Talk: Artillery battery
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I'd not consider myself qualified to edit the article Artillery battery, but i note that it covers the topic
- #1. Military units that have
- "battery" in their name, and
- artillery pieces among their equipment.
It does little to address two distinct but related topics:
- #2. What such a unit, or sailors on a Pennsylvania class battleship, do in the field with their artillery pieces or cannon. (My casual reading of the Richard Sharpe novels (Sharpe's Tiger, Sharpe's Company, Sharpe's Regiment, etc.) of Bernard Cornwell leads me to believe this is an interesting and encyclopedic subject.)
- #3. The organization and history of military units that have "battery" in their name, but don't have any artillery among their equipment.
I've gone ahead and created a stub Battery (military unit) to help identity the articles that already link to it (as a result of my work following conversion of Battery to a disamb page). I suppose it might end up as a redirect rather than an article.
When i disambiguated Battery, i assumed a factoring into
- Battery (artillery deployment) (presently piped to Artillery battery, which may be a mistake), essentially #2 and material implicit in part of #1, and
- Battery (military unit), essentially #3 and most of #1.
If that aspect of Battery is kept as is, Artillery battery probably should be refactored into two corresponding articles; the tactical & strategic one would need a lot of new material.
Or, if Artillery battery keeps its current extent, someone should
- refactor the military entries in Battery,
- create any new articles implied by it, and
- fix the articles that link to Artillery battery and Battery (military unit) to links based on the refactoring.
- Jerzy, I don't quite follow you. You seem mainly to be asking for separate articles for artillery units vs. their tactics. Is that what you mean? I don't really see the point when the whole article is so short. Perhaps splitting could be reconsidered when it somewhat longer. Securiger 14:52, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)
I'm ignorant, and perhaps i'm mostly confused. My impression is that there are units called batteries that have no artillery, just as the air cav and armored cav have no horses.
- Not that I am aware of (although my service was not in the artillery). As noted in the article, there some batteries that are equipped with missiles or heavy rockets instead of more traditional "tube artillery", but this ordance is still considered to be artillery. The closest you get is that a few (very few) countries (e.g. Norway, IIRC) continue to maintain units specifically responsible for coastal defence, and call them coastal batteries regardless of how they are currently armed (currently often heavy ATGMs and fast inflatables). This is already mentioned in the article. Securiger 02:19, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)
It is clear the batteries on battleships are not associated with any army units named "battery".
- Yes, true. Except that both involve groups of large guns, the naval and land usage are completely unrelated. However if I'm not mistaken, the navy doesn't refer to their guns as "artillery", but as "naval gunnery". Perhaps we could have a disambig. link from battery to naval battery - but I'd prefer to ask a sailor first! Securiger 02:19, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)
My reference to operations is more of an afterthot, in wondering what does belong in a "battery as well organized bunch of artillery pieces" article as opposed to a "battery as any unit the brass decide to put that name on" article.
I also don't think i am qualified to work out the structure. Perhaps i made a bad decision in using the unit vs. deployment distinction in my disamb of Battery. User:Lir may be on the way to completely refactoring the military uses back into the single article, and if that is a good idea it's not obvious that Battery needs to change, now or ever. I'm more hoping to wash my hands of the military senses (i'm a dilletante who realizes it) than to guide a refactoring, tho at the very least i think the battleship batteries need some thot. --Jerzy 16:11, 2003 Dec 11 (UTC)
- OK, put in an article for naval battery, if you can find someone to write it - or perhaps a stub to encourage someone to write it. Don't worry about splitting this article until it gets much longer. Securiger 02:19, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)
An afterthot: looking at the language in Battery that Lir changed, i am reminded that the survivors of a battery become, when they ordnance is destroyed by counter-battery fire, a military unit merely qualified to operate artillery, as do those who are deployed ahead of their equipment, or whose pre-deployed equipment is captured, or impounded by allies turned neutrals. (Didn't both impoundment and follow-on by equipment happen, at least to armor units, in Iraq?) --Jerzy 16:31, 2003 Dec 11 (UTC)
- Jerzy, I don't mean to be rude, but it seems to me that this is really splitting hairs. "Battery" refers to a unit which consists of the guns and the men who operate them. Sure, under certain circumstances they might get split up, but do we really need separate articles for that? Securiger 02:19, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)
- No, S., IMO you aren't being rude. And i probably looked like i was still trying to argue for the approach i used in Battery, when i was just completing my brain-dump before bowing out of a discussion that i consider over my head; your misunderstanding is probably my fault.
- I'll be entirely happy to see both my land-war senses of battery collapse into one, especially since no one seems to take seriously the idea (that i have no idea where i got) that there are batteries that haven't had any artillery for decades; i dunno, it may just be a seemingly logical extension of horseless cavalry and units that belong to a ceremonial regiment besides (or instead of?) their real one.
- And thanks for being so over-scrupulous as to ask. --Jerzy 03:13, 2003 Dec 12 (UTC)
A naval battery is perhaps the grouping of several guns in one turret? Rmhermen 16:47, Dec 11, 2003 (UTC)
