Talk:List of USAF Reconnaissance wings assigned to Strategic Air Command

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The following was moved from the section on the 5th Strat Recon Wg:

You missed the 90th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing, Forbes AFB, Topeka, KS, Deactivated 1960

Replaced with the 40th Bomb Wing, moved from Shilling AFB, KS

Lineagegeek (talk) 21:28, 16 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Seems to me this "list" could be greatly edited and reduced in size to omit a lot of information that already appears on the various articles of the wings in question. If someone doesn't object to this within the next week or so, I'll start editing to pull out much of the data that exists on other pages. This might be a good candidate to put into tabular form. TadgStirkland401 (talk) 08:57, 1 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I've created a reorganized list on my /sandbox page. You can review it here Preview Reorganized List. Please let me know what you think soon.TadgStirkland⁴⁰¹ (Tadg^Talk) 03:43, 2 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Lineagegeek, Buckshot06, Ocalafla, and Magioladitis: My apologies for bothering you folks, but you are the last few people who have touched this article since about 2013 and I don't want to change its structure without getting some input first. The more I look at it, I wonder if instead of a List of Recon Wings that were assigned to SAC, should we have a List of Wings (generic) Assigned to SAC? Either way, I've appreciate if you could give me some feedback on my proposed change to the structure of this list. Thank y'all ahead of time. TadgStirkland⁴⁰¹ (Tadg^Talk) 16:40, 4 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I would much rather have a List of wings assigned to the Eighth Air Force, List of wings assigned to the Fifteenth Air Force, List of wings assigned to the Second Air Force which would follow the hierarchical structure of the organization, and create a list which could be linked into the Second, Eighth, and Fifteenth (and Twentieth, briefly). My 2 cents.

Buckshot06, thank you for the input. I think I'd have to agree with Lineagegeek below. Since the units moved around from NAF to NAF so much, keeping track of that in a table would be virtually impossible. Just my thoughts. TadgStirkland⁴⁰¹ (Tadg^Talk) 20:30, 4 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

TadgStirkland, on your draft page, link the period designations, even if they're not still around. All the redirects etc are in place, thus 6th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing, not [[6th Air Base Wing|6th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing]]. That setup follows WP:NOTBROKEN if in fact Lineagegeek gets around to setting up separate wing pages at some point in the future. Buckshot06 (talk) 18:40, 4 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I've made one example edit in your draft page to show you what I mean. Buckshot06 (talk) 18:41, 4 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

So, instead of linking directly to the latest name of the unit, I should use the older name? I suppose that's not a bad idea and would've saved me a lot of hunting and typing. I can make those changes... TadgStirkland⁴⁰¹ (Tadg^Talk) 20:30, 4 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Buckshot06: I've made the changes to the links on my proposed article page, if you'd like to take a look. Here's the link again so you don't have to hunt for it: Preview Reorganized List. TadgStirkland⁴⁰¹ (Tadg^Talk) 23:35, 5 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

At the bottom, in accordance with WP:GALLERIES, your pictures probably shade into an 'indiscriminate collection of images' enough not to allow the gallery to be there. Have a pic or two alongside a wing entry that operated that particular type of aircraft would follow the rule. Buckshot06 (talk) 18:45, 4 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Buckshot06: I was hoping it wouldn't be a problem since I only placed one pic of each type of aircraft mentioned above in the table. If I put just one pic in each row symbolic of a single aircraft that unit flew, that wouldn't be quite inclusive enough. I also considered linking where an aircraft type first appears in the table to an article about that type. But realized the reader would be challenged to find each link. Placing the link in the gallery under each aircraft type seemed to make more sense. But, I'm open to suggestions. TadgStirkland⁴⁰¹ (Tadg^Talk) 20:30, 4 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Lineagegeek: Can you break the tie here and as third opinion suggest a way forward?

@Lineagegeek and Buckshot06: As a third option, I could place a single column on the far right that spans the number of rows needed, and place thumbnails of all the mission equipment in that column. My only concern is that the data in the columns to the left would be hard to format for ease of viewing due to compression of the columns. But, I'm open if that is a valid way to go. TadgStirkland⁴⁰¹ (Tadg^Talk) 23:35, 5 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I have no objection to a functional list as opposed to a numbered air force list. Possibly would be organized more appropriately for potential searches, too. A single list for SAC wings might be too long though. There are around 60 SAC wings listed in List of MAJCOM wings of the United States Air Force. The tabular format is far better than the present pare IMO. Check the accuracy of the entries, though. --Lineagegeek (talk) 19:14, 4 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Speaking of which, 4200th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing is missing.

@Lineagegeek: I think you are the one that made the comment directly above about the 4200th missing, but I can't tell because it wasn't signed. To be honest, the 4200th is missing from both the original article and from my proposed article. I missed seeing it mentioned in the 9th SRW article when I was validating the data, so I didn't add it either. I'll try to figure out where I'd find the data to fill in the other columns for the 4200th since it is hardly mentioned in the article for the 9th. Any suggestions? TadgStirkland⁴⁰¹ (Tadg^Talk) 20:30, 4 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Lineagegeek, my sense is that making the same list serve both functions wouldn't work because wings were shifted between NAFs so often. What do you think? Would we have to create List of wings assigned to the Eighth Air Force etc as separate page(s) because of that? Buckshot06 (talk) 19:51, 4 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Buckshot06 My sense is that List of Reconnaissance Wings assigned to Strategic Air Command, List of Bombardment Wings assigned to Strategic Air Command, List of Air Refueling Wings assigned to Strategic Air Command, and List of Strategic Wings assigned to Strategic Air Command would be most responsive to lay searches and get the most hits. I think USAF is redundant in the title, but I'd create redirects of List of Reconnaissance Wings assigned to SAC, List of Bombardment Wings assigned to SAC, List of Bomb Wings assigned to Strategic Air Command, List of Bomb Wings assigned to SAC, List of Air Refueling Wings assigned to SAC, List of Strategic Wings assigned to SAC, and List of Strategic Wings. I doubt many people would be looking for combat crew training wings or air base wings by command. As for the numbered air forces, an additional issue is whether they should be limited to SAC, since each of them has been assigned to other commands.--Lineagegeek (talk) 20:11, 4 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Endorse LG re article names; I would like to set up the List of Wings assigned to the Eighth Air Force series because it would help chart the organizational history (effectively those charts in the late 1980s with all the air divisions running BWs etc in Air Force magazine etc) but that would not have to be limited to SAC. There's no real explanation - maybe you can help me here LG - as to why various BWs/ARWs moved from air div to air div periodically, which should be included in the articles. That's very dry stuff, which is why it might be best placed at List of wings of the Eighth Air Force. But WP has no size limit - can be a separate article series, and I don't want to hold up TadgStirkland401's much overdue revitalization of these pages. Buckshot06 (talk) 05:15, 5 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

There are a number of reasons for the reassignments between air divisions. 1. Switches between functional and geographic organization; 2. Expansion, then contraction of the bomber force; 3. Moves of division or wing headquarters are the most frequent. --Lineagegeek (talk) 16:44, 5 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

So the next instant question would be why did the Div/Wing HQs move? Take a random example, why was 100 Wing upgraded to 100 Air Div at Whiteman in the late 1980s? Buckshot06 (talk) 04:38, 6 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@TadgStirkland401: The only thing not mentioned about the 4200th in the 9th SRW article is that it was assigned to 14th Air Division. I don't think it was around long enough to merit an article on its own, since it was only around for 18 months, although the fact that it was the first USAF wing to fly the SR-71 should make it notable. I've updated the redirect to the 9th SRW article to go directly to the Beale AFB section. Only other thing (no Wiki RS, just war story), is that when the 4200th was formed, the 903d Air Refueling Squadron came off nuclear alert. Their modified planes were still called KC-135As (the KC-135Q designation came later). Admin types are lazy, so since there was no longer a need for a restricted area for alert KC-135s at Beale, the powers that be used the same number on restricted area badges for the SR-71 ramp that had been used for the KC-135 alert area. We in 744th Bombardment Squadron had access to both the tanker and bomber alert areas, so those of us who were curious got some early closeup looks at the Blackbirds. When the security folks came over because they thought (correctly) that we didn't have the proper access, they looked at our badges and apparently we did. Took only a couple of weeks to fix the situation. --Lineagegeek (talk) 21:57, 4 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Lineagegeek:, I just reread the 9th article for detail and I think I can make changes to my table. I’ll give it a shot tomorrow. Thanks for keeping me straight. After I make the changes, I’ll ask you to look at it again. After seeing it built, I like the table layout much better than the list form. TadgStirkland⁴⁰¹ (Tadg^Talk) 01:11, 5 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Lineagegeek please do history a favour and copy your war story to the 9 SRW talk page. "Information that is not passed on is lost". Buckshot06 (talk) 05:16, 5 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Lineagegeek: I made the change and added the 4200th to my table. Please take a look when you can, and comment if need be. Preview Reorganized List TadgStirkland⁴⁰¹ (Tadg^Talk) 23:37, 5 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Since this is a US military page, dates should be in dmy format. --Lineagegeek (talk) 11:30, 6 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Lineagegeek: thanks for the note about the dates. I was wondering about that. I loaded the change with the table, and then went back and updated the dates. I hope I got them all. Cheers... TadgStirkland⁴⁰¹ (Tadg^Talk) 01:49, 11 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

There is also a tag {{use dmy dates|date=insert month and year}} that you can add to notify other editors. See Template:use dmy dates. --Lineagegeek (talk) 12:38, 11 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Based on the above Talk page discussions, and the feedback I've received (thanks guys), I've applied the changes to this article. Feel free to edit or update as needed. And thanks again for all your help. TadgStirkland⁴⁰¹ (Tadg^Talk) 01:37, 11 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]