Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of U.S. DoD aircraft designations (2nd nomination)

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep‎. I see a consensus to Keep this article and no support for Deletion aside from the nominator. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 23:18, 2 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

List of U.S. DoD aircraft designations[edit]

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This article is largely an alternative format of List of United States Tri-Service aircraft designations, with some designations from List of United States Air Force aircraft designations (1919–1962). Having two list articles on the same topic makes it hard to consistently maintain both lists, with the table format being especially hard to maintain and offering little to no benefit to the reader. Since there is next to no information here that is not found on the Tri-Service list, I propose that this article be deleted or redirected to List of United States Tri-Service aircraft designations. ZLEA _T\^C 20:13, 25 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Military, Aviation, and United States of America. ZLEA _T\^C 20:13, 25 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 21:10, 25 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep as with the previous unanimous keep in the 2019 afd Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/List_of_U.S._DoD_aircraft_designations it seems better to keep it for a lot of reasons. I am not sure its comparable anyway, as the Department of Defense designations is not exactly the same three services, and serves as a useful summary of the the more in depth list. A75 (talk) 22:54, 25 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure I understand, as the 1962 Tri-Service system is the only aircraft designation system in use by the DoD. - ZLEA _T\^C 02:19, 26 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

If you're talking about Joint Regulation 4120.15E, that is the document that currently maintains both the 1962 aircraft and 1963 missile Tri-Service designation systems. The DoD and Tri-Service aircraft designation system are one in the same. Perhaps this list could be shifted in scope to also cover the missile system as well, but I still don't see any merit to keeping it if the scope is to remain solely on aircraft designations. - ZLEA _T\^C 02:25, 26 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

One of purposes is also to compare the older War department and Army Air Force designations in the historical section, especially the P-series which was partially removed. Its a case of forest and trees here, we already have many article that simply follow designations the idea is in part to take a step back and see the number series in context. A75 (talk) 12:43, 26 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Though I disagree with arbitrarily combining the 1924 "P/F" sequence with the Tri-Service designations (especially since the "P" prefix fell out of use at almost the exact same time as the DoD was formed, which probably is not a coincidence now that I think about it), I do get your point. If this list is kept (which it looks like it will be), I will probably make a move proposal to properly disambiguate it from the other list and attempt to establish a better standard for inclusion/exclusion and overall format. - ZLEA _T\^C 03:48, 27 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per the reasons listed in the previous AfD for this page. Owen× ☎ 00:50, 26 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Did you look at both articles? This one is far superior. Also this should've been a merge discussion, not waste everyone's time sending it to AFD. Dream Focus 00:53, 27 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I understand that you may prefer the table format to the bullet list format, but I disagree that it is "far superior", and I have several reasons to believe the opposite. The main problem with the table format in this case is that the number of assigned designations in each role sequence varies greatly. The continued "C" sequence dwarfs all of the other sequences as it reaches up to 147 (so far), while the next highest sequence, save for the non-sequential or grandfathered pre-1962 designations, is the H-73, leaving a vast majority of the table cells empty. Speaking of non-sequential designations, it is also worth noting that the table format cannot viably accommodate for non-sequential designations above 147, such as the KC-767, which the DoD list specifically notes that it can't accommodate. In addition to these problems, the table format does not leave much room for variants of aircraft that have their own articles, such as the F/A-18E/F.

I also want to point out that I did consider starting a merge discussion, but I decided against it because I saw nothing of value in this list that is not already in List of United States Tri-Service aircraft designations. The latter even covers redesignations of pre-1962 aircraft to a greater extent than this list does. Therefore, given the inherent problems with the table format and nothing valuable to merge, I believe that deletion or redirection are the only logical choices. - ZLEA _T\^C 03:29, 27 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.