. Gdr 14:11, 2004 Aug 10 (UTC)


 * I have no idea how to implement a CSS class in the common stylesheets. It would certainly be nice if it was possible.  I can put the style in a template (like Template:BattleboxStart) but these only work in tables with  which isn't ideal. Geoff/Gsl 06:16, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * Looks good to me. --mav 07:20, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Infobox Battles template


Now that piped links appear to work in parameterised templates, I've made a battlebox template at Template:Infobox Battles which hopefully solve the some of the battlebox styling problems, seeing as we can just modify the template to get a new style.

At the moment I've just used one parameter for the image but it might be better to have a separate caption parameter to try and encourage people to write a caption. Geoff/Gsl 05:56, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * I tested this out on Battle of Agrigentum - it works well, but if there is no image (and it seems that in the majority of battles there aren't), there will be a blank line at the top. The template also forces you to use "battle before" and "battle after", which I tend not to do (although I probably should!). Adam Bishop 20:52, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * Oh, another problem seems to be that you can't change the heading colours for naval battles - see Battle of the Lipari Islands. I managed to force the colour with font tags, for the name of the battle itself, but I couldn't do it for the "combatants" heading. Adam Bishop 21:07, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

For naval heading colours, all you need to do is include the entire "style" text so:


 * background:#cccccc;color:#2222cc

for a European naval battle. The thing I couldn't work out how to do was have a parameter value with an equals sign "=" in it. So to set the heading colour, the simplest was is to use style="" for land and naval battles, instead of the old bgcolor="" for land and style="" for naval.

There will always be an empty cell at the top if there is no image. It's exacerbated at the moment because I've used bottom padding to try and separate the caption a bit. We can always remove it. I consider the template a work-in-progress until there's agreement to use it so feel free to make any changes you like.

There's no way to leave out unused parameters that I know of. We could have a series of battlebox templates; with/without image, with/without before/after battles. To switch from using one to another in an article would be a matter of editting the template name and adding or removing the necessary parameters. Or we can wait for the day they add conditional parameters to templates, which might be never. Geoff/Gsl 05:06, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * Ah, thanks! I'll go back and fix those naval battles then. Conditional templates would be a good idea, although I'm not sure that's possible. Having more than one template might make things overly complicated...I think it's alright for now. Adam Bishop 06:08, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and separated the caption from the image parameter. If anyone thinks this is a bad idea, say so soon. Adding/removing parameters or changing their names will be a hassle once the template is used by more than a handful of articles. Geoff/Gsl 06:45, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * It was a bad idea. Having two blank parameters in an empty table cell makes it overly tall.  I will change the template back. Geoff/Gsl 06:51, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * The separate caption parameter is now a good idea again. I put image & caption in a nested table with zero padding.  Seems to look OK with or without image & caption or with image only. Geoff/Gsl 10:03, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

One more issue. According to Infobox templates, I should have called the template Template:Infobox Battle rather than Template:Infobox Battles. Should it be moved or do we live with my mistake? Geoff/Gsl 10:31, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * Nah, it's fine this way. Adam Bishop 16:55, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Another question - can the "battle before" and "battle" after templates be incorporated into the table somehow? Sometimes they look like part of the text of the article, rather than part of the box. Adam Bishop 16:21, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * How about there (after "conflict", before "date")? It's easy to put them anywhere in the table by editing Template:Infobox Battles. Gdr 17:07, 2004 Aug 16 (UTC)

Battle before/Battle after
On two articles recently nominated as featured articles, I found the use of the "battle before" and "battle after" entries rather strange (the Battle of Verdun and the Brusilov Offensive have little or nothing to do with the Battle of Jutland), and confusing in the case of Battle of Leyte Gulf, which lists the Battle of Leyte as preceding, while the battle actually started a few days before the sea battle, and the victory at sea allowed the battle on land to continue fully, lasting for two months after the Battle of Leyte Gulf.

Although the entries are purely chronological, this is not clear from the context, and even if it was, some of the entries are of little relevance. I would therefore suggest to add an entry with "related battles" to the box, and remove the "before/after". Jeronimo 20:24, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * I have another problem with the before and after. In the Waterloo campaign 1815, (Napoleon's 100 days) there are 4 battles. June 16, Ligny and Quatre Bras. June 18, Waterloo and Wavre
 * For the French Ligny and Quatre Bras preceded Waterloo
 * For the French Ligny preceded Wavre (units fighting at Wavre did not fight at Quatre Bras)
 * For the Prussians Ligny preceded Waterloo and Wavre
 * For the Anglo-Allies Quatre Bras preceded Waterloo
 * How should this relationship be documented in the Boxs?
 * Also is it possible to put in a "simultaneous battle"?
 * Philip Baird Shearer 21:41, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * If there's no sensible sequence, I suggest having an alternate template that dispenses with the before/after parameters. I wouldn't bother trying to represent simultaneous battles -- the before/after is more of a navigation aid than strictly chronological representation. Geoff/Gsl 22:32, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I wrote up four proposals for improvements to the battlebox that would address Jeronimo's concerns. Please take a look at WikiProject Battles/Battleboxes and comment here. Gdr 17:33, 2004 Nov 5 (UTC)
 * I prefer the "Campaign" proposal. It is brief yet links to related and relevant other battles. The options have too much information, generally; I don't think that is needed, and we can't link everything. The article behind the "conflict" link should provide enough information to find other related campaigns. Jeronimo 20:06, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I prefer the "Campaign" proposal well. For the two World Wars then Theatres on top of campaigns can be imposed. But apart from those two wars, even large ones like the Napoleonic wars tend to map to campaigns. It gets away from the fact that while the Peninsular War (and other campaigns) were going on while Napoleon was campaigning elsewhere, so battles in chronolical order do not work well for the whole of the Napoleonic Wars. I suggest that the battles in a campaign box are listed chronologically as much as is practical and not alphabetically. Gdr if you have the time perhaps could you try out the idea on the Waterloo Campaign because it is only four battles but in a complicated sequence and a lot of people watch the Battle of Waterloo and I am sure they will give you feed back if the idea does not meet with their approval!

There is one problem with it that I can anticipate, sometimes the campaign is different for the two sides of a battle, so deciding which campaign a battle falls into might prove tricky. As an extreme example, with the way Wikipedia is structured at the moment, the Siege of Leningrad falls into two different wars, the badly named Eastern Front (WWII) and the Continuation War. So I am not sure what one would put into a campaign box for that one. I am not expert on theses boxes, so I hope this is not a foolish question, but would it be possible to put more than one name into the campaign section to cover situations like this? Or perhaps in these execptional cases like this would two campaign boxes be needed? --Philip Baird Shearer 22:12, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * I implemented the "campaign" scheme for the Waterloo campaign. Let me know what you think. For battles that fall into two campaigns, there could be two campaigns in the battlebox. (The Eastern Front of World War II is of course not a campaign, but a theater. There were at least 30 major battles on the Eastern Front and many (perhaps hundreds?) of minor ones. So for the purpose of these boxes we should break it up into campaigns, e.g. Barbarossa, Leningrad, Moscow, Blue, Stalingrad, Citadel, ...) Gdr 00:47, 2004 Nov 6 (UTC)


 * It looks great. I was unaware you could nest templates in templates.  Will we need a blank Template:Campaignbox for those battleboxes which don't have a campaign box?  Or do we have two templates, one with the campaign box, one without? Geoff/Gsl 00:54, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * I was imagining that pages without a campaignbox would go on using Template:Infobox Battles, but an empty Template:Campaignbox would work too. Gdr

The idea is even better in your implementation than it was in your description. I'm not sure, but think that the the campaing box might look better at the top of the battle box (below a picture if one is there) rather than the bottom. Could you convert one of the Waterloo battle boxes, so that we can compare? Philip Baird Shearer 02:57, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * OK, done. Gdr 11:35, 2004 Nov 6 (UTC)

I not sure which is better. But putting it at the top suggests that the "Conflict" line needs adjustment. What do others think? Philip Baird Shearer


 * I prefer it at the bottom, or at least it should come after the battle is introduced (name, date, location). I know the conflict and campaign parameters could be consolidated but that's moving towards one of Gdr's other proposals.  There's usually a conflict article that can be easily linked but constructing the campaign may not be so easy.  As it is, the campaign, image and caption parameters in the battlebox should be optional without upsetting the appearance of the box. Geoff/Gsl 21:42, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * I prefer it at the bottom too, so I moved it back. Gdr 14:31, 2004 Nov 7 (UTC)

The "campaign" section of the battleboxes is a big improvement, but is there any way we can have more than one campaign? For example, I have just created Fall of Rabaul. Someone has since changed the campaign from New Guinea to "Pacific Campaign 1941-42", a category which I think suffers from the problems Phillip alluded to above, i.e. it the individual battles don't really relate to one another. To me the fall of Rabaul was really the beginning of the New Guinea campaign and it is also significant in the Solomons campaign, but I didn't know how to add that in. Is it possible? Grant65 (Talk) 23:41, Nov 9, 2004 (UTC)