Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Weaponry categories

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[edit] Categorisation

"It is recommended to avoid using the conflict where the weapon served as a basis of categorization. The weapon may have been phased out very early, arrived very late, used only in highly limited quantities, served very little action and/or been in multiple conflicts."

I can agree with these objections, but I have to say that I don't like categorisation by decade either, especially in the case of categories like German World War II tanks. With per decade clarification, you get the panzer I-IV in one category and the Panther, Tiger and Koningstiger in another, rather then grouped together.

How many people will be interested in knowing about German tanks between 1930-39 rather than German tanks in World War II?

My proposal: keep the per decade classification, but also maintain the "World War II country weapons" classification.

--Martin Wisse 05:30, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The problem with the dual categorization is that both trees for such are very large and cumbersome (each category has roughly three parents and they have about three parents and so on. Do this several times (say for a vehicle that was in WWII, Vietnam and Korea and likely several other smaller conflicts and it's overwhelming)). We're also trying to standardize with the current plane categorizing system.

I do agree with you in the belief that people will also want to locate via conflict, but I think templates and listpages are sufficient.

What I propose is a compromise: On the Category Information Section (CIS), the part of the category which users can edit, we include relevant lists and templates (for example: On Category:German tanks (1930-1939), we'd include a link to list of World War II German tanks and the template that's on those pages. Oberiko 12:38, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)

That certainly is a compromise I can live with. --Martin Wisse 23:54, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

May I suggest that when categorizing ships that care is taken when catgorizing entire classes? An entire class of ships often serves over multiple decades and in multiple wars. The Fletcher-class was built for World War II. All the ships were built in the 1940s. Many ships were scrapped shortly after 1945, but others served for years and decades beyond. The last Fletcher decommissioned in 2001 after service in the Mexican Navy.

Also, other classes are built over decades. PCU George H. W. Bush is currently in Category:Nimitz class aircraft carriers and therefore in Category:U.S. Navy aircraft carriers (1970-1979) and she hasn't even been built yet. Jinian 01:47, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Guided missiles

I have proposed a series of guidelines for guided missile categorization which can hopefully be adopted as a guideline by the project. Josh 18:58, 7 February 2006 (UTC)