Template talk:Infobox Military Unit

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[edit] Data elements to include

I have reviewed several other infobox templates for country-specific military units, and here's a list of information elements. The template can be designed so that most of these are optional.

• Official name ("3rd Battalion, 2nd Brigade, 4th Army")
• Nickname(s) ("The
• Unit code (3B,2Br,4A) or something like that
• Regime (allegiance?) it serves under (usually country)
• Command structure it is part of (might be a link)
• Branch (army, navy, air force, space corps)
  • Size (typically range)
• Existence years (better than founded and disbanded dates, as sometimes units are resurrected)
• Shield graphic
• Colors
• Motto
• Notable actions (with links) - could include victories or defeat
• Current commander and his/her rank
• Garrisoned/headquartered location
• Ceremonial chief (in UK, known as "colonel-in-chief")
• Specializations (shock troops, rapid supply)
• Subunits
• March tune

Anything else? --Leifern 14:49, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Notable defeats are not that interesting? Imagine an infobox for the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment without mention of the Battle of the Little Bighorn. This is an encyclopedia, not a fan club. ;-) Seriously, that field should be something like "notable engagements" or "notable actions". --Kevin Myers | (complaint dept.) 15:28, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Hmm. I'm all for including notable defeats. --Leifern 16:27, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Other ideas:

• Replace "Regime" with "Allegiance"? "Regime" doesn't really work for mercenary units.

• Allegiance sounds a little informal. The US 3rd Army isn't merely in allegiance with the United States; but aren't mercenary units always employed by a regime? I'm open to other terms, too.--Leifern 16:27, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

• Not always (see this article, for instance). I was mainly thinking about medieval mercenary bands, which were employed by many different regimes; but I suppose we might just have a different field to use for those, or omit the "Regime" field entirely. —Kirill Lokshin 16:31, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

• Some indication of unit strength?

• Yep - I'll just call it that, and if people want to use different units of measurement (people, airplanes, tanks, etc.), they can modify. --Leifern 16:27, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Other than that, this looks quite nice. —Kirill Lokshin 15:34, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

The latest draft looks very nice! A few more points to consider:

• Should "branch" be optional? It really doesn't apply to most pre-20th century units.
• Do we want a separate "image" parameter distinct from the CoA?

I think, broadly speaking, we could be in a position to try this on some articles quite soon. —Kirill Lokshin 03:35, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

I'll say. Give the word when it's ready. Albrecht 01:26, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Thoughts:

• "Notable Commander(s)" (or whatever phrasing works to that effect) ought definitely to be a field; many units are now defunct, and a great many more have unknown or unimportant current commanders but legendary past commanders. In short: a box for Deutsches Afrikakorps must have a spot for Rommel.
• "A separate 'image' parameter distinct from CoA" is probably a good idea. I think enough units have iconic photographs or artworks to justify this. Albrecht 00:04, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

• • I've already made the CoA into a generic image field; do you think we should have two images in the box? I'm afraid it might get too cluttered. The notable commanders field is a very good idea; the only concern I have is preventing the box from becoming too long, especially if a full-size image isn't used to stretch it to 300px. On the other hand, this could be less of a problem if only some fields are generally used. I suppose we'll just have to try it on some articles and work from there.

I actually had only a thumbnail-sized image in mind for the insignia. Maybe a space at bottom would do (much like the Campaign section rounds off the Warbox)? I've tried out unitboxes in Blue Division and Spanish Legion; they look great! Albrecht 02:07, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

• • On another note, any ideas about the order of the rows would be very welcome. —Kirill Lokshin 00:12, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
    • Nationality has to be higher, perhaps the second or third row. Oberiko 00:23, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

This is a suggestion for fields, esp as regards Candian army units (uning a fictional regiment as an example): THE CIVI STREET LIGHT INFANTRY

• image : the unit crest
• badge: the unit cap badge, if different
• Country: Canada, natch
• Component: Primary Reserve → choices here are Regular Force, Primary Reserve
• Command: Land Force Command → or Air Command, or Information Management Group, etc
• Branch: Infantry → "Branch" in Canada means like Infantry, Artillery, etc
• Active: Since 2005
• Command structure: 13 Canadian Brigade Group, Land Force Nowhere Area → I assume this means your higher formation(s)
• Sub-units: B Company, Kicking Horse Pass
• Size: 5
• Specialization: Unarmed Infantry
• Current commander: Col J. Mufferaw, CD, BVD, 4F, WWJD
• Garrison/HQ: CFB Head-Smashed-In-Buffalo-Jump
• Abbreviation: CSLI
• Nickname: The Casleys; The Fighting Remfs
• Motto: "Sometimes You Feel Like A Nut"
• Unit colours: Pink and yellow
• March: The March of the Smurfs
• Colonel-in-Chief: HM The King of Hearts
• Regimental alliances: The Woking Fusiliers (UK); The Didjabringabeeralong Regiment (Autralia)
• Anniversaries: Regimental Pay Day, February 30
• Notable actions': Battle of Weerthehellarwefontein, 1901
• Notable commanders: Col Johnny Chinook

I think the items should be grouped between the "hard" stuff (size, specialization, HQ, CO, command, etc) and the "soft" stuff (nickname, regt alliances, marches, etc). SigPig 08:03, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

I have just added this infobox on 2nd Guards Tank Corps, and found that it does not include two items that are necessary for Soviet units:

• Decorations': e.g. Order of Suvorov
• Honorific: e.g. "Yelnaya"

In the Red Army, units could receive these decorations, and honorifics were given for notable battles. This was very common, and IMO should be included as an option in the infobox. It is very UK/US centric at the moment in my view, having lots of stuff that applies to these two countries only (e.g. Colonel-in-Chief, or differentiation between crest and badge). Andreas 16:22, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Would be easy enough to add; but I'm not very familiar with what the honorific is. Is it something that might appear in other countries, perhaps under a different name? Kirill Lokshin 16:45, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

It is a sort of 'Battle Honours', but more restrictive. E.g. on the flags of British regiments you usually see all (or most) of the notable battle names embroidered. My guess is that this is what 'notable battles' was meant for. But in the Red Army, the honorific would only be given for very important battles in which the unit played a crucial role, and then it could happen that it only went to the parent unit (in the above case 2nd Guards Tank Corps), and not to the sub-units (e.g. 4th Guards Tank Brigade). If we add a line for 'Battle Honours', that could cover it. Decorations in other armies are e.g. Presidential Unit Citations in the US armed forces. Not sure if other armies than the Red Army and the US armed forces do this. Andreas 16:57, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

I've added a "Decorations" field as well as a "Battle honours" field; will that be enough, or do we need something else to make this work? Kirill Lokshin 00:59, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

That's good enough for me. :-) Thanks a lot Kirill! Andreas 07:56, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Order of data elements

But which should go first? (Personally, I think the "hard" should go first).

Comments? Oh, and belated Merry Seasonsgreetingsmas to everyone. SigPig 08:03, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Interesting idea. On the other hand, many historical units won't have (much) of the "hard" stuff, for the obvious reason that they don't exist anymore. It's something flexible, in any case; we can try playing around with the order until we get it right. —Kirill Lokshin 08:23, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

I am excited about how good this infobox is turning out - truly an example of excellent collaboration. As for the order, we should look at it from the point of view of the typical reader, if we can imagine such a beast. My guess is that he/she would want the formal name, the country, the branch, and the active years. After that comes interesting information, such as garrison location, specialties, etc., and then trivia, e.g., marches, mascots, etc. For visual purposes, I think at least the official crest or insignia should be fairly high up. --Leifern 21:04, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

I've tried to arrange it in that rough order. More playing around is welcome; there are sets of related fields—"type", "branch", and "specialization", for instance—whose order we need to figure out. A guideline for what actually goes into each of them would also be great. —Kirill Lokshin 21:40, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

"Nickname" is probably best up top, as before: In many cases the field will be ignored, but with units that do have famous nicknames (Blue Division, Desert Rats, etc.), having it right below the "official" name is the logical arrangement. Also, "dates" might fit better a few spaces down, to keep it from breaking-up what should be a solid block of related descriptive fields (type, branch, command, size). Albrecht 19:00, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Mascot

Should we include the mascot as an optional element? Part of the trivia section for sure, but it is a little amusing. --Leifern 21:05, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

It's fine, I think—somebody will insist on having one, and we're not inconveniencing anyone else (they'll just ignore that field). —Kirill Lokshin 21:15, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

I will also add patron field. In Polish military traditions, the divisions and regiments usually did not have their mottos, marches or mascottes (apart from the Polish II Corps). Instead, they were (and still are) named after some famous person or military unit. For instance the Polish 1st Legions Infantry Division of Józef Piłsudski. I'm not sure what would be the best wording, so feel free to correct my version. Halibutt 13:53, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Looks good to me. —Kirill Lokshin 16:13, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Colors

I originally intended "colors" (spelled one way or another) to mean the colors of the unit's standard, not the colors of the uniform. It seems to me the colors of the uniform are less interesting than the other type. --Leifern 23:25, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Hmm. I suspect it's one of those disconnects with modern versus historical units. Napoleonic units, for example, had a wide variety of uniform colors but all carried the same standard; I suppose it's the reverse for modern ones. Can we use the field for both? —Kirill Lokshin 23:31, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps we should have one field for each. In all likelihood, Napoleonic (or Continental, or British) units of their pre-camouflage time both had standard uniform colors and colors in their standard. Some of these infoboxes will be pretty extensive when fully populated, though it seems that most don't have marches, mottos, mascots, etc. --Leifern 23:47, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

I was thinking of having both values in a single field, like:

|colors= ''Uniform'': Red and green <br/> ''Standard'': Purple and black

but I suppose we could do two separate fields as well. I just want to avoid getting into a situation where we have 30 or 40 parameters that we need to keep track of. —Kirill Lokshin 00:04, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

For your information, US Army and Marine units - other than Divisions, Corps and Armies - don't have "colors" in the European sense. Most units do have coats of arms. Color-bearing units - and some unique units - have Shoulder Sleeve insignias, while almost all units above the Company level have Distinctive Unit Insignia. Actually, on reflection, this term has to definition for Army and marine units. The "Standard" or "Flag" that Divisions, Corps and Armies bear, the Flag that Regiments and some Battalions bear, and the official Colors assigned to specific Army and marine branches. For example, Infantry are assigned the colors Blue and White, while Transportation are assigned Brick Red and Gold, and Cavalry are assigned Yellow.

SSG Cornelius Seon (Retired) 02:54, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough; I assume the field can just be left blank in articles where it isn't appropriate, though. Is that causing some problem I'm not aware of? —Kirill Lokshin 02:58, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] English

Should there should be "British English" parameters added as alternatives to the US English "colors" and "specialization" fields? Systemic bias and all that ;-) SoLando (Talk) 04:53, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Can one infobox be all things to all people, or will it get too large an unwieldy?If we include all the parameters for UK, US, Cdn, Polish, etc etc...would it be fifty lines long? Or should there maybe be one infobox for each nationality?

F'rinstance, US units may have colors -- so do Cdn units (e.g. Sigs units are French grey and dk blue, Engrs are Dk blue and red, Royal Newfoundland Regt is claret and grey, etc); Cdn infantry regts also have colours -- i.e. Queen's Colour and Regt'l Colour, like their UK counterparts, which are flags as opposed to hues. Some -- but not all -- Cdn regts have facing colours, not unlike the UK's The Buffs, but non-infantry/armoured units do not. Yadda yadda yadda. So you see there can be major confusion there.

So maybe individualized infoboxes, or am I just making things worse? SigPig 05:35, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

One possibility would be to include overridable labels: the box would normally contain "Color: Blue", but if "color_label=Colour" was specified, it would contain "Colour: Blue". —Kirill Lokshin 11:33, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Let's make it "CwE = yes" -- Миборовский ^{U|T|C|M|E|Chugoku Banzai!} 02:38, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Confusing fields?

Looking over some of the articles where this is used, there seems to be some confusion over the distinction among the "Branch", "Type", and "Role" fields. Should we try to make some changes in this regard, or just ignore it and assume people will fix it as we go along? —Kirill Lokshin 03:18, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

The problem is the fact that some military services use the same words for different things. For example: Within the US Army, the word branch means "Branch of Service", which means Infantry, Armor, Cavalry, Adjutant General, etc. At the same time, the branches of the Department of Defense are the Army, Air Force, etc.

I suggest that we use Branch to indicate the Branch of Service, as above, and use the word "Arm" to indicate the specific Arm of Service - Army, Navy, Air Force, etc. BTW, the National Guard is pleural - Air National Guard and Army national Guard, and they are NOT subordinate to the superior Arm of Service. Therefore, they get treated as seperate Arms of Service. Their units get subordinated to the superior arm of service when they are Federalized, but they remain National Guard units regardless of their chain of command.

"Type" should indicate the type of unit within the Branch. Thus, Airborne, Armored, "A" Team, etc.

"Role" should indicate their primary tasks. This can be found in their Mission Statement, and don't forget that National Guard units have TWO mission Statements, and therefore two sets of Roles.

To sum up, we need to add a line for "Arm", above "Branch".

PS BTW, I think ytou need to change the format of the Unit Name field from left Justified to Center Justified. I think that that would dress up the infobox better.

SSG Cornelius Seon (Retired) 22:14, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure adding more fields is the answer here, as it makes it significantly more complicated for older units. Consider the average Roman legion; which of those four (five?) fields would need to be filled in, and with what? —Kirill Lokshin 23:02, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I pity the fool what leaves out the The A-Team -- B.A. Baracus, as channelled by Habap 18:11, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Box is good for British/Commonwealth countries only

Appreciate all of the hardwork done by those here but the bottomline is that this box just doesn't apply to US units. I don't know how to creat info boxs from scratch but I think that there needs to be separate ones created for the US Army and US Marine Corps. As much as we would like to try there is no way that one box can fit every country. Just my thoughts--Looper5920 12:25, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, please be specific what you think is missing. I am a Norwegian resident in the U.S., with a moderate interest in Israeli military units and Continental Army units; I certainly don't think my contributions have a UK bias. We can place optional fields and tags to accomodate a lot of variations. And you'll see there are lots of US military units that use the template, for example: 101st Airborne Division, U.S. 3d Infantry Division, U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment, 7th Signal Troop, among many others. --Leifern 13:38, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Ditto. We can certainly make changes to this box, but you'll have to be more specific about what else is needed. —Kirill Lokshin 14:13, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Would it not be sensible to bring info that I guess is quite country specific (ceremonial chief, march) to the bottom of the box, so that important info like the notable battles can come further up? Andreas 15:32, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

That I agree with. -- Миборовский ^{U|T|C|M|E|Chugoku Banzai!} 02:37, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

My apologies for the vague earlier post. What I should have said is that I would be very interested in working with someone to create an infobox that works for U.S. Marine Corps units. I have created a number of USMC pages. If you want to see the box I have been using please look at my user page and click on any of the links. My own thoughts on a USMC box. Based on the above template Colours, March and Ceremonial Chief would have to go. I would say Role should be changed to Mission and I am hesitant in listing major battles and notable commanders because these could easily make the box longer than the article itself. I am not versed in manipulating infoboxes so I would appreciate any help.--Looper5920 03:01, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, most of the parameters in this template are optional, and can be omitted if not desired. The only real change I can see is the "Role"/"Mission" distinction; I'm not quite sure what the best way to deal with that is (note the "Confusing fields?" discussion above). —Kirill Lokshin 03:18, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

1st Tank Battalion
1st Tanks logo, from www.miltary-graphics.com
Active	1941–
Country	USA
Branch	United States Marine Corps
Type	Battalion
Garrison/HQ	Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms
Nickname	1st Tanks
Motto	No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy
Engagements	Guadalcanal, Peleliu, Okinawa, Desert Storm, Operation Iraqi Freedom

Looper, in looking over your own boxes, I find some of the information unneccessary. For example, in looking at 1st Tank Battalion (which probably needs to be renamed to avoid ambiguity - perhaps as simply as 1st Tank Battalion (USMC)), I don't think you need Description, Readiness, Specialization or Reason of creation. All of that information should be somewhere in the article to allow the viewer to find it, but it's either redundant or obvious for most units.

I'm not sure that Chain of Command should be in the infobox. On the other hand, putting in the notable commanders and battles (not all of each) would allow the viewer to see immediately why the unit is important. --Habap 17:36, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Good points. Maybe we should do away with command structure and put in a "partof" field that would work like the one on {{Infobox Military Conflict}}? —Kirill Lokshin 17:42, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

I would actually be more inclined to keep the command structure in the main box and move the numerous battles to a box like the one you just mentioned.--Looper5920 08:32, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Since I am one of the people who are using the current box, let me put my two cents in. Yes, the current box has a lot of information that is not appropriate to US units, and I've made several of the fields apply to US Units. I will copy one of the boxes I've worked on over here for you to see.

141st Signal Battalion
141st Signal Battalion Coat Of Arms
Active	June 1, 1940-April 26, 1946; March 7, 1951-December 27, 1957; September 24, 1960 -
Country	USA
Branch	Regular Army
Type	Seperate Battalion
Role	Armor
Garrison/HQ	Wiesbaden, Germany
Nickname	"The Communicators"
Motto	"ENSE ET VOCE" (With Sword and Voice)
Colors	Orange and White
Engagements	Algeria-French Morocco; Tunisia; Naples-Foggia; Anzio; Rome-Arno; North Apennines; Po Valley; Defense of Saudi Arabia; Liberation and Defense of Kuwait; Cease-Fire.
Commanders
Current commander	LTC Mark C. Horoho

SSG Cornelius Seon (Retired) 12:58, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Gents, thanks for the help, I like the look of the new box and will begin changing over the pages however there are a few things I still would like to tweak. For USMC units, Base/Station would be more appropriate than Garrison/HQ. Not terms that are used in the USMC. Also I am a big fan of the "Chain of Command" section or something similiarly named to quickly show who is higher HQ. Interested to hear thoughts? --Looper5920 08:30, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, is there some way to have a short name for the "garrison" field that would work everywhere? "Base/HQ" or "Garrison/Base/HQ" maybe? —Kirill Lokshin 16:10, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tartans?

Can we please discuss things before adding new fields? What's the point of having a separate field for tartans when we can already:

• Discuss them in the caption, if the image includes them.
• Discuss them in the identification_symbol field, setting the label to "Tartan".

Or, if we really must have another field, why not make a general field for secondary insignia, rather than one that's, by definition, going to see usage for relatively few countries? Kirill Lokshin 14:42, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I am also very concerned that this field appears to be being used to spam links to a particular site into articles on military units. Kirill Lokshin 14:52, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Relatively few countries? Practically every army in the Commonwealth has at least one unit that has Scottish connections, plays pipes and drums and consequently has use of a tartan. Have you never wondered why there are regiments in the Indian Army, Malaysian Army etc who have pipe bands?? Using identification symbol and resetting the label does not work, because identification symbol is set up for display of TRFs. Most units have a TRF, but not all have their own tartan (as not all have a Scottish ancestry). As for "spam" links, have you not noticed that all the links go to the same website, which provides images of each tartan, thus avoiding the unnecessary hassle of uploading images that may have copyright implications onto Wikipedia. Hammersfan 28/08/06, 16.15 BST

I would have assumed that actually adding the relevant content to Wikipedia would be the better option; many of the tartans on the site include descriptions and historical information, which should be added to the relevant articles here.

In any case: why not have a generic field for secondary insignia? Or must we have a field specifically for tartans? Kirill Lokshin 15:28, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

And, on a more subtle point: if we include a separate tartan field, what's the point of having a tartan_label parameter? Why would this field ever contain anything other than a tartan? Kirill Lokshin 15:31, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Suggested new parameter for military unit infobox

Quick suggestion here - for the military unit infobox, I think a subordinate unit parameter would be a good idea. Obviously, we wouldn't include lettered companies (A Company, B Company, etc) or sequentially numbered battalions (1/501st, 2/501st, etc), but I think it would be quite helpful for showing which units fall under which units, instead of having to search through the text.--Nobunaga24 01:01, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Moved from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history Kirill Lokshin 01:58, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

This doesn't seem like a bad idea, necessarily, but I'm concerned that we'll start to accrue full orders of battle in the infobox—particularly for higher-level commands such as corps or army groups, which have had many subordinate units rotated through them—which will bloat the template. How are we going to define "subordinate units" in these cases? Kirill Lokshin 02:01, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

I would a) keep it to one level below b) for units presently in existence, only the current structure c) for units no longer in existence, perhaps just not use it, or limit it to units "permenantly" or historically assigned to the unit. The same problem potentially exists with the command structure parameter, but bloat hasn't really been a problem with it. I don't think it will become one with this. If it does, we could always eliminate it.--Nobunaga24 02:05, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Another idea as some of my infoboxes are staring to get a bit long, is that alot of the USMC articles go with a Subordinate units section in the beginning of the article. The usual layout is Intro, Mission then Subordinate units. The units are kept to one below and given in bulletized format and I feel it gives a reader a good understanding of what and who they are prior to stepping off into the History, etc... Just my thought. Every service and country seems to do it a little different using what works for them.--Looper5920 02:11, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

If we could generally develop a clear structure for showing subordinated content a lot more than the infoboxes for military units might benefit. Bulleted lists after a header is one possibility, appropriate indention in new lines could be another, furthermore numbered lists might be possible or sth. else. Wandalstouring 02:24, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

As I've been working on a few military units as well, I've often wondered myself how best to handle the situation, especially as the higher-level commands have had many many units rotate through their control. On the flip-side, lower level units like regiments often have a confusing history as well, for which parent unit they were part of. Personally I've been thinking that it would be easier to both understand and implement if the information was included in the historical timeframes, like a bulleted box (or maybe a special template?) for each timeframe/campaign/war, that would say something like "Parent Unit: XYZ Division", "Subordinate Units: 123 Battalions". It would benefit more I think with those "special" units that I've run across, like the various Task Forces of the Korean War, which seem )for the most part) to be a Regiment that had several other units attached to it, like an additional artillery unit, an engineer unit, and usually an AA battery. Trying to follow the "history" of some these units is confusing at best. wbfergus 15:44, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

We may be able to put something like that together based on the campaignbox design, which would allow it to be stacked with the main infobox; that would presumably solve the issue of separate timeframes. Kirill Lokshin 18:22, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Is this becoming a little more than it should be? If a unit is active then their structure is pretty sound sound and shouldn't be moving to much. However if they moved around in the past then that would best be put in the history section. Right? I think maybe I am reading the above wrong...are we talking "Campaign-box" like template for all of a unit's configurations over the years? Will the right side of many units be one massive wall of infobox and template? I guess I am trying to argue for keeping it in a prose format, or at least the body of the article, as much as possible.--Looper5920 19:22, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, either is possible; which one is actually better probably depends on how much information there is to be presented, and should really be decided by the editors of each article, rather than imposed from above. The templates are really just tools; people are free to use them however is most convenient in each case.

(And, just in case this wasn't clear, this would not entail creating actual separate templates for each possible configuration; all that we'd need is a generic template that would allow people to add in a snapshot of a particular place in the OOB (say, one level up and one level down). People would then pass in the correct units into this template directly from the article.) Kirill Lokshin 19:53, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

An example of a confusing hierarchy is 39th Infantry Regiment (United States). While the main unitbox would convey the information about the current structure, you would need to read the narratives in the remainder of the article to determine the command structures in place at that time (war or camapign). Having an infobox-type template that could be added to each appropriate section (World War I, World War II, etc.) so it could be readily seen what the hierarchy was at that pont in time. I imagine as the Army transistions into it's new brigade-force structure that historical lineage will become even more of a can of worms. wbfergus 20:03, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

I'll go with Kirill on this one. Might be good to draw up a template for use. However it's use should be dependent on the page, author, etc... If it is deemed necessary then do it, if not then no reason to add it.--Looper5920 20:12, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Being a newby, I am hoping to add my current unit (4-101 AVN REGT) and its sister and parent units to the 101^st article. Any help or suggestions would be appreciated. You have a great forum here and would not want to intrude. Js02 20:53, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I've reated {{command structure}} as an initial draft; the hypothetical usage seen at right is produced by:

{{command structure
|name=12th Infantry Division
|date=1941–43
|parent=[[XVII Corps]]
|subordinate=[[17th Mechanized Regiment]],<br> 
[[51st Light Infantry Regiment]],<br> 
[[53rd Infantry Regiment]],<br> 
[[107th Artillery Brigade]]
}}

Comments and suggestions would be very welcome! (In particular: does anyone know of a better term for what's being shown than "command structure"?) Kirill Lokshin 02:10, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Looks real good Kirill! Right off hand, I can't think of a better phrase/term than command structure. wbfergus 12:31, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Thinking about it a bit more, maybe a horizontal rule to help separate parent unit from subordinate units, but it's hard telling without seeing it. Have you tried that yet? wbfergus 18:04, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Easy enough; does that look any better? Kirill Lokshin 19:29, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes it does look better. There may be some cases where there is a long parent unit name and the hr will help make for easier reading. Good job and thanks! wbfergus 19:57, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Looks good. Are we going to include it?--Nobunaga24 23:45, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

If nobody else has comments, I'll probably just add it to the instructions in the next few days. Kirill Lokshin 03:40, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Air Force infobox

Is there an infobox to use on air force articles? If not, could someone perhaps make one? Thanks. - Aerobird ^{Target locked - Fox One!} 15:02, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

If you're looking for a regular summary infobox, {{Infobox Military Unit}} would probably be the most appropriate option here; most of the fields apply pretty sensibly to an entire service branch. Kirill Lokshin 16:19, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

'Fraid it's a little too unspecific, methinx. I considered using its code to "roll my own" but when my eyes started crossing reading the code...

Here's a summary of what I think an "Infobox Air Force" should have:

{{Infobox Air Force
|english name= 
|native name= 
|roundel=
|motto=
|country= 
|date formed= 
|date abolished=
|size personnel= 
|size aircraft=
|headquarters=
|nickname=
|colors=
|colors_label=
|march=
|mascot=
|battles=
|anniversaries=
<!-- Commanders -->
|current_commander=
|current_commander_label=
|ceremonial_chief=
|ceremonial_chief_label=
|notable_commanders=
<!-- Major Current Aircraft Types -->
|fighter=
|attack=
|bomber=
|COIN=
|transport=
|trainer=
}}

- Aerobird ^{Target locked - Fox One!} 16:53, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Moved from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history. Kirill Lokshin 17:00, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Let's see...

• english name → use "unit_name"
• native name → use "unit_name" and a linebreak
• roundel → use "identification_symbol" and "identification_symbol_label"
• motto → exists
• country → exists
• date formed → use "dates"
• date abolished → use "dates"
• size personnel → use "size"
• size aircraft → use "size"? or maybe a new field?
• headquarters → exists
• nickname → exists
• colors → exists
• colors_label → exists
• march → exists
• mascot → exists
• battles → exists
• anniversaries → exists
• current_commander → exists
• current_commander_label → exists
• ceremonial_chief → exists
• ceremonial_chief_label → exists
• notable_commanders → exists
• fighter → is this meant to be a number, a list of types, a table, or what?
• attack → "
• bomber → "
• COIN → "
• transport → "
• trainer=

So it should be easy enough to use the existing infobox here; all we really need it to add something for the planes. What exactly did you intend those fields to be used for? Kirill Lokshin 17:07, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, I guess it could work...

For the planes it would work something like this (using a fictional air force of my own creation as an example):

|interceptor= [[Mikoyan MiG-31|MiG-31MK]], [[Sukhoi Su-37|Su-37]]
|fighter= [[Mikoyan MiG-35|MiG-35]], [[AIDC F-CK-1 Ching-kuo|Ching-kuo]]
|bomber= [[Tupolev Tu-160|Tu-160]], [[English Electric Canberra|Canberra B.93]]
|attack= [[Sukhoi Su-34|Su-34]], [[Panavia Tornado|Tornado GR.61]]
|COIN= [[Embraer AMX|AMX]], [[Aero L-59|L-159]]
|recce= [[P-6 SeaMaster|P-6M]], [[BAe Nimrod|Nimrod MR.51]]
|transport= [[C-130 Hercules|C-130]], [[Vickers VC-10|VC-10]]
|trainer= [[Embraer EMB 314|Super Tucano]], [[Cessna T-47|T-47]]

It occured to me, also, that lines for these would work well for representing squadrons using the box, too. - Aerobird ^{Target locked - Fox One!} 01:24, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I've added six new fields to the infobox: aircraft_attack, aircraft_bomber, aircraft_fighter, aircraft_interceptor, aircraft_trainer, aircraft_transport; if there are any other types that need their own fields, please list them. :-) Kirill Lokshin 02:02, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

(restart indent) Very cool, thanks! I've infoboxed the Irish Air Corps article and it looks pretty good. :-)

Other additions... aircraft_recce (Recon), aircraft_elec (EW) and aircraft_patrol (Patrol) (in order of priority) would be good. Thanks again! - Aerobird ^{Target locked - Fox One!} 02:33, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Added as aircraft_recon, aircraft_electronic, and aircraft_patrol. Kirill Lokshin 03:14, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! - Aerobird ^{Target locked - Fox One!} 15:52, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Alternative Air Force Infobox

Lately, I have been giving some thought to this myself, and I think the proposed infobox might work well for air force "units" (sqns., wings, etc.), but not so much for "national air forces" themselves. If the latter are not kept simple, they can grow enormous.

This is especially true with regards to the “Aircraft flown” entries. Consider the sub-box title “Aircraft flown” – Imagine if the USAF infobox contained every aircraft it ever flew! Even with only current inventories, these can be lengthy for larger, more complex aircraft … and worse still if variants get included. For example, you’d have a C-130 in almost every Aircraft category. (In fact, I’d recommend quantities rather than aircraft types/models here, if it the Military units infobox is to be used.)

Other entries I’d deprecate for a national air force are “Country” (it’s a given and usually in the air force name), “Battles”, “Ceremonial chief”, and “Notable commanders”.

My recommendation for an Infobox Air Force would be as follows:

{{Infobox Air Force
|name_english =
|name_native=
|short_name=
|founded=
|stood_down=
<!-- Commander -->
|current_commander=
|current_commander_label=
|headquarters=
<!-- Honorifics -->
|motto=
|march=
|mascot=
|anniversaries=
<!-- Insignia -->
|colors=
|colors_label=
|identification_symbol=
|identification_symbol_label=
|identification_symbol_2=
|identification_symbol_2_label=
<!-- Force Size -->
|size_per=
|size_planes=
|size_helos=
}}

To see what this would look like, please see my test on my sandbox. Let me know what you think. Askari Mark (Talk) 03:49, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, the logic here seems a bit backwards. All the fields of the infobox are optional; if some fields don't really make sense on a particular article, there's nothing obligating editors to use them. I am not, in general, a fan of creating stubbed-down versions of infoboxes in an attempt to foolproof them against editors putting silly things in the optional fields; it makes much more sense, in my opinion, to have a single fully-featured infobox and then handle the occasional strangeness as a regular editorial decision.

Beyond that:

• Splitting up the active dates onto two lines seems like a waste of space.
• Why split up the names into so many fields? (And the "short name" is basically the existing nickname field, no?)
• The separate size parameters may be a good thing to add to {{Infobox Military Unit}} anyways.
• The additional dividers don't seem all that useful. Is there some particular reason they need to be there? Otherwise, they just seem like wasted vertical space.

Kirill Lokshin 04:25, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

With regards to size, my intent is that for active air forces only current equipment will be listed in the 'aircraft' lines, and that they should be kept to only the most notable equipment (i.e. what will fit on a single line on my 800x600 monitor ;-) ). So - for example - the only "Fighters" listed for the USAF would be the F-15, F-16 and F-22.

So...I have to agree with Kirill that the current infobox is OK. Agree that seperate size entries might be useful tho. - Aerobird ^{Target locked - Fox One!} 14:57, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

First off, based on my limited familiarity with this sort of markup, I based my coding on the infobox the two of you built. That is why, for instance, the “additional dividers” are there; I just located them where they made organizational sense to me (and somewhat follows yours). I don’t consider them hard-and-fast. Likewise, the reason why the fields are optional is so that lines with no data entries do not show up (as wasted space) — by no means was it intended to “foolproof them against editors putting silly things in the optional fields”; again, nothing hard-and-fast on my part. Whichever entries should be “standard” I’ve effectively left “TBD.” Likewise, if there’s some advantage to using the existing Infobox Military Unit parameter names (like, yes, “short_name” equals “nickname” or other popular variant), then fine by me; I simply used what was clear to me.

Re: “* Splitting up the active dates onto two lines seems like a waste of space.” I did so for one reason: I deprecate the “1992 - ” format as seen in Abkhazian Air Force and do not know how to code it to drop the dash when there is no “stood_down” date.

Re: “* Why split up the names into so many fields?” See List of air forces. It has sometimes required us to provide three “names” for a single air force.

|name_english = Bulgarian Air Force
|name_native= Български Военно въздушни Сили
|short_name= Bulgarski Voenno Vzdushni Sili (BVVS)

or

|name_english = Royal Cambodian Air Force
|name_native= Toap Akas Khemarak Phoumin
|short_name= Force Aérienne Royale Cambodge

Perhaps the “short_name” parameter should have been better named “alt_name”.

There are several reasons why I deprecate the “Aircraft flown” section. First and foremost, I believe that anything that looks like a list should be a list – and not in an infobox. It is very common for editors to add large, detailed sections identifying all aircraft formerly or currently being flown, current force structure beddowns, etc. Second, WP:Air editors have found that anything that invites adding only “notable” XYZ in an infobox will result in every possible XYZ being “notable” to somebody. As a case in point (and it’s just one of several examples I could post), check the F-16 Fighting Falcon infobox. There’s a line for “Primary users” and one for “Other users”. Nearly half of the some two dozen air forces that have acquired the F-16 have appeared under “Primary users” alone – most of them even at one time. In fact, most air force names had to wrap, so you can imagine just what it was beginning to look like. While we’ve managed to limit the “Primary users” to 1-2 (except for the F-35 Lightning II), they were just added to the “Other users” line. For a while, we tried to limit that to no more than three, but you can see what that led to with the F-16: “24 others”. The same thing will happen with “Aircraft flown”; that’s how it displays, and the “Major Current Aircraft Types” hidden note will be ignored.

It is for similar reasons that I deprecate entries like “ceremonial_chief”, “notable_commanders” and “battles”. I wouldn’t miss the “mascot” parameter either since I can’t think of a national air force that has one; I just gave it the benefit of the doubt. In general, it’s been my experience editing aircraft articles that “sub-lists” don’t work well. You might get other useful insights from other WP:Air editors on what should be “in” or “out”, and before this infobox gets finalized, I would encourage having a notice placed in that project’s talk page and transcluded here (and possibly that of the WP:MILHIST Military Aviation Task Force if you think they might miss the brief notice on the main WP:MILHIST talk page). I’d do it myself, but it isn’t one of those tricks I’ve learned to do. Askari Mark (Talk) 03:22, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Going through, point by point:

It should be trivial to get the correct formatting of the dates on a single line by using conditional logic; I'll see if I can put something together tomorrow.

I understand the bit about the names; but (at least in WP:MILHIST) the convention has been to space them apart at the top as needed, rather than trying to have a separate field for each. So you'd have something like:

|unit_name= Royal Cambodian Air Force <br> Toap Akas Khemarak Phoumin <br> Force Aérienne Royale Cambodge

which would be adaptable to an arbitrary number and type of alternate names, rather than trying to guess at all the possibilities in advance.

The optional fields issue may just be a different philosophy in terms of infobox design. WP:AIR tends to favor very minimalist infoboxes; WP:MILHIST tends to favor larger and more detailed ones. If it's truly an issue, we could always do what's been done with {{Infobox Weapon}} and add an |is_branch= flag that would turn off any fields we didn't want enabled for service branches. It would be a far better solution, in my opinion, than actually forking the infobox; maintaining sets of almost-the-same-but-not-quite templates tends to be far more trouble than it's worth, in my experience.

(There's no clean way of transcluding notices to talk pages, incidentally. In a case like this, the best solution is probably just to cross-post notes asking people to drop by this page to join the discussion.) Kirill Lokshin 03:37, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Changing "Aircraft Flown" to "Aircraft currently operated" might help, perhaps. - Aerobird ^{Target locked - Fox One!} 03:50, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

That would mean it would no longer be usable for units that have been decommissioned, though. Kirill Lokshin 04:04, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Point. - Aerobird ^{Target locked - Fox One!} 15:04, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Kirill Lokshin, what you have for unit_name above is fine by me. (In fact, that's the way we have it coded in List of air forces.) This was simply my first attempt at developing a template, and I started with the one you and Aerobird devised above. My modifications were limited due to time and to making coding changes I felt I understood (and I still needed your help to make it work). I also saw that there was a more or less standard unit template you were drawing from (and with nuances I knew I don't understand), so I tried not to vary from it by too much. My focus was more on capturing the content than any exact coding approach, so please feel free to be bold in improving it. ;)

Aerobird, I certainly agree that "Aircraft currently operated" would be clearer and it would tend to discourage the "every aircraft ever flown" syndrome. However, it will still produce a list — and in a narrow column at that. The US is not a good example; you need to think of an air force with a great number of different types of aircraft and see what that would look like. Then go and differentiate it by model (F/A-18A/B/C/D, F/A-18E/F, F-16C/D Block 25/30/40/50, and so on). I just don't think that something that will be in a list or table in the article needs to be a list, however abbreviated, in the infobox. The USAF example with just two or three aircraft mentioned looks nice ... but it's because the infobox looks best when each parameter has as few entries as possible (IMHO). Askari Mark (Talk) 04:21, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Yep, the amount of information that should be in the infobox is probably more of a philosophical issue rather than a technical one. ;-)

(As far as the technical side of it is concerned, though, parameter-based enabling/disabling of particular fields is very easy to do. If we know that we don't want to allow certain fields to be used for a national air force, for example, it's fairly simple to set up the code to just turn them off.) Kirill Lokshin 10:23, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, as a member of the Comprehensive Infobox Cabal (founded as of this very moment ;-) ), I suppose I'll agree to disagree with regards to aircraft in the infobox. :-) - Aerobird ^{Target locked - Fox One!} 15:04, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

• Dirty, rotten, scheming Inclusionist Cabalist!! :P I award you the highly dubious distinction of being the "Cabalist of the Day" award:
  Askari Mark (Talk) 18:31, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
  

Up the Inclusiolution! ^_^ - Aerobird ^{Target locked - Fox One!} 03:15, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Also, another reason for having the founding and stood down dates on separate lines would be to enable to give the full date (e.g., "17 December 1934"). Askari Mark (Talk) 00:50, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

That can be done anyways, of course; the use of plain years is just a common convention, not a rule.

In any case, this is merely a technical point. I've just added start_date and end_date parameters to the template that can be used instead of the combined dates parameter; try it out and see what you think. :-) Kirill Lokshin 02:05, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

That's a nice switch — and on the Active/Founded changeover! If they were supposed to show up on separate lines, then sorry I'm such a dummy, but I couldn't figure out how to input the dates to get that. Askari Mark (Talk) 03:10, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Nope, they're meant to show up on the same line if both are provided; the only real logic here is to turn it into a single "Founded" field if only the first date is given. Kirill Lokshin 03:24, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] sorry to bther you..just a clarification..

I am a new editor here and am editing an article User:Everdawn/Sandboxes/Chola_navy , where i made use of this infobox mil-unit.

but due to the fact that am new to wiki and wiki formats, I was not able to make the box render as it shuld have, it occupies a large portion of screen, also the battle list is not falling into place..(i prefer a bulleted list)

Any pointers to correct this mess i've created would be greatly appreciated.

Tanx in advance (you can reply me here or in the article's talk page.) Swraj (talk) 12:15, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Fixed; the extra spaces in front of the bullets cause the entire line to be unformatted. Kirill 17:16, 3 February 2008 (UTC)