These naming conventions are intended to encourage consistency and a high scholarly standard in articles that refer to military units. As mentioned in the conventions, they are intended to guide the use of names within articles, as well as the names of articles.
Ideally we will expand this to cover all nations at all periods, noting any exceptions to the more general conventions. (The initial draft is very slanted toward the German WWII order of battle, but that's mere happenstance.)
A bit of bureaucracy...
It will be helpful if we preserve the structure of the article here, to make it easier to find comments about a topic. Thus the structure is reproduced below; if you have comments that do not fit the structure, please add them to a new section at the end.
If you add multiple sequential bullets or paragraphs to this page, please sign each of them, so we will be able to figure out who said what after people have interpolated additional comments between your bullets/paragraphs.
In the example given above of the JCUFI, a person familiar with the naming convention as proposed here would be justified in believing that the unit is an element of the military service of the FI. Of course, that person may be confused by the fact that there is no such thing as the military service of the FI. The issue is avoided, though, by applying the convention as proposed to the unit's name: Joint Communications Unit (Falkland Islands) (United Kingdom). A person familiar with the convention will see immediately that the unit is of the military service of the UK (based on an understanding that a national reference in parentheses at the end of the name means that). The interior parenthetical reference to the FI may prompt the curious person to click on the link, to have the situation clarified in the introductory sentence. This example is actually a strong argument in favor of the proposed convention. -- Mddake 04:50, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
There is a similar convention being proposed for ministries and departments of civil governments that uses the ending jurisdictional reference in parentheses method. Wikipedia:Naming conventions (government departments and ministers) -- Mddake 04:50, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
Can we collapse this section? Will there be any differences at the different levels, other than the form of numerals used? — B.Bryant 23:57, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Numbered corps are groups of divisions and are in turn parts of armies. In addition to the divsisions they have corps-level artillery and other stuff. Internationally, in my experience, corps are numbered with Roman numberals (XVIII Airborne Corps). Also, in my (American) experience, they do not take ordninals when pronounced ("18 Airborne Corps," not "18th"). Why this is I have no idea. Paul, in Saudi ( talk) 04:21, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
"Deutsches Afrika Korps" is not well known it is usually known as the just the "Afrika Korps" and if a country designation is given it is "German Afrika Korps" the most English speakers will assume that Deutsches means something to do with Holland. Philip Baird Shearer 10:06, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
It is my understanding (and I can't provide a link for proof, but almost any veteran could corroborate) that in the U.S. Military, numbered divisions always include the word division—thus 82nd Airborne Division, 1st Infantry division, 4th Armored Division.
To refer to the 1st Marines, however, means the 1st Marine Regiment. Regiments, when identified (and the 1st Marines were identified a lot in the Pacific in WWII) are known by the number of the unit and the organization or specialty: 1st Armored, 5th Marines, 7th Cavalry, etc. are all regiments and not to be confused with the 1st Marine Division (also used a lot in WWII), or 1st Air Cavalry Division.
The Army Air Corps did not follow this, e.g. 8th Air Force, which as a corps sized organization neither used the Roman numerals nor followed the above convention.
The Navy likewise does not have such a convention, its organization being entirely different (ships, squadrons, task forces, fleets). Duckecho 12:59, 12 May 2005 (UTC)
There are more armed forces than just the Americans. Philip Baird Shearer 10:30, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
TBA
See my discussion above under "Divisions and Brigades." Duckecho 12:59, 12 May 2005 (UTC)
Over time the British army has designated regiment by colonel name, number and name. Other armies have also used different systems, so I do not think that it is easy to set global rules on this. For example of what I mean have a look at the current names for British regiments. Currently the British Army seem to use every combination apart from the "colonel name". -- Philip Baird Shearer 10:30, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
TBA
The standard US Army usage is that Battalions and Squadrons are given numbers within their Regiments. Example: "1st Battalion, 384th Infantry Regiment". This is sometimes written in literature as "the 1st of the 384th", and frequently abbreviated (particularly for US Marine Units) as 1/384. So "the First of the Third" or "1/3" means "First battalion, #rd Marine Regiment.
For separate battalions and other units that are not part of a higher-level unit, they are given numbers, usually 3 digits, similar in style to Companies.
147.240.236.9 22:43, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
Actually, the official usage in the US Army is only to designate battalions/squadrons with a slash when they part of a tactical regiment (e.g, 1/3rd Armored Cavalry). When the battalion or squadron is an element of an parent (i.e., administrative) regiment, use a hyphen (1-87th Infantry, 1-5th Field Artillery, and so on). It is a rule that is often not followed, but it is the official usage. Cyane 06:59, 3 April 2006 (UTC)Cyane
TBA
The standard US Army usage is to use letters, and have the letters before the word 'Company' or 'Troop'; sometimes the letters are after 'Battery'. This is done when the company, troop, or battery is part of a larger administrative unit. Sometimes just letters are used, sometimes they are spelled out phonetically. Examples:
"A Company, 1st Battalion, 515th Airborne Regiment";
"Alpha Company, 2nd Battalion"
"F Troop, 2nd Squadron" or just plain "F Troop"
"Battery D, 2nd Battalion" or just plain "Battery D"
When the company is a separate company, a numerical designation is used, usually with 4 numbers. Examples: "1776th Military Police Company" or "8063rd MASH" (and yes, the MASH units were company-sized units).
147.240.236.9 22:35, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
Which is the appropriate usage? Phoenetic or just letters?... NDCompuGeek 05:21, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
TBA The standard US Army usage is 1st, 2nd, 3rd, Headquarters, etc. Examples: "1st Platoon, A Company"; or "Headquarters Platoon, 4th Infantry Regiment".
Standard U.S. Army usage is a letter or phonetic designation ("A Section, 1st Platoon" or "Bravo Section, 4th Platoon), or a descriptive term ("Mortar Section, B Troop"). Mike f 18:08, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
TBA
The standard US Army usage is: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc. As in "1st Squad, 2nd Platoon, Alpha Company". 147.240.236.9 22:30, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
The length of my throw-down list for WWII Germany suggests that we will have to move these to separate pages once we cover more than a couple of nations/eras. — B.Bryant 23:08, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I have run order of battle table from the German article de:Heeresgruppe B and added it to Army Group B. I used Altavista and have then done some hand translation. Most of it is automatic but there were a couple of points I would like to raise:
-- Philip Baird Shearer 11:48, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
Early Soviet Union had "bronetankovye voiska". I would suggest the translation "armored and tank" in the case if this term was used in the actual names of mil formations (I am not sure about the latter, but I see this term is often used in Russian texts as a translation for "armoured" and German "Panzer"). Mikkalai 19:46, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Bob,
I realise what you are attempting to do, however in my experience, ALL scholarly work to do with the German army refers to certain formations by their German titles.
The main exceptions I have found are: Flieger, Panzer, Panzergrenadier, Fallschirmjäger, Gebirgsjäger, Jäger, FlaK, schwere, Ost, Lehr and Pioniere (If translated, Pioniere should become Pioneer, not Engineers). Also anyting with the prefix Sturm should really remain that way. (e.g. Sturm-Artillery, Sturmpionier etc.). As for the unit terms Abteilung and Kampfgruppe, these have no exact english translation, so should be left as it with an explanation page.
Also, a differentiation needs to be made between Infanterie and Grenadier formations, as to ignore this removes the significance of the 1943 changeover.
I think this englishification is getting a bit extreme. As wikipedia is a reference encyclopedia, people are far more likely to look for Panzergrenadier Division Grossdeutschland than for German Mechanised Infantry Division Greater Germany.
Look at the conventions used with the Panzers themselves. They are still referred to as Panzerkampfwagen, not as armoured fighting vehicle. -- Ansbachdragoner 01:07, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
How should we name articles for units commonly known as e.g. "1st South African Division"? I don't think I've ever seen "South African 1st Division". Should these be an exception to the convention of prefixing the nationality to unit names, or not? — B.Bryant 03:56, 9 May 2005 (UTC)
Hello everyone. I've been working on military history of Poland for quite some time and never realized that there is a discussion going on here. Recently someone at Talk:3d Infantry Regiment pointed me here and I thought it would be nice to include Poland in the list. The scheme used by the Polish Army is fairly simple and easy to handle in English, but it certainly needs some explanation. For consistency, I've been using the following names so far:
Any other ideas? Halibu tt 20:25, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
The Canadian formations used a unique naming format, and I notice several editors have gotten this wrong. I'm trying to correct them as I go, namely
Some contributors are insisting on "-d" instead of "-nd" or "-rd", e.g. 93d Infantry Division instead of "93rd". This is clearly against present day usage and I am not convinced that "d" was ever a standard/normal abbreviation for "second" and "third" in the U.S. Army. I also haven't seen it in any other national variety of English. Any thoughts? Grant65 | Talk 10:53, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
However, The Army Times and Soldiers magazines use the [AP Stylebook|Associated Press Stylebook]. The AP style would be "92nd Infantry Division".
The question here is what standard do we use- TIOH or AP?
Use the U.S. Army Center of Military History Style Guide [4] which stipulates the dropping of the "n" and "r" in "nd" and "rd". USACMH has certain authorities according to AR 220-5. Jeff82 ( talk) 01:49, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
This may not apply to Army units, but the Air Force officially says to use "-d" by itself. I'm not sure if that goes as far back as the Army Air Corps. It does go back as far as 1987, which is the oldest Tongue and Quill I can find.
Also, U.S. is not part of the official unit designation. When there is a need to disabiguate an article, you add a descriptor in parentheses. Thus, if there was a possibility of confusing the "93d Infantry Division" with some other unit, it would probably be best to title it as "U.S. 93d Infantry Division (United States Army)". There is no need to do this for every unit, only where the names are the same. -- Gadget850 ( Ed) 15:57, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
These naming conventions are intended to encourage consistency and a high scholarly standard in articles that refer to military units. As mentioned in the conventions, they are intended to guide the use of names within articles, as well as the names of articles.
Ideally we will expand this to cover all nations at all periods, noting any exceptions to the more general conventions. (The initial draft is very slanted toward the German WWII order of battle, but that's mere happenstance.)
A bit of bureaucracy...
It will be helpful if we preserve the structure of the article here, to make it easier to find comments about a topic. Thus the structure is reproduced below; if you have comments that do not fit the structure, please add them to a new section at the end.
If you add multiple sequential bullets or paragraphs to this page, please sign each of them, so we will be able to figure out who said what after people have interpolated additional comments between your bullets/paragraphs.
In the example given above of the JCUFI, a person familiar with the naming convention as proposed here would be justified in believing that the unit is an element of the military service of the FI. Of course, that person may be confused by the fact that there is no such thing as the military service of the FI. The issue is avoided, though, by applying the convention as proposed to the unit's name: Joint Communications Unit (Falkland Islands) (United Kingdom). A person familiar with the convention will see immediately that the unit is of the military service of the UK (based on an understanding that a national reference in parentheses at the end of the name means that). The interior parenthetical reference to the FI may prompt the curious person to click on the link, to have the situation clarified in the introductory sentence. This example is actually a strong argument in favor of the proposed convention. -- Mddake 04:50, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
There is a similar convention being proposed for ministries and departments of civil governments that uses the ending jurisdictional reference in parentheses method. Wikipedia:Naming conventions (government departments and ministers) -- Mddake 04:50, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
Can we collapse this section? Will there be any differences at the different levels, other than the form of numerals used? — B.Bryant 23:57, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Numbered corps are groups of divisions and are in turn parts of armies. In addition to the divsisions they have corps-level artillery and other stuff. Internationally, in my experience, corps are numbered with Roman numberals (XVIII Airborne Corps). Also, in my (American) experience, they do not take ordninals when pronounced ("18 Airborne Corps," not "18th"). Why this is I have no idea. Paul, in Saudi ( talk) 04:21, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
"Deutsches Afrika Korps" is not well known it is usually known as the just the "Afrika Korps" and if a country designation is given it is "German Afrika Korps" the most English speakers will assume that Deutsches means something to do with Holland. Philip Baird Shearer 10:06, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
It is my understanding (and I can't provide a link for proof, but almost any veteran could corroborate) that in the U.S. Military, numbered divisions always include the word division—thus 82nd Airborne Division, 1st Infantry division, 4th Armored Division.
To refer to the 1st Marines, however, means the 1st Marine Regiment. Regiments, when identified (and the 1st Marines were identified a lot in the Pacific in WWII) are known by the number of the unit and the organization or specialty: 1st Armored, 5th Marines, 7th Cavalry, etc. are all regiments and not to be confused with the 1st Marine Division (also used a lot in WWII), or 1st Air Cavalry Division.
The Army Air Corps did not follow this, e.g. 8th Air Force, which as a corps sized organization neither used the Roman numerals nor followed the above convention.
The Navy likewise does not have such a convention, its organization being entirely different (ships, squadrons, task forces, fleets). Duckecho 12:59, 12 May 2005 (UTC)
There are more armed forces than just the Americans. Philip Baird Shearer 10:30, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
TBA
See my discussion above under "Divisions and Brigades." Duckecho 12:59, 12 May 2005 (UTC)
Over time the British army has designated regiment by colonel name, number and name. Other armies have also used different systems, so I do not think that it is easy to set global rules on this. For example of what I mean have a look at the current names for British regiments. Currently the British Army seem to use every combination apart from the "colonel name". -- Philip Baird Shearer 10:30, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
TBA
The standard US Army usage is that Battalions and Squadrons are given numbers within their Regiments. Example: "1st Battalion, 384th Infantry Regiment". This is sometimes written in literature as "the 1st of the 384th", and frequently abbreviated (particularly for US Marine Units) as 1/384. So "the First of the Third" or "1/3" means "First battalion, #rd Marine Regiment.
For separate battalions and other units that are not part of a higher-level unit, they are given numbers, usually 3 digits, similar in style to Companies.
147.240.236.9 22:43, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
Actually, the official usage in the US Army is only to designate battalions/squadrons with a slash when they part of a tactical regiment (e.g, 1/3rd Armored Cavalry). When the battalion or squadron is an element of an parent (i.e., administrative) regiment, use a hyphen (1-87th Infantry, 1-5th Field Artillery, and so on). It is a rule that is often not followed, but it is the official usage. Cyane 06:59, 3 April 2006 (UTC)Cyane
TBA
The standard US Army usage is to use letters, and have the letters before the word 'Company' or 'Troop'; sometimes the letters are after 'Battery'. This is done when the company, troop, or battery is part of a larger administrative unit. Sometimes just letters are used, sometimes they are spelled out phonetically. Examples:
"A Company, 1st Battalion, 515th Airborne Regiment";
"Alpha Company, 2nd Battalion"
"F Troop, 2nd Squadron" or just plain "F Troop"
"Battery D, 2nd Battalion" or just plain "Battery D"
When the company is a separate company, a numerical designation is used, usually with 4 numbers. Examples: "1776th Military Police Company" or "8063rd MASH" (and yes, the MASH units were company-sized units).
147.240.236.9 22:35, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
Which is the appropriate usage? Phoenetic or just letters?... NDCompuGeek 05:21, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
TBA The standard US Army usage is 1st, 2nd, 3rd, Headquarters, etc. Examples: "1st Platoon, A Company"; or "Headquarters Platoon, 4th Infantry Regiment".
Standard U.S. Army usage is a letter or phonetic designation ("A Section, 1st Platoon" or "Bravo Section, 4th Platoon), or a descriptive term ("Mortar Section, B Troop"). Mike f 18:08, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
TBA
The standard US Army usage is: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc. As in "1st Squad, 2nd Platoon, Alpha Company". 147.240.236.9 22:30, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
The length of my throw-down list for WWII Germany suggests that we will have to move these to separate pages once we cover more than a couple of nations/eras. — B.Bryant 23:08, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I have run order of battle table from the German article de:Heeresgruppe B and added it to Army Group B. I used Altavista and have then done some hand translation. Most of it is automatic but there were a couple of points I would like to raise:
-- Philip Baird Shearer 11:48, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
Early Soviet Union had "bronetankovye voiska". I would suggest the translation "armored and tank" in the case if this term was used in the actual names of mil formations (I am not sure about the latter, but I see this term is often used in Russian texts as a translation for "armoured" and German "Panzer"). Mikkalai 19:46, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Bob,
I realise what you are attempting to do, however in my experience, ALL scholarly work to do with the German army refers to certain formations by their German titles.
The main exceptions I have found are: Flieger, Panzer, Panzergrenadier, Fallschirmjäger, Gebirgsjäger, Jäger, FlaK, schwere, Ost, Lehr and Pioniere (If translated, Pioniere should become Pioneer, not Engineers). Also anyting with the prefix Sturm should really remain that way. (e.g. Sturm-Artillery, Sturmpionier etc.). As for the unit terms Abteilung and Kampfgruppe, these have no exact english translation, so should be left as it with an explanation page.
Also, a differentiation needs to be made between Infanterie and Grenadier formations, as to ignore this removes the significance of the 1943 changeover.
I think this englishification is getting a bit extreme. As wikipedia is a reference encyclopedia, people are far more likely to look for Panzergrenadier Division Grossdeutschland than for German Mechanised Infantry Division Greater Germany.
Look at the conventions used with the Panzers themselves. They are still referred to as Panzerkampfwagen, not as armoured fighting vehicle. -- Ansbachdragoner 01:07, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
How should we name articles for units commonly known as e.g. "1st South African Division"? I don't think I've ever seen "South African 1st Division". Should these be an exception to the convention of prefixing the nationality to unit names, or not? — B.Bryant 03:56, 9 May 2005 (UTC)
Hello everyone. I've been working on military history of Poland for quite some time and never realized that there is a discussion going on here. Recently someone at Talk:3d Infantry Regiment pointed me here and I thought it would be nice to include Poland in the list. The scheme used by the Polish Army is fairly simple and easy to handle in English, but it certainly needs some explanation. For consistency, I've been using the following names so far:
Any other ideas? Halibu tt 20:25, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
The Canadian formations used a unique naming format, and I notice several editors have gotten this wrong. I'm trying to correct them as I go, namely
Some contributors are insisting on "-d" instead of "-nd" or "-rd", e.g. 93d Infantry Division instead of "93rd". This is clearly against present day usage and I am not convinced that "d" was ever a standard/normal abbreviation for "second" and "third" in the U.S. Army. I also haven't seen it in any other national variety of English. Any thoughts? Grant65 | Talk 10:53, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
However, The Army Times and Soldiers magazines use the [AP Stylebook|Associated Press Stylebook]. The AP style would be "92nd Infantry Division".
The question here is what standard do we use- TIOH or AP?
Use the U.S. Army Center of Military History Style Guide [4] which stipulates the dropping of the "n" and "r" in "nd" and "rd". USACMH has certain authorities according to AR 220-5. Jeff82 ( talk) 01:49, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
This may not apply to Army units, but the Air Force officially says to use "-d" by itself. I'm not sure if that goes as far back as the Army Air Corps. It does go back as far as 1987, which is the oldest Tongue and Quill I can find.
Also, U.S. is not part of the official unit designation. When there is a need to disabiguate an article, you add a descriptor in parentheses. Thus, if there was a possibility of confusing the "93d Infantry Division" with some other unit, it would probably be best to title it as "U.S. 93d Infantry Division (United States Army)". There is no need to do this for every unit, only where the names are the same. -- Gadget850 ( Ed) 15:57, 29 October 2006 (UTC)