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Firearm Calibre Naming Conventions, Round II

There was a poll on this a few months ago that ended in deadlock, but I want to bring it up again because it is an issue I feel very strongly about.

The Wikipedia Standard seems to be "A mm x B mm"- so, for example, "7.62x38R" should apparently be written as "7.62 x 38 R". This, to my mind, looks WRONG. A firearm calibre is not a mathematical equation- it's a name.

I realise most of the editors here don't care or will simply shrug their shoulders, but I feel it's an important issue- I've never seen firearm calibres expressed in print as "7.62 x 54 mm R" or "6.5 x 55 mm Mauser", and to me it makes WP look amateurish to have the calibres s p e l t o u t the way they are. --Commander Zulu 01:10, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

If I'm not mistaken, Commander Zulu's concern was not over the two-part nomenclature, but over the use of a space between the number and the "mm". Kirill Lokshin 03:07, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
Boy, I feel silly. For some reason I thought he was questioning the nomenclature - tired eyes, maybe. Anyway, I removed my unecessary blob o' text. As far as I know, the no space version is most commonly used (except for Wikipedia, but that's the whole point of the debate).
Support change from "A mm x B mm" to "AxBmm". -- Xiliquiern 03:18, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
Support - but the proposed AxBmm not "Ammxbmm"; nobody uses the first mm in the rest of the world to my knowledge. Georgewilliamherbert 03:27, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
Support the change; Wikipedia should follow convention. Carom 03:46, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
I've added links to this discussion to WT:MILHIST and {{WPMILHIST Announcements}}, as the new guideline would have impact beyond the scope of this task force (not to mention that having wider participation will likely be helpful in demonstrating consensus for a new guideline). Kirill Lokshin 03:43, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, I forgot to add a sentence to the effect the version I support is "AxBmm". As Georgewilliamherbert says, no-one uses the first "mm" when naming a calibre. I probably should have had my morning coffee before posting that! :-P --Commander Zulu 03:47, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
Oppose once again. Units are units - we have standards for units, and they should be applied uniformly. Jane's (specific example - Jane's Infantry Weapons 2005-2006) uses 4.6 x 30 mm format. If it's good enough for Jane's - it should be good enough for us. Megapixie 03:50, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
However, Jane's is virtually the *only* source to use the spaced version; the universal format for metric calibres is AxBmm, such as 9x19mm NATO or 7.62x54mm R. --JaceCady 03:57, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
Interesting question: is it worthwhile to draw a distinction between units per se ("the round has a diameter of 9 mm") and "units" that serve as names ("the 6.5x55mm Mauser cartridge")? Kirill Lokshin 04:21, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Interesting question, Kirill. I'm not too concerned either way- FWIW, I was taught at school that if you were using a unit's abbreviation, then there was no space between the numbers and the abbreviation. So, if you said "the round has a diameter of 9 millimetres", then you'd have a space. If you said "The round has a diameter of 9 mm", you'd have no space. The same applies to distances- "The town was 75km from the nearest airport", vs "The town was 75 kilometres from the nearest airport" Having said that, leaving a space between the unit and the abbreviation for units per se is understandable, if you look on the abbreviation as being a complete word in and of itself, so to speak.
As JaceCady quite rightly points out, Janes are virtually the only authorative source to use the "A x B mm" format. Nearly everyone else- from Ian V. Hogg to Ian Skennerton, to the Sporting Shooter's Association of Australia, to every single firearms book in my reference library, along with pretty much everyone on every firearms messageboard I've ever posted on- uses the AxBmm (or something very similar) format. It's worth mentioning that the "mm" is almost always dropped altogether, so you'd see "7.62x51 NATO", "7.62x54R", "6.5x55 Swedish Mauser", "7.62x39", and so on. It's generally known to most shooters that any calibre that as "AxB" is metric, whereas ".AB" is Imperial- certainly, you don't often see Imperial calibres written as .303" British, .223" Remington, or .45" ACP (at least, not by anyone who's generally accepted to know what they're talking about), which is another topic for discussion in it's own right... .
I see Megapixie's viewpoint, but I must respectfully point out that just because we have *A* standard does not make it the *correct* standard, so to speak. --Commander Zulu 05:43, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

I would concur that Jane's does appear to be in the minority in terms of publishers - a quick hunt through my bookshelves reveals a variety of formats. My main point is that the current format is not exceptional (i.e. Jane's cannot be considered a small publisher in this particular area) and to go against it would mean working through a bunch of exception cases (like the one that Kirill points out) that would make it very difficult to automate any correction to the WP:MoS, which is tedious work at best. I don't think it adds anything in terms of information over the existing format, and potentially reduces read-ability (per Elements of Style), and it would make automating units cleanup much harder than it is right now.
In the case of something adding nothing, being a lot of work, and breaking automatic cleanup — I'd have to say I'm happier without it. Megapixie 05:28, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm not convinced "It's too much work!" is a valid reason for not changing this. I'm prepared to put in the time and effort to effect the necessary changes (work permitting). As for readability: The current format hurts both readability and WP's credibility when I see it. "7.62 x 54 mm R" looks like a mathematical equation or formulae, rather than the name of a rifle cartridge. --Commander Zulu 05:43, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
I'd be willing to personally run through a big number of pages and try to fix as many of these errors (if we can call it that, now). -- Xiliquiern 13:36, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
Please be clear that this is not an error — this is a style choice. You are going to have to clear this with the Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)#Units_of_measurement people before you start making any large scale changes as various bots and semi-bots will probably just start fixing them back to the old format. I still think this is a waste of time. Megapixie 22:38, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, FWIW, I don't think it's a waste of time. The standard in this case is simply wrong and needs to be corrected accordingly. --Commander Zulu 14:18, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Support. It would only be a waste of time if you weren't prepared to put that time in yourself, but it seems users are happy to do (so it isn't a waste of time in my book!) I'm all for getting designations correct on wikipedia, and get annoyed myself when I come up against the "but this is the existing convention" brigade, even when that convention is wrong - just because that is the WP convention does not mean it is correct :) Emoscopes Talk 16:10, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

So, how do we go about putting this past the Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)#Units_of_measurement folks? --Xiliquiern 20:55, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Support—I don't buy the "units are units" argument: this is a question of style. As a look at many publications reveals, styles vary a great deal in different fields. Many military history publications publish artillery or tank gun calibres in the 85mm form, including some from Jane's. When gun calibres or cartridge specs appear many times in an article, all of the spaces in them make the type appear freckled and spotty, and expressions will line-wrap in an ugly, amateurish way: I think a typographer would agree that closing up the space is warranted from a functional design perspective.

And letting the theoretical existence of someone's bot dictate our style decisions is just so bass-ackwards. [updated] —Michael Z. 2006-10-19 17:42 Z

Oppose - I go with the higher level wikipedia standard on writing anything with units. Get your derogation from there first and then it's plain sailing. To change things in defiance of that standard first is asking for trouble. Wikipedia has its own typographic standards which i believe are driven by the goal of universal access. GraemeLeggett 08:48, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

It's a style guide, not scripture. When other typographic practices are commonly used in a particular field, for good reasons, we should consider the merits of being flexible. Especially in a case like this, where the overarching standard hasn't even considered the specific technical case of gun calibre and cartridge dimensions.
Astronomers and other scientists can't bear looking at anything but pure SI-standard typography, so MOS:NUM allows them to write articles this way so science articles are commonly written this way, even though it looks odd to the rest of the English-speaking world. Why shouldn't conventions from other fields be considered too, especially when it would improve the typographic quality of articles? [updated] —Michael Z. 2006-10-19 17:49 Z
SI stipulates the use of comma as decimal separator. Comma should be used at least for metric units. ::Correct examples are 7,62x51mm NATO and 7,62x54 R. Dutchguy 13:29, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
For 99.99% of of the English-speaking world, the decimal separator is a decimal point and NOT a comma. By all means use a comma in the Foreign Language Wikis, but in the English one, a decimal point is the correct separator. --Commander Zulu 00:16, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
Yes, my SI comment was only a generalization. In English we use decimal points and comma thousands separators. —Michael Z. 2006-11-07 04:55 Z
So, can we agree that the "AxBmm" format should be the standard? I've had a request up at Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)#Units_of_measurement for quite some time and no-one has commented, which I think should be taken as, at the least, a lack of opposition to the proposal on their part. --Commander Zulu 03:50, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
It looks like 71% in favour here with two votes opposing, and the poll has been up for long enough. Furthermore, it seems to me that we have a number of justifications for the proposal based on usage within this specific knowledge domain, and only very general arguments against. A style manual is a general guideline—it's bad practice to slavishly subordinate our judgment to it, and every accomplished typographer adjusts his practices to the subject at hand. —Michael Z. 2006-11-07 05:13 Z

Oppose. Going back to the "A×Bmm" style is just a step backwards when it comes to readability. Like it has already been said, units are units, and there's a guideline for that. I don't think the non-spaced "A×Bmm" style is really a standard following any real convention. I only see it as a faster/more practical way to type the cartridge's name (much like using an "X" in place of an "×" symbol), and doesn't make it look more like a name and less like a mathematical expression. Additionally, different sources also use countless other variations using different combinations of spaced, non-spaced, hyphen-space, upper-case and lower-case caracthers, such as "AxBmm", "AXBmm", "Amm x Bmm", "AXBMM", "AXB-MM", and the list goes on... With so many different naming conventions (if this can be called a convention), how can it be claimed that "A×Bmm" is more appropriate than "A × B mm", or that one is correct and the other is wrong? Isn't that what Wikipedia has a style guide for? —Squalla 22:52, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Comment: Frankly, I think Commander Zulu has stumbled over a solution without perhaps realizing it — simply use "7.62x38R" without the 'mm'. In this manner, it is treated as a "designation" rather than as measurement "units" (and thus circumvents the bot problem). What this designation means is well-known to the cognoscenti, but should be explained for the benefit of the uninitiated in the Caliber article, and (perhaps) its first use in an article might include the word "caliber" linkified to the appropriate subsection in that article. (To wit, "7.62x38R caliber" which is where the "deconstruction" should probably be added.) Askari Mark | Talk 05:42, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

I like that idea very much indeed! The only minor problem is that "Caliber" is a mis-spelling to those of us who speak Commonwealth English. ;-) --Commander Zulu 09:38, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
And that from a bloke who drinks his beer warm and can't quite get the concept of "chips" right! :P Anyway, blame ol' Danny Webster, not me. If it's any consolation, I did check to see which way the article was actually written before I wrote the above. As it is, I've read so much Commonwealth English that I can never remember whether I'm supposed to write "grey" as "gray" or vice versa. ;-) Askari Mark | Talk 19:57, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
This might work neatly. Let's see if the currently listed move requests encounter any trouble before adopting this, though. ;-) Kirill Lokshin

The articles 7.62x51 NATO, 7.62x54R, and 7.62x39 have all been through the Wikipedia:Requested moves process with no major objections. I've taken the liberty of moving 7x57 Mauser, 7.62x25 Tokarev, and 6.5x55 Swedish, and 7.63x25 Mauser myself. I've got an admin request in to restore 7.92x57 Mauser back to the correct article title- no-one objected in the two weeks I had a notification of intended renaming up, so I moved the article myself, and then someone else- User:HangFire moved it back to the incorrect title. As time permits, I'll be trying to get the other firearm calibre articles renamed in accordance with the new guidelines. --Commander Zulu 06:20, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

I still don't agree with such convention (much less that there is a "correct" form to write out these cartridge names), but since we're apparently moving over to this form, shouldn't the titles use a proper "×" symbol (7.62×51 NATO, etc.), as opposed to a lowercase "X"? At least it would make it easier for unfamiliar readers to understand that the name means 7.62 "by" 51 NATO. As it is now, the x could be mistaken as just a letter in the designation, rather than a symbol, especially in cases such as the "7.62x54R", where there is another letter (the "R") in the middle of the name. Speaking of which, shouldn't the "R" be separated as well, similarly to "NATO", "Mauser" and such? —Squalla 14:28, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

A lowercase "x" has been accepted as a substitute for the multiplication symbol since the earliest days of typewriters. As for the "R" in 7.62x54R- there's traditionally no space between the designation and an "R". "NATO" and "Mauser" are names, "R" is simply a designator ("Rimmed"), if that makes sense. --Commander Zulu 07:53, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

But we don't suffer the limitations of typewriters here. We use italics instead of underlines, for example. As long as there is no technical limitation, why not use more professional-looking typography?
Titles ought to use the multiplication symbol, and always have a redirect from the equivalent title using a letter x. I think this would avoid any practical problems. —Michael Z. 2006-12-17 16:33 Z
I'm happy to use the multiplication symbol- in all honesty, I'm just used to writing "x" instead of using a multiplication symbol. ;-) --Commander Zulu 10:17, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Article names for firearms

Editor Deathbunny (talk) has made a series of moves on firearms-related articles. Some examples are:

  • M16 rifle → M16 Rifle;
  • M14 (rifle) → M14 Rifle;
  • M60 machine gun → M60 Machine gun, and so on.

I friendly asked him to stop moving articles before starting a discussion and getting this settled, but he kept moving pages and changing wikilinks whithin these articles to reflect the new names. User BillCJ started a discussion on the M60 machine gun talk page, where Deathbunny expressed his reasoning on the page moves, and while we didn't reach any consensus, he continued moving pages and wikilinks. So my question is, does this WikiProject have a guideline for that? I looked around, but couldn't find anything. Either way, I'd like to have some input from the editors in here as to what to do; if his moves aren't justified, it will definitely take a good amount of work to move things back in place. —Squalla 13:22, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

As far as I know, the standard Wikipedia sentence-case capitalization convention applies here; the first word of the title is, indeed, considered to be "M16", and "rifle" should therefore be left uncapitalized.
As far as whether there should be any parentheses involved, I'm not sure. Is "rifle" part of the actual name of the weapon? If it's not, the trend seems to be to put disambiguation terms in parentheses; but that wouldn't apply if it's actually part of the name. Kirill Lokshin 13:47, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
A model number is not a word. A model number without some sort of descriptor is almost meaningless to most people. For example, the actual nomenclature for an M16 is "Rifle, M16..." which, although correct, is confusing to many people and probably is not going to be very useful as a wikilink.
The ideal title is going to be the nomenclature and enough of a correct descriptor, ideally the item's actual name (or reasonable part of it), to identify what the article is about. The first word of the descriptor should be capitalized in the title because the nomenclature is not. (Essentially, it's an abbreviation but spelling out Model or Mark and then adding the number would also be more confusing and worthless than writing "Rifle, M16...")
I probably did overstep my bounds in hindsight. To be honest, what I sought to do was to improve the correctness of the titles along the lines other, non-expert readers would understand and to make an effort to "control the orphans" from using so many variations. I also keep seeing multiple methods of deriving titles on essentially similarly designated (US) weapons and seek a logical and correct way to simplify the search and organization of articles based on good grammar, some logic, and some familiarity with the system. If you guys want me to quit, I'll stop moving the "primary" articles but I'd like to keep working on pointing articles that require redirects towards the actual article title. i.e. M79 (when appropriate) --> M79 Grenade launcher. Thank you. Deathbunny 15:18, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
It's worth pointing out that the M16 seems to be generally referred to as the "M16"—in other words, the "rifle" portion of the article title seems to be a disambiguator from the other "M16"s, not an integral part of what the weapon is named (c.f. M1 Garand, for example, which has no such disambiguator). If this is indeed the case, then we could simply move the article to M16 (rifle) and avoid the entire question. Kirill Lokshin 16:23, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Is that something to standardize?
I mean, the M24, for example, has the actual nomenclature "M24 Sniper Weapon System"... Should it be made "M24 Sniper Weapon System (rifle)"? I'm also assuming that for others that are primarily known through commercial sales are probably not going to be changed to Glock 17 (pistol). Although explanatory and arguably correct for some weapons, putting the disambiguator in parentheses implies that there is no appropriate descriptor (as in the M1 Garand rifle) that would be more appropriate to use. That and it's also a little ugly and can be confusing to other wikipedians. Additionally, the link to use isn't as intuitive nor close to what is likely to be written therefore increasing the use of redirects and disambiguation pages necessary to keep what's being linked connected to the right article. I think you/we can come up with a better idea than the parentheses. Deathbunny 20:26, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Well, no; none of those other articles would need parentheses, for the simple reason that none of them need to be disambiguated. In other words: "M1 Garand" is clearly a rifle, because there's nothing else by that name; but "M16" could be a number of things (see M16), and thus needs something else in the article title to distinguish the rifle from the other possibilities. The convention for disambiguation is to use a parenthesized term after the ambiguious title; but such use is needed only when there's an actual disambiguation being made, not in all articles. Kirill Lokshin 20:32, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
In this case, rifle is part of the nomenclature but not as commonly used as Garand is in your example. Technically, "M1 Garand" is not correct if you take the US regulations of the time into account, but that's the most commonly accepted form and needs little or no disambiguation. I guess my point is that we could do it more technically correct:
or we could do a minimalist approach:
or we could do it as what's commonly written:
and then decide whether the non-proper descriptors are capitalized, lower case, actually considered part of the nomenclature or not:
PErsonally, from an aesthetic perspective, the last choice looks more... encyclopedic and more like I'd assume, as a writer trying to guess the links, what I would expect the links to these articles would be. But that's me. MAybe after we argue this a while, we could get project members to vote perhaps... Deathbunny 21:24, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Actually, "M16" would be an orthographic word (sequence of characters surrounded by spaces), and for sentence case (which is the norm on Wikipedia: see WP:CAPS) that's enough for the second word to be lower case in English. You might make a case for it being a proper noun as the name is officially "Rifle, M16", however, I believe the common name in literature is "M16 rifle" (no cap) anyway when the subject is not obvious. --Rindis 17:58, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Technically, it is part of the "proper name" of the M16, but I'm not sure that's a common enough usage to want to try and keep track of the nuances of nomenclature across different manufacturers and countries and tie periods. I mean, M4 Carbine is commonly accepted but that suffers the same situation and, if we revert M14 Rifle-->M14 rifle also needs to be fixed. (Which is not an argument against doing it right if it should be lower case).
Many links to the page tend to use "M16 rifle" or the equivalent for other pages seemingto use the lowercase "rifle" as a descriptor. Perhaps there is a better, more correct, source to tell us what the corret way to refer to this particular set of weapons (US Military adopted with "M"-numbers) is, say for official government use and then in common use (seperate sources).Deathbunny 20:26, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
I don't care what about non U.S. designations, but U.S. Military designations captilzed to be correct. Its not a matter of style, the primary source must be respected in this instance. (more comment below) Ve3 22:37, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

To Fix when resolved...

Articles needed to be to rectified when this is resolved:

Most of these must have the name captialized, if they are formal U.S Military designations. The formal name of M16 is "United States Rifle, 5.62mm, M16", with caps- written shorthand it is M16 Rifle, not M16 rifle. Ve3 22:37, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
You may want to read the entire discussion below this point. ;-)
But briefly (and probably unnecessarily pedantically): the formal name is "United States Rifle, 5.62mm, M16"—and only "United States Rifle, 5.62mm, M16". Once we have abandoned using the formal name, we can construct a short name by taking "M16" and "Rifle" from the formal name to form "M16 Rifle", or, equally legitimately, take only "M16" from the formal name and add "rifle" as a disambiguation aid, resulting in "M16 rifle". Kirill Lokshin 22:44, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
Well thanks for the reply. However, the formal name can also be written in short form, e.g. M60 Machine Gun- it does not have to be abandonded (the long version is simply the MOST formal). However, you can still use that logic to justify no caps, but it is still misleading to readers because the formal short name is still M16 Rifle not M16 rifle, as much as its M1 Abrams not M1 abrams. However, it doesn't really matter that much either way becuase anyone who investigates will learn that caps are correct for both short and long versions at some point. Ve3

Possible solutions

How about we consider one of these:

Option A Apply this format and rules:

M# 'Name' descriptor

Rule 1. For all weapons without a commonly associated designer's name or a descriptor forming a commonly associated acronym, the title will be the (initial) model number plus a short, explicit descriptor with the first letter capitalized.

Examples:
    • M16 Rifle
    • M79 Grenade launcher
Rule 2. For all weapons with a commonly associated designer's name the title will be the (initial) model number followed by the designer or exclusive manufacturer's name, plus a short, explicit descriptor.
Examples:
    • M1 Garand rifle
    • M1903 Springfield rifle

Rule 3. For all weapons without a commonly associated designer's name and with a descriptor forming a commonly associated acronym, the title will be the (initial) model number plus the unabreviated acronym capitalized appropriately.

Examples:
    • M249 Squad Automatic Weapon
    • M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle

Advantages:

  • Results in titles more similar to what is likely to be written

Disadvantages:

  • Can make some long titles

Option B

Apply this format and rules:

M# 'Name' (descriptor)

Rule 1. For all weapons without a commonly associated designer's name or a descriptor forming a commonly associated acronym, the title will be the (initial) model number plus a short, explicit descriptor in parentheses, abbreviated if necessary.

Examples:
    • M16 (rifle)
    • M60 (GPMG)

Rule 2. For all weapons with a commonly associated designer's name the title will be the (initial) model number followed by the designer or exclusive manufacturer's name, plus a short, explicit descriptor in parentheses, abbreviated if necessary.

Examples:
    • M1 Garand (rifle)
    • M1 Thompson (SMG)

Rule 3. For all weapons without a commonly associated designer's name and with a descriptor forming a commonly associated acronym, the title will be the (initial) model number plus the abreviated acronym capitalized appropriately and explained in the introductory text.

Examples:
    • M249 (SAW)
    • M24 (SWS)

Advantages:

  • Short
  • Easier to match types.

Disadvantages:

  • Counter intuitive for novices.
  • More likely to require policing of the redirects and disambiguity pages for orphans.
As is Option A Option B Option B-1 (no abbrev. desc.) Simple disambiguation
M6 Bayonet M6 Bayonet M6 (bayonet) M6 (bayonet) M6 bayonet
M7 Bayonet M7 Bayonet M7 (bayonet) M7 (bayonet) M7 bayonet
M9 Bayonet M9 Bayonet M9 (bayonet) M9 (bayonet) M9 bayonet
M2 Machine Gun M2 Browning machine gun M2 Browning (HMG) M2 Browning (heavy machine gun) M2 Browning heavy machine gun
M60 Machine gun M60 Machine gun M60 (GPMG) M60 (general purpose machine gun) M60 machine gun
Minigun M134 Minigun M134 (minigun) M134 (minigun) M134 minigun
XM214 minigun XM214 Minigun XM214 (minigun) XM214 (minigun) XM214 minigun
M240 M240 Machine gun M240 (MMG) M240 (medium machine gun) M240 machine gun
M249 Squad Automatic Weapon M249 Squad Automatic Weapon M249 (SAW) M249 (Squad Automatic Weapon) M249 squad automatic weapon
Thompson submachine gun M1921 Thompson submachine gun M1921 Thompson (SMG) M1921 Thompson (submachine gun) Thompson submachine gun
M3 Grease Gun M3 Submachine gun M3 (SMG) M3 (submachine gun) M3 submachine gun
M1 Carbine M1 Carbine M1 (carbine) M1 (carbine) M1 carbine
M4 Carbine M4 Carbine M4 (carbine) M4 (carbine) M4 carbine
Springfield 1903 rifle M1903 Springfield rifle M1903 Springfield (rifle) M1903 Springfield (rifle) M1903 Springfield rifle
M1917 Enfield rifle M1917 Enfield rifle M1917 Enfield (rifle) M1917 Enfield (rifle) M1917 Enfield rifle
Browning Automatic Rifle M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle M1918 (BAR) M1918 (Browning Automatic Rifle) M1918 Browning automatic rifle
Johnson M1941 Rifle M1941 Johnson rifle M1941 Johnson (rifle) M1941 Johnson (rifle) M1941 Johnson rifle
M41 Johnson LMG M1941 Johnson light machine gun M1941 Johnson (LMG) M1941 Johnson (light machine gun) M1941 Johnson light machine gun
M1 Garand M1 Garand rifle M1 Garand (rifle) M1 Garand (rifle) M1 Garand rifle
XM8 rifle XM8 Rifle XM8 (rifle) XM8 (rifle) XM8 rifle
M14 Rifle M14 Rifle M14 (rifle) M14 (rifle) M14 rifle
M15 rifle M15 Rifle M15 (rifle) M15 (rifle) M15 rifle
M16 rifle M16 Rifle M16 (rifle) M16 (rifle) M16 rifle
M21 (rifle) M21 Rifle M21 (rifle) M21 (rifle) M21 rifle
M24 SWS M24 Sniper Weapon System M24 (SWS) M24 (Sniper Weapon System) M24 sniper weapon system
M40 (rifle) M40 Rifle M40 (rifle) M40 (rifle) M40 rifle
M1911 M1911 Colt pistol M1911 Colt (pistol) M1911 Colt (pistol) M1911 Colt pistol
M9 Pistol M9 Pistol M9 (pistol) M9 (pistol) M9 pistol
M15 General Officers UNSURE M15 (pistol) M15 (pistol) M15 pistol
XM26 LSS XM26 Lightweight Shotgun System XM26 (LSS) XM26 (Lightweight Shotgun System) XM26 lightweight shotgun system
M79 Grenade launcher M79 Grenade launcher M79 (grenade launcher) M79 (grenade launcher) M79 grenade launcher
XM148 Grenade launcher XM148 Grenade launcher XM148 (grenade launcher) XM148 (grenade launcher) XM148 grenade launcher
M203 grenade launcher M203 Grenade launcher M203 (grenade launcher) M203 (grenade launcher) M203 grenade launcher
Browning Model 1919 machine gun M1919 Browning machine gun M1919 Browning (MMG) M1919 Browning (medium machine gun) M1919 Browning machine gun
L7 (machine gun) L7 Machine gun L7 (GPMG) L7 (General Purpose Machine Gun) L7 machine gun


Any other suggestions so far? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Deathbunny (talk • contribs)

Suggestions

Hmm. One point to consider is that using acronyms—particularly cryptic acronyms—in page titles is generally frowned upon. Another, somewhat more obvious one, is that not all firearms have model numbers; whatever convention we adopt needs to be able to deal with that. I'd therefore suggest the following:
Rule 1. For weapons known primarily by a model number (without a commonly associated designer's name or a descriptor forming a commonly-associated acronym), the title should be the (initial) model number plus a short type descriptor in parentheses:
Examples:
  • M16 (rifle)
  • M60 (machine gun)
Rule 2. For weapons known by a model number and a commonly-used acronym, designer's name, or factory designation, the title will be the (initial) model number plus the (written-out) acronym or name:
Examples:
  • M249 Squad Automatic Weapon
  • M24 Sniper Weapon System
  • M1 Garand
Rule 3. For weapons generally known by a designation other than the model number, the title will be the commonly-used form of the name:
Examples:
  • Webley Revolver
  • Browning Automatic Rifle
I probably missed a bunch of important peculiar cases, but I think we ought to avoid overdoing either the model numbers or the parentheticals where they're not needed. Kirill Lokshin 22:33, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
My suggestion would be for a modified Option A, with the Maker/Designer's name first, THEN the model number and descriptor:
etc.
It's probably just me, but except for the Colt reference, all of them seem backwards to me. I think part of it is that it's common in most reference materials I've seen (of American origin) for US military equipment to start with the M-number and then whatever manufacturer/designer and then type. That's probably anecdotal, but from fiddling with wikilinks that started all of this, it seems like what most writers using these terms in text are also doing. Also, in many cases, either the manufacturer or the M-number is left out in text but the one of them and the descriptor is common. (Except, it seems the M1 Garand.) Deathbunny 23:10, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
Funny, to me the original proposal looks backwards. Also, having long lists starting with "M1234", followed by a name doesn't lend itself to readability, as all the numbers start to run into each other, IMO. The other problem is, since a lot of militaries use the M(year) designation, you end up with disambiguation problems... The designation "M1879" could refer to the Reichsrevolver, or a Springfield Carbine, or a model Gatling Gun. The problem is, there's no hard and fast rule on this- some guns (like the Reichsrevolver or the Luger) would be written Designation/Maker (M1879 Reichsrevolver, P08 Luger), whereas others, like the Nagant M1895 or the Walther P38, would be written Maker/Designation. As a general rule though, my style (for both personal and published work) is Maker/Designation. I liken it to cars: You don't talk about a "Camry Toyota" or a "Pulsar Nissan", as the manufacturer's name goes first, then the model. --Commander Zulu 00:04, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
Option A, as it currently is, only makes sense when applied to US weapons, and even then it still doesn't seem quite right to me... ::it would be factually incorrect to have an article :entitled Mk III SMLE rifle or M1895 Nagant revolver, for example. The ::consensus in most of my reference works is Maker/Model Number/Descriptor, but I will concede many of my reference works focus on ::British military weapons, rather than :American ones. I agree with Kirill that weapons generally known by another designation (such ::as the Webley Revolver, Browning Automatic Rifle, Bren Gun, Vickers Gun, etc) should use that commonly accepted name instead of ::model numbers etc.
Also, I'd like to suggest that articles covering more than one mark or sub-type of a weapon should use the main name for all guns ::of that type- for example, the Lee-Enfield, Webley Revolver, Enfield Revolver, AK-47, and Mosin-Nagant articles ::cover all the different marks and sub-types of those guns. The Lee-Enfield article, for example, isn't entitled "SMLE Mk III/Rifle ::No 4 Mk I/Rifle No 5 Mk I", and the Mosin-Nagant article isn't entitled "Mosin-Nagant M91/30/M38/M44" ... you get the idea. --Commander Zulu 22:47, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
I was primarily going for American and possibly modern British (L-designated) and Canadian (C-designated) weaponry with this one. Although, the basic concept of "Option A" (parentheses) seems exportable to others. The problems I see with your suggestion is that it's pretty wide open on what fits Rule 1 and Rule 2 and Rule 3 and opens the way for confusion like in the "As is" column. Also, the weapons you chose as examples in Rule 3 have nomenclature (M1918 Browning automatic rifle) or are a general page addressing multiple weapons with their own nomenclature that are probably better served by not being set up as a "nomenclature" page except for specific important variations like the Webley Mk IV. To extend this concept to the older English weapons, you may have to make seperate rules based on their common nomenclature (Option A) or use what the common name is (Option B).
Most of the British military gun articles seem OK at the moment, nomenclature wise, but I'll keep an eye on them. --Commander Zulu 00:04, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
I guess Option B-1 could be "no abbreviations of descriptors." which would get rid of the fiddly abbreviations but makes titles longer.
Maybe you're idea would look better if you made an "Option C" column to the table and showed us what it would look like with those. Deathbunny 23:00, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

M16 rifle is preferable to M16 (rifle). Brackets are not needed here, and the simpler name is, well, simpler. "Rifle" does not need to be capitalized to satisfy Wikipedia's titling requirements: even if you don't consider M16 to be a word, rifle is still not a word starting a title, and so would normally be lowercased.

The remaining question is whether to capitalize "rifle" as part of a proper name. Although few style manuals go into such detail, and many non-professional writers don't follow this rule, it's common practice in good writing to only capitalize full proper titles of things, and treat the noun part as a regular noun. For example: "Another charitable organization is the Dominion Institute. The institute is based in Toronto."

The full proper name is United States Rifle, Caliber 5.56 mm, M16. The short proper name is M16. The former is unsuitable as an article title, as it is not commonly used. The latter is opaque to most readers and prone to naming collision (see the disambiguation page M16). Perhaps Rifle, M16 is a medium version of the proper name, but M16 rifle is not. M16 rifle, M16 carbine, M16 personal weapon, M16 infantry rifle, M16 bullet launcher are all informal descriptive names, and should not be capitalized. —Michael Z. 2006-12-13 23:01 Z

This is the approach I'm going to start taking with Soviet tanks. They mostly have simple names like T-34, etc., but gradually there has been name collision creep, necessitating some to be created at or moved to T-37 tank, T-38 tank—simple disambiguators, and not technically detailed but infinitely debatable names like T-37 light amphibious tank or T-38 amphibious scout tank.
Eventually, I'll propose moving all of the tank articles to disambiguated titles. —Michael Z. 2006-12-13 23:08 Z
Soviet small arms already have an element of this style in their nomenclature as is as their abreviated designations i.e. "RPK" are the abbreviations of the weapon type "fast machinegun" and manufacturer "Kalashnikov" and are often tagged with a year model and variation type "M"=modernized, etc. Either option, except maybe B-1, would be somewhat nonsensical. Deathbunny 23:21, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
Not sure I understand. English readers don't know what ruchnoy pulemyot Kalashnikova means, so I think even soldiers familiar with the name won't see a problem with RPK machine gun, or AK-47 assault rifle. I'm sure they usually appear this way in most writing. —Michael Z. 2006-12-13 23:31 Z
This is true, and I agree. --Commander Zulu 00:04, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I would go with Kirill's suggestions, though both "M16 (rifle)" and "M16 rifle" work for me. However, titles such as "Rifle, M16" (or even worse, "United States Rifle, Caliber 5.56 mm, M16") are just unsuitable. As for weapons such as the Browning Automatic Rifle, AK-47 or M249 Squad Automatic Weapon, there's no need for disambiguation—that's how these weapons are known, and because these articles cover different models of the same firearms, the title should reflect the family/series as a whole. Basically, leave things as they were, and standardize articles of the M16 type (M14 (rifle), M60 machine gun, etc.) to either "M16 (rifle)" or "M16 rifle" styles.

My personal preference is for "M16 rifle". Ideally, I'd go for "M-16 rifle", but I don't think that's the proper designation for the rifle (there's no hyphen, apparently), so I'm not going to push too hard on that one. --Commander Zulu 00:29, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Another thing that needs clearing up is whether M1 Carbine or M4 Carbine should be left capitalized. I'm under the impression that at least M1 Carbine is a commonly used name for the weapon, similarly to M1 Garand (even though "carbine" is obviously not a proper name). —Squalla 00:23, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I think they should... Jungle Carbine is also capitalised. In these cases, the word "Carbine" is part of the firearm's commonly used name, and not merely a designator. --Commander Zulu 00:29, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
For the M1 carbine, it's both a common name and the designation so it's a gray area. In spite of that and the fun it'll probably cause with "sniper weapon system" and "Sniper Weapon System", I like that last column to the table. It makes me think of all the links that are essentially the same. I mean, the point of the excercise is to make the article easy to find by either linking inside wikipedia or typing into the search bar. I like capitalized titles, but that last column looks more... professional? Deathbunny 00:34, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
It also helps make the nature of proper names in the titles clear. For example, just looking at the list an unfamiliar reader can see that Browning and Garand are names and not types of rifles. —Michael Z. 2006-12-14 00:44 Z
A case could be made that the Garand is a type of rifle, though. --Commander Zulu 10:59, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Option A-1 Apply this format and rules:

M# 'Name' descriptor

Rule 1. For all American M-type, British L-type (without a more appropriate named article), and Canadian C-type weapons weapons without a commonly associated designer's name or a descriptor forming a commonly associated acronym, the title will be the (initial) model number plus a short, explicit descriptor.

Examples
    • M16 rifle
    • M79 grenade launcher
Rule 2. For all weapons with a commonly associated designer's name the title will be the (initial) model number followed by the designer or exclusive manufacturer's name, plus a short, explicit descriptor.
Examples
    • M1 Garand rifle
    • M1903 Springfield rifle

Rule 3. For all weapons without a commonly associated designer's name and with a descriptor forming a commonly associated acronym, the title will be the (initial) model number plus the unabreviated acronym.

Examples
    • M249 squad automatic weapon
    • M1918 Browning automatic rifle

That should show a limited scope to the rules, staying off the Webleys and SMLE's and primarily commercial weapons but make it relatively simple to come up with the page names and links. The other titles we aren't going to use should probably be redirects to the primary page anyway. Deathbunny 00:42, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia:Naming conventions (precision). I think we need a general guideline, and not a rule overriding the naming convention. Browning automatic rifle (Browning Automatic Rifle?), for example, is a well-known name. —Michael Z. 2006-12-14 00:47 Z
Yep. I think we should be wary of getting too caught up in putting model numbers into titles, both because some weapons are commonly known by names that omit them, and because this will cause problems with articles that cover multiple models of a family of weapons. Kirill Lokshin 00:59, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
M1 Garand does not need a descriptor for disambiguation—that's how the weapon is commonly known, and there are no other articles of the same name. As for Browning Automatic Rifle and M249 Squad Automatic Weapon, the words should be left capitalized, as these are parts of these weapons' proper or common name.
It's also worth noting that in titles such as "Springfield M1903" (which should replace the present Springfield 1903 rifle), Springfield should come first as it designates the manufacturer. —Squalla 01:05, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm going to disagree on the M1903 because, as an organization, Springfield armory was both designer and manufacturer (along with at least one other arsenal). Also, I think many of these weapons should be done with the M# nomenclature. Families of weapons should warrant a seperate page. For example, the M9 Pistol and the Baretta 92. Though the M9 is a variation of the Beretta 92, the M9 has enough of a unique history and usage that are not applicable to the Baretta 92 in general to warrant a separate page and a link off the original. Also, the M1 Garand is technically correctly identified as the M1 rifle although commonly known as the M1 Garand. I think, especially with the number of M1's of similar vintage, that rifle should be appended to the title to avoid any confusion. As to the BAR and the SAW... I can see it both ways. Deathbunny 02:20, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
In hindsight, the "automatic rifle" portion of the BAR is as much part of the weapon's title as the Rifle in "Rifle, M16"... Perhaps a compromise with the lower cased descriptor and the abbreviation in parentheses in the "special cases" where the weapon is commonly known by an abbreviaton: "M1918 Browning automatic rifle (BAR)" and "M249 squad automatic weapon (SAW)"? Deathbunny 21:18, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

We can't make compromises like these just to follow a convention. The M16 and the BAR are two separate cases. "Browning automatic rifle" would simply be incorrect, because these nouns are part of the weapon's common name and should be capitalized. The word "rifle" in the particular case of the M16 is not being used as part of the name, but simply as a designator/disambiguation instrument, and does not need to be capitalized. "Browning automatic rifle" is just incorrect, and "Rifle, M16" is neither a common name for the weapon, nor the proper name (but rather part of it), so I just don't see why it should be used. As for including "M1918" on the BAR's article title, that would be inappropriate because the article covers more than just the M1918/A1/A2. There are also the M1922 and other commercial and international variants.
—Squalla 03:05, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I quite agree. As with almost anything, our discretion and the general convention should come first. I think the intention here is to make note of some common-sense rules of thumb to fill in the grey areas.
To me Browning Automatic Rifle and M16 rifle are both fine. M1 Garand rifle has the advantage that it identifies itself for unfamiliar readers, but M1 Garand satisfies the naming criteria because it is unambiguous. —Michael Z. 2006-12-15 05:16 Z
Accoding to the "Standard Catalog of Ordnance Items" (1 June 1945) (http://www.carlisle.army.mil/cgi-bin/usamhi/DL/showdoc.pl?docnum=710 http://www.carlisle.army.mil/cgi-bin/usamhi/DL/showdoc.pl?docnum=711 http://www.carlisle.army.mil/cgi-bin/usamhi/DL/showdoc.pl?docnum=712) From: http://www.carlisle.army.mil/usamhi/DL/, the proper way to title any of those in the book is capitalize each word... M1 "Garand" Rifle, M3 Submachine Gun, M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle... That's probably the most "correct" source for these older guns around.
If we aren't going to half ass this, it looks like capital letters, at least for the old stuff. It solves the problem with BAR and SAW and is probably more technically correct overall. Additionally, for the BAR, the M1918 number probably belongs in the title because it is, by far, the most common variation and the precedent (in M16 Rifle, M14 Rifle, and M4 Carbine, at least) is to start with the base model and place the reasonably similar variants in the same article. Anything significantly different from the basic BAR, especially the FN commercial types, should warrant their own article with a link off the initial page (like AR15 and M16 Rifle and M4 Carbine. Also Beretta 92 and M9 Pistol.)
It also makes it more likely to pop up on a basic search. I think, if the basic variations of titles are identified and redirected to the basic page, it should resolve some of the locating of the pages and leave more room for "being correct". Deathbunny 05:46, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
The Standard Catalog links appear to be Windows-only (requires a plugin for application/x-oleobject). I can't view them on my machine—can't even look at the page because the site redirects me to the ahec home page when the plugin fails to load. Do you know of a web version? Who publishes the catalog?
And what do you mean "most correct"? Is that simply this publication's convention, or do they actually have a style guide which says this is correct? —Michael Z. 2006-12-15 16:56 Z
The publisher was "Office of the Chief of Ordnance Technical Division" in Washington D.C. or, essentially, the department within the US Army that was responsible for designating weapon systems, possibly designing them, and determining whether they were standard issue, etc. Pretty much the best possible people to say what the name was supposed to be. The links are to scans of the original text held by the US Military History Institute and the text is broken down iinto three parts totallying 116MB in PDF format.
Wow, they changed links and such. I'm looking for it again. Some of the manuals in here are pretty interesting... a Tech Manual on the M6 and M6A1 Heavy tanks... I'll look it up and see if I can't find the new, corrected link. Plan B is to find some way of e-mailing a copy... Deathbunny 22:09, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
General link to searcheable online items: http://www.ahco.army.mil/site/search.jsp?bp=3 Deathbunny 22:10, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
Interesting... TM on the BAR refers to it as the "Browning automatic rifle" except in the title. Hmmm... Deathbunny 22:45, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
Meh. The question of what needs a separate article and what doesn't is an editorial one; it definitely shouldn't be decided based on how the article naming convention works out. Kirill Lokshin 06:13, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
Definitely, didn't mean to imply that it should be based on naming conventions except as far as naming conventions based on models delineate models that likely have different enough traits, histories, and uses to warrant a different article. MAybe that's just me, but something like the L1A1 SLR probably has enough uniqueness to warrant a seperate page from the FN FAL and would have a seperate nomenclature/article name. As to the other direction... multiple nomenclatures on same page... if a model isn't unicque enough to warrant a seperate page on merit it's probably similar enough to be on the page regardless of nomenclature. (Like the afore mentioned M16-series).Deathbunny 06:48, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Option A-2 Apply this format and rules:

M# 'Name' "Official Descriptor"

Rule 1. For all American M-type, British L-type (without a more appropriate named article), and Canadian C-type weapons weapons without a commonly associated designer's name or a descriptor forming a commonly associated acronym, the title will be the (initial) model number plus the short, explicit descriptor capitalized.

Examples
    • M16 Rifle
    • M79 Grenade Launcher
Rule 2. For all weapons with a commonly associated designer's name the title will be the (initial) model number followed by the designer or exclusive manufacturer's name, the short, explicit descriptor capitalized.
Examples
    • M1 Garand Rifle
    • M1903 Springfield Rifle

Rule 3. For all weapons without a commonly associated designer's name and with a descriptor forming a commonly associated acronym, the title will be the (initial) model number plus the unabreviated acronym.

Examples
    • M249 Squad Automatic Weapon
    • M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle

Rule 3-B (Optional). For all weapons without a commonly associated designer's name and with a descriptor forming a commonly associated acronym, the title will be the (initial) model number plus the unabreviated acronym followed by the abbreviation in parentheses.

Examples
    • M249 Squad Automatic Weapon (SAW)
    • M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR)

Rule 4. Unless a particular variation warrants a seperate article, it will be included in the initial type's with annotations of differences and a targetable link where appropriate.

This would cover the "correct" title for most American weapons based on manuals and ordnance catalogs with a gray area for modern weapons which may or may not use a capitalized descriptor. The titles get long, it may or may not be so "exportable" in scope outside these particular classes of weapons but it is close to technically correct. For most American Weapons the title will be relatively short and include the elements of the common name of the weapon to make it readily apparent what the article is about. Deathbunny 06:59, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

As is Option A-1 Simple disambiguation
M6 Bayonet M6 Bayonet M6 bayonet
M7 Bayonet M7 Bayonet M7 bayonet
M9 Bayonet M9 Bayonet M9 bayonet
M2 Machine Gun M2 Browning Machine Gun M2 Browning heavy machine gun
M60 Machine gun M60 Machine Gun M60 machine gun
Minigun M134 Minigun M134 minigun
XM214 minigun XM214 Minigun XM214 minigun
M240 M240 Machine Gun M240 machine gun
M249 Squad Automatic Weapon M249 Squad Automatic Weapon M249 squad automatic weapon
Thompson submachine gun M1921 Thompson Submachine Gun Thompson submachine gun
M3 Grease Gun M3 Submachine Gun M3 submachine gun
M1 Carbine M1 Carbine M1 carbine
M4 Carbine M4 Carbine M4 carbine
Springfield 1903 rifle M1903 Springfield Rifle M1903 Springfield rifle
M1917 Enfield rifle M1917 Enfield Rifle M1917 Enfield rifle
Browning Automatic Rifle M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle M1918 Browning automatic rifle
Johnson M1941 Rifle M1941 Johnson Rifle M1941 Johnson rifle
M41 Johnson LMG M1941 Johnson Light Machine Gun M1941 Johnson light machine gun
M1 Garand M1 Garand Rifle M1 Garand rifle
XM8 rifle XM8 Rifle XM8 rifle
M14 Rifle M14 Rifle M14 rifle
M15 rifle M15 Rifle M15 rifle
M16 rifle M16 Rifle M16 rifle
M21 (rifle) M21 Rifle M21 rifle
M24 SWS M24 Sniper Weapon System M24 sniper weapon system
M40 (rifle) M40 Rifle M40 rifle
M1911 M1911 Colt Automatic Pistol M1911 Colt pistol
M9 Pistol M9 Pistol M9 pistol
M15 General Officers UNSURE M15 pistol
XM26 LSS XM26 Lightweight Shotgun System XM26 lightweight shotgun system
M79 Grenade launcher M79 Grenade Launcher M79 grenade launcher
XM148 Grenade launcher XM148 Grenade Launcher XM148 grenade launcher
M203 grenade launcher M203 Grenade Launcher M203 grenade launcher
Browning Model 1919 machine gun M1919 Browning Machine Gun M1919 Browning machine gun
L7 (machine gun) L7 Machine Gun L7 machine gun

Suggestions, MkII

So, what are the issues still to be considered? I see several somewhat unrelated questions:

  • Should weapon type designators be included when they are not needed for disambiguation; in other words, is "M1 Garand rifle" better than "M1 Garand"?
  • Should model numbers be included when they are not commonly used; in other words, is "M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle" better than "Browning Automatic Rifle"?
  • Where present (or always, as the case may be), should the weapon type designator be (a) parenthesized, (b) capitalized, or (c) uncapitalized; in other words, do we want "M16 (rifle)", "M16 rifle", or "M16 Rifle"?

I think that if we come up with answers to these three, we'll be a long way to establishing a workable convention, at least for the bulk of the cases involved. Comments? Kirill Lokshin 14:31, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

* Should weapon type designators be included when they are not needed for disambiguation; in other words, is "M1 Garand rifle" better than "M1 Garand"?

Yes, simply because 95% of reasonably knowledgable individuals (RKI's) know that the M1 Garand is a rifle, but how many of them are likely to be here trying to find this article for the first time? Many/most people off the street will probably not know what it is though they may have heard it. I think it would be more useful for them to have it in the title and not harmful to RKI's to have to gloss over it. Deathbunny 15:23, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
Having a descriptor is unnecessary because: a) the title is not ambiguous; b) redirects from other common names (such as "M1 rifle") can be made for searching purposes, and c) the first sentence of the article—along with the infobox—promptly inform the reader of the type of weapon. —Squalla 20:01, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
Unambiguous to whom? RKI's? or people who are most likely to be looking for the article? Appropriate rederects are pretty much a given. Also, "M1 rifle", because of novices, should probably be a disambiguation page that includes the M1 Carbine, M1 Garand Rifle, and possibly the M1 Thompson Submachine Gun. Deathbunny 20:18, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

* Should model numbers be included when they are not commonly used; in other words, is "M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle" better than "Browning Automatic Rifle"?

If the article describes a single type and it's variations where the variations do not warrant a seperate article on their own, yes. Why? Because many times what people will be looking for will often be the model number and that makes it easier to find and to tell you have the right page. With larger "families" of weapons, say the Browning machine guns that may include the M2, M1917, M1919, and .308 and foriegn conversions, I can see that a model number doesn't make sense but that individual pages within the family do. Also, unlike some other types like the older English models where the manufacturer/designer's name and a Mark or Number applied for variation, American weapons almost universally in service and often in civilian life become known by their model number and are much more likely to be looked up based on it. You only need to look at the "as is" names right now to see that in some cases... Deathbunny 15:23, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
I disagree that this rule (or any rule) should be applied 100% of the time for its own sake. In the case of this example, it is well kown as the BAR or Browning Automatic Rifle alone. Redirects or disambiguation links from variations and model number alone will suffice to help readers find the article. —Michael Z. 2006-12-18 17:41 Z
The BAR-series, at least so far as the M1918/M1918A1/M1918A2/M1922 series are variations in furniture and small details off the basic model and, except for the international models, are at least as similar as the M16-series weapons that coexist happily on the same page. Also, considering the MASSIVE numbers of M1922's made compared to the base models under the original numbers... Deathbunny 20:18, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
I also disagree. Not only is the BAR generally known simply as the Browning Automatic Rifle, but also the fact that this article covers more than only the M1918 makes the more generic designator more appropriate. —Squalla 20:01, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps the foriegn models would be better served being split off into a seperate article where more of their unique information would be better presented? Deathbunny 20:18, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
Like Browning wz. 1928? Deathbunny 20:35, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

* Where present (or always, as the case may be), should the weapon type designator be (a) parenthesized, (b) capitalized, or (c) uncapitalized; in other words, do we want "M16 (rifle)", "M16 rifle", or "M16 Rifle"?

I think we've figured out that the parenthetical, in this subset of articles, is not really appropriate except, possibly, when the weapon is known by an abbreviation and that the abbreviation may be useful to have in the title. (i.e. "Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR)") That's still not really a good reason though. So the last one is really: Should we capitalize the descriptor as part of the weapon's actual title or ignore it as a portion of the proper nomenclature and assume it's a common descriptor?Deathbunny 15:23, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
But we never title article with both the expanded and abbreviated name. —Michael Z. 2006-12-18 17:41 Z
Personally, I think we should use the "M16 rifle" form, where rifle is a common designator. Exceptions should be made when the weapon's name is not ambiguous (such as the M1 Garand). —Squalla 20:01, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
Unless it is a specific, non-generic ambiguator like "Squad Automatic Weapon" or "Browning Automatic Weapon" or "Sniper Weapon System"? How does the "layman" identify what's apropriate then? Deathbunny 20:18, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
My preference is for the title to give basic information on the weapon for the benefits of searching and for non-RKI's. Accordingly the form "M16 rifle" (or, less preferable, "M16 Rifle") is best. I would certainly not use "M16 (rifle)", but rather save the parenthetical note for disambiguation in the rare case where a designator might be used by different countries' weapons, etc. — not for a basic descriptive element. I prefer "M16 rifle" over "M16 Rifle" for the simple reason that it shows that "rifle" is not a formal part of its name, but rather what it is. "M1 Garand rifle" would likewise be preferable to "M1 Garand" because it makes immediately clear to the novice what an M1 Garand is; popular usage can be displayed in the article itself. I would also keep the weapon type rather basic; use "machine gun" instead of "light [medium/heavy] machine gun", and note in the first reference that it is a light caliber. Where the formal weapon name is also used as an acronym, such as for the BAR or SAW, use initial caps — e.g., "M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle" and note the acronym in the lead. In this particular case, I'm rather agnostic as to whether M1918 or M1922 is used, as I can see that the initial model and main mass-production models are each significant in their own right but not so different as to warrant separate articles. In fact, in this particular case, it might be best to just accept it as an exceptional case and use "Browning Automatic Rifle". Otherwise, I'd typically go with whichever is the model number was the most "famous" — i.e., most common in terms of use in sources or in quantity produced. I would not recommend making separate article for foreign models (e.g., "Browning wz. 1928") unless there was a very good reason to, such as its becoming a new development line or some such. Askari Mark (Talk) 21:27, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
Ironically, "Rifle" is technically more part of the Garand's name than "Garand", nomenclature-wise. Garand was, historically, applied as a "disambiguatior" and gradually became part of the accepted name. Because of that, I have issues with using Garand without "Rifle" or, at least, "rifle".


Oh, the statement about massive numbers of M1922 Brownings was sarcasm. The M1922 Browning Automatic Rifle was a horse cavalry adaptation for the M1918's to allow horse cavalry units a light machinegun more portable than the M1919 Browning Machine Guns. With the reduction of horse cavalry and the shift in focus toward mechanization, the M1922 wasn't exactly needed as vehicles became the mounts and were able to carry multiple M1919's and M2's. Deathbunny 22:50, 18 December 2006 (UTC)


I believe most of these points have already been addressed quite a few times before. And frankly, I'm starting to wonder what's the point of this discussion when you continue to move pages without consensus. —Squalla 21:18, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Squalla has a very good point here. Deathbunny, please stop moving articles until we've actually come to a consensus on where they ought to be moved; it's quite possibly senseless work that will have to be changed later, and frankly smacks of trying to establish "facts on the ground" for some of the issues being debated. Kirill Lokshin 22:05, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
It just seemed like everyone stated their piece, didn't come to a concensus, and went on to other things. I mean, if we're talking about it and making progress, whatever the outcome, I would much rather prefer for us to come to a concensus on this and then we can go fix the pages and links to the appropriate agreed article titles. If a concensus can't be reached, then maybe we should simply see what the "market will bear" and what the users are going to go for. Deathbunny 22:44, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
Eh, things tend to happen somewhat slowly in topics that aren't controversial. I've linked this discussion from WP:RFC, though, so we ought to have some more editors commenting now.
(In any case, seeing "what the market will bear" tends to get really ugly really fast; see, for example, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Highways for how a fairly trivial difference of opinion over the proper naming convention can turn into a Wikipedia-wide bloodbath.) Kirill Lokshin 22:48, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
That would be why I think it would be much better to select a semi-fixed and workable format here for these weapon types, enact one, and then bring the appropriate articles in line. That way, if there is a big issue in the future, there is a precedent and a sense of authority to fix them forward. I'm just trying to push forward some method that is based on real-world use, is workable in the confines of Wikipedia articles, and facilitates a logical application almost universally within the scope of these particular weapons.Deathbunny 22:55, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I think the articles should be named with the weapons formal names, listed in the articles, with redirects for all the suggested names. --Natl1 01:09, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
    • You mean something like United States Rifle, Caliber 5.56 mm, M16 as an article title? That seems to violate the "use common names" principle pretty flagrantly, among other things; I don't think we should use names that aren't actually in common usage except on formal paperwork as article titles. Kirill Lokshin 01:26, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
A compromise that is correct without being painfully and confusingly so but is going to include enough information to allow it to be found, identified as the right article, and is not ambiguous to RKI's or people just wanting to see what grand-dad carried during the war..Deathbunny 02:09, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
Also, considering the weapons this is primarily (exclusively?) dealing with, the typical American pattern of using the nomenclature first, manufacturer second, and type of weapon last should probably be followed for these weapons. Rules for English weapons, which used a different pattern of nomenclature, should be different. Deathbunny 02:14, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
I think that'd be unnecessarily pedantic unless we are using the full formal names employed in each country (in which case it takes care of itself). I don't think there's a convincing argument for abandoning the use of more common nomenclature here, though, as that's a pretty fundamental element of most naming conventions. Kirill Lokshin 02:19, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Simpler approach?

How about a somewhat simpler approach, based (hopefully) more intuitively on the "common names" principle (and trying to combine some of the points argued above):

The name of the article should generally consist of two parts:

  • A model identifier. This is typically either the model number alone, or a combination of the model number and the designer's name; but it can include other elements if they are a more common designation in historical literature. The order of the elements should follow any conventions used in applicable historical works; a default ordering that can be used in the absence of other guidance is "<model number> <designer's name>". In articles covering multiple models of a weapon, the model number may either be omitted entirely, or, if one model is considered the "primary" topic, its number may be used.
  • A type designator. This should be a concise description of the type of firearm in question (e.g. "pistol", "rifle", or "machine gun"). The designator should be given in lowercase, except where it is a part of the weapon's proper name.

This would produce things like:

and so forth. This would give us something workable for the vast majority of firearms; the occasional exception could be handled simply as an exception, rather than an alternative naming convention.

Thoughts? Would this make anyone content, or have I picked the wrong points from everyone's comments for a compromise version? Kirill Lokshin 03:01, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

It sounds totally reasonable except for 2 things: determining what designator is part of the proper name and a lack of uniformity in other nationalities' designations. You could make one for weapons of primarily commercial origin using "manufacturer" + "model number of primary varient", but I don't think a single rule is going to cover most of the weapons articles beyond US and maybe some modern Canadian or Brit gear.
Capitalizing the designator sidesteps determining whether the designator is part of the proper name or not and presents a common title format and leave any other discussion on an article by article basis. Deathbunny 03:18, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
I think the first issue won't be as much trouble as one might suspect; most of these weapons have been mentioned in English-language historical works, so we can presumably follow their conventions. (Note, for example, that half of my examples above are from France, Germany, etc.) Granted, the way the model numbers are formatted and so forth won't necessarily be consistent across different countries; but I don't think that's a major issue, as they're likely not consistent that way in other reference works as well.
As far as when to capitalize the designator, I don't know. I suppose that always capitalizing it is easier; but it also seems more correct to leave it uncapitalized in cases where it's not actually part of the name. (We could, of course, always leave it uncapitalized instead, leading to things like M1918 Browning automatic rifle; while that might very well be a "correct" way of referring to it, I'm not sure that anyone would be happy with that.) Kirill Lokshin 03:27, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
(smirk) I don't think anyone is really happy with this because it involves change and it involves compromise. It also is making people look at and defend their pet ideas...
...one reason I've been pushing for a really limited scope to this resolution. If that works... Deathbunny 03:35, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
Kirill, can you show us what you mean on these couple of articles by "fixing" the last column? Option A-2 is pretty much the alternate "all capitals" idea. If anyone else has a good idea, ass a fourth column...Deathbunny 03:53, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Vote

As is Option A-2 Simple version
M6 Bayonet M6 Bayonet M6 bayonet
M7 Bayonet M7 Bayonet M7 bayonet
M9 Bayonet M9 Bayonet M9 bayonet
M2 Browning Machine Gun M2 Browning Machine Gun M2 Browning machine gun
M60 Machine Gun M60 Machine Gun M60 machine gun
Minigun M134 Minigun M134 minigun
XM214 minigun XM214 Minigun XM214 minigun
Colt M231 FPW M231 Firing Port Weapon M231 Firing Port Weapon
M240 M240 Machine Gun M240 machine gun
M249 Squad Automatic Weapon M249 Squad Automatic Weapon M249 Squad Automatic Weapon
Thompson submachine gun M1921 Thompson Submachine Gun Thompson submachine gun
M3 Submachine Gun M3 Submachine Gun M3 submachine gun
M1 Carbine M1 Carbine M1 carbine
M4 Carbine M4 Carbine M4 carbine
M1903 Springfield Rifle M1903 Springfield Rifle M1903 Springfield rifle
M1917 Enfield rifle M1917 Enfield Rifle M1917 Enfield rifle
M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle
Johnson M1941 Rifle M1941 Johnson Rifle M1941 Johnson rifle
M41 Johnson LMG M1941 Johnson Light Machine Gun M1941 Johnson machine gun
M1 Garand Rifle M1 Garand Rifle M1 Garand rifle
XM8 rifle XM8 Rifle XM8 rifle
M14 Rifle M14 Rifle M14 rifle
M15 rifle M15 Rifle M15 rifle
M16 rifle M16 Rifle M16 rifle
M21 (rifle) M21 Sniper Weapon System M21 Sniper Weapon System
M24 SWS M24 Sniper Weapon System M24 Sniper Weapon System
M40 (rifle) M40 Rifle M40 rifle
M1911 M1911 Colt Automatic Pistol M1911 Colt pistol
M9 Pistol M9 Pistol M9 pistol
M15 General Officers UNSURE M15 pistol
XM26 LSS XM26 Lightweight Shotgun System XM26 Lightweight Shotgun System
M79 Grenade launcher M79 Grenade Launcher M79 grenade launcher
XM148 Grenade launcher XM148 Grenade Launcher XM148 grenade launcher
M203 grenade launcher M203 Grenade Launcher M203 grenade launcher
Browning Model 1919 machine gun M1919 Browning Machine Gun M1919 Browning machine gun
L7 (machine gun) L7 Machine Gun L7 machine gun
Okay, done (I think). Kirill Lokshin 04:00, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

I think Kirill Lokshin has done a very good job of capturing what the consensus seems to be coming to (at least for US firearms). As Deathbunny notes, there's really no way there can be a single schema that works in all cases. As far as his concern about when the designator should be capitalized as part of the proper name, I think it's best guided by whether the proper name is used to form a common acronym; that will cover most of these cases. Askari Mark (Talk) 03:55, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

In general, I can live with his simple approach—although I prefer the capitalized (A-2) variant—as long as we start with it restricted to US weapons and export it into other areas on a case-by-case basis. Deathbunny 05:29, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
I think this looks good, generally. A few things I would change, however, are:
  • "M1911 Colt pistol" to simply "M1911 pistol", with the same being applied to the Browning M2 and M1919 (simply "M2 machine gun" and "M1919 machine gun");
  • "M21 Sniper Weapon System" to "M21 rifle" (I don't think the M21 has the SWS designation);
  • When it comes to popular weapon names, such as "AK-47", if this "rule" is applied to the M1 Garand ("M1 Garand rifle"), should other article titles such as AK-47 and Lee-Enfield really be turned into AK-47 rifle and Lee-Enfield rifle? I just think there could be some resistance, especially on the AK-47, as to why the designator is necessary.
But I suppose specific cases can be further discussed in their respective pages after a general convention is applied, right? —Squalla 13:59, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
According to the Field Manual listed as reference on the M21 page, it is also considered a "Sniper Weapon System" at the time the manual was printed. Whether we go off that source material or possibly another (older?) source is debateable though "M21 rifle" isn't something I will argue with. I think the two machine guns should retain the Browning in the title to both avoid confusion with other Models of 1919 and to recognize that, in much source material, these weapons are often referred to as Brownings, Browning machine guns, or M# Brownings. Otherwise, I concur on the M1911 as I'm unaware of any other competing M-numbers likely to conflict (A compact Astra, a Steyr, and maybe a Luger variation). "M1911 Colt Automatic Pistol" was the nomenclature from the Ordnance Catalog I am still looking for the new link to. (If I had the webspace/bandwidth...) Deathbunny 15:03, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
Hmm... That field manual[1] is actually from the M24 Sniper Weapon System. It was probably listed on the M21 rifle article by mistake. I don't seem to be able to browse any pages other than the table of contents, however. —Squalla 15:56, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
Hey, no concensus has been reached. PLEASE stop moving pages until something of a concensus has been reached! Deathbunny, you moved M1 Garand to M1 Garand Rifle and I moved it back. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Asams10 (talk • contribs)
I think this point was already made and acknowledged a few sections above. Kirill Lokshin 17:45, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
I think that from the perspective of writing a general encyclopedia, the forms "AK-47 rifle" and "Lee-Enfield rifle" would be preferable. We need to be careful of writing "as cognoscenti for cognoscenti." Askari Mark (Talk) 18:34, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
Since we are attempting to standardize the nomenclature, the designator should probably be included. After all, we should be as specific as possible, and an AK-47 could be a type of camera for all we know. Specificity is always preferable to vagueness. (Talk) JVkamp 20:15, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, I guess that's fair. —Squalla 20:37, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

So, for the US weapons articles above and those that fit the same, basic format where they can be effectively described in the same manner, who is currently in agreement with Option A-2 and/or the simple version? (This way we can see if there is any disagreement on which one and then wait, say, 48 hours for others to chime in so we don't beat a dead horse. We can focus on what people are still disagreeing on.

I must Oppose in the strongest possible terms the addition of the disambiguator "rifle" to the Lee-Enfield page. The reason for this is that there are several completely different types of Lee-Enfield rifle (MLE, SMLE, No 4 MK I, No 5 Mk I, Ishapore 2A1, Enfield Enforcer, etc), and no single one of them can lay claim to being *THE* Lee-Enfield rifle. Adding the "Rifle" disambiguator to pages for the individual Lee-Enfields themselves would be fine, though- eg Short Magazine Lee-Enfield rifle, Lee-Enfield Rifle No. 4 Mk I, Lee-Enfield Rifle No. 5 Mk I "Jungle Carbine". I don't really think the disambiguator is necessary for a lot of the guns, either- anyone with internet access is going to know what an M1 Garand, M-16, AK-47, or Lee-Enfield is. However, an "M1" or an "M9" could refer to a whole host of things, not necessarily firearm related, and so I think the "rifle/pistol/shotgun" disambiguator should ONLY be applied where the gun in question is not widely known under the model number. For example, Lee-Enfield or AK-47 wouldn't have the "rifle" disambiguator (as most people should know what these are), but "M203" or "M9" would have the "grenade launcher" and "pistol" ("handgun"?) disambiguator, as it is not immediately clear what they are from their name alone, if that makes sense. --Commander Zulu 02:18, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
Surprisingly enough, most people know next to nothing about firearms, and would just look at you funny if you asked them what a "Lee-Enfield" was. ;-)
More seriously, though, this seems like a grammatical issue more than anything else. If "rifle" doesn't make sense for the Lee-Enfield page because it covers multiple different rifles, wouldn't "Lee-Enfield rifles" or "Lee-Enfield rifle family" be a viable option that both includes a type descriptor and avoids the single-rifle implication? Kirill Lokshin 02:25, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
Well, I agree that the designator is unnecessary in some cases, but I'm not completely opposed to having the designator either. As for using a plural designator (as the case may be), I'm not sure that would be necessary if you take into consideration the M16, for example. There are about as many M16 variants as there are Lee-Enfield's, but the title for the M16 article uses the singular "rifle" designator nonetheless. The type descriptor thus refers to the weapon family as a whole rather than a single type of rifle. But again, I'm more inclined not to use a designator in such cases. I mean, there aren't articles called Pentium 4 processor, Ferrari cars manufacturer; even if the person doesn't know what "Ferrari" and "Pentium 4" are, the first sentence of the article immediately provides that information. —Squalla 02:56, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
One reason I wanted to stay away from the older English and, for that matter, foreign weapons. (smirk) With the US types, the official nomenclature provides the descriptor explicitly... I would think though, that a general page on the family of Lee-Enfields with appropriate links about Lee and the Enfield and then the primary variants (and their variations) like the Lee-Enfield Rifle No. 4 Mk I et al. But that's just me. Deathbunny 06:00, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
It's also worth bearing in mind that the various M-16 and AK-47 variants are all pretty much identical to each other, with only relatively minor differences between the rifles. About the only thing an SMLE Mk III and a No 5 Mk I have in common is the fact they're chambered in .303 and have 10 shot magazines... I'm just not sure we need the disambiguator in the title. The first line will tell unfamiliar readers that the M1 Garand is a rifle, and that the AK-47 isn't a camera, for example. --Commander Zulu 12:41, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
For some of the US weapons, the disambiguator is actually part of the proper designation and is often more proper than the common name (i.e. M1 Garand rifle, M1903 Springfield rifle, etc.) so there may actually be a difference between the older English weapons and these weapons we are debating here. Additionally, for the US weapons, the descriptor takes nothing away, is not incorrect, and does help identify particular articles in the search page. Additionally, with the multiple types sharing same/similar M-numbers like the M9 pistol/bayonet/protective mask and the M1 rifle/carbine/submachine gun and such it actually makes sense to have a standardized form. Deathbunny 14:21, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
Which is fair enough. I just don't think we're going to get a "one size fits all" solution here, alas. --Commander Zulu 12:16, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Voter Option A-2 Simple version
Deathbunny agree agree
Askari Mark okay preferred
Squalla disagree preferred
JVkamp disagree preferred
Commander Zulu Preferred Agree
Ve3 (Late Vote 1/1/07) Preferred disagree*


Ok, this is 72 hours plus. Does this mean that we have a policy now for US M# nomenclature weapons or does anyone else wan't to disagree/debate/offer another idea? If anyone has any further disagreement for these limited cases it would be appropriate to speak now, eh? Deathbunny 04:00, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

As long as it's only applied to US "M#" nomenclature weapons, I'm pretty happy with either of the two listed options. I just don't want people messing around with the names of military firearms from other countries purely on the basis of the US nomenclature consensus, if that makes sense. --Commander Zulu 08:33, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
What I think is, as long as it's in a format the Wikipedia users understand and the naming is clear, the best people to determine the nomenclature of a weapon are those who named it and adopted it. Like weapons primarily known as commercial items (like much of the H&K stuff) should be "Heckler & Koch (H&K's model name)". As to the old English rifles and such, isn't it typically "Designer(s) (type) Mark # Mod #" for individual types? Deathbunny 09:39, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
Seems reasonable enough, then. I suspect that this convention will probably work for other countries' weapons as well; but we'll need to examine them on a case-by-case basis to determine if that's actually true. Kirill Lokshin 16:52, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
I was not here for the initial vote, as I usually edit only periodically- but I added my late vote so it is known what my thought is on the matter as I have personally worked on 100s of firearms articles including many of the ones listed above.
For non-u.s firearms I dont really care, the simple dab is fine I guess. For U.S. weapons I prefer the correct short formal designation, e.g M14 Rifle, M9 Pistol, etc. Aside from its official use, the name is unique with letter, but the M# combinations are repeated (e.g. M9 Bayonet, M9 Pistol). The formal short name with caps is also commonly used, a great many sources list M16 Rifle for instance.
For being commonly used, being technically correct, and being the complete short name, the formal short name with caps I think is better choice for U.S. military name titles on the wiki.
Given that I missed the main vote Im not sure if it matters, but either way I don't think its that critical to the quality of the articles. However, I would encourge people to use the correct short form within articles (with caps), because non-capitalized short designations are not the formal short form, as I mention below (e.g. M14 rifle or M14 Rifle not M14 rifle) Ve3 01:36, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

There only exists one option for at least one of subjects being mentioned (specifically being able to vote for either M1 Garand rifle or M1 Garand rifle). That's a joke. As already mentioned above, there needs not be a 'disambiguator' next to the Garand in M1 Garand. There is only one thing called an M1 Garand, and that is the rifle. M1 Garand pertains to no other military weapon or system, unlike an M1 itself or an M9. In the case of the M1, the Garand being in the full name M1 Garand, already clarifies what it is. The addition of rifle to M1 Garand itself looks horrible. On top of that, there is no common usage of the phrase M1 Garand rifle. That is not used by the U.S. military, or any local gun collectors I know of, or on major web pages such as www.surplusrifle.com. If anything, the article should be named U.S. Rifle, Cal. .30, M1 Garand or merely M1 Garand. M1 Garand rifle is not only wrong in usage but is beyond redundant. Please change the current page. Brenden 01:08, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Mmm, while the rifle may be more commonly referred to as simply the "M1 Garand" (or even the "M1"), "M1 Garand rifle" is a reasonably common usage (36,000 ghits), so I don't see a reason to reject it out of hand. Beyond that, though, there are two points here:
  • The seemingly redundant addition of a type descriptor is generally quite common. "M1 Garand" is, strictly speaking, an adjectival phrase; there's no noun. While it's not ambiguous in the sense that there's another thing called the "M1 Garand", it's somewhat unclear, at least to the general reader, what the term refers to. A similar usage exists in other places; for example, we have Iowa-class battleship, even though, technically, Iowa-class would suffice.
  • As a practical matter, having a standard naming scheme for even such a small group of articles (model-number-designated US weapons, here) is going to mean that some of them will have article titles with a little extra fluff added. We can either accept this, or we can abandon the idea of a formulaic naming convention altogether; but we don't really have a way of maintaining a convention while allowing large-scale deviation from it. (It would be possible, in theory, to consider the M1 as some sort of special exception; but the reasoning here isn't unique to the Garand, but could be applied to almost any other weapon with a designer's name, so that won't be practical.)
So the location of the article really goes back to the original question of whether we want a standard naming convention. So far, I haven't seen anyone suggesting that we adopt something different; but if anyone has any other ideas for how to name these articles, please feel free to speak up. Kirill Lokshin 01:57, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

The naming convention is far too broad to have to stamp each page with a standard naming scheme that deviates from common nomenclature. In your example, you describe the problem with Iowa-Class. In that page is a format that I think would suffice in removing uneeded disambiguators from page titles of military weaponry where it goes against the common usage. Since commong usage of describing Iowa-Class Battleships is having that full phrase, that is fine. However, that is not the case with the M1 Garand. I'd prefer having a setup with the page title being "M1 Garand" and the first sentence stating something similar to "The M1 Garand was/is a rifle...". A cookie cutter naming system does not fit properly for all the articles that are covered. 64.254.97.10 00:59, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Comment about U.S. military designations WITHIN articles

Whatever is decided above about the page titles, the correct short from for the U.S. designations is with caps. If there is a informal disambiguation e.g. M14 rifle- with the page at M14 rifle, that does not change that the correct formal short designation is still M14 Rifle within the article itself (e.g M14 Rifle or M14 rifle, not M14 rifle). Ve3 01:12, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Generally speaking, it looks like I've been the primary person correcting links. What I have been doing within articles is following the trend within the article except under "see also" and such at the bottom or on disambiguation pages. For example, if the article generally uses "M16 Rifle", I hide the link name. If they use different terminology, I tend to hide the link also. I too would have preferred the capitalized option, but that's not what people went for. Deathbunny 04:22, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
Using an informal DAB for the titles is on thing, but the formal military short name uses caps. I don't think the projects guidlines on style extend to the point of writing the names incorrectly within the article, but if they do, its going to reduce the credibility of the article. Ve3

Does anybody else think the name should be capitalized within articles? Personally, I think that it should follow the same rule discussed for the title; if the descriptor in the title is left uncapitalized as a type designator (rather than part of the proper name), why should this designation be capitalized within the article? Moreover, the full formal name is regularly present in the introductory sentence (e.g., "more formally the United States Rifle, Caliber .30, M1"), and it should make it clear what the formal name of the weapon is. Also, there are some official sources (such as this field manual for the M1918A2 BAR) that uses the uncapitalized name in the "body" of the work, and the capitalized name when referring to the title of the work. —Squalla 14:55, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I concur with Squalla that the official name should be presented (in boldface) in the introductory paragraph but in colloquial English thereafter. Wikipedia — being an encyclopedia, not a field manual — should IMHO be written toward a general audience, not a specialist one. This would not only be consistent with the general Wikipedia style, but would also avoid the inevitable reverting when well-meaning editors regularly uncapitalize "Rifle" since it doesn't look "normal". Askari Mark (Talk) 20:15, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
Squalla is correct for what he is talking about, my point was when people say the formal short name. The issue avoiding writing what appears to be the formal name incorrectly, not the amount of colloquial use. Ve3 06:23, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Peer review request for PSS Silent Pistol

There's a new peer review request for PSS Silent Pistol that may be of interest to editors here; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 01:27, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Artillery stubs

There is quite a long list of stubs requesting images at Wikipedia:Requested_pictures/Military#Artillery. Some of them are about successor models with only minor changes. Would it be possible to integrate several such stubs into one article about the development and different specifications of one weapon design? Wandalstouring 17:48, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

In some cases it probably will make sense to merge articles. But often some research will be needed to determine whether "N-mm gun model 19ab" is a minor improvement of "N-mm gun model 19cd" or a completely unrelated design. And my knowledge of the subject is unfortunately rather fragmentary. Bukvoed 10:04, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikiproject firearms

Hello all. I have created a wikiproject for firearms. I would like to ask anyone interested to join. We will defer to this task force in military arms, but that hopefully won't be a problem as we intend to focus on civilian weapons. Anyone interested should just go to wikipedia:WikiProject:Firearms.--LWF 23:37, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Peer review request for USS Missouri (BB-63)

There's a new peer review request for USS Missouri (BB-63) that may be of interest to editors here; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 01:37, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

{{Cartridge-stub}}

Category:Firearms stubs has several hundred entries, and at least a hundred of them are specific cartridge types. A subcategory for cartridges would be useful and keep both to manageable size. I've made a proposal at Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Proposals. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 02:35, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

I've created {{ammo-stub}} and need help populating it. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 08:57, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

To Do list with US Weapons...

Should this be on a seperate page?


Instructions:

  • Select an article title and move it, if necessary. When moved, fill in the appropriate column with "Yes".
  • Open "What links here page".
  • Starting with the lowest tier of pages, correct links so they point at the correct page. (See note)
  • Correct redirects.
  • When complete, sign the Links fixed column to show date/time.

Note: Generally stay away from Archived Wikipedia pages and User pages. Also stay away from this page, eh?

To add a new article:

  • Add it to the bottom of the table.

If there are major issues or a major disagreement:

  • Stop.
  • Initiate a discussion where appropriate.
  • Put a link to the discussion in the Notes column.
  • Put a link here in the discussion.
As is Simple version Linked pages Page moved? Links fixed? Notes:
Thompson submachine gun Special:Whatlinkshere/Thompson submachine gun Yes Deathbunny 05:08, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
M1 bayonet Special:Whatlinkshere/M1 bayonet Yes Deathbunny 01:06, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
M1 carbine Special:Whatlinkshere/M1 carbine Yes Deathbunny 08:37, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
M1 Garand rifle Special:Whatlinkshere/M1 Garand rifle Yes
M2 Browning machine gun Special:Whatlinkshere/M2 Browning machine gun Yes Deathbunny 06:08, 1 January 2007 (UTC) Finally!!!
M3 submachine gun Special:Whatlinkshere/M3 submachine gun Yes Squalla 15:53, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
M4 bayonet Special:Whatlinkshere/M4 bayonet (does not exist yet)
M4 carbine Special:Whatlinkshere/M4 carbine Yes
M6 bayonet Special:Whatlinkshere/M6 bayonet Yes Deathbunny 06:02, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
M7 bayonet Special:Whatlinkshere/M7 bayonet Yes Deathbunny 06:13, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
XM8 rifle Special:Whatlinkshere/XM8 rifle Yes Deathbunny 07:20, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
M9 bayonet Special:Whatlinkshere/M9 bayonet Yes Deathbunny 06:37, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
M9 pistol Special:Whatlinkshere/M9 pistol Yes
M14 rifle Special:Whatlinkshere/M14 rifle Yes
M15 pistol Special:Whatlinkshere/M15 pistol Yes Deathbunny 03:38, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
M15 rifle Special:Whatlinkshere/M15 rifle Yes Deathbunny 22:08, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
M16 rifle Special:Whatlinkshere/M16 rifle Yes
M21 Sniper Weapon System Special:Whatlinkshere/M21 Sniper Weapon System Yes Deathbunny 05:27, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
M24 Sniper Weapon System Special:Whatlinkshere/M24 Sniper Weapon System Yes Deathbunny 03:31, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
XM26 Lightweight Shotgun System Special:Whatlinkshere/XM26 Lightweight Shotgun System Yes Deathbunny 22:01, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
M40 rifle Special:Whatlinkshere/M40 rifle Yes
M50 Reising submachine gun Special:Whatlinkshere/M50 Reising submachine gun Yes
M60 machine gun Special:Whatlinkshere/M60 machine gun Yes Deathbunny 08:17, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
M73 machine gun Special:Whatlinkshere/M73 machine gun (page does not exist)
M79 grenade launcher Special:Whatlinkshere/M79 grenade launcher Yes
M82 Barrett rifle Special:Whatlinkshere/M82 Barrett rifle Yes Deathbunny 09:40, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
XM107/M107 Barrett rifle Special:Whatlinkshere/XM107/M107 Barrett rifle Yes Deathbunny 09:40, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
XM110 Semi-Automatic Sniper System Special:Whatlinkshere/XM110 Semi-Automatic Sniper System Yes Deathbunny 21:53, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
Minigun M134 minigun Special:Whatlinkshere/M134 minigun Admin needed
XM148 grenade launcher Special:Whatlinkshere/XM148 grenade launcher Yes Deathbunny 21:45, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
M203 grenade launcher Special:Whatlinkshere/M203 grenade launcher Yes
XM214 minigun Special:Whatlinkshere/XM214 minigun Yes Deathbunny 21:03, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
M231 Firing Port Weapon Special:Whatlinkshere/M231 Firing Port Weapon Yes Deathbunny 06:47, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
M240 machine gun Special:Whatlinkshere/M240 machine gun Yes Deathbunny 07:13, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
M249 Squad Automatic Weapon Special:Whatlinkshere/M249 Squad Automatic Weapon Yes Deathbunny 04:30, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
M1903 Springfield rifle Special:Whatlinkshere/M1903 Springfield rifle Yes Deathbunny 02:57, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
M1905 bayonet Special:Whatlinkshere/M1905 bayonet Yes Deathbunny 01:16, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
M1911 Colt pistol Special:Whatlinkshere/M1911 Colt pistol Yes
M1917 bayonet Special:Whatlinkshere/M1917 bayonet Yes Deathbunny 06:37, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
M1917 Enfield rifle Special:Whatlinkshere/M1917 Enfield rifle Yes Deathbunny 21:13, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
M1917 Browning machine gun Special:Whatlinkshere/M1917 Browning machine gun Yes Deathbunny 04:54, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
M1917 revolver Special:Whatlinkshere/M1917 revolver Yes Deathbunny 05:52, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle Special:Whatlinkshere/M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle Yes
M1919 Browning machine gun Special:Whatlinkshere/M1919 Browning machine gun Yes
M1921 Browning machine gun Special:Whatlinkshere/M1921 Browning machine gun (does not exist yet)
M1941 Johnson rifle Special:Whatlinkshere/M1941 Johnson rifle Yes Deathbunny 09:28, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
M1941 Johnson machine gun Special:Whatlinkshere/M1941 Johnson machine gun Yes Deathbunny 09:07, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
M1942 bayonet Special:Whatlinkshere/M1942 bayonet Yes Deathbunny 01:16, 7 January 2007 (UTC)



Simplified Article Naming for US Weapons having the "M-Number" convention:'

(Needs to be filled in.)

Note: assistance in this endeavor would be appreciated. Do you know how many ways there are to refer to a M2 Browning machine gun there are? Deathbunny 06:33, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Regretfully, with the Spring semester starting and my course load plus a new part time job, I may not be able to complete this solo. Assistance would be appreciated. Deathbunny 23:18, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
FWIW, I've added (what I think is) the convention that's been implemented to the task force page, so people can actually figure it out without reading through the entire discussion. Please look over the text and correct it if there's something I missed. Kirill Lokshin 02:06, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Help with 7.92x57 Mauser

HangFire (talk · contribs) keeps moving this page back to the incorrect 7,92 x 57 mm- I've already had the page moved to 7.92x57 Mauser TWICE, once on my own volition and once through the formal "Requested Moves" process. He's lodged no formal objection on the talk page either time, and I'd really appreciate some help from others encouraging him to pull his head in, or at least participate in the debate process rather than just reverting all the time. --Commander Zulu 08:10, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Moved the page back, and mentioned it on the talk page. Here's hoping we have a nice civil discussion. Geoff B 23:41, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Suggested Naming Format Convention for British/Commonwealth Firearms

Seeing as we now have a consensus for US military weapons, I thought it might be a good idea to establish one for British weapons as well.

The basic proposal is that British/Commonwealth firearm articles should be titled in the format Manufacturer/Designer-Designation

As a general rule, the "Mark" descriptor should not be used in the title unless only one rifle of that family exists- for example, there are several marks of Snider-Enfield, Martini-Henry, Short Magazine Lee-Enfield, and Rifle No. 4, and so the article title should simply have the Maker and the Designation.

This would give us:

Just to be really confusing, the British Army changed official nomenclatures three times in the 20th century, and so therefore I would reccommend that the article's name reflects the designation in use at the time the rifle was adopted. For example, the SMLE Mk III was adopted in 1907, but known as the Rifle No 1 Mk III* after 1926, and as the Rifle No 1 Mk 3 after 1946. Same rifle, three diferrent names. However, as it was officially adopted in 1907, the article's name should be in the format Short Magazine Lee-Enfield, rather than the "Rifle, No. X Mk Y" format.

Where possible, names should reflect British/Commonwealth use rather than US use (The Martini-Henry, for example, was never officially referred to as the "Pattern 1874 Rifle", for example), and, of course, meet the "Common Name" requirements (in other words, avoiding the "Rifle, Short, Magazine Lee-Enfield" format which is technically correct, but only used by military historians and scholars academically). Finally, since the term "Rifle" or "Revolver" was a part of the weapon's name, it should probably be capitalised, but I realise more discussion may be needed on this point.

Thoughts, comments, suggestions? --Commander Zulu 08:56, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Seems pretty decent. Obvious question, though: is the caliber specification needed for the Ishapore Rifle? Are there Ishapore Rifles chambered for other calibers, in other words? And, if so, is there any way of distinguishing among them without giving using the Xmm notation? Kirill Lokshin 15:37, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
The calibre is part of the Ishapore 2A1's name- stamped on the buttsocket are the words "RIFLE 7.62mm 2A1"- Rifle, 7.62mm Calibre, Model 2A1. You could probably get away with "Ishapore 2A1 rifle", though, if the calibre designation was going to be a major issue. --Commander Zulu 09:28, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
That might be preferable, I think, unless we want to go through the same mess we had for cartridges and the Xmm notation here. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 16:55, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
I presume that the other naming conventions for commonest name in use etc still take precedence?GraemeLeggett 09:05, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
Of course! --Commander Zulu 09:25, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for F-84 Thunderjet

There's a new request for A-Class status for F-84 Thunderjet that may be of interest to editors here; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 02:53, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

A-Class review for F-105 Thunderchief

There's a new request for A-Class status for F-105 Thunderchief that may be of interest to editors here; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 02:53, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Firearm cartridge infobox

Looking over the large list of cartridge articles, I think it might be prudent to create an infobox for them. Any ideas as to what sort of information they should contain? --Eyrian 23:27, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Copied from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history. Kirill Lokshin 23:38, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
There was previously some discussion of simply adding any needed fields to {{Infobox Weapon}}, since the "is_explosive" option on that (used for grenades, etc.) overlaps quite a bit with the information needed for cartridges; I don't think we ever figured out exactly what needed to be added, though. Ideas are very welcome! Kirill Lokshin 23:38, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
It is my impression, from having looked over {{Infobox Weapon}}, that it really wants to refer to a rather specific manufacturing issue of item. Cartridges seem to have a bit more variation than that. See my proposal (based on my admittedly modest knowledge of the subject) below. --Eyrian 23:55, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
Pretty much all of the fields are optional, so there's no real limitation on what the template can be used for. Kirill Lokshin 00:43, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Basic proposal:

  • Physical Size
  • Introduction
  • Principal manufacturer(s)
  • Weapons commonly using (rifles, pistols, submachine guns, etc.) (I'd appreciate a more elegant phrasing of this field)
  • Common variants

Please add and discuss. --Eyrian 23:55, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

How about:
  • Also Known As (Other names for the catridge, such the fact that the .303 Mk VII SAA Ball cartridge is sold commercially as .303 British)
  • Projectile Size/Weight/Type (eg, 174gr FMJ)
  • First Introduced
Maybe "Weapons commonly using" could be amended to "Firearms chambering"?--Commander Zulu 00:24, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Let's see:
  • Physical size: should be covered by the length, width, height, diameter, and caliber fields, unless I'm missing something.
  • Introduction: I assume this refers to dates? That's covered by the "Service history" and "Production history" sections.
  • Manufacturers: same thing.
  • Variants: covered by the variants field.
  • Weight: covered by the weight/filling weight fields, I think.
  • Type: covered by the type field.
So the only real things missing so far are:
  • Alternate names: this should probably be added anyways, as it's likely to be a fairly common thing across all weapons.
  • Some sort of "weapons using" or "firearms chambering" field: this would be easy enough to add.
Have I missed anything so far? Kirill Lokshin 00:43, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

A-Class review for B-17 Flying Fortress

There's a new request for A-Class status for B-17 Flying Fortress that may be of interest to editors here; any input there would be appreciated. Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 20:02, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Request for input: M60 machine gun

I would like to ask for input on the M60 machine gun article and especially the last series of edits by Ve3 (talk · contribs). My personal view on this is that the page presently lacks a reasonable layout and general organization of sections and paragraphs, and, with all due respect, I feel that edits by this user tend to add redundant and sometimes "out-of-place" and unorganized information (see Talk:M60 machine gun#M13 link for example). Due to the long history of disagreements between myself and this user with no apparent resolution, I thought it would be a better idea to take the discussion here to avoid personal issues and to get input from more users rather than keep discussing this in the M60 machine gun talk page, which does not seem to be regularly watched by many users. Thanks in advance. —Squalla 17:08, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

The only disagrement I have with him about the M60 page, is having a single link in the first sentence to the M13 Link when mentioning the belt feed. This link he has continually removed/moved starting with my initial placement, and after extenisve discussion where I gave many arguments supporting the reasons for this small but important link. As for other issues on the M60 page, it has many issues that need to be fixed eventually. Ve3

Formally Listing Firearm Name Conventions

Perhaps we should list the new conventions for firearm names over at WP:NAME#Proposed_guidelines_and_guidelines_under_construction? --Commander Zulu 23:29, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Meh. In my experience, that particular list is among the lowest-traffic places in the project. ;-)
In practical terms, I think it would be more useful to actually write up a summary of the conventions on the task force page, and then link to it from WP:MILHIST#NAME; most of the people working with these articles are probabably going to be poking around the project's guidelines a bit more often than the see-also sections on NAME. Kirill Lokshin 23:38, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
Fair enough, either option is good. --Commander Zulu 04:51, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
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