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Weapons

"the scope of this project also includes all applicable weapons" - if you are meaning articles like Armament of the Iowa class battleship...I think that an article like this for any of the other battleship classes may be a little over-the-top. That article can discuss everything from 5"/38 cal guns to Harpoons and Tomahawks, and as such will/would/did get rather too long for the class article. I'm not sure if the other classes would warrant a separate article, however; perhaps it would be better to keep the information in one place as they would not be nearly as long? I may be wrong on this; it's just an opinion, so feel free to disagree! [Side note: the only other one I think might warrant a separate article would be Mississippi, but that's because she tested so many different weapons later in her career.] —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 05:39, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

I think he means the articles on the weaponry itself, i.e. 5"/38 caliber gun, etc. But yes, an article on what the Mississippi tested would be good, I think we may be able to write one about the Wyoming as well (Mississippi replaced Wyoming) -MBK004 05:42, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
Oh man, that's a lot of articles. :) Perhaps we should concentrate on the ships and ship classes and get them to GA/A/FA before we concentrate on the weapons? —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 05:55, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
Or, alternatively, if we can woo a few people from the weaponry task force, we can have users who already had an interest in weapons work on them while others work on the ships and their respective class articles. We do have to remember that the Iowas were unique since they kept coming back so other articles will not be as long or as modified as the the Iowas. In any event, I have long thought about the possibility of destructing the armament page for the Iowas and using the information there to bring the other gun and missile articles up to FA class. Its something that warrants discussion, but not at the moment since I have class in about ten minutes :) TomStar81 (Talk) 14:08, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
No, I think that having all the info on the armament in one place is the best thing for readers. :) IMO, in the absence of a weaponry tf person/people working on the weapons, we should concentrate on the ship and class articles. We can always add the weapons later as a supplementary nom if they all get to GA/FA, and this is already going to be a 2–4 year task without them. :-/ —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 04:09, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Montana individual ship articles

Are we sure that the Montana-class battleships warrant their own pages that we have to get to FA for the FT? I found that merging the never-began USS Philippines (CB-4), USS Puerto Rico (CB-5) and USS Samoa (CB-6) into Alaska-class cruiser was necessary due to a plethora of similar information that was better summarized in the class article... —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 00:13, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

(last post for the evening probably, I am in the middle of group work at the moment) That's an option, and if you look at the talk page for the class it was discussed back a few years ago for that exact reason. I have not done anything with the idea because I was trying to see if the articles could be expanded, but so far I have had no luck. I will look into this more though and if I decide that there is no chance for them then I will move to have the merged per your suggestion ed. TomStar81 (Talk) 00:47, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
Have fun with the group work. :) I'm not saying that the ships aren't notable in themselves, but the same design info with only slightly varying numbers for planned keel laying etc. in five articles wouldn't be the best solution (IMHO, at least)...why not direct them to one article which (a) contains the same (but more detailed) information and (b) is featured? Compare the Samoa article to Alaska-class cruiser and note the large amount of similar text. :-/ —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 01:22, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
We seem to have taken an unexpected break. Fortuitous, huh? Anyway, since you have experience with this aspect of ship construction I will leave it to you to handle the merge, since you think it best. I have already gotten the Montana class article to FA, so once you merge that wipes out all the working remaining on the Montana class battleships, therefore we'll have the second FT for all intents and purposes :) TomStar81 (Talk) 01:27, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
Haha yes it was! Ok, will do in a few minutes. Before merging, I'll make sure that all of the information in the individual articles is present in the relevant Montana-class battleship section (it's not like they are really long, so it won't be hard :). —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 01:35, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
Done, hopefully right. sample... —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 02:43, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

(out) hmm, am thinking along the same lines for the ships of the South Dakota class battleship (1920). —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 04:21, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree; the first set of SoDaks should be merged as well. Parsecboy (talk) 10:49, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
Also, unless there's enough information for USS Washington (BB-47), then she should probably be merged as well. Parsecboy (talk) 10:53, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
I disagree on the Washington, I see enough information that this one is in the same league with USS Illinois (BB-65). Being purposefully expended as a target during battle exercises is notable enough, i.e. Illinois was considered but was not far enough along in construction for the same fate. I'm sure we can come up with more if we look... -MBK004 20:16, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
I agree with MBK; that's not going to be a fun one to write with the limited sources on the ship, but it's notable enough for its own article. —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 04:09, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
It may be possible to find enough information on some of the ships mentioned above to allow separate articles on each, but it might necessitate digging into primary records at the Washington Naval Yard. There might be some secondary sources, however, that give more details. Cla68 (talk) 23:08, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Ed, why don't you go ahead and merge the first SoDak class ship articles into the class page. That seems to be the best course of action here since there is not much to say about them. As for Washington, lets take a wait and see aproach; if we can eek out enough info we may be able to to do to Washington what MBK did with Illinois, and that would be another point of success for us and more brag room when we finally get to the point where we can brag :) TomStar81 (Talk) 14:02, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Oops, I missed this. Cla, we might get a little separate information, but the majority of the articles would be descriptions of their design. I feel that any information on the ships can comfortably fit into the SoDak class article. I wonder if the Washington Naval Yard has papers/studies relating to Washington's target ship fate? Would anyone like to email them? :)
Tom: let's merge them after someone works on the class page, as right now those articles have information that is not in the class article... —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 02:29, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Table of articles

I have created a table that lists all of the article that I believe are currently under the scope of this project: User:TomStar81/Operation Majestic Titan/Articles. I have included USS Maine (ACR-1) and USS Texas (1892) because they were considered battleships when they were built and because Maine was sunk in Havana and we would be remiss not to include these two since they tested the designs for the subsequent classes. -MBK004 04:15, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Thats fine. I would have included those anyway :) TomStar81 (Talk) 19:06, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

General meeting and points we need to clarify

I'm calling a general meeting to sort out a few things.

  • Should we apply the name Operation Majestic Titan to all battleship articles across the wiki? If so then we could break down the workload according to continents (ie: Operation Majestic Titan - North America, Operation Majest Titan - Asia Pacific, Operation Majestic Titan - Europe, etc) that we could expand this name so that others like Parsecboy and The ed17 can apply the operation name to thier neck of the woods and use it to aid their efforts to improve battleship articles.
  • Originally, I omitted a section for participants since the goal was to create working groups and those have sections for participants already included in their upload scheme. Now I see the participants section has been added, but my concern is that if people add their names to this page they will not add them to the working groups page, and that has the potential to create trouble if person a is working on an article here and person b is listed on working group for the same article. I think we would run best if we picked one method or the other, but having both seems redundant to me.
  • The list of articles we have on the page could be broken down by working group, and we could probably improve the data listed if we were to list the information in the tables on the working groups article in transcludable table. Doing so would allow updates there to be reflected here quickly and efficiently.
  • How often should we hold general meetings of this type? Is this once enough, or do you all think that we should meet with some sort of frequency?
    • It's not the biggest deal to me; I'm not all that interested in South American BB's! The only reason I started working on them was comments from Le Deluge (talk · contribs) on WT:MHA.
    • Then remove it :))) I thought that we would need one, but I see what you were trying to do now. Perhaps this should be added into the text? "If you wish to help, please join one of the working groups listed at the bottom of the page" ?
    • Your choice on meetings; do you think we'll need more? Perhaps we could hold one on IRC for simplicity and ease of communication? I don't need an account or anything; you go to Mibbit, pick an "IRC" (which would be Freenode), a name, and a channel, then click "go". I know that MBK has purposefully avoided it for reasons unknown to me, but maybe just one exception? —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 04:09, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
      • I don't have an irc channel either (honestly, I do not even know what IRC means/stands for), nor am a familiar with their operations. Meetings do not necessarily need to occur with any degree of frequency, but I think getting together now and again and exchanging ideas would help the project along. Before doing anything though I am waiting for more input on the above. See what everyone else thinks about the matter. TomStar81 (Talk) 05:11, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
        • I agree with Ed on the first point, at least for the time being. This project is going to be a massive undertaking, and we should probably concentrate our combined effort on this first, instead of diluting it to include a few hundred British, German, French, Russian, and others' battleships. Maybe after we get this mostly done we can revisit this idea, and see if there's interest in expanding the scope (but, on the other hand, think of how incredible it would be to have a "Battleships" FT!)
        • Yeah, it does seem a little redundant to have a work list/participants section here and on the individual task forces. The one thing that is of value though, is that here we can see articles that are being worked on that aren't part of a specific task force yet (thinking specifically of Texas and MBK).
        • I too don't have any experience with IRC. Is there much need to discuss things outside of Wikipedia though? As long as we all pay attention to this page (and the working groups too) we shouldn't have a problem coordinating things. Parsecboy (talk) 06:07, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
          • Honestly, I don't know what "IRC" stands for either. :) It was just a suggestion, and, replying to Parsec, there is no need for it—I just htought it mihgt make things a bit easier. —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 17:21, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Membership list redux

  • Membership list redux: is it really preferable to have separate working groups with separate membership lists for each BB class, or would it be easier to just keep a master list here? —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 05:13, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
    • I've always been of the mind that separate members for the class would be preferable since some members will likely only work on certain battleship classes (for example, WWII battleships) and not necessarily the other the battleship within the larger scope. Thats why I was of the mind to break this down by class so those who have an interest in the battleship classes being worked on could be more easily identified for other Majestic Titan ops (when, of course, we get there :) As this is consensus based though, I am open to redefining this if you guys think we need to. TomStar81 (Talk) 05:38, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
      • I was just thinking that having one article list and one central membership list might be easier to manage, but it's not really that big of a deal to me. :) —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 05:49, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Two discussions from WP:RS

CombinedFleet.com

CombinedFleet.com [1] is an oft-used reference for Wikipedia articles related to the Imperial Japanese Navy during the Pacific War of World War II. During the FAC for the Battle of Tassafaronga, someone questioned the reliability of the site as a source. Since the same concern may come up again, as I'm using the site as a source in another article that I plan on nominating for FAC once it's ready, I thought that I should get some other opinions on it in advance.

I believe the site is reliable because the site owners are Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully, authors of the book Shattered Sword, a source used in a variety of Wikipedia articles, especially the Battle of Midway which is a featured article. Perhaps more important, though, is that the site lists its sources of information here and here. Those two lists represent a definitive work of English Pacific War literature. If the site's operators are reputable, published authors and they clearly list the sources of their information, and those sources are valid primary and secondary sources, does that make the site a reliable, secondary source? Cla68 (talk) 06:56, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Thirty books cite it, which is quite a lot. One could check how they use it, as far as possible, but together with the above info, it seems quite good.John Z (talk) 10:00, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
Thank you. I believe that answers the question. Cla68 (talk) 00:24, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

From Wikipedia Relible sources noticeboard archives

Hiya. I have an article up at FAC at the moment and have encountered an unexpected setback: navweaps.com, a site I use because I feel it to be reliable, has been called questionable by a participant in the FAC. I asked on the coordinator page for the MILHIST project, and my and one other coordinator are of the opinion that the website is a reliable source becuase of the sources section sited on the individual weapon pages used in the inline citations, such as this one on the main guns of the Iowa and Montana class of battleships (scroll all the way to the bottom and you will see what I mean). I bear the editor (Wackymacs, I believe, is his screen name) no malice for his repeated questioning of the sources, but I need an honest, outside opinion on the website's suitability as a source from a group that is independent of the entire review, and from where I stand that would be this venue since no one here has (to my knowledge) commented on the FAC, nor do I believe anyone here has any plans to. That makes this the most neutral place I can ask this question. All I need to know for sure is whether the site qualifies as reliable by Wikipedia standards, or whether I need to go deeper into the sourcing. TomStar81 (Talk) 05:22, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Let's start with asking you why you think it is reliable. It's a personal web page, and normally those aren't considered reliable for a purpose like this. There are of course exceptions. A web page on cosmology by Stephen Hawking would be considered reliable, but if he wrote a web page on naval weapons we'd probably call in unreliable in Wikipedia terms. Reliability is not the default. Doug Weller (talk) 06:39, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
Two big reasons: one, it agrees with everything I have heard from a volenteer crewman working with the Battleship Missouri Memorial, and two because Tony has cited his sources on all of the pages. For me, that makes the source reliable, but I admit to being bias insofar as having the site ruled reliable works in favor, which is why I have come here for an outside opinion rather then judge for myself or asking MILHIST.


My opinion isn't very weighty, but I believe it to be neutral in relation to this particular case and I'm happy to offer it.
WP:RS says early on that reliable sources are credible published materials with a reliable publication process; their authors are generally regarded as trustworthy or authoritative in relation to the subject at hand. I see that your source describes its publication process here and the process described looks to be to be a careful one with the author/publisher of your source being knowledgeable, experienced, and concerned with fact-checking and accuracy. He lists his on-hand reference sources for vetting new material here. He doesn't seem to be very heavily cited in WP (the query "site:en.wikipedia.org navweaps.com" produces 95 hits with google, 226 with yahoo), but perhaps that is because of the specialized subject matter. Removing the site: qualifier boosts those numbers to 11,100 and 1,010 respectively.
It is a self-published source, however. WP:SPS says that self-published material may, in some circumstances, be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications. The example item from that source provides cites of "data from" sources as supporting sources for the material in that item. Your source is owned and operated by Tony DiGiulian , and I see him cited as an expert in books published in the relevant field here and here
Personally, I wouldn't have a problem with your source. I wouldn't remove a cite and wouldn't hesitate to cite it myself. One of the Wikipedia:Featured article criteria requires that FACs must be "factually accurate: claims are verifiable against reliable sources, accurately represent the relevant body of published knowledge, and are supported with specific evidence and external citations". That doesn't impose any additional criteria beyond what is expected of all WP, articles — it just says that FACs must meet WP's V and RS criteria. FWIW, my opinion is that this source meets WP's V and RS criteria. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 07:52, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Boracay Bill's analysis. Additional support is lent by other high quality book citations to the site: Australian Cruiser: Perth 1939-1942, Exploitation of a Ship's Magnetic Field Signatures, Vietnam Ironclads: A Pictorial History of U. S. Navy River Assault Craft and The History Highway: A 21st Century Guide to Internet Resources. John Z (talk) 09:26, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
I also agree, it is clear that although this is a personal website it meets the qualifications required for a source. (sorry, forgot to sign) Doug Weller (talk) 16:22, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
Thank you for the help. I apreciate it. From here I should be able to handle the rest of the issues with the article's FAC on mine own. Keep up the good work, and thank you for the timely response. TomStar81 (Talk) 19:51, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

New York-class battleship

Have begun work on New York-class battleship; any help would be appreciated! :) —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 04:10, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Brand-new article

Someone just created Standard type battleship. It seems to be a great anchor for a larger FT than just the class article and the ships, we can now group by the type, another grouping could be the Big Five (Colorado and Tennessee classes). -MBK004 02:03, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Possible dispatch?

I've tried to cook something up in an old, forgotten sandbox of mine about our little project here. Can you guys take a look? User:The ed17/Sandbox2 —Ed (Talk • Say no to drama) 20:29, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

It looks good (though I am still not use to seeing my name in lights :) I made two small tweaks to the text, hope that was ok. Were you planning to get this out in The Bugle or The Signpost, or was it just meant as a sort of all hands request? TomStar81 (Talk • Some say ¥€$, I say NO) 05:06, 24 July 2009 (UTC)
Heh, apparently logging on now was a good idea—caught you just three minutes after your post. ;) Your tweaks were good. I included the South American battleships in case someone saw the post and wanted to counter systemic bias, I'll tweak that more now. I didn't even think of The Bugle because I got the idea from looking at your and Maralia's old Iowa WP Ships FT milestone dispatch. What do youguys think? Would it even be long enough for the Signpost? —Ed (Talk • Say no to drama) 05:12, 24 July 2009 (UTC)
One other thing: define "battleship"! ;) Looking at List_of_ships_of_the_Argentine_Navy#Battleships, I'm afraid I missed some? Or are they not 'true' battleships (only being described as such at the time)... —Ed (Talk • Say no to drama) 05:17, 24 July 2009 (UTC)
If you're going to include it on the signpost as opposed to the bugle, it might be better to include Parsec's work on the German battleships and you and Cam's work on the Japanese battleships. If we want to avoid systemic bias, maybe we should have all of them included (American, British, French, German, Italian, South America, Japanese, Austro-Hungarian, Russian). The British have one: HMS Royal Oak (08) is a FA as well (and it looks remarkably well for a March 2007 promotion!). Break the project out to the continents with the lists and roll it out via the Signpost. -MBK004 05:35, 24 July 2009 (UTC)
(ec)My definition of battleship has been anything above the "ironclad" classification - principally, therefore, we are looking at predreadnoughts and dreadnoughts. As for the signpost: I suggested that they may want to consider running a special page once a month titled "classifieds" so that we can put individual initiated projects like this can be brought to the attention of others on the sight who may be interested in participating. I suppose I could bounce the classifieds idea off Roger and see if anyone else thinks including that in the newsletter would be a good idea. And yeah, this is usually when I log onto wikipedia to check stuff cause the news is over and I am not tired, and I feel I have to do something education for a while :) TomStar81 (Talk • Some say ¥€$, I say NO) 05:39, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

(@ MBK) - that's a really good idea; a piece highlighting the quality content that has come out of the maritime warfare TF articles would (I think?) make a good featured content dispatch—and it'd also be the first one since May, too. I'll try to get something written up tomorrow; in my mind right now it'll take the form of differentiated sections between countries with the article list(s) at the bottom. Having said that, I'm not sure that we want all of those article lists; first, that'd be long and probably disconcerting to a reader, and second, that's a lot of work to put together... maybe the lists should be omitted altogether in favor of links to User:TomStar81/Operation Majestic Titan#Where we stand?
(@ Tom) - OK, so pretty much anything after 1890-ish. I think that with MBK's idea, this will be able to make the Signpost outside of a 'classified' section; however, for the Bugle, either the current article, focusing on OMT, or your classifieds idea should suffice. (anything beyond OMT would overwhelm our poor newsletter, IMHO :). —Ed (Talk • Say no to drama) 07:11, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

I think something in the Signpost/Bugle would be great. Just in case, I worked up a German list, and I added the BCs to it.
In regards to the Argentinian ships, Conway's 1860-1905 rates Almirante Brown as a central battery corvette and the Libertads as coastal defense ships. Neither fits in our project here. Though Chile appears to also have Capitan Prat, a pre-dreadnought launched in 1890 and scrapped circa 1935. Conway's has a bit, but not nearly enough for even a decent B-class article. Chile also had Constitucion and Libertad, though these were both bought by the UK and renamed HMS Swiftsure (1903) and HMS Triumph (1903), respectively. Parsecboy (talk) 12:16, 24 July 2009 (UTC)
See if SandyGeorgia (talk · contribs) would be willing to run a dispatch for the material, that I think would be our best avenue of aproach for the signpost, and our fastest route into the upcoming edition. TomStar81 (Talk • Some say ¥€$, I say NO) 13:52, 24 July 2009 (UTC)
If you're going to add the battlecruisers, then we need to as well for the French, British, Japanese and American listings. -MBK004 13:58, 24 July 2009 (UTC)
Battlecruisers are actually apart of another operation I have in mind. For that matter, so are heavy cruisers. we can include them here, but be forewarned that I do intend to get all the bug gun ships up to featured, so they may get shuffled around when other operations start. Assuming of course that this one proves to be successful enough to warrant the creation of more ops :) Got class now, will be back on in a few hours; failing that, then this evening at some point. TomStar81 (Talk • Some say ¥€$, I say NO) 14:25, 24 July 2009 (UTC)
I like BCs, but how about we keep them out of the dispatch and this page in favor of simplicity? The list(s) are going to be big enough as it is already. :-) I'll be happy to start a BC work group later tonight (after work...)
Parsec, you have 1860-1906? I'll add Capitan Prat to the list after work.
Oh, and Tom? Good luck getting all of the big-gun ships to FA by yourself. ;-) —Ed (Talk • Say no to drama) 15:45, 24 July 2009 (UTC)
Alright, I suppose keeping the BCs and BBs separate makes sense. I suspect that in total, there will be fewer BCs than even just the American BB articles, and between Ed and me, we've got a significant chunk taken out (speaking of BCs, when are we going to take Amagi to FAC? It's been sitting lonely at A-class for months now! :P
Yeah, I broke down and ordered it a few months ago. I figure if my goal is to be a world-renowned naval historian, that's a good book to have :) Parsecboy (talk) 16:32, 24 July 2009 (UTC)
@ ed: I have no intention of getting all the big gun ships up to FA myself, I only plan on getting 51% up to FA status by myself; that way, I can claim I did the most amount of work ;-) TomStar81 (Talk • Some say ¥€$, I say NO) 18:23, 24 July 2009 (UTC)
(@ Parsec) - you're probably right. Maybe we'll have to knock some of those off after some of these American BBs—I've been wanting to rewrite the Renown-class battlecruiser article for some time now, but I just don't have the necessary sources. There's 20 BC articles for the British, about ten(? at the ships of the Mackensen class) for the Germans, one for the Americans, six for the Japanese, three for the Russians/Soviets, and one for the Dutch. Then we'd have to debate about whether or not to count the 'large light cruisers' Glorious etc., the 'large cruiser' Alaskas, the 'Super Type A' B-65s and the 'not exactly sure what they are' Scharnhorsts.
Didn't I say that I was going to nom Amagi awhile ago (and never did?) If I remember this time, I'll nom it after Lexington-class battlecruiser's FAC.
(@ Gloryhog Tommyboy :) - not if I get 51% before you do! The problem, of course, is that you have a head start. ;-) —Ed (Talk • Say no to drama) 03:03, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
Re: Japan: are we going to count the Tsukuba and Ibuki classes? I know the Japanese classified them as BCs, but I'm a little questioning of that; they only had 4 heavy guns like a pre-dreadnought armored cruiser. If so, that'll add another 6 articles for Japan. I'd say "yes" to Glorious and Courageous but "no" to Furious, since the former two actually saw service as BCs (2nd Helgoland) while Furious was converted almost immediately. As for the Mackensens, I think what may end up happening is redirecting the ship articles, like you did for the Lexingtons, so that'll cut down the number of articles for Germany.
Alrighty, that sounds good for Amagi. I've got Kaiser-class battleship at FAC right now, otherwise I'd take it m'self. Parsecboy (talk) 11:07, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

←I'm adding in the tables for the other nations in Ed's Sandbox: User:The ed17/Sandbox2, but I know that I am omitting a few articles from Japan and I am also not putting the articles for the captured Russian battleships from Tsushima (they do have articles linked from List of ships of the Japanese Navy). Insomnia really does suck, at least I'll get to see Stage 20 of the Tour de France live... -MBK004 06:23, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't know anything about that; having been a night owl my whole life I am of the mind that being compelled to retire after the late edition of the news sucks. To each his own I guess, although I do wish you the best with your insomnia. On the bright side though, at least tommorow is a day that most get to sleep in, and if you are in that group then your inability to sleep now will be partially compensated for by your ability to sleep in later. TomStar81 (Talk • Some say ¥€$, I say NO) 06:41, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
Thanks Tom. I'll go ahead and add to my error log, I have only added the dreadnoughts for Italy, the pre-dreadnoughts do not have articles, but I cannot tell which ones were pre- and which ones are ironclads on this list: List of Italian steam battleships. -MBK004 08:13, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
Let me check Conway's 1860-1905. Parsecboy (talk) 11:07, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
Alright, I've added the Italian pre-dreadnoughts to the list. Just a mental note, we still need Russia, but there's this list which should make it a bit easier. Parsecboy (talk) 11:22, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
Thanks, as for Russia, don't forget about the UK as well. I was going to do those, but I fell asleep. I'm getting started on them now. -MBK004 17:51, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
Britain done, now only Russia remains. -MBK004 22:36, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
And between Ed and myself, I think we have finished Russia, but one or two may have gotten through the cracks. -MBK004 03:21, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Edit Break

←Ok then. For ease of organization, do you guys want to leave a link to the tables in the sandbox out on the mainpage? It may help convey the overall scope and thus woo in people to help. TomStar81 (Talk • Some say ¥€$, I say NO) 03:32, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Now there are a few ships/classes we need to sort out:

We also need to figure out the logistics of all of this plus answer Tom's question at the top of this section. -MBK004 20:25, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

  • Logistics should start with a discussion of how many of these tasks we want to run at the same time. I think it would be wise for us to finish major work on Majestic Titan before opening Operation Steel Talon (battlecruisers) or Operation Iron Sides (heavy cruisers) since running two or three major article development initiatives at the same time would be taxing on what little support we already have.— Preceding unsigned comment added by TomStar81 (talk • contribs) 21:04, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
    • Well, to be honest here, I'll be helping in this effort, but I'll be jumping back-and-forth as I get bored with battleships or battlecruisers (whichever I am working on at the time). So I don't have an opinion on how many we should run. :-)
    • Re question at top: sure, why not? Gives people an idea of the scope of this project!
    • (@ MBK) - some opinions for you:
      • Lexington class should be in "Steel Talon", ship articles should not—they don't deal with the battlecruiser part enough
      • Deutschland - no...while they had big guns, their armor was nowhere near that of a capital ship
      • Mackensen - let's see what Parsec thinks
      • Tsukuba - Conway's 1906-21 says that they were classed as armored cruisers until being reclassified as BC's in '12 and then first class cruisers in '21; I'd say no, but let's see what other think. Both were armed with four 12" guns and had a top speed of 20.5 knots.
      • Design 1047 - Maybe an "other" table with three rows (one for country?) - would be able to add the South America ones in so everything most of it is organized by country
      • Alaska, B-65, Glorious etc. - though not 100% right, not including the first two would be worse. Glorious is another matter; they were classified as "large light cruisers" and had 3 inch armor. I think that a BC, at the least, should be able to withstand a light cruiser's fire... :-)
      • Russia's pre-dreads should be okay assuming the list Parsec linked to above is OK —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 23:49, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
        • For the Mackensens, I decided to just redirect them, since there isn't enough information on the individual ships to warrant their own articles. The German class articles are about done, only Ersatz Yorck-class battlecruiser remains. Just to note, I transcluded my subpage list onto Ed's, so I wouldn't have to update both every time I improve another article. Parsecboy (talk) 14:54, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
      • Ok. Your welcome to add your lists pages to the main page here so others can see this is not limited to US built ships, if you want. Otherwise, thanks for the updating. TomStar81 (Talk • Some say ¥€$, I say NO) 16:12, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

<- Just to note, I redirected SMS Württemberg (1917) and SMS Sachsen (1916) (both unfinished Bayerns), so that's two less we have to do :) Parsecboy (talk) 21:04, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Multiple articles for service history of USS Tennessee

I don't know what we want to do with this. USS Tennessee (BB-43) has quite a few subsidiary articles all linked from {{USS Tennessee (BB-43)}}:

As far as I know, this is the only ship with this type of presentation. -MBK004 22:32, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

...yeah, this was brought up back in 2005. The guys writing for DANFS got intametly familar with Tenneessee for some reason, the best solution at the time was to break up the battleship's history into more managable sub articles and move from there. I'm still not exactly sure how to tackle this one; the additional information is awesome but the places to put that info are slim. Perhaps moving relevent info into battle articles would allow us to cut down on the extra pages, if not out right eliminate them, but I am open to other suggestions if anyone has them. TomStar81 (Talk • Some say ¥€$, I say NO) 22:38, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
A quick estimate of the total size of the three sub-articles is about 90kb worth of text, and the current main article is another 35kb, a good chunk of which is duplicated in the sub-articles. Even if we assume that only 10kb worth of the current article would be retained after merging them all together, that still puts us at 100kb, which is pretty huge. Surely there can be a good deal of trimming to bring the article to a better level of detail. For instance, the 1945 article has in the "Iwo Jima" During the afternoon, an OS2U Kingfisher seaplane from the cruiser Pensacola (CA-24) found a Japanese A6M Zero "Zeke" on its tail. The observation pilot, determined to put up all the fight he could, went at the fighter though his plane was much slower and less maneuverable, and armed only with one .30-caliber forward-firing machine gun plus a second flexible gun in the observer's cockpit. Against all the odds, the "Zeke" went down in flames. Why do we need to know this?
A significant deal of that portion of the article is about the invasion itself, not only Tennessee's participation in it. I could write articles about the German BBs just as long if I duplicated the contents of Battle of Jutland. I suspect the other sub articles have this same problem. If we cut out a lot of the unnecessary detail and move what useful parts there are to the battle articles, as MBK suggests, we should have a much more manageable "USS Tennessee (BB-43)". Parsecboy (talk) 01:15, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
Thats why one of the original idas batted around was to move content to the battle pages; as we do we can add sources to the battle articles, which in turn improves their readability. On the matter of cutting out unneeded material, I can go for that if others like the idea. TomStar81 (Talk • Some say ¥€$, I say NO) 01:19, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Annnd the spotlight falls on ... USS Massachusetts (BB-59)!

USS Massachusetts (BB-59) has been selected to receive the recently-reactivated Spotlight during the week of 1 August. Any help that could be offered would be greatly appreciated! Some sources available for use in expanding the article can be found here. Cheers, —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 05:53, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Query

Are we taking the wrong direction by attempting to run this off of working groups? Splitting it may seem like a good idea, but remember that one of the reasons why MILHIST is so successful is that it covers a big range of topics and so brings together many editors. Perhaps it would be easier to force recruit new members who can help us toward our goal if we utilized one central page where four of us comment semi-frequently rather than multiple working groups where we rarely comment? Did that make sense? I'm really tired ;) Will clarify if need be in the morning —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 05:51, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

I understand what your saying, but there are two things to consider here: 1st, if we do run this off working groups then those working groups - subdivision of the task forces we run such as it is - will in fact have the all glory. And this page WILL shrink as we complete the work here on it and move the articles to working groups, until eventually like the sun we exhaust our article supply. At that point, we can discuss option for disbanding the working page. Remember that as large as this project is it would be almost a task force unto itself if we let it run that way, and that from a psychological perspective smaller clusters of articles seem more user friendly, hence the reason why I am encouraging people to break this down by working group. Another point to consider is that some editors may only join to edit specific articles like the Iowas, not the whole thing, so breaking it down into working groups of smaller size has the advantage of allowing people to work just on the task at hand. As always I am open to other people's take on the matter, I assumed that this would be the best method to employ so that the work would get done. TomStar81 (Talk • Some say ¥€$, I say NO) 05:59, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
Just a quick comment as I'm getting ready for bed, but I have to agree with Ed, I'm not a big fan of the working group set-up as it stands for this project and prefer having it all together like a task force. The talk page comment thing is exactly what I was thinking since the working group pages are literally dead and we are really getting the work done here. People can still choose to work on individual articles, but if some people would join only one working group thinking it was the only one but they have an interest in all of the ships, than the single big project concept would make sense. (I know that we are heavily linking these things together, but that still does not beat seeing all of the articles in tables on one page). The work will still get done, and we need to remember to do just that instead of quibbling about the set-up of this project constantly, so let's decide once and for all so we can get on with the goals of this project. -MBK004 06:09, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
Ok, its 2:1 at this point. Lets give it 24 hours and if nothing changes we can see about combining everything. I suppose we will have to come up with an actual name now since working groups should not be named operation x or project y or so on in that pattern. Any ideas for name? TomStar81 (Talk • Some say ¥€$, I say NO) 06:26, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
We don't need to put a time limit on this, why don't you drop the question on Parsec and Cam's talk page and direct them here since they are impacted in this project as well, plus drop a reminder on Ed's since he started this discussion. (I'm not going to be here tomorrow due to some family events). -MBK004 03:53, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
I agree with everything MBK said. :-) Re Tom: I think 'Operation Majestic Titan' is actually pretty cool; it's certainly unique, and I would want to know more about it if I saw the name. Oh, and I will probably will not be on tomorrow either; I'm having four teeth pulled, followed by working three to eleven. :| —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 04:21, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
It doesn't really matter to me one way or the other. I do see an advantage to putting it all together, if only for motivational reasons. I don't know how you guys feel, but it makes it seem like we've got a better handle on the project when I see all the blue boxes (like in this version instead of this one). Parsecboy (talk) 11:13, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Breyer's Battleships and Battlecruisers 1905–1970

Just got this book today through inter-library loan. Anyone need any information from it? —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 05:35, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

If you've got the time, I rewrote Florida class battleship and Delaware class battleship over the past couple of days. Can you take a look and see if there's anything in Breyer that I've missed? Thanks. Parsecboy (talk) 19:08, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
Ok, Floridas:
  • Something about they were going to be armed with 8 14" before reverting beck to the 10 12" (p. 199)
  • Florida was decommissioned 16 Feb 1931, "deleted" (struck?) 6 April 1931, "broken up until 20th September 1932 (p. 199)
  • Utah was "deleted" (again, struck?) 13 November 1944 after attempts at salvage were met with "exceptional difficulties"; only a few 5 in and smaller weapons could be fished out. (p. 199)
  • Building costs were about 6.5 million each. (p. 199)
Delawares:
  • He's got a paragraph on their modifications post-WWI, not much though (p. 197)
  • I think he says that funds for ND was authorized on 2 March 1907 (p. 196)
  • Delaware apparently had a boiler explosion on 17 Jan 1911? It caused "moderate damage". (p. 196)
  • Delaware was sold 5 Feb 1924 to the Boston Iron and Metal Company for breaking up—price was approximately $232,000
  • ND was decommissioned 22 Nov 1923 and sold to the breakers on 16 March 1931. (p. 196) —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 03:45, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
Oh, and Breyer covers all BBs and BCs from 1905–1970. Read: British, German, Japanese, Italian, Austro-Hungarian, Russian/Soviet, French, South American, Greek, Dutch, Spanish and Polish. So feel free to ask away on German ships too :-) —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 04:09, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Battlecruisers?

Was under the impression we were going to handle battlecruisers in a separate op later on, although if you guys want to include the battlecruisers in this op thats fine I guess, means more work but also more reward. TomStar81 (Talk) 05:52, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

There is enough overlap plus see this line from the lead of Dreadnought: "The term 'dreadnought' gradually dropped from use after World War I, as all battleships shared dreadnought characteristics; it can also be used to describe battlecruisers, the other type of ship resulting from the dreadnought revolution." -MBK004 05:57, 23 September 2009 (UTC)
Considering both Ed and Parsec have been busy on the type I don't see why we shouldn't include them now since I thought the project was for all big-gun warships, i.e. pre-dreadnoughts, dreadnoughts, battlecruisers, fast battleships... (excluding the cruisers where another op could be made much like Ed's Large Cruiser project could evolve) -MBK004 05:59, 23 September 2009 (UTC)
(quadruple edit conflict) Fair enough. If you are going to pursue this angle though then we should merge both Steel Talon and Iron Sides into Majestic Titan, therefore I would move that this page be expanded to include heavy cruisers as well. Also, since we are relaunching this operation, should we also include light cruisers in this push? TomStar81 (Talk) 06:08, 23 September 2009 (UTC)
I'd say lump the battlecruisers in with the battleships but keep the rest in a separate op to be run later, using which ever name you prefer, encompassing the Large cruisers that we haven't classified as battlecruisers, heavy and light cruisers of WWII and beyond with guns, armored cruisers and the light cruisers of WWI and before. -MBK004 06:11, 23 September 2009 (UTC)
Alright then, we'll (tentatively) recycle Steel Talon for cruiser operation. TomStar81 (Talk) 06:16, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

(out) - Random thoughts of a sleep-deprived mind: I kinda liked this image with the quote.[2] It gave a whole sense of meaning to the name of the operation and seemed like a good inspiration. If MILHIST could live with a 300px image—like the lead image of an article—above the navbox, we should do it. —Ed (talk • contribs) 06:06, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

That is why I moved it to where I did, because I thought we should keep it, but still have the uniform appearance at the top of the page with the rest of the project-space pages within MILHIST. -MBK004 06:08, 23 September 2009 (UTC)
I could create a paragraph or two explaining the origins of the name so we can add the image there. Would that work for everyone? TomStar81 (Talk) 06:10, 23 September 2009 (UTC)
@MBK - you had deleted it when I wrote that. :-)
@Tom - I like it. A lot. —Ed (talk • contribs) 16:49, 23 September 2009 (UTC)
Ed, sorry to nit, but I moved it to the bottom, check the diff -MBK004 19:11, 23 September 2009 (UTC)
Oh, I see. Missed that. :-) —Ed (talk • contribs) 20:07, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

(out) - Just to note, when it eventually comes up, I've got a list of German WWI cruisers here. Parsecboy (talk) 10:53, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Working groups

Are you guys planning to merge Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Maritime warfare task force/Iowa class battleship and Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Maritime warfare task force/South Dakota class battleship back into this page at some point? Kirill [talk] [pf] 06:03, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

I'd say yes, but let's wait for Tom's opinion before doing anything. —Ed (talk • contribs) 06:07, 23 September 2009 (UTC)
(quadruple edit conflict)I think this would be for the best. Originally, the idea was to run this off the working group concept, but since this now qualifies as a special project me thinks we should merge everything here and finally be done with it. I hate saying that seeing as how I put so many of you thorugh tech trouble trying to get the Iowa's out there into a working group, but I feel this for the best. TomStar81 (Talk) 06:08, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Netherlands

Hi all. I was going through my copy of Conway's All the World's Battleships to see if there were any that I missed, and the Netherlands apparently had a proposed class of dreadnoughts before WWI. The book doesn't give a name, however (nor for the 1047s Ed worked on either), so I haven't added it to the table. Has anyone come across any other references to this class? Parsecboy (talk) 01:13, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Hey Parsec, I added it to the table before I saw you say this. I made up a name ("Dutch 1913 battleship proposal", though "Dutch 1913 dreadnought proposal" would also work), but it would be really nice to have a design number or something instead. —Ed (talk • contribs) 01:33, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
Cool. Perhaps eventually we'll find an actual name at some point. I checked Navweaps, and he didn't have any information on the 14" guns the ships were going to use. Parsecboy (talk) 11:43, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Armament

Should we begin tables for armament articles? Like 30.5 cm SK L/50 gun and BL 15 inch Mk I naval gun? Parsecboy (talk) 11:23, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Not at this time, I think. Not least because they would consist of most of the naval guns used by a particular navy. It's easy enough to poke around on the list of naval guns and see what's needed or to follow the links that we've (hopefully) been putting in the articles.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 22:37, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Armour specs

I'm in the middle of my rewrite of the Kongo class battlecruiser article in my sandbox, and I've got lots of info on each vessel, the propulsion, and the armament batteries of the ships. What I'm lacking, however, is detailed specs on the armour of the four fast battleships. I have thicknesses, but I don't have armour types. Ed, I know you found some great info on the armour of the Yamato class, but I don't want to assume that all Japanese battleships used the exact same armour types for everything. Does anyone have anything that has good info on Japanese battleship armour? Cam (Chat) 19:32, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

I have absolutely nothing (Axis and Neutral Battleships in World War II only covers the Yamatos), but you are certainly right to not assume that all of the armor was the same; I'm almost certain that it wasn't, not after the tests upon Tosa. Have you tried Cla68 (talk · contribs)? He has a lot on Japanese ships, so he might have something on the Kongo's armor. —Ed (talk • contribs) 20:43, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
Given that even the Invincibles used KC and KNC armor, I really can't imagine that the Kongos used anything different. They certainly didn't used Harvey or any of the other old armor types.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 23:06, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Roberts's Battlecruisers

Just bought this book; it covers all the British battlecruisers built so I should be able to upgrade most of those articles to B-class or better. It's really good for design history stuff so I'll begin with the class articles, but I really don't have a lot on hand for WWI battles so I expect that I might need some help in fleshing out those sections to get them up to B-class. Just post a message on my talk page to avoid editing conflicts as happened when several of us were working on the Stalingrad-class BC article at the same time. Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 22:33, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Alright. Sounds like a plan. I think Parsec has quite a bit of information on the naval battles of WWI, so I'd suggest asking him if you need further help with that. Cam (Chat) 22:36, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
I certainly do; drop me a line on my talk page when you need help, Sturmvogel :) Parsecboy (talk) 22:58, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
I've cobbled together some accounts of the battles from Massie and some other stuff; enough so that it's good enough for B-class. They can be fleshed out when I nominate it for GA.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 20:05, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
Well, it's certainly looking good so far. :-) —Ed (talk • contribs) 20:20, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Tiger class BC

There's a separate class article and an individual ship article for this ship; shouldn't they be merged? All of the other one ship classes just have one article on the ship itself. Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 19:12, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

If you read the class article you will see that there was a second unit of the class planned but not built, which brings this class in-line with what is acceptable per Admiral class battlecruiser and HMS Hood (51). -MBK004 19:59, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
Are we sure there was another planned? Conway's 1906–1921 doesn't list one and say "under the 1911–1912 Estimates there was provision for only one [battlecruiser], an improved Queen Mary." —Ed (talk • contribs) 21:47, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure, and although we can't use Massie as a source (because of the issues of no footnotes), he does mention in Castles of Steel of the second unit. -MBK004 21:54, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
There's no mention of a second ship in Roberts, and he gives the strong impression that only one was intended to be built, just like Queen Mary was the only BC of the 1910-11 Programme. He has nothing to say about any BC planned for the 1912–13 Programme that saw the QE's built. And given that they had the same speed as Invincible had it's easy to see why no BC was ordered. And considering that the QM's differences from the earlier Lions are fully covered by Roberts, I would take the lack of any such discussion for a sister to Tiger as prima facie evidence that no such proposal reached the design stage and thus isn't notable. Anybody got access to Burt's British BBs of WWI? That might might have a definitive answer.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 23:00, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
I'll ping Simon Harley (talk · contribs), our resident English naval historian. He should be able to give us a definitive answer. —Ed (talk • contribs) 15:57, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
Breyer was writing a pile of s*** when he wrote about the mythical Leopard. You can't just plan a ship and expect not to pay for it. See a draft I did ages ago at User:Simon Harley/HMS Tiger (1913). As Sturmvogel says John Roberts doesn't give the idea credence in his BC book, and neither did Campbell in his monograph on WWI BCs. I could ask Roberts what he thinks (totally OR) and I imagine I would receive a whopping put-down for daring to mention it! --Simon Harley (talk | library | book reviews) 08:03, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for clarifying this. I hadn't though of looking through the Naval Estimates to see what had been actually planned as I'm not particularly knowledgeable in the British procurement process; I was going to look for copies of the relevant Brassey's on Google Books. Your sandbox article had some very useful material that should be included in the main article on this ship. Can I copy it once I'm ready to work on the article, or would you prefer to merge it into the article and let me fill out the rest of it? In the meantime I've put up merge tags on the Tiger article to give others the opportunity to comment.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 15:37, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
There was already an HMS Leopard (1897), a C class destroyer (1913) in service in WW1. best, Sunil060902 (talk) 12:42, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
That doesn't necessarily prove make a difference. The pre-dreadnought New Zealand was renamed Zealandia so the name could be used for the battle cruiser, the same goes for the Revenge becoming Redoubtable for the dreadnought. The name would have had to be approved by the King anyway, and as far as I'm aware no one has uncovered from either the Royal Archives or Churchill's papers a mention of a Leopard. --Simon Harley (talk | library | book reviews) 12:48, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
Simon, that seems quite a definitive response! So, um, why hasn't the merge/redirect happened yet? best, Sunil060902 (talk) 18:56, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
Done. :-) —Ed (talk • contribs) 19:42, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

(Outdent) By all means, take what you want and incorporate it. I was originally going to improve the article when I saw the statement claiming that Tiger was influenced by Kongo, a claim categorically denied by Roberts in his Warship articles. Alas, I get easily distracted, so use the information at your pleasure. --Simon Harley (talk | library | book reviews) 18:11, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Speaking of Kongo... would you happen to have a ref for that? I'm currently helping Cam with User:Climie.ca/Sandbox/Kongo-class, and the current draft there states that Tiger was influenced by Kongo, referenced to Robert Jackson's The World's Great Battleships. —Ed (talk • contribs) 00:43, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
From Roberts, John Arthur (1978). Preston, Antony (ed.). "The Design and Construction of the Battlecruiser TIGER". Warship. Volume II (5): p. 2 and p. 4. {{cite journal}}: |pages= has extra text (help); |volume= has extra text (help) Roberts says that Tiger gained many more of her features from the Iron Duke class than from the Queen Mary upon which the initial design was based. He also states that there is only one mention of Kongo in the Ship's Cover on the design of Tiger, and this notes the addition of a 3-inch thick two foot six deep strake of armour below the main belt to heighten the side armour in Tiger to improve protection for the 6-inch battery. The Director of Naval Construction at the time explained that the Japanese regarded this feature "with great importance." This was, notes Roberts, being done to all Japanese armoured warships under construction, and not just Kongo.
This is what Roberts has to say about the claims of Tiger being based on Kongo:


--Simon Harley (talk | library | book reviews) 15:07, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
Awesome. I'll add that information to the page; thank you very much! —Ed (talk • contribs) 16:27, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Japanese battleship and battlecruiser pictures

Oda Mari has confirmed with a Japanese government official that all pre-war pictures of Imperial Japanese warships are public domain. I have a Japanese picture book with good pictures of most of the heavy ships of the IJN, so whenever someone starts work on one of those articles, please let me know and I'll try to get the pictures scanned and uploaded. Cla68 (talk) 06:58, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Do we still need a first publication date though? —Ed (talk • contribs) 15:15, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
Based on what Oda Mari found, the first publication date does not appear to be necessary. Cla68 (talk) 02:36, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
Well that is cool. :-) Should we create a template for that—citing page 27 of the document he mentioned—on Commons for this situation? —Ed (talk • contribs) 02:40, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
That is a very good idea. Cla68 (talk) 02:42, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
I've raised a query at their Village Pump[3]. —Ed (talk • contribs) 02:51, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

KGV compared to North Carolina (Comparison sections redux)

It is too bad that Tom isn't around since he is the only one left with the first hand knowledge of the wars that surrounded the comparison section in the Iowa class article. Now there is a proposal to place one in King George V class battleship (1939) which would also impact North Carolina class battleship (listen up Ed). See the talk page on KGV as well as this new article which needs a lot of help if it is to stay (and I am unconvinced): Comparison between HMS King George V and USS North Carolina -MBK004 00:33, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

The problem, of course, with all comparisons between ships of different countries is that they are designed with varying goals in mind. For example, the Italian rebuilt First World War battleships and the Vittorio Veneto classs had good to great speed but low endurances because they were designed to operate in the small Mediterranean. On the other hand, earlier American battleships—pre-North Carolina—were designed with low speeds but extremely high endurance and good armor protection because they were meant to cross the Pacific to take on the Japanese fleet. My point here is that any comparison between two countries' ships is going to have large disparities because, while nominally the same type of ship, they are meant to fill different purposes. So it is with KGV and North Carolina; the former was designed to counter Germany's newer ships, but political compromises resulted in ten 14" (a far smaller broadside than other ships of the time) rather than 16" guns, while the latter was designed to counter a Japanese fast battleship class, the Kongo class, while still being able to fight in a battle line with the older, slower battleships. —Ed (talk • contribs) 01:24, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
I left a comment on the talk page of the King George V class article. I think comparisons are fine if they are created as separate articles and clearly indicate why a comparison is appropriate. Cla68 (talk) 02:43, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

French BC/BB designs of 1927/8

Just got the new book on French Battleships 1922–1956 and it's got some interesting stuff on a French proposal for a 33,000t BC and a 27,000t BB variant in the late 20s. Design work was fairly well advanced, apparently in case resources and a need for new capital ships were found. Interestingly the designs were discarded once the details of the Panzerschiffen became known as they wouldn't have been a good match against them. Anybody else seen mention of these? Apparently they're a recent find in the French archives so this may well be the first publication.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 20:55, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1922–1946 has a very brief mention on page 255 ([4]); Allied Battleships in World War II has no reference to them. —Ed (talk • contribs) 21:50, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
Wait, I lied. Allied Battleships has a bit on a late '20s design for a 17,500 LT "Croiseur de Combat" which was discarded with Germany's announcement that Deutschland was under construction, leading to the design of Dunkerque. —Ed (talk • contribs) 19:02, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
I have it from John Jordan that any information on a 37,000 tonne ship (33 knot and 27 knot variants) or a 23,333 tonne protected cruiser is new and hasn't been published before. --Simon Harley (talk | library | book reviews) 12:17, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

USS Illinois (BB-65)

I have absolutely no idea where they go their photos from, but Allied Battleships in World War II has four pictures of armor intended for Illinois on pp. 26–27, including the torpedo protection system, "communications tube[s] with 16-inch sides, and "tapered armor plates" from 1–12.2 inches thick. Can anyone somehow confirm where these are from? If they are U.S. Navy, it'd be really nice to add one or two of these to the article. —Ed (talk • contribs) 17:00, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Bringing a potential issue here before it becomes a real one... An inexperienced user, Ehbowen (talk · contribs) has created an article in his userpace that would complement the topic (User:Ehbowen/Iowa class battleship manning) but I do not feel as though it would meet the comprehensiveness and notability requirements as it currently stands. If the article is moved into the article namespace, then we would have three months to get the article to GA or else the topic is de-featured. Any suggestions for this, because frankly I am at a loss to see how this could be salvaged to a point to be properly published and if the user goes ahead and publishes it, I feel the topic will have zero chance at being able to remain featured which will be an extreme shame especially since we just went through a retention period to be able to get USS Missouri grounding incident added. Tom would definitely want to be notified of this, so I plan on sending him an email tomorrow. -MBK004 05:21, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Hey MBK, I saw that too. I think that for it be comprehensive, it would need a crew list for WWII too. Notability, though... I have no idea. I told him to e-mail Tom, so between all these we should be able to figure it out.

Speaking of upkeep though...USS Illinois (BB-65) and USS Kentucky (BB-66) are in need of a lot of work. I don't know what happened, but I found a surprisingly large amount of unreferenced material today when I went through them. —Ed (talk • contribs) 05:58, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, I don't want to cause any trouble; I was responding to a request on the Iowa class battleship talk page. If someone has any concrete suggestions as to how the article could be brought up to standard, I will see if I am able to carry them out. If not and push comes to shove, I could delete it from Wikipedia and publish it as an addendum to my personal web site. If any editor feels that the information is worthy of note, he could link to it from one of the topic pages.Ehbowen (talk) 21:58, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
No no, please don't feel like you are causing trouble! I just have two concerns: first, that it may not be comprehensive in the sense that there is no WWII complement list, and second, that it may just be too detailed for an encyclopedic article. I could be wrong, however, so I'll ask for other opinions at WT:MILHIST. —Ed (talk • contribs) 23:06, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
I think that with some work and re-organizing, that could be turned into a decent list-type page. I'll volunteer if needed. –Juliancolton | Talk 00:12, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
Would it actually matter. If people made an FT by getting all the US presidents to FA, would it fail because heaps of Obama subarticles are already FA so all the others need their inauguration/campaign/policy subpages as FA as well? Aren't there some cyclones FTs where some of the cyclones have their own forks as well? YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 01:10, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
Well, generally when a new article is created and falls within the scope of an existing series, there's a three month grace period to allow for people to re-unify the topic. –Juliancolton | Talk 01:28, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Are they pre-dreadnoughts or ironclad warships?

Brazilian battleship Riachuelo (1883) and Brazilian battleship Aquidabã. Also, if they are ironclad warships, should the articles be renamed? —Ed (talk • contribs) 01:55, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Conway's 1860-1905 calls them battleships in the header, but turret ships in the prose, which I think would fall into the category of ironclad warship. I think they should remain at "battleship", since at the time they were referred to as battleships, even though they don't fall into what we would today consider a proper turret battleship. Parsecboy (talk) 02:36, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
Alright, thank you :-) —Ed (talk • contribs) 17:41, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Russian predreadnoughts

I started a class article on the Admiral Ushakov class and they're too small to be genuine predreadnoughts at less than 5000 tons, no matter what they were called. And when I started to look through Conway's I noticed a bunch of Russian battleships, 10,000 tons or larger, that weren't listed even though they're comparable to the British Admiral class ships. So I added them to the list. They need a bunch of work, but that's what we're all here for, right?--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 01:39, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

How many coastal defence battleships ever fought in a line of battle though? I'd include the three Ushakovs just for that. Watts includes them in the category "Capital Ships" in his book on the Imperial Russian Navy. --Simon Harley (talk | library | book reviews) 08:16, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
Good point, I'd never considered that. But is it enough to justify inclusion? And if we include them should we include the slightly larger Gangut that ran aground a few years before Tsushima? The terminology of the time was often coast defense battleship or coastal armored ship so that's really no guide. Thoughts?--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 17:15, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
I'd be wary of including Gangut; the ship was armed with a single heavy gun, which doesn't really meet our criteria. It's classified as a barbette ship in Conway's 1860-1905, which doesn't come close to a battleship. The Ushakovs are classified as coast defense battleships in Conways. My opinion is that coast defense ships shouldn't be included, even if they did fight in the line of battle. Parsecboy (talk) 17:52, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Conway's Eclipse of the Big Gun

Has anybody seen this? I expect it a rehash of Brown's work on the RN, but what the coverage of other nation's ships like?--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 05:27, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I have it, but have not looked at it in quite a while. I'll now go and pull it out of the bookshelf and take a look. -MBK004 05:51, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
Well, I'll look tomorrow since it is past midnight and it is in another room (I don't want to wake everyone up). -MBK004 06:04, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
I own this book. It has about 15 pages on BBs and BCs so is written at a high level, but seems to provide reasonable coverage to all the countries which operated these ships and includes some useful-looking analysis of BB/BC design, their relevance to war during the period and wartime performance. Nick-D (talk) 10:37, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

General concepts

Every time I come across your articles percolating upwards through the review system, I stop and smile, at the Olympian Hubris of the task of getting your titans all in a row. I check your article list, hoping to see fewer redlinks, and more high quality articles, and am happy. One thing I noticed your list doesn't include: general scope articles. Battleships of the United States for example, talking about the mentality of the Navy, the pressures dictating design, strategy, deployment, operation. I also don't see you boasting of the fact that Dreadnought, Pre-dreadnought and Battleship are all FA. (Their sister, Battlecruiser, doesn't yet bear that lofty award). Is there a scoping reason that you aren't dealing with these issues? Fifelfoo (talk) 08:44, 5 November 2009 (UTC) (forgot to sign)

Good question... as for the articles you've mentioned, The Land (talk · contribs) was been working on them for years (but he has gone semi-inactive) to build a featured topic via this template: {{BBhistory}}. -MBK004 09:03, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
Actually, I just checked Battleships of the United States and its a list, not a discussion of design, strategy, function, etc that makes US battleships distinct from UK or JP or DE or RU/SU or IT... Fifelfoo (talk) 10:52, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia generally doesn't do that kind of thematic article well (if at all). Nick-D (talk) 11:00, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
Its a known flaw. On the other hand... Military history is in many ways the premier project of the Humanities and Social Sciences. If anyone can start to get FA synthetic judgemental content going within wikipedia, I'd say the grogs could. In many ways you've handled the polemical (religion, nation, politics) issues better than other projects. And, despite being the most theory oriented kind of social historian, I have great respect for the concept and work of Majestic Titan. Obviously noone aims to gazump The Land's work. Fifelfoo (talk) 11:15, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
The more I think about this, the more I like the idea of such an article that Fifelfoo proposes, but it would be quite an undertaking and would likely be the largest FA on Wikipedia since for the US there were four different evolutions that were quite different from each other. The closest we have right now are Fast battleship and Standard type battleship. -MBK004 on the iPhone 18:17, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Spansih Battleship

Arnt you guys forgetting to list the Spanish battleship Pelayo in the main list? XavierGreen (talk) 21:49, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Limit scope?

Question... should we start to focus exclusively on dreadnoughts and battlecruisers (since they are technically dreadnoughts as well)? I know Parsec has done a few and I have done one, but at the current pace, OMT's goal will come to fruition 50+ years from now. If we can narrow the scope to dreadnoughts, we have a smaller article base so that we might actually finish sometime in the next five–ten years in addition to the added benefit of a more-clearly defined topic (no debate about ironclad warships v. pre-dreadnoughts). —Ed (talk • contribs) 22:18, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Once Tom returns I have a feeling that the pace will increase, especially also once he graduates and has more time and the same will ring true for me since I've got only 25 hours left for my degree. -MBK004 23:35, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
Okay, but should we limit it to dreadnoughts anyway to set and reach a more reasonable goal before moving to the pre-dreadnoughts? :-) —Ed (talk • contribs) 23:40, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
Same for me, in about 3 weeks the quarter at OSU will be over and I'll have applied for graduate school. I'll still have my Honors thesis to worry about, but I've got plenty of time for that. Once my schedule frees up a bit I'll be able to start working on articles again.
As for pre-dreadnoughts, I'd say leave them in. But maybe that's just my bias given that I've got a handful of pre-dread GAs and one A :) Parsecboy (talk) 23:48, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
I'm of the mindset that pre-dreadnoughts should be cut from the scope, as should any and all battlecruisers built before the 1906 era. Incidentally, should we set that as the starting-date for "battleship/battlecruiser" so as to ensure a clearly-defined dividing line. I'm in the middle of several large IB papers at the moment, most of which should be done post Christmas-break. I'll have all kinds of time to work on OMT stuff in January once all of that is done. Oh, and for those of you in the British Commonwealth: enjoy Remembrance Day. If you're in the States: Enjoy Veteran's Day. Cam (Chat) 00:15, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
(ec) Personally I'm not a fan of the pre-dreadnoughts, but I see no reason to delete them now. I'll probably build some of the Russian ones up to stubs just to have something other than a red link. But I think that the WWI contest might provide some people with motivation to work on all those ships. Hell, maybe we can even get Simon to move some of his draft material out of his sandbox and finish off some articles on British ships of the period. I do know that I'll start work on the Indefatigable class BCs once the WWI contest starts in a few hours.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 00:17, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
Alas, if I focus on anything with the WWI contest it will be with Royal Navy flag officers - however, I've found my envisioned strategy is somewhat blunted because some ass-hole has created loads of s***ty stubs robbing me of new article points. I'm also away from all my sources other then Parkes - the best I could do is go through some of the British pre-dreadnought articles and sort out pageless references to British Battleships. --Simon Harley (talk | library | book reviews) 12:46, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Dutch 1913 battleship proposal?

A Dutch 1913 battleship proposal article has recently been created, with the only reference being a link to http://books.google.com/ (though it's indicated that there's a ref to Conways to support it). Does anybody know anything about this proposal? Nick-D (talk) 09:29, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

The editor in question has also created 1913 battleship. This is what Conway's has to say (p. 363):


p. 366 has a projection of a 1914 Germania design for a battleship - presumably there's something like it in Breyer? Can't say the Royal Netherlands Navy is really my thing. --Simon Harley (talk | library | book reviews) 09:50, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
Sorry to spoil the fun, but I feel it is necessary. Nick and Simon, take a look at WP:NEWT and then this: User_talk:The_ed17#Redlinks_tell_all -MBK004 on the iPhone 19:18, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
Also, see above in the section titled "Netherlands": Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Military_history/Maritime_warfare_task_force/Operation_Majestic_Titan#Netherlands -MBK004 on the iPhone 19:23, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
Sorry for the delay, have been offline. And yes, Slagschip (talk · contribs) is me. <simultaneous sheepish and evil grin> Just experiencing being a noob; I'd actually recommend trying WP:NEWT, as it's quite illuminating. Regards, —Ed (talk • contribs) 20:59, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
How does that differ from WP:BEANS or WP:SPIDERMAN? Nick-D (talk) 21:47, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
I don't understand? —Ed (talk • contribs) 22:43, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
Creating a new account to deliberately make dodgy-looking edits which other editors follow up on seems to be contributing to Wikipedia's problems rather than solving them. I just removed the prod tag someone had placed on this article as I assume that you're going to expand and reference it? ;) Nick-D (talk) 07:05, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
If the only design actually tendered was that by Germania in 1914, then surely it should be "Dutch 1914 Battleship Proposal"? --Simon Harley (talk | library | book reviews) 07:10, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

(out) - it's meant for new-page patrollers, not to net people with dodgy edits. ;-) I was trying to imitate a noob. Anyways, yes, I'm going to expand it in time, though it'll probably always be rather short. Not sure on the 1914 part, feel free to move it if you think it is right. —Ed (talk • contribs) 00:00, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

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