Talk:Historical examples of flanking maneuvers

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Historical examples of flanking maneuvers article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Military history: Technology

This article is within the scope of the Military history WikiProject. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks. To use this banner, please see the full instructions.Military historyWikipedia:WikiProject Military historyTemplate:WikiProject Military historymilitary history articles

This article has been checked against the following criteria for B-class status:
Referencing and citation: criterion not met Coverage and accuracy: criterion met Structure: criterion met Grammar and style: criterion met Supporting materials: criterion met

Associated task forces:
/
	Military science, technology, and theory task force

Problems with the article scope[edit]

I see fundamental issues with this article as a concept.

It starts with the title. "Historical" is meaningless; there is no such thing as a non-historical flanking maneuvers. "Examples" is un-encyclopedic; we don't have articles like Examples of battles in WWII, no more than we have Some fruits or A few cars.

The article's current list of examples seems random; how do we decide what to include, other than WP:OR? "Flanking" doesn't seem to be a well-defined historical subject with authoritative sources. As far as I can tell, all the current sources given are about the respective battles in general, not about the battles' supposed flanking maneuvers. Each paragraph apparently relies on WP:SYNTH to make the battle relevant for inclusion. I don't see how this can be improved in the future.

Where do we expect to go with this article? Is there a usefully defined scope? What can we change to make it comprehensive, encyclopedic, manageable, and free of SYNTH?

If no one has suggestions to address this, I'm going to propose this article get notably trimmed and merged into Flanking maneuver. --A D Monroe III (talk) 21:06, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It came from flanking maneuver and was separated due to its length compared to the rest of the article. If you think it should be remerged then by all means go ahead. Timothyjosephwood (talk) 23:22, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I also see and recommend drastic changes to this article. For one, the entire section on the Battle of Austerlitz along with its map should be deleted. Austerlitz was not a flank attack or maneuver, it was a classic example of an attack on the center of an opponents' lines, resulting in the splitting of the center and the dividing of the enemy army. Also, there should be an added section for examples from the Civil War; arguably the most famous flank attack in history was Jackson's flanking march and then attack late in the afternoon of May 2, 1863 at the Battle of Chancellorsville. Also, the siege of Metz was a siege, not a flank attack or maneuver. For the WW2 section, several cases could be added, and the attack on Poland section deleted entirely; the attack on Poland was not a flanking attack, per se; rather, it was a frontal attack over a large scale, and where holes were punched through the lines, German armor formations drove through and into the rear, not actually into the flanks or into flanking attacks, but in deep penetration roles. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bendalton99 (talk • contribs) 00:26, 15 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]