Talk:RV Sir Horace Lamb

Rename page?

The vessel is perhaps more notable as RV Sir Horace Lamb than as YMS-294/Redpoll with a reather mundane service history. During the Bermuda SOFAR station acoustic research period Sir Horace Lamb is fairly often mentioned in research project and cruise reports. DANFS is pretty much the single mention and documentation of the other service. That period covers a few more years than service as a mine and training vessel. Based on last, longest and number of mentions in public sources move to RV Sir Horace Lamb is I think warranted. Views? Palmeira (talk) 13:23, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

I think that has some merit. Also noted that the Redpoll section is a straight lift from DANFS, so probably needs some editing to WP standards. Davidships (talk) 00:26, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

"In service"

The expression "in service" seems to be used in two different, somewhat contradictory, senses - they may both be legitimate USN usage but confusing to the reader. In the main text it seems to mean something like "under maintenance" or "in reserve", but I think that the general reader would expect it to mean that the ship was about its duties, or at least ready for them. There is a direct contradiction between ...8 November [1957], was again decommissioned and placed in service and the infobox's Out of service: 8 November 1957. Perhaps this is a widespread issue where DANFS text has been reproduced? Davidships (talk) 08:51, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

That is because the infobox is not tracking the commissioned/decommissioned status changes that this ship underwent. That is a subject on Project Ships Talk right now. The best overall official discussion easily available is NHHC's Ship Naming in the United States Navy. The term "in service" has a specific meaning, as does "in ordinary" — not a commissioned ship. The first indicates operating as a non commissioned ship, the second "not operating." So "placed in service" means the ship was conducting duties and operational in some non-commissioned status. When laid up or undergoing long yard periods, still Navy but not operating "in ordinary" would be the status. That reference's discussion of prefixes:

"The prefix “USS,” meaning “United States Ship,” is used in official documents to identify a commissioned ship of the Navy. It applies to a ship while she is in commission. Before commissioning, or after decommissioning, she is referred to by name, with no prefix. Civilian-manned ships of the Military Sealift Command (MSC) are not commissioned ships; their status is “in service,” rather than “in commission.” They are, nonetheless, Navy ships in active national service, and the prefix “USNS” (United States Naval Ship) was adopted to identify them. Other Navy vessels classified as “in service” are simply identified by their name (if any) and hull number, with no prefix."

The "in ordinary" is seen in DANFS for Oklahoma (Battleship No. 37) with ""on 29 December 1941, Oklahoma was placed under the Base Force and placed “in ordinary” [a non-commissioned status]" — the bombed wreck was in ordinary until the decision to sell as scrap was made and the hulk was no longer Navy. In that Talk discussion I noted just how specific the Navy is officially. In OPNAVINST 171O.7A — Social Usage and Protocol Handbook one gets to see just how precise that right to U.S.S. and a pennant can be:

"The third and most important ceremony in the history of a ship admits her to the U.S. Navy. The essence of the ceremony is her acceptance by the Navy, entitling her thereafter to fly the commission pennant and to be designated a U.S. Ship."

But the ship does not become commissioned until midway in the ceremony and thus is not U.S.S. yet. So, to handle how to engrave invitations without violating that exact moment:

"Although acceptance as a U.S. Ship does not occur until midway in the ceremony, invitations customarily use the designation USS (without periods) with the ship’s name."

Nope, no U.S.S., too close to United States Ship. But, USS privilege will be granted.

The simple infobox format regarding commission and in service completely disregards those complexities. Do we detail every status change (long and complex in some cases) or just the fact a commissioning took place and for casual purposes the ship can be noted as being USS and perhaps cover the complexities in a note to the effect the ship was in and out of commission a number of times? This is a good example to consider those options. Palmeira (talk) 13:20, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

Infobox format test to reflect commissionings/decomissionings/in service

USS Redpoll (AMS-57)
History
United States
Name	YMS-294 (1943-1947) Redpoll (1947-1959)
Namesake	A small finch found in North America, Europe, and Asia.
Owner	U.S. Navy (1943–1976)
Operator	U.S. Navy (1943–1959)
Laid down	10 June 1943
Launched	11 August 1943
Commissioned	11 September 1943
Decommissioned/ In service:	12 November 1946
Out of service/ Recommissioned:	20 November 1950
Decommissioned/ In service:	8 November 1957
Out of service:	1 July 1959
Stricken	1 July 1959
Status	Converted to acoustic research vessel 1959
RV Sir Horace Lamb
Name	Sir Horace Lamb
Namesake	Horace Lamb
Operator	Columbia University Geophysical Field Station, Bermuda (1959–1976)
In service	1959
Out of service	1976
Homeport	St. George's Harbour, St. George's Island, Bermuda
Fate	Scrapped 1 December 1976
General characteristics as YMS-294 / Redpoll
Displacement	265 tons 320 tons
Length	136 ft (41 m)
Beam	24 ft 6 in (7.47 m)
Draft	8 ft (2.4 m) 10 ft (3.0 m) as RV
Speed	15 kn (28 km/h; 17 mph)
Complement	32
Armament	one 3 in (76 mm) gun mount, two 20 mm machine guns, two depth charge racks, two depth charge tracks
General characteristics as Sir Horace Lamb
Complement	32
Crew	23 crew 10–12 scientific/technical

From Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ships#Decommissioned ship names side discussion continued here.

Umm, one of the really nice things about ship infoboexen is that they can be easily customized. For how to do that see: Template:Infobox ship begin § Custom fields. So, if you want to intermix variety of decommission/recommission/in service/out of service dates, you might write something like this between the initial |Ship commissioned= and the final |Ship commissioned= parameters in the infobox:

}}
|-
|Decommissioned: || dd Month YYYY
|-
|In service: || dd Month YYYY (as {{ship||Neversink|MTS-123}})
|-
|Out of service: || dd Month YYYY
|-
|Recommissioned: || dd Month YYYY (as {{USS|Sinks-a-lot|SSN-123}})
{{Infobox ship career
| Hide header=yes

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:35, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

• Tried. A "logical" way resulted in error messages about multiple template calls. Then the "cluttering" effect. I think coverage of those things are better in text with footnote in box. First commissioning is important, though in a few cases a much longer subsequent commissioning might override. Neither did I much like separate history boxes for YMS-294 and Redpoll though in some cases that might be an option. Palmeira (talk) 13:57, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

  A "logical" way resulted in error messages about multiple template calls. What does that mean? It doesn't appear that you saved your work so it is not possible to learn what you mean from the article history.

  —Trappist the monk (talk) 14:24, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

  "Logical" was a test to see if just a sequence of commissioned=/decommissioned=/in service=/out of service=/commissioned= statements straight from the template (|Ship commissioned=) might work. Those can only be called once so that will not work even if the automatic correction comes close to something we might want. It has to be in a list format such as you suggest. That is more complex to create and adds lots more characters and spaces. The infobox then contains a mini-list of those events and I do not think the result adds a great deal except "clutter" down the right side for events within a single "career" even with that YMS-294 to Redpoll change. Having a separate "History" for YMS-294 and Redpoll is a solution, but again, the infobox down the right becomes quite long. When basic function, management and name of the ship changed — far more than an internal Navy administrative action — as with Navy assigning the ship and its management to Columbia's SOFAR station and the name was also changed by the lab I do think a new "History" box is warranted. As with a number of hulls used by scientific or training entities the Navy carried the hull in NVR as Redpoll (MSCO 57) on loan with Custodian: SCHOOLS, ORGANIZATIONS AND PRIVATE ENTERPRISES. If I recall a few of the rather famous navy owned university research vessels never had their "university" name reflected in the NVR. That is another little technicality I don't think needs to clutter articles about such ships beyond perhaps a footnote if a question might come to a reader.

  I don't think that answers the question about multiple template calls. I don't know what that error is. The ship infobox doesn't emit any such error message.

  If by commissioned=/decommissioned= ... statements straight from the template (|Ship commissioned=) you mean some sort of list as the parameter value for |Ship commissioned= where you used <br /> then, yes, that will produce error messages but not multiple template calls error messages.

  Those can only be called once so that will not work even if the automatic correction comes close to something we might want. Automatic correction? What is that? The ship infoboxen have marginal smarts, but nothing that corrects anything.

  I have hacked the infobox to include all of the commission/decommision/recommission/in-and-out-of-service dates (I think); merged the two into one, shuffled some things around and removed all of the unused parameters. References and notes are tacked onto the bottom of the infobox to keep them out of the way; such use not recommended for articles

  —Trappist the monk (talk) 18:16, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

That is not bad at all. In my try at your suggesting I did not combine decommission/in service point, making it two lines and cluttering. As for the error, it came when I just did straight sequencing:

|Ship commissioned=

|Ship decommissioned=

|Ship in service=

|Ship out of service=

|Ship commissioned=

|Ship decommissioned=

|Ship in service=

|Ship out of service=

That gave the can only use once message and elimination of duplicates. Your example here I think meets the need without infobox clutter. Let's try it in the article to see how it looks long term. Palmeira (talk) 00:42, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Looking at it as a reader, that still seems pretty confusing. Just for consideration, my inclination would be to limit the dates in the infobox to:

• Commissioned: 11 September 1943 (first)
• Decommissioned: 8 November 1957 (last)[note: for interim status changes see article]

"Commissioned" by itself is OK as it is self-evident that the ship is in service (in the ordinary sense). If it is true that a decommissioned ship not yet "Stricken" is "in service" (in the naval sense), a separate "Out of service" field is superfluous.

I am not very struck with the double General characteristics box - a single one with years shown for the couple of necessary fields (armaments and complement) is usual, and neater.

PS: Is the "265" displacement figure misplaced? Both the refs have "320". If both figures are good, explanation needed. Unfortunately there is no technical description in the article, and the Class article has a different figure (strangely, using metric tonnes).Davidships (talk) 12:05, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree on the date of first commission and of last decommissioning with the qualification that in most cases these smaller vessels and the auxiliaries went from commissioned, often with those in service out of commission intervals, to long Navy "in service" periods. That applies to many USS->USNS and no few USS->district or yard craft. I think that can be covered by a footnote in the box and certainly a comment in the text. I'm also not in favor of multiple characteristics boxes unless the change is very significant. I've handled commercial changes making drastic changes in GRT and even length with notes in the box. There are a few cases where naval changes from combatant to service fleet is so drastic such a second box might be needed and some commercial vessels are so re-purposed as to be different vessels. I think that has to be a judgement call and my inclination is that such a new box usually goes with major name/ownership change. For example a U.S.N. ship goes to a foreign navy and is converted.

By the way, I'm more inclined to make this the RV Sir Horace Lamb article as the Navy operating period is very mundane, DANFS with even NVR having nothing much, and more than a few mentions in scientific/technical publications with some small, but significant, contributionsIt appears more than once in memoirs of important ocean scientists as well. Someone is much more likely to find and want to know about the RV than the Navy period.

The displacement change is in the two references up in "Characteristics" but, yes, a comment is needed in the box. I've made those. Good catch. Palmeira (talk) 14:04, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. On the article name, that's what brought me here in the first place. On the displacements, apologies - I was looking in vain for "365", but failed to note that the two refs are indeed different, though DANFS actually has 370 disp. Davidships (talk) 14:57, 5 May 2021 (UTC)