Talk:List of battleships by country

combinging table cells

The british/uk section was divided into 4 for a good reason - it's too long when combined. Someone combined it and now someone else is dividing it again by using links which jump to different parts of the one list! How about we just redivide it (so it's like it was origianlly) and leave it at that? I see no point in dividing it in almost random ways. the sections are "great ships before around 1640", "ships of the line 1640-1860", metal steam ships 1860-1905" and "dreadnoughts". Each section then compares to the sections of all the other navies, and makes historical sense also. thanks. SpookyMulder 13:38, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

What's the point of this article? There's already a very good history section in battleship. Please not that the term "battleship" did not exist before the last decades of the 18th century, so talking about galleys and galleons though they were battleships is very misleading. If you want to get really narrow, anything before HMS Dreadnought is only a very tentative battleship.

Peter ^Isotalo 15:55, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

The point I suppose is that there isn't any place for the names of the various battleships in the main battleship article.

As to the Swedish ships, I've got an article here somewhere that lists the names, dates, and details. It may take me a while to find it, I've got over 10,000 books and magazines in the basement. UrbanTerrorist 04:10, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Battleship term

As noted above, the term battleship is not appropriate when applied to sailing ships. Sail warships designed for battle line use should instead be referred to as ships of the line. While it is true that the term battleship derived from a shortening of the full term ship of the line of battle, it was not in use prior to the end of the 19th Century (right around when the HMS Dreadnought appeared). I propose that all appropriate articles be changed to reflect this. Joshbaumgartner 19:13, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

That is partially incorrect - during the late 19th century the term battleship was in general use. It usually covered a ship with 2 or 4 main guns that were turret mounted on the centerline, and an additional 8-16 medium size guns, and finally a larger number of small guns. The Dreadnought was unusual in that it was the first "All Big Gun" battleship in service, where the medium guns were suppressed in favour of more large guns. This enabled more accurate gunnery, as the ship's fire control officer only had to track splashes of two sizes of shells (the main gun shells, usually of 12" or larger, and the torpedo boat/destroyer battery, usually of 5" or 6"). It also enabled ships to fight at longer ranges, which made improvements in fire control a necessity, which made changes in armour (from side armour to deck armour to protect against plunging fire) necessary, etc. While the Dreadnought type was a tremendous improvement over the original battleship, pre-dreadnought battleships remained in service until after World War 2 in many navies. UrbanTerrorist 05:00, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Also, The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition defines "battleship" as "Any one of a class of warships of the largest size, carrying the greatest number of weapons and clad with the heaviest armor. Also called battlewagon." That definition seems to fit the inclusive one used on this page. --Columbia clipper (talk) 04:49, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Loath though I may be to resurrect a long-dead thread, I do have a problem with the structure of the page. How can we reasonably call ships that predated the Anglo-Dutch Wars "battleships"? It's a little hard to have a "line of battle ship" before the line of battle was devised. Parsecboy (talk) 18:45, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Since it's been over a year and nobody has commented on this, I've gone ahead and cut out all of the pre-line of battle lists and done some general cleaning up. Parsecboy (talk) 18:02, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

Further Divisions

The names list should be further subdivided. For example the Swedish ships listed are all "Coast Defense" battleships, or panserskip, not to be confused with the German Panzerschiffe which were a totally different concept. Some navies that used the panserskip concept were Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. UrbanTerrorist 05:00, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

I wrote something related to this on Talk:Battleship. These ships aren't battleships and shouldn't be listed as such. Someone started calling them "coastal battleships", but like coastal defence ship states, that doesn't make them battleships. --Laisak 16:08, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

While the ships aren't classical battleships, the term "Coast Defense Battleship" was in common usage for years, and we can't ignore it, just as the term "Pocket Battleship" was in common use for years. That both terms are incorrect descriptions of the vessels and their intended combat role is mote - both types have been considered Battle Wagons of some sort for years, and that should be reflected here with a foot note explaining the difference. One considersation is that none of these "odd" vessels could have been capably fought by anything less than a battleship. UrbanTerrorist 20:32, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Ha, tell that to Ajax, Exeter, and Achilles. Parsecboy (talk) 18:05, 22 June 2013 (UTC)