Wikipedia:Categorization of military vehicles
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 | This page in a nutshell: categorize articles about military vehicles by the type of vehicle (e.g. tank), its country of origin, and the year it entered service. |
This guidance covers the categorization of military ground vehicles (e.g. tanks, military motorcycles and unmanned ground combat vehicles). This guide is intended to assist with categorizing articles consistently whilst avoiding articles being placed in a large number of categories.
This guidance is not intended to apply to the following:
- Articles about hovercraft (categorized as ships), aircraft (see WP:AIR/C) or trains.
- Articles about generic classes of vehicles (e.g. Tank).
- Articles about individual vehicles (e.g. Tiger 131).
Vehicle characteristics used for categorization
[edit]When categorizing an article about a type of military vehicle the following characteristics of the vehicle should be considered:
- Type - e.g. tank, armoured personnel carrier, mortar carrier, military light utility vehicle, military motorcycle or military truck. Where a vehicle type has variants adapted for several roles it should only be categorized by the main role for which it was designed - e.g. an APC that has variants used as command vehicles, ambulances etc should be categorized only as an APC.
- Country of origin. This categorization is by the country that developed the type - not by operators of the type.[1] If the type was developed by collaboration between several countries then it should be categorized by each such country.[2][3]
- Period of introduction - e.g. before World War I, World War I, interwar, World War II, Cold War, post–Cold War. This is by date of entry into service, or (for types that were cancelled) the date of cancellation. Vehicles should not be categorized by the wars/conflicts that they have been used in (such a categorization scheme would cause some vehicles to be in many categories); lists should be used for this purpose (e.g. List of military equipment used in the Korean War#Vehicles).
- Decade of introduction - e.g. 1970s. This is by date of entry into service, or (for types that were cancelled) the date of cancellation.
- Mobility - e.g. wheeled, tracked, amphibious and/or airborne. An article should only be placed in such a category if all/most of the vehicles covered by the article had the characteristic.[4] Articles may also be placed in categories such as Category:All-wheel-drive vehicles and Category:Off-road vehicles.
- Manufacturer - e.g. Volkswagen or Rheinmetall. Only the original designer/manufacturer should be so categorized - not any other organizations that have manufactured the vehicle under licence.
Categorization
[edit]Many categories cover intersections of the characteristics listed above.
Every article about a military vehicle type should be categorized based on the first four characteristics listed above. This can be achieved using the categories of the types listed below. In this list (which is in approximate order of decreasing importance) links are to example categories.
- A type category - "<Type>" or "<Type> of <country>" or "<Period> <type> of <country>"
- A country category - "Military vehicles of <country>" or "<Type> of <country>" or "<Period> <type> of <country>"
- A period category - "Military vehicles of <period>" or "<Type> of <period>" or "<Period> <type> of <country>"
- A decade category - "Military vehicles <decade>"
Note: Not every type category has a by-country breakdown. So, for example, an article about a tank transporter from Germany should be categorized in Category:Tank transporters, but as that category does not (currently) have a by-country breakdown the article should also be placed in Category:Military trucks of Germany.[5]
In addition the article may be in categories of the types listed below (links are to examples).
- "<Mobility> <type>" or "<Mobility> military vehicles" or "<Mobility> vehicles"
- "<Manufacturer>". Note: A sortkey should be used to remove the manufacturers name from the indexing (e.g. the Volkswagen Iltis is categorized using "
[[Category:Volkswagen vehicles|Iltis]]"). - "Vehicles introduced in <year>"
- Category:Cab over vehicles etc
Other combinations of characteristics should not be used - e.g. don't combine mobility characteristics with country-of-origin.[6] Vehicle articles should generally not be placed in weapons categories (the exception being vehicles such as self-propelled artillery).
Some aspects of this categorization scheme are aligned with related categories (e.g. aircraft, cars and weapons) to enable the categories to mesh together.
Notes
[edit]- ^ The principle that mass-produced objects are not categorized by every country that has operated them is based on discussions such as Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2013_July_6#Category:Guided_missiles_by_operator.
- ^ E.g. the Leopard 2E was developed jointly by Germany and Spain.
- ^ Note: this is different to aircraft type articles where such articles are placed in an "international" category.
- ^ E.g. some Sherman tanks were amphibious, but the majority were not so the Sherman article should not be in a category for amphibious vehicles.
- ^ Note: The way aircraft are categorized avoids this problem by having a by-country breakdown for every type (role), but broad categories of aircraft (bomber, fighter etc) are used whereas military vehicles have been subcategorized more finely (e.g. into light tanks, medium tanks, cruiser tanks etc).
- ^ If every possible combination was used for a category there would be a lot of categories!