Talk:Ouvrage Rochonvillers

A fact from Ouvrage Rochonvillers appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 10 March 2010 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the name of Ouvrage Rochonvillers of the Maginot Line was a state secret until 1971?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2010/March.

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Untitled

The lead should summarize the entire article; much of what is currently there should be moved to the main body as development/construction, etc. And a layout diagram would be very nice, but is certainly not required.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 18:36, 4 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I rewrote the lead, and will return to it tomorrow for more work. I'm contemplating ways to get a layout in. There are diagrams on Commons, but I believe the uploader is confused about the original copyright and Commons policy, so I've opted not to use them. Thanks for the comments. Acroterion _(talk) 03:11, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Translations?

1. Is there an accepted English translation for gros ouvrage and petit ouvrage, or are those the terms actually used in English for general fortifications? I had never encountered the term, so I had to look it up in a dictionary. (It would not be necessary to change it everywhere - just an explanatory note at the first mention is all I ask.)

I've found that the English sources universally stick to ouvrage for the Maginot positions, in preference to, say, Fort, which is commonly applied to older fortifications. The literal translation of the word in English (apart from "opening") is "work", which sounds terrible. The great distinction, which should be discussed at length in the summary article, is that the Maginot positions did not enclose a specific area, as a fort does, but represent an indistinct and distributed strong point that is nowhere enclosed, rising up from below to use the terrain to best effect. A gros ouvrage is big, and a petit ouvrage is smaller. Those terms are also continued in the English references.

This is probably a good candidate for a short dissertation in a footnote, along with abri, anlage and so on. Acroterion _(talk) 04:49, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

2. Likewise for abri, as in Abri du Grand Lot.

Thanks for pointing that out - I've tried to define that sort of thing in this series of articles, but they slip by. An abri is an infantry shelter, usually subterranean or covered by dirt or rocks.

3. ShouldAnlage Brunhilde actually be Anlage Brünhilde (note the umlaut), or do the French now keep the German name sans (sic) the umlaut? And in the spirit of the first two comments, Anlage can be translated as installation, unless again there is a term with wider usage in the military context.

I haven't seen an umlaut used, but that might be due to keyboard issues. If it needs an umlaut, by all means out it in. The Germans are the ones who named it, so the opinion of the French probably doesn't count. By the way, "installation" is another way of translating ouvrage, and anlage might have the same root. The Italian opera, used for the Alpine Wall fortifications facing France, are clearly equivalent.

By the way, I have engaged in my personal battle against the {{convert}} template. Since the body of the article was written with US spelling, the template should include the "|sp=us" switch for consistency. I have done that where it was needed. PKKloeppel (talk) 02:48, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't know that switch existed - thanks for fixing. I'll try to work out a concise definition for terminology that avoids a distracting discussion. Acroterion _(talk) 03:11, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]