Talk:Original six frigates of the United States Navy

Adding a note in regards to the US ship Chesapeake

While the British broke up Chesapeake, its timbers were auctioned off and sold to construct what is known as Chesapeake Mill. This mill exists to this day. 67.172.25.52 (talk) 05:34, 27 January 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.172.25.52 (talk) 05:28, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Classifications

With reference to ship status/classification? what is "in ordinary" .... what is a "receiving ship"? These need links. The Ship Commissioning article and the "lifecycle of a navy ship" bottom nav box don't seem to cover these concepts. (note that I see "in ordinary" in a LOT of USN related articles, and it's never linked that I have noticed... this may be due to the writers all knowing what it means but we landlubbers do not...) Thanks. ++Lar: t/c 00:17, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Fancy meeting you here! I've added interwiki links to both. Briefly, "in ordinary" means in reserve - literally deactivated (no armament, no stores, no crew), and often actually decommissioned as well. Receiving ships were used to bunk new recruits offshore, to keep them from running off once they found out that the Navy was hard work! I'll remind folks to be a bit more liberal with the linking :) Maralia (talk) 04:13, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Question about the British Admiralty's order

Was there an order by the British Admiralty not to engage U.S. heavy frigates? Can someone point me in the right direction? Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Thinkvoyager (talk • contribs) 04:06, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

There is a US Navy quote here that says:

"The defeat of Java, the second frigate lost to Constitution in six months, motivated a change in the tactics of the Royal Navy. No longer would their frigates be allowed to engage American frigates like Constitution alone. Only British ships-of-the-line or squadrons were permitted to come close enough to these ships to attack."

I think that covers it. --Brad (talk) 09:47, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

What about the USS Constellation ?!

She is still afloat in Baltimore Harbor! 74.243.194.192 (talk) 16:42, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

USS Constellation (1854) is in Baltimore Harbor and not USS Constellation (1797). --Brad (talk) 17:36, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Renaming proposal

In trying to follow ship naming convention somewhat more closely I believe the article title should be Original six frigates of the United States Navy or perhaps The original six frigates of the United States Navy. Thoughts welcome. --Brad (talk) 00:02, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

 Done --Brad (talk) 22:07, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

I think perhaps the article should be renamed again. The frigates are referred too as Humphreys frigates" because of the designer, Joshua Humphreys. My source is the Naval Academy Illustrated History of the United States Navy, written by E.B. Potter, a professor of Naval History at the United States Naval Academy.76.235.196.213 (talk) 16:33, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

In point of fact, USS Chesapeake was designed and built by Josiah Fox; so they were not all the work of Joshua Humphreys. See Toll, Six Frigates pp. 138 & 289. Jrt989 (talk) 17:11, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

The Josiah Fox article indicates he worked under Humphreys, as part of his design and construction team, and not independently. His alterations for USS Chesapeak were unique and unathorized, but not enough to challenge that Humphreys is labeled as the designer of all six frigates, even in Fox's article.76.236.182.38 (talk) 03:00, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Since en.wikipedia has articles on ships from many different countries it's important to name articles so that they identify the subject. So type of ship, country of origin and military branch has to be kept in mind for the title. In all of the reading I did for Constitution there never was any common term used for them except for references to original frigates or the first six frigates and mostly the Naval act of 1794. --Brad (talk) 22:36, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Named classes for these frigates

Some controversial additions to this article regarding the ship described as a United States-class frigate along with Constellation class and Chesapeake class. The references were:

• Silverstone, Paul H. (2001). The Sailing Navy, 1775-1854. Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-1557508935.
• Tucker, Spencer (2004). Stephen Decatur: A Life Most Bold And Daring. Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-1557509994.

The conversation about these additions took place on Archimedean (talk · contribs) talk page here. The consensus gathered there between myself and Bellhalla seems to point towards the naming as a modern day interpretation of 44-gun and 38-gun frigates. Archimedean has not responded to the conversation but it was suggested that this article might benefit from a mention of modern day interpretations. --Brad (talk) 13:06, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, I have never seen classes assigned for these ships except for 44-gun or 38-gun, it seems like any references that do something different are in the minority and it is telling that DANFS does not assign classes either. -MBK₀₀₄ 14:42, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm sure that using a ship class infobox on this article confuses things but I didn't see any other way to do it. Maybe I can fit in one of my famous notes to the infobox and explain things. I'm not doubting that the references given are incorrect but there are so many sources that counter the idea these ships had named classes. --Brad (talk) 16:24, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I think placing these ships into classes is taking a desire to re-write history along modern lines a little far. Ships from that period, even if designed to a general plan, were always unique in practice. I vote that they should be classified simply as 44-gun or 38-gun frigates, and left at that. Jrt989 (talk) 17:37, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I managed to get a copy of Tucker, Spencer (2004). Stephen Decatur: A Life Most Bold And Daring. Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-1557509994. and Tucker does mention p. 7:

"In June 1794 Congress accepted Humphreys's proposals and authorized him to proceed with three large frigates rated at 44-guns each (the United States class) and three of 36-guns (the Constellation class)."

The first problem is that four 44-gun frigates and two 36-gun frigates were on the original Naval Act of 1794 and this only changed when there was a shortage of materials to build Chesapeake which didn't happen until 1798. Tucker provides a footnote leading to p. 191 where it's noted that Silverstone (the other book above) was used for that information. Tucker then refers readers to Chapelle, Howard Irving (1949). The History of the American Sailing Navy; the Ships and Their Development. New York: Norton. p. 115–135. OCLC 1471717. which are pages that I've used in other six frigate articles for references. Chapelle does not class these ships by name; only by the gun rating. I've located the Silverstone book in another library but it's a reference book and I can't have it brought to my local library. The next time I'm on that side of town I plan to stop in and read through it. --Brad (talk) 21:15, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

I've looked over the Silverstone book. It's essentially a pictorial (most of them US Navy photos available online) organized by named classes for ships leading back to the Continental Navy. He does not supply footnotes in particular to the United States class, Constellation class or the Chesapeake class. His bibliography contains 13 books; 6 of which do not apply to ships of this article. Of the remaining 7, 4 of them are not available to me however, the 3 that I do have access to were Chapelle, Fowler and DANFS... all of which do not give these ships named classes. Perhaps Silverstone's motivation was to organize the ships for easier descriptions to the reader but in doing this he's creating something that never was. I'm starting to wonder what is going on at the Naval Institute (an organization not of the US Navy) as to their standards of publishing these books. In the case of Tucker, as having a PhD in history I don't understand how he could get away with such sloppy research. Apparently there is some sort of good ole boy clique going on here; each one afraid to call another authors research bunk. --Brad (talk) 20:42, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Merge proposal

I started cleaning up Naval Act of 1794 and realized that the article could never really be expanded much more than it is now. Additionally this article already overviews that article in order to make the reader familiar with what happened to produce the frigates. It wouldn't be much of a problem to explain the act here without over burdening this article to where it would be completely off topic. Thoughts are welcome. --Brad (talk) 19:32, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

I think the Naval Act of 1794 page could probably be expanded further, to the point that it would be beyond the scope of this article to fully encapsulate the subject without going significantly off topic. In general, I don't see the need to merge the pages - a little overlap between articles is not a problem, in my opinion. Groundsquirrel13 (talk) 22:25, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Could you explain how it might be expanded further? All the reading I've been doing for the six frigates hasn't turned up much more than what is there now. The paragraph that begins with "Piracy wasn't a problem..." makes sense but I haven't found any sources that could back up the idea. In other words that entire paragraph may have to come out. There were no citations at all when I began cleaning it up. --Brad (talk) 17:00, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, for example, I think that since the Naval Act of 1794 page deals with a piece of legislation, it could (and should) at some point be expanded to included the legislative history of the bill (e.g. internal Congressional politics, logrolling between members), and, more importantly, should seek to place the bill in its wider political context. As I recall, the Act was passed in the context of an extremely intense political rivalry between Federalists and Jeffersonian-Democrats, a rivalry of perhaps unequalled contentiousness in American history. That rivalry played an important role in the shaping and passage of the bill (for example, I seem to recall that the Democrats tried to kill it on a few occasions), and the bill played a not-insignificant role in shaping the rivalry between the two parties. Additionally, the Naval Act exposed the important political divide between the wealthy coastal and urban regions of America (which voted for the Act) and the interior and rural regions (which voted against). Finally, there were important financial considerations at play - this was a period of poverty for the Federal government. To explain all this in full detail in the Original six frigates page would be, I think, to go too far off topic.

On a less substantive level, there are other issues, such as infoboxes, inclusion of wikisource material, and adding of lists (such as lists of Congressmen who voted for and against) that should be different given the different subject matters of the two pages.

But, most importantly, I don't see the point of getting rid of the Naval Act article. What's the need to combine the two of them? I think the burden of proof here is on the prosecution. There should be a compelling reason before you get rid of an article that can serve a useful purpose on its own. Groundsquirrel13 (talk) 17:13, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

I suppose the article could be expanded to that level of detail which would bring most of it to being off topic for this article. At this point I've no desire to bring the Naval Act article to the level of detail you describe so it can sit there after I clean it up a bit more. --Brad (talk) 20:55, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Use of apostrophe-s

I see that when 44 or 36 is pluralized, an apostrophe is used. Since the intent is to describe a plural noun, rather than to indicate the possessive, would anyone object to my removing the apostrophes, yielding 44s instead of 44's, etc? --Badger151 (talk) 20:21, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

I think that would be the correct way. --Brad (talk) 02:19, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Gun crew size

The article says that each gun needed a crew of 12 men. Assuming 40 guns, this results in 480 men needed just for the guns, more than the entire crew. Could somebody explain? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.187.148.35 (talk) 18:02, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Ugh, no that isn't correct.Tirronan (talk) 12:13, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Well shut my mouth! It is correct and here is the documentation on it.http://www.2ndfloridalightartillery.com/Documents/NavalGunDrill.pdf and so that you know, no more than 1/2 the guns were manned as typically you only fought 1 side at a time.Tirronan (talk) 12:23, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

The article as it stands now explains that if both sides of the ship were engaged the gun crews had to be divided. Each team was responsible for a gun but were usually assigned other duties. Brad (talk) 10:32, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Questioning the request for citation about main battery

I am not the one who described the Constitution’s main batter as having “24-pounder guns in her main battery” however I do agree, in fact it is common knowledge and isn’t controversial. I have read a lot on the subject and nobody has ever claimed anything different. The way I see it, the requirement for citation would only be appropriate if someone were trying to claim something else. Tupelo the typo fixer (talk) 21:05, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

I've never heard of her referred to as anythng other than a 44, 24lber frigate, either, but someone thought it important enough to question. You and I are in the know, I guess, but as an encyclopedia we have to cater to those who aren't. In any event, I cited the Navy's fact file on the ship, which should suffice. --Badger151 (talk) 00:02, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

$688,888.82: Establishing the United States Earned Value Management Baseline.

Short Bet #53: What's your wager that I'm absolutely, without question...Positively Codified right on this one. ~~Dutch. The Apollo Seed (talk) 20:48, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

Assertions that the USS Constellation is the original rebuilt

I've reverted a good faith edit that the USS Constellation currently preserved in Baltimore was in fact a rebuild of the original Constellation. It is in fact not. 1850 Sloops of War were built differently and plans and a model half hull support this. If this becomes an issue I have documentation as to the facts I can present. Please do not change the article again without one hell of a lot of documentation. Tirronan (talk) 21:05, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Good point. I will try again later - this time referencing the far more comprehensive and historical work of Footner (2003, etc.) that robustly refutes the relatively shallow work of Wegner.HansMair (talk) 21:21, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

@HansMair:@Tirronan: I've been wanting to make this post for awhile now and since HansMair seems to be convinced that Footner is the end all of any further discussion. There are several places I could have posted, but a centralized discussion here seems to be the best solution. The 'old ship vs new ship' camps have been arguing their points for decades but WP articles must remain neutral and present both sides equally. We cannot just decide to choose one over the other. The Wegner report Fouled Anchors is the most accepted version of the ship's history. In the years after the report was published, the US Navy changed its Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships article about Constellation and split it into two articles 12 reflecting different ships. The modern website of the current Baltimore ship makes no claims to the 1797 heritage. Again, there is no right or wrong in regards to the ship's histories. Brad 20:50, 12 July 2017 (UTC)