Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Campaignbox discussion

It was pointed out in the debates on Battle of Jutland and Battle of Leyte Gulf on WP:FAC that "battle before" and "battle after" are misleading when battles took place simultaneously. Taking Battle of Leyte Gulf as an example, this page explores some possible ways to improve the battlebox. Gdr 17:47, 2004 Nov 5 (UTC)

Current format

Battle of Leyte Gulf
Battle before Battle after Battle of Leyte Battle of Ormoc Bay

• Pro: simple; easily understand; you can navigate through a war by clicking on the "Battle after"
• Con: misleading if battles are simultaneous; simple chronological sequence may lead to unrelated battles from other parts of the war appearing here; some work to maintain (you have to edit three articles each time you add a battle)

Proposals

Related battles

Battle of Leyte Gulf
Related battles 1944-10-20 – 1944-12-10 Leyte 1944-10-24 – 1944-10-25 Leyte Gulf 1944-11-11 Ormoc Bay

• Pro: avoids misleading claims about "before" and "after"
• Con: "related battles" is weak; dates don't fit in column unless you prefer ISO 8601; may be hard to templatize; repeats information about this battle; a lot of work to keep up to date when you add new battles or change dates for existing battles

War

Move the "War" section of the battlebox down to the bottom and list all the battles in the war.

Battle of Portland
First Anglo-Dutch War Goodwin Sands – Plymouth – Kentish Knock – Dungeness – Leghorn – Portland – the Gabbard – Scheveningen

• Pro: works well for a small war like the First Anglo-Dutch War; can be templatized so you only have to change one template when you add a battle.

Battle of Leyte Gulf

Pacific War Pearl Harbor – Prachuab Khirikhan – Prince of Wales and Repulse – Badung Strait – Java Sea – Sunda Strait – Coral Sea – Midway – Aleutian Islands – Komandorski Islands – Kokoda – Milne Bay – Buna-Gona – Bismarck Sea – Lae – Guadalcanal – Savo Island – Eastern Solomons – Cape Esperance – Santa Cruz Islands – Naval Guadalcanal – Tassafaronga – Kula Gulf – Kolombangara – Vella Gulf – Horaniu – Vella Lavella – Empress Augusta Bay – Attack on Rabaul – Cape St. George – Tarawa – Kwajalein – Truk – Eniwetok – Saipan – Philippine Sea – Guam – Tinian – Peleliu – Angaur – Leyte – Leyte Gulf – Ormoc Bay – Luzon – Mindanao – Iwo Jima – Okinawa – Ten-Go – Tokyo Bay – Hiroshima and Nagasaki

• Pro: good for navigation; can be templatized so you only have to edit one file when you add or rename a battle
• Con: too big for the Pacific War

Campaign

Too many battles in a big war to list them all here. So what about dividing the war into campaigns and listing only the battles in the same campaign?

Battle of Leyte Gulf
Philippines Campaign Leyte – Leyte Gulf – Ormoc Bay – Luzon – Mindanao

• Pro: short, clear, easy to navigate to other battles; can be templatized so you only have one thing to edit when you add or change a battle
• Con: only shows the campaign (how do you navigate to other campaigns?)

War/Theater/Campaign

We could make it possible to navigate to other campaigns and theaters by a more complex structure:

Battle of Leyte Gulf
World War II Europe – Asia Pacific – North Africa – Atlantic Pacific theater Southeast Asia – Aleutians – New Guinea – Burma – Solomons – Gilberts and Marshalls – Marianas and Palaus – Philippines – Ryukyus – Japan Philippines campaign Leyte – Leyte Gulf – Ormoc Bay – Luzon – Mindanao

• Pro: a lot of navigational possibilities; templatizable
• Con: complex; big; requires a lot of articles to be written; trying to do the work of Template:WWIITheatre so might lead to conflict with the people who developed that template; will inevitably lead to spelling wars over "theatre" versus "theater"