Talk:20th Pioneer Battalion (Australia)

Pioneer to Light Horse

Cooee Cobbers, I'm suggesting changing the Title of the page from a Pioneer Battalion to a Light Horse Regiment as that is the most recognisable form of the unit (primarily because everyone knows what the Light Horse is (inside Australia at least)) and for the majority of its history it was known by that name. Whereas the name of Pioneer only applies in a short period where it saw service outside Australia, but did not participate in combat (even though it was a pioneer battalion, a hybrid between infantry and engineers). — Preceding unsigned comment added by IronBattalion (talk • contribs) 22:01, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

G'day, the title was one I agonised with when I wrote the article. Generally, I believe where units have changed names over time on Wikipedia we have used the last name of the unit as the article title, with redirects for the earlier names unless there is a very strong identity associated with an earlier name. Given that the 20th Light Horse wasn't deployed in combat, I don't think there is a strong claim to the article sitting at that title; as the 20th Motor Regiment it was deployed operationally to Merauke (albeit without combat), so moving the article to the "20th Motor Regiment" might be another option. Indeed, I think that the title 20th Motor Regiment probably has a stronger identity than 20th Light Horse. That said, as the 20th Pioneers, they also had some (albeit) brief operational service, so there is a counter argument there. Given all this, I felt it was simpler just to leave it at the unit's final name, with redirects from the 20th Light Horse and 20th Motor Regiment. I would argue differently, if say the 20th Light Horse had seen war service during the First World War, and I would have tackled it similarly how I tackled the perpetuation of the other light horse regiments with First World War service (for instance, such as how the perpetuation section was written in the 5th Light Horse Regiment (Australia) article, and the other LHRs from 1 to 15). That said, we have not achieved standardisation in this area for the regiments that do not have First World War service, so I don't know what the best answer is. For instance, see the 17th Light Horse Regiment (which arguably could have been created at the motor regiment title, but wasn't), and also 18th Light Horse Regiment (which could have been created as a single article with 12th Armoured Regiment (Australia), but also wasn't). Just my opinion, though. Ultimately, if the title of this article is changed (either to 20th Light Horse Regiment or 20th Motor Regiment), then the article itself would need to be reorganised and rewritten a little (the lead and the first paragraph of the History section, specifically). Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 03:46, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Hello again Rupert, the main problem I have with it is how recognisable it is to the general populace; many people know the Light Horse, only a few wikipedian troppos know what a pioneer is. The second problem is something inherent to military unit name changes that keep the units original number, being that it implies there are/were 19 pioneer battalions before it in service; either Motor or Light Horse prefixes would fix this problem as they imply cavalry or mounted lineage, which in my opinion would ease confusion. Side note: I would happily join any project that tries to standardise the structure of military units (my little fascination). IronBattalion (talk) 03:12, 4 January 2021 (UTC)