Talk:48th Operations Group

Would somebody please explain the reasoning behind having these three overlapping articles;

• 48th Fighter Wing
• 48th Operations Group
• 492nd Fighter Squadron (& 493rd, 494th, 495th)

I can accept that the Wing is important, and that individual squadrons have their histories and identities, but what exactly is notable about the Operations Group? Is it even remotely likely that 48th OG would ever have a history that departed from that of its parent wing?

The texts in each article show massive amounts of overlap, and yet they also manage to disagree with each other. Can anybody shed some light on how best to approach this? WendlingCrusader (talk) 23:58, 22 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

@WendlingCrusader: I don't see that anyone has addressed your concerns, so let me point out that, unlike the 48th Wing, the 48th Group participated in combat during World War II and received the highest unit awards possible from the United States and Belgium for its combat actions. So, yes, the group does have notability apart from the wing. Although unlikely, the possiblity remains that the group may be assigned elsewhere in the future as well. Lineagegeek (talk) 00:00, 6 November 2026 (UTC)Reply

Notwithstanding the entire article might be merged at some point, I have some observations about the current choice of photos, and their captions. That way you might understand the upcoming edits I am thinking about.

• P-47Ds of the 48th Fighter Group at an advanced landing ground

Surely adding in France would add context, after all some ALGs were in Southern England. I would also add "shortly after D-day" as a further qualifier, but I don't actually know the date; it could be up to 6 months later, although it doesn't look particularly like mid-Winter.

• Republic F-84G-1-RE Thunderjets 51–890 of the 494th Fighter Bomber Squadron and 51–830 of the 493d FBS. Note the :Pierced Steel Planking being used for the parking apron as concrete pads have not yet been poured.

I'm just about ok with this, even though it is rather long for a caption.

But I do not see that we need to know the individual aircraft histories as well (Both aircraft were eventually sold to the Belgian Air Force as Serials FZ-175 and FZ-199. 890 was destroyed on 25 May 1955 at Sylt, West Germany.) Not relevant.

• McDonnell Douglas F-15C-42-MC Eagle 86–167

Ok, so some of us know that tailcode 'LN' means Lakenheath, and the fin stripe makes it 493d Fighter Squadron, but the rest of the world should be told this. On the other hand '-42-MC' is information that only the service chief needs to know about. And being pedantic, the serial is 86-0167.

• F-15E at Ahmed Al Jaber Air Base, Kuwait

A low resolution poor quality image completely lacking meaningful details, except as a postcard to prove the 48th were in Kuwait at some point.

• Remains of a MiG-29, courtesy of the 493d FS

Really? I think not.

I would suggest adding some fine images of F-100s, F-4s and F-111s, but during all those years the 48th OG was de-activated, which brings me back to the question I posed above. I mean, how did the Wing survive without the 48th Operations Group? WendlingCrusader (talk) 01:05, 4 October 2024 (UTC)Reply

@WendlingCrusader: Separate response. Yes, the captions need a lot of work. I'm not going to do it on this short visit to the site. Appareantly, there are a lot of viewers who have interest in details about unit aircraft (based on what I have seen). However, I agree this has no place in the image caption per WP:CAPTION. My usual practice when seriously editing a USAF unit article is to keep the caption brief, but add an {{efn| with details about the depicted aircraft for those interested in such stuff.

BTW, no advanced landing grounds were located in the UK. Tailcodes now have a link, amd I would put this in the infobox as an identification mark. Lineagegeek (talk) 00:32, 6 November 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Lineagegeek

Thank you for both replies, although as two years has passed by I confess I struggled somewhat to remember the finer points. I will probably never quite grasp the exact relationship between 48th FW and 48th OG, but that is my personal problem, and if you are happy with these articles then I will gladly accept that.

However, something up with which I will not put (a phrase quite often attributed to Winston Churchill), is your assertion that there were no advanced landing grounds located in the UK. There were at least eleven, with the ALG article mentioning the UK a number of times. Please see Advanced landing ground#United Kingdom (Kent). But it isn't actually that important, so meh!

WendlingCrusader (talk) 01:26, 6 November 2026 (UTC)Reply