Talk:Umrao Singh

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[edit] Date of birth

It doesn't really matter, but quite a few web sites give a date of birth 21 Novemebr 1920. However, as the editor who changed this to 11 July 1920 correctly says, the Times does give 11 July, [1].

[2] [3] [4] (by strong implication).

Some of these predate his death so I don't think it can simply be a confusion of dates of birth and death. Thincat 15:58, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

The references cited all give a date of birth of 21 November 1920, except The Times (and the Telegraph which charmingly gives "November 21 October 1920"). Google hits involving "July 11" seem to derive from the Times or from the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. I have changed the article accordingly. Thincat 14:05, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Umrao Singh's rank

Hi, the article mentuioned Umrao Singh's rank as Subedar Major (Sergeant Major). However, the Indian Army rank of Subedar Major is not equivalent to the western rank of Sergeant Major. A Subedar Major is the highest ranked Junior Commissioned Officer, a series of ranks unique to the Indian and Pakistani Armies. I have therefore removed the words Sergeant Major in parentheses. --Kunal ^(talk) 15:02, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure that they are unique - for example, Chief Warrant Officers in the US Army are considered to be commissioned officers rather than NCOs. Would Regimental Sergeant Major be a better approximation? -- ALoan (Talk) 15:27, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

The fact that they receive their commissions from the President suggests that Chief Warrant Officer might be the best equivalent, except for the fact that CWOs are often technical specialists, while JCOs seem to have generalised command responsibilities similar to the various Regimental or Command Sergeants Major. Given this straddling of both ranks, and the Indian and Pakistan reverence for any JCO, let alone the highest JCO rank that Mr. Singh has here, maybe there's no need to give any Western equivalent to this rank. --D e ath phoenix 17:29, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, the Indian Air Force equivalent to Subedar Major is Master Warrant Officer, so I guess you have a point there. However, the JCOs in the Indian Army do have command responsibilities, as you say, more so than RSMs or CSMs (Subedars, for example, are platoon leaders). Regimental Sergeant Major is not a better approximation because it has another Indian Army equivalent, Regimental Havildar Major. --Kunal ^(talk) 04:52, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Hmmm... given your information, I think the best is either to leave it as your edit with no translation, or with a translation of Chief Warrant Officer. The latter would be acceptable because it would be an "equivalent", rather than a literal duty-by-duty translation. Also, Chief Warrant Officers in some countries (including the US) are being given more command responsibilities as the role of the CWO continues to evolve. Either way is fine by me. --D e ath phoenix 05:24, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

If its all the same to you, I'd suggest we leave it without giving a western equivalent in parentheses. The link to Subedar Major reditrects to the JCO page, which gives a very good explanation of the rank. I really don't think any further explanation is needed on this page. --Kunal ^(talk) 10:22, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Interestingly, our article on Regimental Havildar Major (which redirects to Havildar) says that many units don't use the rank any more, with the duties taken up instead by a Subedar Adjutant, which suggests some parallel between the senior NCO ranks and JCO ranks.

Is there an official classification of the Indian ranks according to the NATO standard ranking system? Would they be "WO" ranks, for example? If so, given that Subedar Major is the highest JCO rank, I suspect Chief Warrant Officer - even Chief Warrant Officer 5 - is the closest. The British Army equivalents, senior warrant officers such as Conductor are "OR" ranks (senior enlisted men). They are not equivalent to the US "WO" ranks, but rather US Sergeant Majors (see Ranks and insignia of NATO Armies Enlisted).

If it is possible, I think it would be useful to include the equivalent western rank: the article already does so for Havildar (Sergeant) - otherwise, a non-Indian reader is going to be at a bit of a loss to understand what a "Subedar Major" is. I think the rough parallel with chief warrant officers is useful. -- ALoan (Talk) 12:56, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

See Army ranks and insignia of India. I somehow still think that it would not be striclty correct to include an equivalent western rank in this article, but perhaps you could put in something about the similarity to Warrant Officers in the Subedar article. Re RHM duties being taken over by JCOs, in the Indian Army, Regimental Havildar Major and RQMH are not actually ranks, they are appointments, so there is no procedural difficulty in appointing JCOs (or even junior NCOs) to these positions. --Kunal ^(talk) 16:30, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Since we already have an article on Subedar, does it need further explanation? All a reader needs to do, as with anything else on Wikipedia, is click on the link to be provided with all the info they need. And remember that the US is pretty much the only country that uses Warrant Officer in this way - to say it's equivalent to Chief Warrant Officer will just confuse anyone accustomed to the British system. -- Necrothesp 18:48, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Interestingly the Indian Army JCOs have their own messes, whereas the equivalent Indian Air Force ranks, the Warrant Officers, are members of the senior NCOs mess.LONDON 16:55, 18 December 2005

Anyway, even setting aside any equivalence between Subedar Major and any Western rank, why do we even bother giving the English equivalent in parentheses? IMO, this is not done in other cases of the appearence of foreign ranks in English Wikipedia articles (see Heinz Reinefarth whose conscript rank of Feldwebel is not translated, and Standartenführer where the equivalent Wehrmacht rank Oberst again appears untranslated). Since, as Necrothesp says, one need only see the relevant article to see the equivalent western rank, why should we translate itin this article?

If you guys agree, I will also remove the translation of Havildar as Sergeant (which are in fact equivalent) that appears in this article. --Kunal ^(Talk) 18:36, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

The JCO ranks have no exact equivalent, so providing translations is a legitimate topic for discussion. However, since Havildar is a clear equivalent rank with Sergeant, I don't see any harm in leaving it in. Not having a translation of the other ranks simply means that they weren't put in (or, in some cases, they have no equivalent), because I have seen translations for some German ranks in Wikipedia articles. --D e ath phoenix 18:39, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

But what if there are two corresponding Anglophone ranks for a particular foreign rank? For example, do we translate Oberleutnant zur See as Lieutenant (Junior Grade) or Sub Lieutenant? Is the English equivalent of General de Corps Aerien Air Marshall or Lieutenant General? Do we also translate paramilitary ranks, for example SS Ranks? If so, should SS Ranks be translated to Anglophone Army equivalents (eg Obergruppenführer to General) or do we just provide a translation of the German words (in this case, Senior Group leader)? What if there are two foreign ranks with the same Anglophone armed force equivalent (for example Hauptmann and Stabshauptmann, which are both equivalent to Captain)?

--Kunal ^(Talk) 17:26, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

It depends on how and where it's being used. IMO, if you were using Oberleutnant zur See in an article to describe a young officer in the navy, you'd use Lieutenant (Junior Grade) as a paranthetical translation. But we're not talking about something with two anglophone ranks, we're talking about something with a single, clear equivalent. In this case, we're talking about Havildar being equivalent to Sergeant. I'm not talking about Oberleutnant zur See, General de Corps Aerien, Obergruppenführer, Hauptmann, or Stabshauptmann. I was talking about Havildar, a single, specific rank with a single, specific equivalent of Sergeant. The others, I would take on a case-by-case basis. --D e ath phoenix 19:38, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

"IMO, if you were using Oberleutnant zur See in an article to describe a young officer in the navy, you'd use Lieutenant (Junior Grade) as a paranthetical translation." Why would you? Why use the American version (LTJG) and not the British version (SubLt)? That's the point. Havildar is equal to Sergeant in the British Army, but a British sergeant and an American sergeant are actually very different things (the former has much more authority and actually holds a position far more akin to a Sergeant First Class in the modern US Army, i.e. platoon sergeant). I'm always uncomfortable with the use of equivalents for foreign language ranks, since different people have different opinions as to equivalency (c.f. the debate as to whether a German WWII Generalmajor was actually equivalent to a Brigadier/Brigadier General or a Major-General, whatever the literal translation) and ranks often mean very different things in the United States and the UK/Commonwealth. -- Necrothesp 19:42, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

(indent left) This is a case which, quite frankly, I'm beginning to care less and less about. Since we're looking for consensus, I'll just fold my hand and say you guys do what you want. We're talking about what amounts to a little paranthetical statement anyway. But I did want to make one last statement: the Sergeant article actually describes all of the "sergeant" ranks of various nations. I don't think it's particularly harmful to provide it as a link and "translation". That's the last I'll say of the matter, and if you guys decide to remove it anyway, I wouldn't care either way. I just don't feel that strongly about this issue. --D e ath phoenix 19:53, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

I realise that it is a pretty trivial matter, but I think the issue here is consistency. Either we translate all foreign ranks, or none. Also, if we decide to provide translations, there'll be many arguments about equivalency and translation to British rank vs translation to American rank.

But since you've already agreed, I'm going to go ahead and remove (Sergeant), if no one else minds.--Kunal ^(Talk) 18:40, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Good point about consistency, but I don't think you'd reach a consensus for all "rank" pages in this page. Perhaps it would be a better idea to bring this up in one of the village pumps? --D e ath phoenix 18:56, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Subedar Majors are equivalent to the rank of Master Chief Petty Officer 1 in the Indian Navy. This suggests that despite the JCO designation, they do not have the same status as a US Chief Warrant Officer--LONDON 19:45, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Status of JCOs

See also: http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1403 --LONDON 19:17, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Singh's complete citation

is a thing of beauty:

http://www.victoriacross.org.uk/bbumraos.htm

[edit] WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 20:10, 9 November 2007 (UTC)