Talk:Task Force Serpent

First, this page desperately needs some grammatical clean up. I ran out of steam halfway through a preliminary overhaul. Second, I had a question about the claimed route taken by TFS (probably a result of the grammar):

"Task Force Serpent went along a route that brought them near the Outworlds Alliance. They went on with a route, parallel to those commonly used by the clans."

Did TFS start way out by the OA? If so, how/when did TFS end up on the path parallel to the common Clan route to the Inner Sphere? That's way over toward the Lyran/Kuritan/FRR space from the OA.

Finally, is this entry really still a stub? --Cray 04:20, 11 February 2009 (PST)

"Serpent's route would take them through the Federated Commonwealth and the Outworlds Alliance...." From Twilight of the Clans, pg. 9. --Scaletail 17:41, 11 February 2009 (PST)

Sorry about the grammar, but english is not my mother tongue. I know, some of my sentences sound clumsy. --Detlef 03:13, 12 February 2009 (PST)

No need to apologize. You provided a great deal of good information and really filled out the page. --Cray 04:02, 12 February 2009 (PST)

Move History to New Article?

Here's something I thought about. This article is about Task Force Serpent - the actual Star League Unit put together to attack Huntress.

Most of the History in this article, while execellent, is actually about Operation Serpent, the campaign to attack Huntress. I suggest we create a new article about Operation Serpent itself and move the campaign narrative there. Alkemita 10:09, 16 March 2009 (PDT)

That will be difficult, as TFS changed during the execution of OS. They gained a warship, they lost troops... --Detlef 10:23, 16 March 2009 (PDT)

Every unit changes composition over time. That said, the two are the same thing. Why would they need different articles? --Scaletail 17:00, 16 March 2009 (PDT)

To me, Task Force Serpent is the entity assembled to carry out Operation Serpent. Things that logically belong here are it's component units, details about the chain of command, changes to the chain of command, and overviews of specific battles fought, end-strengths, and final disposition of forces.

Operation Serpent would concentrate on the decisions (political and military) to assemble such a Task Force and employ it - so it would start with the Whitting Conference and Trent, the decision to create a companion mission to Operation Bulldog, etc. Specific campaign narrative would go here, include the intrigue around planning the Operation (such as TF Serpents struggles with the fates of the pirates they captured). To use a real world example, if you were to look up the US Army's 101st Airborne Division on Wikipedia, you'd see that they participated in Operation Overlord during World War Two, and some details of their actions in those battles. But if you wanted to know about Operation Overlord itself, you'd look up "Operation Overlord" itself.

Or, to use a CBT example, several units, including the 26th Lyran Guards, Alpha Galaxy and the Tamar War College Training Battalion participated in the Battle for Tamar in 3051. The articles for the individual units will talk about their roles in the battle, but there will be another article dealing with the Battle for Tamar (3051) that will talk about the battle as a whole, where it fits into the scope of Operation Revival, Duke Kelswa's descent into madness, etc - things that don't belong in the articles of individual units

Alkemita 14:59, 17 March 2009 (PDT)

But TFS was created to perform exactly one mission and was dissolved right after.

And what could you possibly skip from this article to focus it on the unit itself? The pirates and details from the Smoke Jaguar side.

Do it. But I don't think, the articles will be that different from each other. --Detlef 15:54, 17 March 2009 (PDT)

I understand your point about semantics, but I would argue that, in your examples, you cited instances of existing military units that took part in specific battles. All of those units (fictional and real) existed before and after those battles. TFS was a created to execute a specific campaign, which it executed, then was dissolved and the component units returned to their nations. The reason that I moved the article here is because I believed TFS was referred to overwhelmingly more often than Operation Serpent. I'm no longer so sure of that. --Scaletail 17:11, 17 March 2009 (PDT)

It is true that Task Force Serpent was a one-operation entity. I guess the question is: do we make an exception for them as far as separating the unit from the campaign goes? Personally, I've always seen "Task Force Serpent" and "Operation Serpent" as two separate things.

One thing I need to note: Detlef, you've done an outstanding job with researching and narrating Operation Serpent, and I want you to know that - I know it's not easy writing in your non-native language.Alkemita 19:32, 17 March 2009 (PDT)

General refinement

I've worked through about the first quarter of the page - through The Fleet Arrives - cleaning up sentences, fixing minor grammar and usage errors, etc. I'll be back later to continue working on this, with this Talk serving as a bookmark (and a spot for anybody that might do concurrent editing to confer).

(above unsigned contribution by FreeRegent 10:36, 30 March 2016)

Along these lines, I'll note that I've made substantial revisions to the following sections:

• 5.4.1 Northern Army Group
• 5.4.2 Southern Army Group

I'll put a refinement log below, though I can't attest to its completeness. There's a lot more edit history on the article than there is on this talk page. Tosta Dojen (talk) 17:15, 22 July 2020 (EDT)

General refinement log

• 1 Crucis March to Clan Homeworlds
• 1.1 Into the Periphery
• 1.2 The Battle of Trafalgar
• 1.3 Death of Morgan Hasek-Davion
• 1.4 Final preparations
• 1.5 Raid on Mount Szabo
• 1.6 The fleet arrives

• 5.4.1 Northern Army Group
• 5.4.2 Southern Army Group