[Tagging] Proposed feature - RFC - Military Bases

[Brian M. Sperlongano]

>
>
> Services often cross functions; for example, the US Army operates air
>> fields[2].  Tagging this military_service=army would be accurate, but would
>> not convey that this is an air force base, but not an Air Force base.
>>
>> To get around all of this, we should tag military bases with their
>> function/component rather than solely grouping them by service owner.  For
>> the example[2], the base could conceivably be tagged something like:
>>
>> name=Wheeler Army Airfield
>> landuse=military
>> military=base
>> military_service=army
>> military_function=air
>> operator=United States Army
>>
>> I went with military_function over military_component in this example.
>>  "Component" is the more typical term in military doctrine but "function"
>> is probably better understood by mappers.
>>
>> military_function could include: ground/land, air, maritime, space,
>> law_enforcement, logistics ... etc as needed to cover military organization
>> in different countries.
>>
>> Having both aspects gives mappers in different countries the flexibility
>> to combine service and functional aspects of military bases to create a
>> more accurate tagging.  In addition, from a data consumer, there is a
>> difference between "show me all the air force bases" and "show me all of
>> the military air bases".
>>
>
> May also make things a bit awkward? eg Holsworthy Barracks that I think I
> mentioned earlier
> https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/474902706#map=14/-33.9772/150.9641, is
> an Army base, that has infantry here, artillery ther, armour across that
> side, engineers over the back, commandos down in the bush, together with an
> Army Aviation airfield. What do you call it in one simple word?
>

As a general rule, I think just "army base" is sufficient for a
hypothetical multi-function base occupied by an army service. However, I
note from Wikipedia's discussion of that base:

"Holsworthy Barracks (ICAO: YSHW) is an Australian Army military barracks
[...] is part of the Holsworthy military reserve, which is 22,000-hectare
(54,000-acre) training area and artillery range for the Australian Army,
[...] Holsworthy Military Airport is also located in the reserve."

It calls out "Holsworthy Barracks", "Holsworthy military reserve", and
"Holsworthy Military Airport" as separate places.  Wikipedia seems to think
these are different things, and it seems like we should have tagging that
can describe the differences.  "Holsworthy Military Airport" sounds like a
perfect example of an army base that is performing air component
functions.

>From a data consumer perspective, if I wanted to calculate the number of
hectares that Australia's military dedicates to aviation, it would be
desirable to have a way to do that by querying for both air force bases as
well as bases operated by other services that perform an air warfare or
aviation function.  Or perhaps I wish to generate detailed breakdowns of
how military land is allocated based on both service and function.

Don't take this as criticism, as I fully support the proposed
military_service tag.  But -- I can already envision the mis-tagging that
may occur the first time a mapper encounters a military base that "quacks
like a cow" and goes to the wiki and there isn't an obvious way to tag
these differences beyond the "name" tag.  We have an opportunity here to
make the tagging more fully descriptive to indicate both the service that
operates a base as well as the overall military purpose for bases that are
specialized.
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