Misplaced Pages

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Missing Swiss Army Battalions

I do them manually. I've created about 130 icons and then I create the graphics with Photoshop.

Well, the Swiss Army chart is a special one... The Swiss Army homepage holds the second place among disorganized and chaotic military homepages! (By far the worst is the British Army homepage, where it is impossible to comprehend which units belong to which Brigade- third place goes to Belgium). When I created the graphic I left out the militia battalions as they were not always named on the homepage. Also the flying units of the Air Force are missing, as the Air force part of the homepage is so annoyingly chaotic and contradicting that I decided, that as the Swiss Air force itself is unable to provide a description of its units and structure that I would not bother to try to figure it out for them. Therefore I left all of the flying units of the Air force out of the graphic. I just checked the 2n Brigade and to make you understand the problem with the Swiss Army homepage look at this: German version Franch version

Also: When I made the graphic in January half the units weren't even listed yet... That comes when Army command allows each battalion to create its own sub page. The best military homepages are the Italian Army, Austrian Army, French Army and German Army. Anyway I will update the graphic now and include the militia btn. which are listed and if you find errors or omissions in the chart, please let me know and I will fix them. noclador 06:31, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the kudos :-) If by any chance you happen to find a listing of the Airforce units of the Swiss Army, let me know and I will do another quick update. Oh yes- many Army commands are pretty lazy, when it comes to their Internet presence; but armies that are professional (the ones which must convince people to join) have the best homepages and the biggest amount of information. Thank you again for helping to improve the Swiss Army diagram :-) --14:56, 8 June 2007 (UTC)noclador

I knew these links before, but as you saw yourself they are contradicting, confusing and sometimes plain wrong. Therefore I left the Swiss Air Force out. If you could help sort out this mess, that would be great- alas I doubt it! As soon as the graphic was online an officer of the Swiss Army complained about the missing Air Force units. I told him of the chaotic Swiss Army site and he promised to help and forward the information... that was in January... I guess he too couldn't figure it out :-) noclador 19:43, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Montenegro

That would be perfect! I've found the homepage and the graphic of the Montenegrin Army (and the Macedonian and Polish Army) long ago but could not read them and also did not find a native speaker to translate them! If you would be so kind to help, I am ready to create the graphics immediately and post them :-) (well immediately means- Tuesday as I'm currently away from my computer and typing from my Laptop that I carry around during holidays to keep in touch with my wikipedia addiction ;-) I also tried to start an OrBat graphic of the Russian Ground Forces, but as there are still immense holes in the information I created only a graphic for the 4th Guards Kantemirovskaya Tank Division... Which sadness me, as the Russian Ground Forces (and the US-Army and UK-Army) are the most interesting of them all! (UK and US are doing a major restructuring and therefore it is all ultra chaotic- plus the British Army website is useless ...) So if you have info of any other Army (or the time to translate from these languages) please- your help is very much appreciated :-) noclador 10:57, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

I suggest to leave them on the talkpages of the Army in question (i.e. we did that at: Talk:Croatian ground army- I watch all wikipedia Army pages to see if someone adds some units.) noclador 11:25, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Hi, excellent work on the Montenegrin Army :-) I will start the graphic Tuesday morning and thanks to your help it will be a quick work :-) noclador 16:31, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Done --noclador 09:46, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Military of the Republic of Macedonia

thanks for pointing out the link; I already updated the graphic with the units of the 2nd Mechanized Brigade :-) You are right- the Macedonian Army site is one of the worst and it hasn't been updated since 2005!!! but the data regarding the structure is mostly confirmed by the 2006 Military Balance Report, so I think we have a very acurate graphic :-) --noclador 20:18, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Thank you very much Russoswiss for your help :-) included now the 1st & 3rd Brigade in the graphic. Macedonia is now complete :-) And for all your hard work in locating so much special information I award you hereby the Original Barnstar:

		The Original Barnstar
		For all your hard work in locating information about European Armed Forces I award you hereby the Original Barnstar noclador 10:27, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

--noclador 10:27, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Norway Army

Hi Russoswiss. I saw your scanned image on Talk:Norwegian Army. This information contradicts the information on the Norwegian army homepage- which contradicts itself, as I found three (!) diffrent future Army structures there!!! Therefore I made the graphic with the the most recent of these informations (Janauary 2007) and now I'm waiting for complaints/help from someone with data about the future structure. Your scan omits the units of the Mechanised Brigade North and from what I know the Telemark Btn. is the main unit of the Brig. North. So, as with so many Armies there is a lot of confusion and we will have to find another more detailed source. In the meantime am trying to figure out the structure of the Swedish Army- I have all units, but either threy are all under direct General Staff command or the Swedish Army homepage doesn't list its Brigades... Plus I'm still working on a graphic of Bulgaria (almost 0 information), Serbia (all units there, but no info on the structure), UK (still the most crappy Army homepage of them all!!!) and Greece (about 75% of info missing)... so if you have any info about these Armies or the - please let me know. :-) thanks --noclador 07:38, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

IDF Ground Forces

Hi Russoswiss, thanks for the unit listing :-) I'm already working on a graphic of the IDF Ground Forces, but until now my source was globalsecurity: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/israel/army-orbat.htm pretty outdated info it seems now... the info on wikipedia is pure crap! but what you dug up and with part of the info from globalsecurity I'm able to create a quite accurate graphic now... but it will take time and work, so give me 4-5 days :-) --noclador 20:49, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

It is done... Ground Forces OrBat Graphic --noclador 23:34, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Alpini

Of 48.000 Alpinis that served in World War II over 30.000 died in a battle in January 1943 in Ukraine: The Red Army overran the Italian 8th Army and annihilated 2 of its 3 Corps on the first day of the battle (January 14th). Only the Alpini Corps, consisting the Tridentina, Julia and Cuneense Division, resisted. The Alpinis- although completely surrounded by the 6th Soviet Army- walked 15 days and over 400km through the snow until they reached the new Axis frontline. During these 15 days the Alpini were at all times surrounded by Soviet Forces and fought 11 major battles: either battles when Soviet Forces tried to break the marching Alpini column into pieces or when the Alpinis fought their way through Soviet blocking lines. On January 26th the decimated and starving Alpinis arrived in the little village of Nikolajewka, where 2 Soviet divisions had prepared a blocking line. The Alpini went from walking to attacking as they arrived, but the whole day the Soviet Forces resisted. The last unit to arrive at Nikolajewka was the 5th Alpini Regiment of the Tridentina Division, which (as it was the last unit that was in fighting shape) served as rearguard. When the 5th arrived the general of the Tridentina Div. General Reverberi rallied his Div. and ordered the attack with the words "Tridentina avanti (Vorwärts)", leading the attack himself. The Alpinis broke through and after that battle Stalin ordered that the Alpinis would be allowed to march on without further attacks by the Red Army. When the Alpini reached the Axis line the Tridentina consisted of 4250 men, the Julia of 1200 men and the Cuneense consisted (legend tells) of 18 men.
Italian Army units are allowed to add (if they want) a symbol to their coats of Arms for every Medal the unit has received in combat. i.e. The Coat of Arms of the 4 Alpini contains (from top left to bottom right):

• Mountains with gold star= 1 gold medal for WWI
• "Tridente di Ucraina" in gold = 1 gold medal for WWII combat in Ukraine
• Furious silver bull with Silver Star= silver medal for combat (I don't recall where)
• Helm of Skanderbeg with a silver and blue star= silver medal and special unit citation for combat in Albania 1940
• Various lines with a silver star= silver medal for combat in the war of liberation 1943- 1945
• More lines with a silver star= silver medal for combat in Greece 1941
• 5 stylized mountains with 5 stars= 5 silver medals in WWI
• Red lion with cross and blue line behind= special honour earned in combat in Abyssinia 1936
  

and if you now count the stars and the flags around the coat you will see that the numbers are the same (the IV on the last silver flag on the right stands for 4 silver flags).
I think this explanation has become to long, but I think it also answered your question pretty good :-) --noclador 20:34, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

You're in RAIDS

Thanks for the info :-) I did not know about it :-) I wasn't contacted by Raids magazine and I can't get my hands on it here in Austria, so I do not know if they "appropriately attributed it" (as is stated clearly in the wiki-license I use), but if they didn't credit me, but this translator Pleissinger, than I'm really pissed! Well, let me know if they did credit wikipedia and me (as is required by wikipedia) or not and if they didn't credit us, well than were gonna hit them! and hit them hard :-) Greetings, and thanks --noclador (talk) 18:02, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the info - getting a bit of wikipedia staff on board first: Misplaced Pages talk:Reusing Misplaced Pages content#Raids Magazine. --noclador (talk) 18:59, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Those fucking cunts!!! I wrote them and clearly explained that they can not do this! They didn't even answer me! I will write them once more and if they do not react, I will sue - this is shameless arrogant thievery! --noclador (talk) 23:14, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Swiss Air Squadrons

Thnaks for the link - I will have a look at it in the next days :-) also Raids did not answer, so I will have to write a follow up letter! cheers, --noclador (talk) 00:29, 28 January 2008 (UTC)