Talk:USS North Carolina (BB-55)

Rudder damage

Does any one know why or how the USS North Carolina's rudder was damaged and required repair at pearl harbor on April 31 1944? A 10 fireplane (talk) 17:59, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

According to her War Diary for May 1944, BB-55's rudders were inspected by divers on 4 May at Majuro Harbour with both rudders in need of maintenance, being badly corroded. The rudders were repaired from 20-23 May 1944 at Pearl Harbour.Damwiki1 (talk) 07:36, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:USS North Carolina (BB-55)/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Peacemaker67 (talk · contribs) 06:45, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

Will do this one. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 06:45, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

This article is in good shape. I have a few comments:

• in the lead, link mobilisation as it is a bit jargony
  • Ha, I remembered to do that on Washington but not this one.
• also in the lead, perhaps mention that she was on the east coast before the war, a bit of assumed knowledge
  • Good idea
• also in the lead, link ship commissioning for decommissioned
  • Done
• suggest "which added a restriction on her main battery of guns that they be no larger than 14 inches (360 mm)"
  • Works for me
• comma after ""standard" series"
  • I don't think one is needed there - there are only two things being considered in that sentence - standard type battleships or fast battleships
• the horsepower is shp in the body and just hp in the infobox
  • Fixed
• not sure what to do about the crew numbers, don't we use s designed in the infobox, therefore 1,800?
  • Good catch
• the conversion for the 16 in guns varies from 410 mm to 406 mm
  • Fixed
• also, I'm not sure about the use of 16", should perhaps be 16 in?
  • Good idea
• no conversion of 5 in in the body?
  • Added
• the caliber of the 1.1 in guns isn't provided in the body
  • Removed from the box
• "South Dakota class" is a dab
  • Good catch
• "more advanced Mark 8 sets"
  • Fixed
• with the replacement AA guns, it switches to metric first, which jars a bit
  • Yeah, but that's how they were designated - nobody calls them 0.79" Oerlikons
• suggest "By June 1943, her anti-aircraft armament washad been increased"
  • Good catch
• consistency with hyphenation "twin-mounts and twenty single mounts"
  • Fixed
• "The keel for North Carolina was laid down on 27 October 1937 at the New York Naval Shipyard on 27 October 1937"
  • Whoops
• "tThe Navy briefly considered"
  • Fixed
• "a combination fromof rapid maneuvering"
  • Fixed
• there is a bit of assumed knowledge about what sort of ships Indiana and Massachusetts were
  • Added a descriptor to the first reference to Indiana, but don't you think saying the battleship group consisted of this one and two other names should be fairly explicit?
• "The ships to bombarded the island of Nauru"
  • Must've gotten rewritten too many times
• once you use TF, go with it throughout
  • Fixed
• "In the course of the battle, North Carolina shot down two Japanese aircraft during the battle"
  • Fied
• link Tinian
  • Done
• suggest "to hit targets ion Kyushu"
  • Done
• "and the Ryukus continued after the landing on Okinawa"
  • Fixed
• suggest "the fast carrier task force washad been transferred back to Third Fleet"
  • Fixed
• "by a group of nine tugboats"
  • Whoops
• suggest "Work to maintain the ship and improve the facility areis an on-going efforts"
  • Works for me
• all the image licensing looks fine.

That's me done. Placing on hold for the above to be addressed. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 08:03, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

Thanks PM! Parsecboy (talk) 11:59, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

This article is well-written, verifiable using reliable sources, covers the subject well, is neutral and stable, contains no plagiarism, and is illustrated by appropriately licensed images with appropriate captions. Passing. Nice work! Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 00:48, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Honors and Awards

Would it be worth it to add an honors and awards section to the quick facts and/or main article? Thanks. Pottathan (talk) 01:44, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

No, and for a number of reasons. First, no typical reliable source mentions them (DANFS doesn't even talk about them), and as we are an encyclopedia that should reflect what sources say, we should reflect their silence on the matter. Second, that type of material is generally present on fansites or veterans' association websites, neither of which are RS, and as a result is better left there. Lastly, the ribbon farm garbage present on most USN ship articles is crufty and entirely decoration, which is not appropriate for an encyclopedia that strives to be professional. Parsecboy (talk) 11:19, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Alright that makes a lot of sense, thanks. Pottathan (talk) 14:23, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Follow-up

@Parsecboy: Hello agiain. As you know, I'm well aware of your opinion of ship awards, be it graphic representations ("ribbons farms" I believe as you them), or simple lists, or even mention of awards in the article prose, but why remove this note of the ship's battle stars from the infobox? While you're edit summary stated: "we don't need to clutter the box with every little detail", a single three-word line is hardly "clutter". It doesn't make any appreciable change to the size or appearance of the infobox, but does provide some notable info that some readers may find useful, or may even be seeking. "Ship honors" is one of the infobox parameters. Leaving all the other means of inclusion aside, doesn't this seem like a reasonable compromise? - wolf 02:45, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

Battle stars are the equivalent of campaign medals (that mean little more than "I was here"); they were handed out by the thousands during the war (if not tens of thousands). If a ship was awarded a PUC, that'd have a good case to be in the box (and ironically, none of the ships listed at Presidential Unit Citation (United States)#Navy have them in their boxes - or at least the first three I checked), but generic awards do not. I am well aware that |Ship honors is a parameter; but that is a non-argument. Not everything in the body needs to be summarized in the box.

No, a single 3-word line is not clutter by itself, but neither is a single old fast food wrapper on your coffee table; only in the aggregate (along with junk like non-notable sponsors, meaningless cost figures (that can't be adjusted for inflation or be reasonably put into context), and cute little flag icons that mean nothing to average readers. This is what the box looked like at one point, and allowing garbage like that to creep back in, one piece at a time, because it by itself is not "clutter" is the same as allowing your lazy roommate to not clean up their messes one at a time (and then wondering why you live in a pigsty). You may think I'm being militant about this (and perhaps I am); I'm also one of the very few people around trying to write good quality articles, and the time I spend trying to stave off junk eats into the time I have to actually write. So you might understand why I tend to lack patience for this. And if you're wondering, the twenty minutes I've wasted responding to this was time I had planned to spend working on the DANFS rewrite of USS Vicksburg (CL-86), which is still incomplete. Parsecboy (talk) 12:20, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

What? (That's a bit of guilt trip there, no?) Well, I am sorry if this reply is a further "waste of your time", or somehow prevents you from improving some other page, but this is engagment, and discussing article content is what these pages are for. Arguably, your complaints about responding to talk pages and removing stuff you don't like, having an impact your ability to edit and adversely affecting other articles are all non-arguments.

Same for your garbage analogy; an empty fast food wrapper is garbage, which no one has a use for, whereas the cited content in that infobox edit does have a use. Perhaps not for you, but certainly for any number of other readers. That infobox parameter exists and was included because, wether you like it or not, other editors felt it was a worthwhile parameter. In this case, one 3-word line tells readers this ship meritoriously participated in 15 battles, (which is no small thing, considering Enterprise topped them all with only five more). And again, I'm only addressing that edit, not any other edits that include "junk", like "non-notable sponsors, meaningless cost figures (adjusted or not), and cute little flag icons". That is a non-argument. Just as your OSE/OSDE examples from other pages are non-arguments.

Like you, I'm actually in favour of leaner infoboxes, and stated as such on the Missouri tp. But in this case, with a complete lack of an awards section, no mention of battle stars to be found on the page, and no collective statement noting the number of battles she took part in evident anywhere in the article, this one edit addresses all of that, using an already established patameter, making it a worthwhile addition.

I acknowledge and respect the work you put into this project, and as with our other debates, (and without a consensus from other users), I will ultimately defer to you on this. But with that said, and not wanting to belabour this any further, I'll just ask once more; you don't find this edit, (and this edit alone), to be a reasonable compromise? - wolf 20:16, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

It's an expression of frustration at having one's time eaten up with stuff like this. It's the same reason I haven't gotten involved in the latest round of SHE4SHIPS discussion.

My contention is that a simple number of battle stars is garbage. What real use is noting the number in the infobox? It doesn't provide any usable information beyond "the ship was there" (without actually telling any of the "where"s). It doesn't mean the ship was meaningfully engaged in all of those battles/campaigns, in the same way that the Bronze Stars handed out like candy in Iraq tell us anything meaningful.

Again, the fact that the parameter exists isn't a good argument. It'd be the same as suggesting we need to put everybody's ASM in their boxes because the field is there. When we summarize bios, we only put the highest tier of awards - go pick any modern US general officer, and you won't find a list of every ARCOM they ever got in the box. My contention is that battle stars fall on the lower end of the spectrum, and when we go to decide what information should be included in the box, we have to make choices about what to include and what not. A PUC singles out a specific ship for exemplary performance and tells us a useful bit of information about the ship; battle stars do not. If the battle stars aren't mentioned in the body, they should be; this must have been an oversight when I rewrote the DANFS text years ago. Parsecboy (talk) 12:32, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

It has now been included (though per DANFS, the ship received 12 battle stars, not 15 - don't know where the number 15 comes from; presumably someone counted the fifteen bullets there and assumed each one qualifies for a battle star). Parsecboy (talk) 12:38, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

Fair enough. That works for me. Thank you - wolf 22:01, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

Torpedo damage assessment... reassessment?

The bits in the article about the torpedo damage being largely superficial are pretty contentious, from what I've gathered from various sources, with some saying it was WAY more serious then it seemed, particularly in how it compromised certain aspects of the ship's structural integrity until the damage was fully repaired - Can somebody who's better at primary research than me (and somebody who's got more time for it too, hopefully!) look into this? 2603:6080:2105:95C3:6982:4F2:6D9F:953F (talk) 09:05, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

What sources have you read that characterize the torpedo hit as serious? That would be a place to start. Parsecboy (talk) 14:21, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

From:[1] USS NC Damage report:

"SECTION IV - ESTIMATE OF EFFECT OF DAMAGE ON FIGHTING EFFICIENCY

IV-1. Reference (a) estimated that the fighting efficiency of the ship was affected as follows:

(a) Sustained speed of the ship reduced to 18 kts., although speeds up to 24 kts. could be made for brief periods without straining the shored bulkheads to such a degree that reduction in speed would be necessary.

(b) Fuel capacity reduced by 150,000 gallons.

(c) Armored protection reduced by:

(1) Water taken into the ship.

(2) Ruptures in No. 5 torpedo bulkhead between frames 43 and 48, port.

(3) Ruptured area of third deck at frame 45, port.

(4) Ruptures in lower boundaries of No. 5 torpedo bulkhead extension above third deck at frame 45, port.

(d) Turret I lower structure weakened so that the turret should be fired only under gravest need.

(e) Considerably increased vibration noted in fire control instruments in Fire Control and forward towers.

(f) Search antenna foundation weakened structurally to such an extent that it would be put out of commission by a relatively slight shock."

The hit was serious and severely impacted NC's fighting power as per points (a) and (d) and (e). 1/3 loss of speed and 1/3 loss of 16in firepower and a reduction in Fire Control efficiency.

Friedman, US Battleships, p.279:

"The other major wartime test came when the North

Carolina was torpedoed on 15 September 1942. The

torpedo, with a 660-pound warhead (that is, some-

what smaller than the charge for which the protec-

tive system had been designed) struck on the port

side just abaft No. 1 turret, blowing a 32 x 18 foot

hole in the side of the ship and admitting about 970

tons of water. Armor above the hole cracked, and the

second and third decks buckled. Although the ship

was able to accelerate to 24 knots within a few min-

utes, she later had to slow to 18 to avoid strain on

shoring around the large hole. Moreover, structural

damage below No. 1 turret put it effectively out of

action, and shock disabled the main search radar.

This incident excited very considerable interest,

since it was the first case of torpedo damage to a

modern U.S. capital ship during World War Two.

Many officers felt that it showed that too much had

been sacrificed in battleship design, since the tor-

pedo-protection system had come close to failure in

a crucial area, abeam magazine spaces. The General

Board, for example, wanted the last two Iowas, Ken-

tucky and Illinois, redesigned, blistered abeam their

magazines. BuShips argued that its system had per-

formed much as designed, and no major changes were

actually made." Damwiki1 (talk) 21:47, 3 October 2024 (UTC)