Talk:Canon de 75 modèle 1897

Name

Also known as soixante qatre - seventy five -this is incorrect, means 65 92.19.197.60 (talk) 00:46, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

Bridget

I believe the photo of "Bridget" shown on this page is not the same gun that fired the first American shot of WW1.

The "Bridget" pictured is in the collection at the Fort Lee, VA Ordinance Training Support Center. https://history.army.mil/museums/TRADOC/OrdnanceTrainingandHeritageCenter/index.html

The "Bridget" that fired the first shot is currently at West Point. https://history.army.mil/museums/TRADOC/OrdnanceTrainingandHeritageCenter/index.html 204.154.87.218 (talk) 15:35, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

Apologies, here's the West POint link: https://www.guns.com/news/2017/10/24/west-point-celebrates-first-shot-wwi-field-gun-at-100-photos 204.154.87.218 (talk) 15:36, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

Requested move 5 October 2025

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: no consensus. Out of the 3 proposals I found, there doesn't seem to be any concrete consensus out of any of them. (closed by non-admin page mover) Jeffrey34555 (talk) 05:48, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

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Canon de 75 modèle 1897 → French 75 (gun) – When I clicked on this article through a piped link, I genuinely thought I'd wound up on frwiki for a sec. "French 75" appears to be the WP:COMMONNAME in English. If that's too colloquial, "French 75 mm field gun" would still be preferable to the current title per WP:USEENGLISH. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 17:42, 5 October 2025 (UTC) — Relisting. WhatADrag07 (talk) 23:55, 12 October 2025 (UTC) — Relisting. TarnishedPath^talk 10:23, 21 October 2025 (UTC) — Relisting.  --pro-anti-air ––>(talk)<–– 21:18, 28 October 2025 (UTC)

• Support. Note that a number of other articles at Category:World War I field artillery of France also appear to fail WP:UE. 162 etc. (talk) 18:22, 5 October 2025 (UTC)
• Edit: Move to French Model 1897 75 mm gun. Based on the discussion below, "French 75" appears to be ambiguous. The use of a non-English language name here is unnecessary. See WP:UE, WP:COMMONNAME. 162 etc. (talk) 01:21, 31 October 2025 (UTC)
• Move to French 75 (cannon). "Gun" seems like a vague and potentially misleading disambiguator and does not seem to be used for artillery titles. But otherwise support. Mdewman6 (talk) 23:39, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

  This is a field gun. Cannon usually refers to artillery pieces from an earlier era. 162 etc. (talk) 17:00, 6 October 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose. The article title is the proper nomenclature for this artillery piece. While there may be substantially more variation in the nomenclature of artillery across nations and time periods than there are for aircraft, the Wikipedia:Naming conventions (aircraft) page is a better place to start with an evaluation of appropriateness for the title of this article. It is a French gun and should have the proper French name. I hope that someone from a military history wiki editing background comes by and puts this in better terms than I have, but this suggestion to rename the page is not a good one. The other responses indicate a lack of familiarity with the way military equipment is categorized on Wikipedia, and seem to be an intent to find a reason to apply a rule rather than fix an actual problem.

M1A1TrackedTerror (talk) 08:41, 11 October 2025 (UTC)

WP:USEENGLISH is clear here: "The title of an article should generally use the version of the name of the subject that is most common in the English language, as you would find it in reliable sources."

So, is "Canon de 75 modèle 1897" is more predominant in English-language sources than "French 75"? Looking at the sources cited in the article, that doesn't appear to be the case. 162 etc. (talk) 18:17, 12 October 2025 (UTC)

In official sources, yes, as it's the proper military nomenclature. "French 75" has more notoriety in English as the alcoholic beverage named after this weapon. There have been several French guns in the 75mm bore as well (simply have a look over the lists of French artillery of WWI or WWII for numerous examples), so using the specific nomenclature the French military uses reduces ambiguity considerably. I would again say that the argument here appears to be an intent to apply a rule regardless of existing conventions for naming of articles about military equipment. You have already noted that the existing convention in place for artillery doesn't line up with the rule you're intent on imposing here. I'd also encourage you to refer to the article for the 8.8 cm Flak 18/36/37/41, which was commonly referred to as the "Eighty-Eight" in English, similar to the "Cannon de 75 modèle 1897" being the "French 75." That article should not be re-named as it would be the wrong thing to do (also an issue with multiple guns in that bore), just as it's the wrong thing to do here. M1A1TrackedTerror (talk) 19:29, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

"Precision – The title unambiguously identifies the article's subject and distinguishes it from other subjects." - This is probably the best statement on what I am arguing should be the overriding principle in naming this article should be. Further, in Wikipedia:Article titles#Deciding on an article title it states "When this offers multiple possibilities, editors choose among them by considering several principles: the ideal article title precisely identifies the subject; it is short, natural, distinguishable and recognizable; and resembles titles for similar articles." The current nomenclature makes this article distinguishable and recognizable, particularly in comparison to the other French 75mm guns of the period that have articles on Wikipedia and it resembles titles for similar articles, namely other artillery pieces which stick to the naming convention of the government which commissioned the guns for their armed forces. M1A1TrackedTerror (talk) 19:43, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

Category:75 mm artillery does in fact show that there are Wikipedia articles for other French 75 mm guns.

I'm still not convinced that the current title satisfies WP:UE. If "French 75" is too vague, perhaps something like French Model 1897 75 mm gun. It seems like starting a thread over at WT:WikiProject Military history would be a good idea. 162 etc. (talk) 20:56, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

Yes, it does show that, as does the table at the bottom of the article in question displaying a plethora of other French artillery from WWI and WWII. You will also see from those tables and the category you linked that the title of this article resembles the titles for similar articles. Your framing of "French 75" being "too vague" is not a correct understanding of the argument I'm making, which is that the current title is fine, it meets the other, more relevant criteria, and the proposed change would serve to obfuscate things rather than make something more clear and precise. Your other proposed title would fly in the face of the naming convention for many, many other similar articles, and again seems to be a desire to impose a rule without respect to how appropriate it would be to the article in question or which other rules should perhaps take precedence over the one you seem to favor. The name should stay as it is until a clear convention is established for naming of articles for foreign military equipment, because otherwise every other article for a French, German, Italian, Spanish, Austro-Hungarian, etc... gun will need to be translated and re-named in a similarly consistent manner to meet your desire to enforce Wikipedia:UE in places where that is simply not the best rule to use for an article title. M1A1TrackedTerror (talk) 05:40, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

> "otherwise every other article for a French, German, Italian, Spanish, Austro-Hungarian, etc... gun will need to be translated and re-named"

This is in fact a good idea. The English Wikipedia should be in English. This is, however, a question that goes beyond this one article, which is why I mentioned above that it should be discussed at the WikiProject. 162 etc. (talk) 14:11, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

This is in fact a horrible idea and a myopic focus on a single rule without respect to what is most appropriate for articles of this nature. M1A1TrackedTerror (talk) 18:11, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

I don't think all of them need to be renamed, because not all of them have common names in English. This gun, however, does seem to, and despite there being other French 75mm guns, it appears to be the only one that actually gets called the "French 75". The general rule is that when something has a common name in English, that's the name we use, and you haven't explained why military equipment should be an exception to the rule. If applying the rule leads to a situation where many articles use foreign-language titles because there's no English common name, but the minority where there is such a name use it, that's fine. That's already how it works in most topic areas, e.g. most of Category:Tourist attractions in Paris is titled in French, because English-speakers often don't translate French building names, but Eiffel Tower is titled in English because we do tend to translate that one building's name. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 18:20, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

You seem to forget where I pointed out that "French 75" is a name for a cocktail to English speaking people (due to the cultural influence of WWI veterans who were familiar with the subject of this article) as that is the most common use for that term and the one which endured. The existing disambiguation page for French 75 is already a good solution, directing people to either the cocktail or this article depending on which they intended to look up.

Now, I have, in fact, explained that precision in naming is important for military equipment, so I'm not sure why you're disregarding that with the statement you've made. Similar to the naming conventions for aircraft (which covers both civil and military aircraft), referring to military equipment by a common name is not what is done across Wikipedia, there simply has not been an official standard established. You and 162 seem very focused on one rule when a few others seem to be more appropriate for articles like this. You bringing this up may serve a good purpose if it results in the establishment of a proper convention to cover articles like this and result in a clear standard to enforce going forward, because it seems we are at an impasse regarding which existing rule should take precedence. M1A1TrackedTerror (talk) 18:47, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

The fact that something isn't the primary sense for its own name has no bearing on whether that's the correct name for the article. Lots of articles with parenthetical titles could be moved to non-disambiguated titles if we chose to use a foreign-language name instead, but we don't, because WP:USEENGLISH says not to.

As to which rule should take precedence, there's no question: The community-established guideline that we use English titles when there's a common name takes practice over the informal convention that some military articles haven't been doing that. If you want to start an RfC to challenge that, by all means, feel free, but currently there is zero basis to treat military equipment as a special exception to this broadly-accepted rule. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 18:51, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

Again, we are at an impasse because you are intent on applying one rule regardless of any other considerations. There are in fact several questions here, not no question. I do not believe you are acting in the best interests of clarity or precision in trying to change the naming of this article and are intentionally ignoring established informal convention in order to point to one single rule at the expense of rationality. M1A1TrackedTerror (talk) 19:04, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

You still haven't explained why this topic area is special. You're just saying you don't like applying the general rule here. It's true that guidelines have exceptions, but editors are expected to explain why an exception should be made. Go start an RfC if you want, but this RM is not the place to challenge a project-wide consensus on using English in article titles. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 19:08, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

Again, you're incorrect in your assertions on what I have and haven't explained. Precision is what's important, this has been stated at least twice before. Commonalities in things like bore, caliber, and function of things like artillery pieces necessitate including things like the proper nomenclature of the manufacturer to differentiate which specific piece of equipment we're taking about, again very similar to the naming conventions in place for aircraft article titles.

If you're making an appeal to project-wide consensus now, then I suggest you again review every other artillery article title I've mentioned because it seems a project-wide consensus exists and you're the one who's challenging it in this request to move, not me. M1A1TrackedTerror (talk) 19:17, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

The purpose of an article title is to identify the subject, not to describe it. "French 75" most clearly identifies this subject, and with the parenthetical disambiguator "(gun)" is unambiguous. That approach, of COMMONNAME+USEENGLISH, is the project-wide consensus. These are established guidelines going back decades. Sometimes editors in one topic area or another decide to not comply with those guidelines; that is not any kind of superseding consensus. It is merely a routine deviation that then gets corrected at RM when someone notices. So for the third time, if you want to show a global consensus to exempt this one topic area from these guidelines, go start an RfC somewhere. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 19:32, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

Precision in naming is what identifies the subject. As previously stated "French 75" most clearly identifies the alcoholic beverage, not this article, and the plethora of other artillery pieces which are French and in the 75mm bore require a more precise identification than "French 75." There is a clear consensus across Wikipedia regarding these types of article names which you seem to be the one unaware of as these types of articles fall outside what you choose to focus on when you edit Wikipedia. I would encourage you to educate yourself fully on the relevant topic, understand why precision would be the more appropriate consideration in article naming and why it has been in use across the project to this point, and approach the topic from rational analysis instead of pathological desire to apply an inappropriate rule which would be detrimental to the clarity of the article. M1A1TrackedTerror (talk) 19:43, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

I'm not debating this further. I need no special expertise in military equipment articles to know how Wikipedia policy works. If you want to show that this is a consensus and not just your personal opinion, it should be easy to establish that at an RfC. I'd recommend WT:AT as the venue. Otherwise this is just WP:IDONTLIKEIT stonewalling. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 19:49, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

This is a talk page and this is an ongoing debate about the merits of applying certain rules regarding an article name. You should have some level of familiarity with the type of article it is in order to evaluate properly which rules should be used to determine in good faith what the best course of action is because context matters. Your arguments being countered by my arguments are not stonewalling, but I'm happy that you're conceding the debate, then. M1A1TrackedTerror (talk) 19:55, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

Additionally, referencing an unrelated guideline on deletion doesn't really apply to anything here, does it now? M1A1TrackedTerror (talk) 19:58, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

Relisting comment: no consensus yet WhatADrag07 (talk) 23:55, 12 October 2025 (UTC)

Note: WikiProject United States, WikiProject France, and WikiProject Military history have been notified of this discussion. WhatADrag07 (talk) 23:59, 12 October 2025 (UTC)

Relisting comment: No comments since previous relist --pro-anti-air ––>(talk)<–– 21:18, 28 October 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose if one really want to use English names, one could rename the page to 75 mm gun Model 1897 but not French 75 IMHO. There were other 75 mm guns in French service and French 75 was more a nickname or a propaganda name than an actual name. I would compare this to renaming M4 Sherman as Sherman tank because the M4 was often dropped. Please also notice that German guns have German names and Italian guns have Italian names (Template:WWIGermanArtillery, Template:WWIItalianGuns). -- Le Petit Chat (talk) 21:49, 30 October 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.