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User:TomStar81/Iowa class battleship

< User:TomStar81

Iowa class battleships (Version III) edit

'Human' side edit

  • The article is focused entirely on the ships' service history and main technical specifications. There's nothing at all on the 'human' side of the vessels. For instance, what were the living standards for the crew like? were they popular ships to serve on? how did the Navy go about training crews to operate 40 year old technology in the 1980s?, etc.

On the last point I already know that the ships were crewed in part by retired sailors who had served aboard the battleships previously and agreed to come out of retirement for another tour on the battlewagons.

Nuclear Weaponry edit

  • If you could find some more information about the Iowas and nuclear armament, that would be awesome.

I recall reading somewhere that Greenpeace alleged that the battleships also carried BGM-109s with nuclear warheads during the gulf war. It did strike me as a legitimate reason for why the entire 32 missile complement was not fired; after all, launching tomahawks with atomic warheads into Iraq would have created an interesting international incident, not to mention what the Soviets would have done in response to such an attack :)

Gunfire support role edit

Main article: United States Naval Gunfire Support debate

Following the 1991 Gulf War and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union the United States Navy began to decommission and mothball many of the ships brought out of reserve fleet in the push to attain a 600-ship Navy. At the height of Navy Secretary John F. Lehman's 600-ship Navy plan nearly 600 ships of all type were active with the Navy, this included fifteen aircraft carriers, four battleships, over 100 submarines, along with the various other types of ships the overall plan called for. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 the Navy sought to return to its traditional 313 ship composition.[1] In the process of reducing the fleet created under the 600-ship Navy program the decision was made to deactivate the four recommissioned Iowa class battleships and return them to the reserve fleet.

In 1995, the decommissioned battleships were removed from the Naval Vessel Register (NVR) after it was determined by ranking US Navy officials that there was no place for a battleship in the modern navy.[2] In response to the striking of the battleships from the Naval Vessel Register, a movement began to reinstate the battleships on grounds that these vessels had superior firepower over the then existing 5 in guns found on the Spruance-class destroyers, Kidd-class destroyers, Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, and Ticonderoga-class cruisers.[3] Citing concern over the lack of available gunfire to support amphibious operations, Congress demanded that the United States Navy reinstate two battleships to the naval vessel register[2] and maintain them with the mothball fleet until the Navy could certify it had gunfire support within the current fleet that would meet or exceed the battleship's capability.[4]

Although reinstated to the NVR, the debate over battleships in the modern navy continued as Navy officials worked to replace the ships. This culminated with two part plan submitted by the Navy in 2006 that calls for the near term goal of increasing the range of the guns current in use on the Flight I Arliegh Burke class destroyers with specially designed ammunition intended to allow a five inch projectile fired from these guns travel an estimated 40 nautical miles (70 km) inland.[5][6] The long term goal calls for the replacement of the two battleships with vessels of the as yet to be built Zumwalt-class destroyer class of guided missile destroyers. These ships are to outfitted with an Advanced Gun System (AGS) that will fire specially developed 6 in Long Range Land Attack Projectiles for shore bombardment,[7] however the long term goal for the Zumwalt class is to have the ships mount railguns or free electron lasers.[8] or free-electron lasers.[9]{{#tag:ref|The expected performance of the current rail gun design is a muzzle velocity over 5,800 m/s, accurate enough to hit a 5 meter target over 200 nautical miles (370.4 kilometres (370,400 m)) away while firing at 10 shots per minute. [10] As a result of this two part plan the navy received permission to strike the two battleship it had maintained since 1995, both have since been listed as available for donation.

Although each of the Iowa class battleships had been reactivated and modernized in the 1980s they carried only 32 tomahawk missiles, where as the Ticonderoga class cruisers, Spurance class destroyers, and Arliegh Burke class guided missile destroyers could carry 2-4 times as many missiles. Furthermore, the battleships were out ranged by aircraft carriers, and to make effective use of the guns the battleships must operate close to an opponent's shore. This would place the ship in danger of entering range the range needed for an opponent to counterattack, and operating in littoral waters can have unexpected consequences. During the 1991 Gulf War USS Princeton (others go here), and other surface ships in the navy fell victim to naval mines; both Missouri and Wisconsin had to wait for minesweepers to clear out a safe passage lane before they could move in to engage Iraqi targets with their 16 in guns.

In addition to these considerations are the cost to reactivate the battleships and the problem of acquiring the crew needed to operate the ships.












Reactivation potential (version I) edit

See also: United States Naval Gunfire Support debate
 
USS Wisconsin, shown moored in Norfolk, Virginia, is one of three Iowa-class battleships open to the public as museums, and was one of two maintained in the US Mothball fleet for potential reactivation.

After World War II, the United States maintained the four Iowa-class battleships in the United States Navy reserve fleets, better known as the "mothball fleet", and on several occasions reactivated these battleships for naval gunfire support. The U.S. Navy has held onto its battleships long after the expense and the arrival of aircraft and precision guided munitions led other nations to scrap their big-gun fleets.[11] The United States Congress is largely responsible for this. The lawmakers argue that the battleships' large-caliber guns have a militarily useful destructive power lacking in the smaller, cheaper, and faster guns mounted by U.S. cruisers and destroyers.[3]

The Navy, which sees the battleships as too costly, is working to persuade Congress to allow it to remove Iowa and Wisconsin from the Naval Vessel Register by developing extended-range guided munitions and a new ship to fulfill Marine Corps requirements for naval surface fire support (NSFS).

The Navy plan originally called for the extension of the range of the 5-inch (127 mm) guns on the Flight I Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers (USS Arleigh Burke to USS Ross) with Extended Range Guided Munitions (ERGMs) that would enable the ships to fire precision guided projectiles about 40 nautical miles (70 km) inland. The program was initiated in 1996 with a preliminary cost of $78.6 million; however, the cost of the program increased 400% during its research and development phase. The results of the program had been similarly disappointing: the original expected operational capability date was pushed from 2001 to 2011 before being cancelled by the navy in March 2008 for budget-related reasons and an apparent shift by the navy from the ERGM program to the Ballistic Trajectory Extended Range Munition (BTERM) program.[5][6] These weapons are not intended or expected to satisfy the full range of the Marine Corps NSFS requirements.[12]

The result of the latter effort to design and build a replacement ship for the two battleships was the Zumwalt-class destroyer program, also known either as the DD(X) or DDG-1000 (in reference to Zumwalt’s hull number). The DD(X) was to mount a pair of Advanced Gun System turrets capable of firing specially designed Long Range Land Attack Projectiles some 60 miles (100 km) inland. Originally, the navy had planned to build a total of 32 of these destroyers, however the increasing cost of the program led the navy to reduce the overall number of destroyers built from 32 to 24. In 2007 the total procurement of Zumwalt-class destroyers was further reduced to a total of seven,[5] before being discontinued at a total of two destroyers in July 2008 as a result of the high cost of building each of the two ships.[13][14]

"DDG 1000 Zumwalt is [...] being developed by the Navy to serve as the backbone of tomorrow’s surface fleet. DDG 1000 Zumwalt provides a broad range of capabilities that are vital both to supporting the Global War on Terror and to fighting and winning major combatant operations. Zumwalt’s multi-mission warfighting capabilities are designed to counter not only the threats of today, but threats projected over the next decade as well."

Statement of the DD(X) program on the United States Navy's Program Executive Office, Ships[15]

On 17 March 2006 the Secretary of the Navy exercised his authority to strike Iowa and Wisconsin from the Naval Vessel Register, which cleared the way for both ships to be donated for use as museums. The United States Navy and the United States Marine Corps had both certified that battleships would not be needed in any future war, and turned their attention to development and construction of the next generation Zumwalt-class guided missile destroyers, production of which was later capped at two vessels in July 2008.

This move has drawn fire from a variety of sources familiar with the subject; among them are dissenting members of the United States Marine Corps, who feel that battleships are still a viable solution to naval gunfire support,[16][A 1] members of the United States Congress who remain "deeply concerned" over the loss of naval surface gunfire support that the battleships provided,[5] and number of independent groups such as the United States' Naval Fire Support Association (USNFSA) whose ranks frequently include former members of the armed service and fans of the battleships.[17][18] Although the arguments presented from each group differ, they all agree that the United States Navy has not in good faith considered the potential of reactivated battleships for use in the field, a position that is supported by a 1999 Government Accountability Office report regarding the United States Navy's gunfire support program.[12]

In response, the Navy has pointed to the cost of reactivating the two Iowa class battleships to their decommissioned capability. The Navy estimates costs in excess of $500 million,[19][20] but this does not include an additional $110 million needed to replenish the gunpowder for the 16-inch (406 mm) guns because a survey found the powder to be unsafe. In terms of schedule, the Navy's program management office estimates that reactivation would take 20 to 40 months, given the loss of corporate memory and the shipyard industrial base.[3]

"In summary, the committee is concerned that the Navy has foregone the long-range fire support capability of the battleship, has given little cause for optimism with respect to meeting near-term developmental objectives, and appears unrealistic in planning to support expeditionary warfare in the mid-term. The committee views the Navy’s strategy for providing naval surface fire support as 'high risk,' and will continue to monitor progress accordingly."

Evaluation of the United States Navy's naval surface fire support program in the National Defense Authorization Act of 2007[5]

Reactivating the battleships would require a wide range of battleship modernization improvements, according to the Navy's program management office. At a minimum, these modernization improvements include command and control, communications, computers, and intelligence equipment; environmental protection (including ozone-depleting substances); a plastic-waste processor; pulper/shredder and wastewater alterations; firefighting/fire safety and women-at-sea alterations; a modernized sensor suite (air and surface search radar); and new combat and self-defense systems.[3] The Navy's program management office also identified other issues that would strongly discourage the Navy from reactivating and modernizing the battleships. For example, personnel needed to operate the battleships would be extensive, and the skills needed may not be available or easily reconstituted.[21] Other issues include the age and unreliability of the battleships' propulsion systems and the fact that the Navy no longer maintains the capability to manufacture their 16-inch (410 mm) gun system components and ordnance.[3]

Although the Navy firmly believes in the capabilities of the DD(X) destroyer program, members of the United States Congress remain skeptical about the efficiency of the new destroyers when compared to the battleships.[12] Partially as a consequence the US House of Representatives have asked that the battleships be kept in a state of readiness should they ever be needed again.[22] Congress has asked that the following measures be implemented to ensure that, if need be, Iowa and Wisconsin can be returned to active duty:

  1. Iowa and Wisconsin must not be altered in any way that would impair their military utility;
  2. The battleships must be preserved in their present condition through the continued use of cathodic protection, dehumidification systems, and any other preservation methods as needed;
  3. Spare parts and unique equipment such as the 16-inch (410 mm) gun barrels and projectiles be preserved in adequate numbers to support Iowa and Wisconsin, if reactivated;
  4. The Navy must prepare plans for the rapid reactivation of Iowa and Wisconsin should they be returned to the Navy in the event of a national emergency.[22]

These four conditions closely mirror the original three conditions that the Nation Defense Authorization Act of 1996 laid out for the maintenance of Iowa and Wisconsin while they were in the Mothball Fleet.[23][4]




Reactivation proposals (version II) edit

See also: United States Naval Gunfire Support debate

"In summary, the committee is concerned that the Navy has foregone the long-range fire support capability of the battleship, has given little cause for optimism with respect to meeting near-term developmental objectives, and appears unrealistic in planning to support expeditionary warfare in the mid-term. The committee views the Navy's strategy for providing naval surface fire support as 'high risk,' and will continue to monitor progress accordingly."

Evaluation of the United States Navy's naval surface fire support program in the National Defense Authorization Act of 2007[5]

After World War II, the United States maintained the four Iowa-class battleships in the United States Navy reserve fleets, better known as the "mothball fleet", and on several occasions reactivated these battleships for naval gunfire support. The U.S. Navy has held onto its battleships long after the expense and the arrival of aircraft and precision guided munitions led other nations to scrap their big-gun fleets.[24] The United States Congress is largely responsible for this. The lawmakers argue that the battleships' large-caliber guns have a militarily useful destructive power lacking in the smaller, cheaper, and faster guns mounted by U.S. cruisers and destroyers.[3]

In response, the Navy has pointed to the cost of reactivating the two Iowa class battleships to their decommissioned capability. The Navy estimates costs in excess of $500 million,[3][N 1] but this does not include an additional $110 million needed to replenish the gunpowder for the 16-inch (406 mm) guns because a survey found the powder to be unsafe. The Navy's program management office estimates that reactivation would take 20 to 40 months, given the loss of corporate memory and the shipyard industrial base.[3]

Reactivating the battleships would require a wide range of battleship modernization improvements, according to the Navy's program management office. At a minimum, these modernization improvements include command and control, communications, computers, and intelligence equipment; environmental protection (including ozone-depleting substances); a plastic-waste processor; pulper/shredder and wastewater alterations; firefighting/fire safety and women-at-sea alterations; a modernized sensor suite (air and surface search radar); and new combat and self-defense systems.[3] The Navy's program management office identified other issues that would strongly discourage the Navy from reactivating and modernizing the battleships. For example, the number of personnel needed to operate the battleships would be extensive, and the skills needed may not be available or easily reconstituted.[N 2] Other issues include the age and unreliability of the battleships' propulsion systems and the fact that the Navy no longer maintains the capability to manufacture their 16-inch (410 mm) gun system components and ordnance.[3]

Although the Navy firmly believes that the battleships are no longer needed, members of the United States Congress remain skeptical about the Navy's plan to replace its battleships with the Zumwalt class destroyer.[25] The U.S. House of Representatives has asked that the battleships Iowa and Wisconsin be kept in a state of readiness should they ever be needed again.[22]

Electronics & Radar edit

http://www.navsource.org/archives/01/57r.htm

  • NavSource Online: Battleship Photo Archive / Radar Equipment

Cultural significance edit

For a combination of different reasons the Iowa class battleships have become culturally symbolic ships in the United States. In addition to be held as marvels of naval engineering for their combination of speed and firepower, they are widely considered the best battleships ever built among the American public. The service records for the ships have also added to their fame, in particular since these four battleships were the only ones in any navy mobilized for wartime service after World War II. They remain symbols of American power, and their reputation combined with the stories told concerning the firepower wielded by these battleships[26] is such that when they were brought out retirement in 1980s in response to increased Soviet Naval activity - and in particular, in response to the commissioning of the Kirov-class battlecruisers[27][28] - the United States Navy was inundated with requests for former sailors pleading for a recall to active duty so they could serve aboard one of the battleships.[29] In part because of the service length and record of the class members certain elements of the American public are unwilling to part with the battleships despite their apparent obsolescence in the face of the modern naval combat doctrine that places great emphasis on air supremacy and missile firepower. Arguably the greatest testament of the cultural significance of these four ships is that they have all been donatedCite error: The <ref> tag has too many names (see the help page).[30][31] or slated for donation[32] for use as museum ships rather than being sold for scrap, and collectively the four Iowa class battleships account for 50% of the total number of battleships preserved in the United States.[N 3]

  • Nelson, Robin (1982). "The Born Again Battlewagon". Popular Mechanics. 157 (6). The Hearst Corporation: p. 73–74, p. 141–143. Retrieved 2011-01-10. {{cite journal}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
  • This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships.
  • This article includes information collected from the Naval Vessel Register, which, as a U.S. government publication, is in the public domain.

Aircraft edit

 
Crewmen recover an RQ-2 Pioneer Unmanned Aerial Vehicle aboard Iowa.

When they were commissioned during World War II, the Iowa class battleships came equipped with two aircraft catapults designed to launch floatplanes. Initially, the Iowas carried the Vought OS2U Kingfisher[33][34] and Curtiss SC Seahawk,[34][35] both of which were employed to spot for the battleship's main gun batteries—and, in a secondary capacity, perform search-and-rescue missions.[33] By the time of the Korean War, helicopters had replaced floatplanes. At the time of the Korean War, the Iowas could support the Sikorsky HO3S-1 helicopter;[34] in time, the newer UH-1 Iroquois, SH-2 Seasprites, CH-46 Sea Knight, CH-53 Sea Stallion and the LAMPS III SH-60B Seahawk would serve aboard the battleships.[33] In addition, New Jersey made use of the Gyrodyne QH-50 DASH drone for her Vietnam war deployment in 1968-1969.[2]

During the 1980s these battleships made use of the RQ-2 Pioneer, an unmanned aerial vehicle employed in spotting for the guns. Launched from the fantail using a rocket-assist booster that was discarded shortly after takeoff, the Pioneer carried a video camera in a pod under the belly of the aircraft which transmitted live video to the ship so operators could observe enemy actions or fall of shot during naval gunnery. To land the UAV a large net was deployed at the back of the ship the aircraft was flown into it. Missouri and Wisconsin both used the Pioneer UAVs successfully during Operation Desert Storm, and in one particularly memorable incident,[36] a Pioneer UAV operated by Wisconsin received the surrender of Iraqi troops during combat operations.[36] This Pioneer UAV was later donated to the Smithsonian Institution, and is now on public display.[37]


  • Camp, Dick (2009). Operation Phantom Fury: The Assault and Capture of Fallujah, Iraq. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Zenith Press. p. 144.

notes edit

  1. ^ Marine Corps supports the strategic purpose of reactivating two battleships in accordance with the National Defense Authorization Act of 1996 and supports the Navy's modernization efforts to deliver a sufficient NSFS capability that exceeds that of the Iowa class battleships. See: Government Accountability Office. Information on Options for Naval Surface Fire Support.
  1. ^ This number is based on 1999 estimate with a 4% annual inflation rate. The U.S. Navy reported in the April 1987 edition of All Hands that the original cost of bringing the battleships back in the 1980s was $110 million per ship, but the actual cost after modernization and recommissioning was $455 million. See: Bureau of Naval Personnel, "Back on the battle line".
  2. ^ The U.S. Navy reported in the April 1987 edition of All Hands that while battleships have larger crews than other vessels the level of training required and the criticality of that training were less than that required of a crew aboard an Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate. See: Bureau of Naval Personnel, "Back on the battle line".
  3. ^ A total of eight battleships still exist in the United States today, in addition to the four Iowa class battleships the other four are USS Texas (BB-35), berthed in La Porte, Texas; USS North Carolina (BB-55), berthed in Wilmington, North Carolina; USS Massachusetts (BB-59), berthed in Fall River, Massachusetts; and USS Alabama (BB-60), berthed in Mobile, Alabama. Aside from these eight, the only other battleship preserved anywhere in the world is the Japanese battleship Mikasa, a predreadnought berthed in Yokosuka, Japan.

refs edit

  1. ^ Holland, p. 184
  2. ^ a b c Polmar, p. 127
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Government Accountability Office. Information on Options for Naval Surface Fire Support (GAO-05-39R). Cite error: The named reference "GAO 1" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  4. ^ a b "National Defense Authorization Act of 1996" (PDF). (1.68 MB). 104th Congress, House of Representatives. p. 237. Retrieved on 17 December 2006.
  5. ^ a b c d e f "National Defense Authorization Act of 2007" (PDF). pp. 193–94. Retrieved 2007-03-12. Cite error: The named reference "NDAA 2007" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  6. ^ a b Matthews, William (2007-03-25). "Navy ends ERGM funding". Navy Times. Retrieved 2008-04-23.
  7. ^ "Advanced Gun System (AGS)". BAe Systems. 2008.
  8. ^ Department of the Navy Research Development & Acqusition. "DDG 1000 Zumwalt Class Multi-mission Destroyer". United States Navy. Retrieved 2010-12-17.
  9. ^ "Boeing: Raygun dreadnoughts will rule the oceans by 2019". 17 April 2009. Retrieved 16 December 2010.
  10. ^ Office of Naval Research Public Affairs (2008-02-01). "U.S. Navy Demonstrates World's Most Powerful EMRG at 10 Megajoules". United States Navy.|group=N}}
  11. ^ Government Accountability Office, Naval Surface Fire Support Program Plans and Costs (NSIAD-99-91).
  12. ^ a b c Government Accountability Office, Evaluation of the Navy’s 1999 Naval Surface Fire Support Assessment (NSAID-99-225).
  13. ^ Cavas, Christopher P. (2008-07-24). "DDG 1000 program will end at 2 ships". Navy Times. Retrieved 2008-07-27.
  14. ^ The Navy has stated that it may ask for construction of a third Zumwalt-class destroyer, but has not specified when or if it will exercise such an option. Cavas, Christopher P. (2008-07-24). "DDG 1000 program will end at 2 ships". Navy Times. Retrieved 2008-07-27.
  15. ^ Program Executive Office, Ships (2007-05-27). "DDG 1000 (subsection: What is DDG 1000?)". United States Navy. Retrieved 2007-06-24.
  16. ^ Novak, Robert (2005-12-06). "Losing the battleships". CNN.com. Retrieved 2008-07-25.
  17. ^ Blazar, Ernest (1996-07-29). "New debate resurrects old one; critics say cancel arsenal ship, bring back battleships". Navy Times.
  18. ^ "Navy proposes destroyer with long-range guns". USA Today. 2005-08-15.
  19. ^ This number is based on 1999 estimate with a 4% annual inflation rate. See: Government Accountability Office. Information on Options for Naval Surface Fire Support.
  20. ^ The U.S. Navy reported in the April 1987 edition of All Hands that the original cost of bringing the battleships back in the 1980s was $110 million per ship, but the actual cost after modernization and recommissioning was $455 million. See: Bureau of Naval Personnel, "Back on the battle line".
  21. ^ The U.S. Navy reported in the April 1987 edition of All Hands that while battleships have larger crews than other vessels the level of training required and the criticality of that training were less than that required of a crew aboard an Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate. See: Bureau of Naval Personnel, "Back on the battle line".
  22. ^ a b c "Report 109–452. National Defense Authorization Act of 2007." 109th Congress, House of Representatives. p. 68. Cite error: The named reference "Congress 68" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  23. ^ "BB-61 IOWA-class (Specifications)". Federation of American Scientists. Retrieved 2006-11-26.
  24. ^ Government Accountability Office (11 June 1999). "Naval Surface Fire Support Program Plans and Costs (GAO/NSIAD-99-91)" (PDF). Government Accountability Office. Retrieved 30 May 2010.
  25. ^ Government Accountability Office (14 September 1999). "Evaluation of the Navy's 1999 Naval Surface Fire Support Assessment (GAO/NSIAD-99-225)" (PDF). Government Accountability Office. Retrieved 30 May 2010.
  26. ^ Nelson, p. 142
  27. ^ Cite error: The named reference Bishop, p. 80 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  28. ^ Cite error: The named reference Miller and Miller, p. 114 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  29. ^ Nelson, p. 73
  30. ^ "Missouri (BB 63)". Naval Vessel Register. Retrieved 10 January 2011.
  31. ^ "Wisconsin (BB 64)". Naval Vessel Register. Retrieved 10 January 2011.
  32. ^ "Iowa (BB 61)". Naval Vessel Register. Retrieved 10 January 2011.
  33. ^ a b c Cite error: The named reference polish was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  34. ^ a b c Stillwell, p. 296
  35. ^ Bridgeman, p. 221–22
  36. ^ a b Camp, p. 144
  37. ^ "Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum: Pioneer RQ-2A UAV". The Smithsonian. 2000-03-05. Retrieved 2010-12-16.


Suggestion for the Rebuilding edit

Toolbox

TO BE ADRESSED (not nessicarily in this order):

  • Merge your version and the current version, take the best of both and leave the rest. NOTE THAT THIS MAY MEAN THT MOST OF WHAT GOTTEN WRITTEN BACK DURING THE FIRST MAJOR OVERHAUL MAY NEED TO BE REMOVED FOR THE SAKE OF THE STAR. Be prepeared to accept this even if you don't like it.
  • KEEP TABS ON CURRENT VERSION. Its going to get editted during the overhaul whether you like it or not, so make sure what gets added as relvent there also gets added here in the right spots.
  • Lose the Federation of American Scientists links.
  • Lose the nav weapon links.
  • It's been mentioned that Garzke and Dulin (see the Bibliography) would be an excellent source for design history and service history for all 4 ships.
  • More reliance on books as a whole.
  • Rewrite needs to taken into account new styles for class articles introduced since going active live.
  • Individual ship histories can not longer be cited to DANFS, source is too controversial. Location of other sources will therefore be needed.

FROM THE TALK PAGE: It's been mentioned that Garzke and Dulin (see the Bibliography) would be an excellent source for design history and service history for all 4 ships. I have the book here, but I'd rather not insert the information directly into the text, because that wouldn't respect all the conflicts and compromises that are part of the history of this article and the articles on the 4 battleships. I'll put the information here, and I'll try to do a good job of paraphrasing and of selecting the information that has been deemed important in various other battleship articles, and anyone who wants to take a whack at it can move this information into the article. I'll be working on this all day today. - Dank (push to talk) 16:41, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

  • Armament is well-covered (including many cites to G & D) by the FA Armament of the Iowa class battleship. - Dank (push to talk) 20:15, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
  • The 6 ships in this class (4 retired, 2 never completed) are all FAs. USS Iowa (BB-61) cites G & D only for the infamous turret explosion, the other 3 retired ships don't cite this book, and the 2 ships never completed don't cite any information from this book that's useful for this or the other articles. - Dank (push to talk) 20:24, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
  • I've added some refs to the service history for Iowa, with minor tweaks, and G & D doesn't dispute anything there. This article says "New Jersey reported to the gunline off the Vietnamese coast, delivering nearly 6,000 rounds of 16-inch (406 mm) gunfire ..."; G & D says (p. 129) "During her 120-day Vietnam deployment, New Jersey fired 10,000 shells, including 3229 16-inch." Another discrepancy is on p. 134: "... 26 February 1955, when she was placed out of commission in reserve at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard ...". The date when Wisconsin was laid down is given as 25 January 1941 (p. 134). G & D, p. 243, says USS Wisconsin was "decommissioned on 3 September 1991 [not 30 Sept], and later moved to Philadelphia, where deactivation was completed." Otherwise, I see no discrepancies in the service histories, although different engagements are often mentioned in G & D. - Dank (push to talk) 02:53, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
Some sleuthing is in order when you have a discrepancy. The DANFS article for New Jersey closely agrees with your G & D reference. When you have two sources that closely agree with each other and one that is wildly off, change the information and cite it accordingly.
But now you should call into question the Polmar source which is currently tagged to say there were 6000 rounds fired. Remove the Polmar cites that make that claim. If no one can get a copy of the Polmar book to verify his information then you need to completely throw him out of the article as a source.
The NVR article for Wisconsin says 30 September. Always use the NVR for dates of this nature. They are the official record of US Navy ships. Brad (talk) 06:36, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Dank, thanks muchly—what you are doing is very helpful. Everyone, keep in mind that we need two things at minimum before this article (should) make it past GA: the close paraphrasing/copying of DANFS needs to be reworded, and the sources of the service histories need to be diversified past the DANFS articles, similar to what I did with North Carolina-class battleship. That is at minimum. There are other things, like how the two paragraphs in the "Radar and electronic warfare systems" section are supposed to jive with one another (a victim of the earlier ruthless cutting?), the "Popular culture" section (talked to Tom about the problems there already), or the "Reactivation potential" section, which needs to reflect the extreme unlikeliness of their reactivation among other problems. In short: this is not near even GA yet in my opinion. —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 03:27, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Is that the G & D book that has a passage about the BBG conversion proposal? If so, it needs to be in the article. I wish people would go back and look at the last FAR. There are a lot of comments about the problems this article had or still has. Brad (talk) 04:46, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
I know Friedman has some. Does G&D have some or more? —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 04:59, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
From the FAR:
Conversion to BBG I consulted a Garzke and Dulin book printed 1976 which claims that the entire class was considered for conversion to guided missile battleships. This is only mentioned as applying to Illinois and Kentucky. This needs to be clarified. --Brad (talk) 22:47, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
And Ed replied:
I have that book and remember reading about it when I was looking at the conversion proposals for the North Carolina class battleship#Post-war alterations and proposals section. I'll try to add something, but I may not be able to get to it soon; have a lot of schoolwork still to do. —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 01:53, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
Please read the FAR!!!! *SMACK* Brad (talk) 05:21, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
Oh look at that, there is a section in Friedman... it can be confirmed with my own quote! ;) Read the FAR, and there are a lot of outstanding issues. Dank, if I add a section on this, would you be able to change my page numbers to the corresponding ones in your book? I'm assuming—as the 1935–1992 edition is just an update—that the information itself will be unchanged from my older United States Battleships book (library). —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 05:39, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
Sure, be happy to check page numbers for both Friedman and G & D (mine is the 1995 edition btw). - Dank (push to talk) 10:54, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
I can steal the Friedman workload, if you guys want. Buggie111 (talk) 13:20, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
That would be great. - Dank (push to talk) 13:40, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
This is a paraphrase of G & D's paragraphs on the BBG conversion discussions. - Dank (push to talk) 18:17, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
  • p. 204: Rear Admiral W. K. Mendenhall, Chairman of the Ship[s] Characteristics Board, offered a proposal in 1955 that $15 to $30 million be spent completing Kentucky as a guided-missile battleship (BBG), carrying eight Regulus II guided missiles with a range of 1000 nmi. He also suggested Terrier or Talos missile launchers to supplement the AA guns, and nuclear shells to supplement conventional shells for the 16-inch guns. - Dank (push to talk) 18:30, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
  • [Two "schemes" proposed in 1956 are mentioned on p. 209 that would have included IRBMs, costing up to $282M; I'm not including them because they are described as "doomed", and there's no indication who suggested these designs.] - Dank (push to talk) 18:40, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
  • p. 209: The Navy's Long-Range-Objectives Group, formed in 1954 to study warship technology, suggested converting Iowa-class ships to BBGs. In 1958, the Bureau of Ships offered a proposal based on this idea that replaced the 5-inch and 16-inch gun batteries with "two Talos twin missile systems, two Tartar twin missile systems, an ASROC antisubmarine missile launcher, and a Regulus II installation with four missiles", as well as flagship facilities, sonar, helicopters, and fire-control systems for the Talos and Tartar missiles. 8600 additional [long] tons of fuel oil was also suggested, serving in part as ballast ... - Dank (push to talk) 18:55, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
  • p. 210: ... and in part for refueling destroyers and cruisers. However, at an estimated cost of $178 to $193 million dollars, this proposal was rejected by the Ship[s] Characteristics Board [sources disagree on whether it's "Ship" or "Ships" or "Ships'"] as too expensive; they suggested a design with one Talus, one Tartar, one ASROC and two Regulus launchers and changes to the superstructure, at a cost of up to $85 million. "Early in 1959 this design was to have been revised to accommodate the Polaris Fleet Ballistic Missile", and the Ship[s] Characteristics Board commissioned a study of two schemes, neither of which was ever authorized. - Dank (push to talk) 19:13, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
  • [There were other suggestions made concerning possible conversions in '62, '74 and '77, but I can't tell if they're related; should I include those?] - Dank (push to talk) 19:13, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Taking a break from G & D to address the points in the GAN review; if anyone else wants to jump in or correct me, jump right in. Anyone mind if I change the note format from "A 1", "A 2" to "N 1"? - Dank (push to talk) 21:03, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Not from me (I use "N 1" now all the time anyway... :) —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 23:01, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
The first three Friedman refs check out. I'll tackle the other ones a tad later (hour maybe). Buggie111 (talk) 18:37, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
Uh, Friedman's page numbers should be just fine, considering that (I think) I added them all. :) It's if/when I add material from my 1976 book--I want it to be standardized to Dank's 1995 edition. —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 19:50, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
  • Back to G & D. On p. 212, they say that one of the main problems with any conversion to a BBG was that sensitive electronics within 200 ft of any 16-inch gun muzzle were likely to be damaged, given the likely uses and the firing arcs of those guns. However, G & D don't say why they believe this or where the information comes from. They say that interest in BBG conversions "waned" in 1960, because the hulls were considered too old and the conversion costs too high. - Dank (push to talk) 18:02, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
  • p.212: The deactivation of the Iowas meant that Marine amphibious operations didn't have the same gun support available as they did in WWII and Korea. 16-inch guns were considered 4 times as effective at penetrating heavy fortifications as 8-inch guns. Admiral John S. McCain, Jr. [the more things change, the more they stay the same, eh?] was Chairman of the Amphibious Warfare Evaluation Board at the time [they don't say when, but it must have been 1960, 61 or 62], and he recommended that the Iowas be modified so that they could transport a Marine Corps battalion of 1800 men, by replacing the aft 16-inch turret with facilities for helicopters, boats and landing craft. He also suggested that the 16-inch guns be adapted so that they could fire nuclear shells. [Huah!] The Bureau of Ships completed a study in 1962 along these lines [but with no specific mention of the nuclear option], but the "conversion cost of $64 million did not attract enthusiastic supporters". - Dank (push to talk) 18:18, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
  • [Side note that only a copyeditor could love ... I think the "s" in Iowas should be italicized because I really doubt that you'd see "I was on an Iowa" in a reputable source ... you'd see "I was on one of the Iowas" or "I was on [the] New Jersey" ... and if the singular Iowa doesn't mean "one of the Iowas", then we shouldn't pretend that it does ... but G & D and Friedman all disagree with me, apparently, so I give up.] - Dank (push to talk) 18:40, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
  • I can't come up with a good paraphrase that preserves the nuance so I'll quote, p. 212: "The four Iowas remained in reserve from 1954 into the 1980s, with the New Jersey having an austere reactivation in 1967 for a brief stint in Vietnam. For the most part these ships were kept mothballed with minimal care." President Nixon asked in 1972 if reactivation of New Jersey was possible so that she could be sent to Vietnam within 30 days, and was told that it couldn't happen that quickly. - Dank (push to talk) 18:40, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
  • On p. 213, there's some discussion of a study conducted by the Center for Naval Analysis in 1974 by adding missiles ... anyone care enough about this to include it? p. 214 of G & D begins the section called "Reactivation of the Iowa Class", but much of this is covered in the individual ship articles; I can summarize if anyone wants me to. - Dank (push to talk) 18:47, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

FROM THE GAN REVIEW Reviewer: Courcelles (talk) 05:25, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Alright, I know you're trying to save a featured topic here, but this article has a long history, and several review processes in its past. Nothing we can't get through, but it will take me a few days to read through everything and have a review posted. Courcelles (talk) 05:25, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

I want to say how much better this article looks than when the FAR was initiated, and even than when it was closed. The entire popular culture section disappeared today... good decision. The stuff about "A Glimpse of Hell: The Explosion on the U. S. S. Iowa & Its Cover-Up" belongs more on Iowa's article than here, and the rest of it was a bit crufty.
The only thing Thompson's book is citing, is the turret explosion, as far as I can see presently. If I find something else to cite with, I will. Brad (talk) 20:54, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
Referencing. Pick a date format- there's "yyyy-mm-dd" and "dd Month yyyy" scattered in roughly equal numbers.
Done. - Dank (push to talk) 21:51, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
Why are the DANFS sources included in References and the Bibliography sections? It seems to me that references without a need for page numbers should be cited in in full in the references section, and the Bibliography section limited to books that are referred to by page number in the references section?
All DANFS templates and sources have been updated correctly and removed from the biblio. Brad (talk) 09:35, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
Displacement- from the infobox: "45,000 tons (Standard);[8] 52,000 tons (mean war service); 58,000 tons (full load)[8]" If the citation is going to be repeated for the Standard and full load numbers, why not for mean war service?
I removed the first of those refs. These days, SHIPS people don't generally put the refs in the main infobox, and if I had done most of the editing and this were a new article, I would get rid of most of them. When there's been a lot of arguing over an article, I generally just try to stick to what needs to be done. - Dank (push to talk) 23:26, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
The "armor" section has never returned.
I restored the armor section as it was when removed. Still needs reliable refs. Brad (talk) 09:35, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
Coming soon. - Dank (push to talk) 23:27, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
I've summarized G & D on the talk page in a section called Armor. Anyone want to weave this into the text? It's sufficiently different from the original G & D text, except of course for the parts in quotes. - Dank (push to talk) 02:28, 30 May 2010 (UTC) tweaked 03:40, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
This is confusing me. The Washington treaty allowed 16-inch guns, then the next paragraph talks about an escalator clause in Second London allowing 16-inch guns, an increase from 14-inch.
Doing Done. I hope that's clearer; in any event, it reflects the cited sources better. - Dank (push to talk) 00:19, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
It's a terrible article, but is it worth linking Escalator clause?
I got rid of "escalator"; the two paragraphs using the word needed tightening anyway. The phrase "escalator clause" means a clause that raises a price to most readers, so it wasn't terribly helpful here. - Dank (push to talk) 17:41, 28 May 2010 (UTC) (despite the fact that both Friedman and G & D use the word ... our readership is more likely to be confused by it than theirs IMO). - Dank (push to talk) 03:11, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
The year of Second London should probability be mentioned for context.
Done. - Dank (push to talk) 02:54, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
""[t]he prospective effect of flooding was roughly halved and the number of uptakes and hence of openings in the third deck greatly reduced."" Pedantic, but a citation is needed after a direct quote.
Done. - Dank (push to talk) 02:54, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
"U.S." or "US"? Be consistent.
Done, US -> U.S. Kind of a shame really, some of the MOS folks would really like to see us standardize this, because it's generally "US" outside the U.S., and US doesn't look totally awful to Americans, but there's just no chance that "U.S." won't wind up littering the page since it's ubiquitous in American sources. - Dank (push to talk) 17:31, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
It would be nice to have a Wikipedia standard on this one, along with UK vs. U.K., but making each article consistent internally is about as good as we can hope for. Courcelles (talk) 17:37, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
"Each battleship was modernized to carry electronic warfare suites, CIWS self-defense systems, and missiles." I think you either should bypass the CIWS redirect (so hovering provides the full term), or just spell it out. This acronym means nothing to the average person.
Done. - Dank (push to talk) 03:00, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
"Recalled to duty in 1968, New Jersey reported to the gunline[27] off the Vietnamese coast, delivering nearly 6,000 rounds of 16-inch (406 mm) gunfire and over 14,000 rounds of 5-inch (127 mm) shells before departing the line in December 1968.[27]" Can't believe I'm saying this, but is that first [27] needed here?
The Polmar source has been called into question; in the meantime I removed the double cite. Brad (talk) 09:35, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
Missouri was donated to the USS Missouri Memorial Association (MMA) of Pearl Harbor" As far as I can tell, the MMA acronym never makes a repeat appearance... so why introduce it?
Done --Brad (talk) 23:25, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
"In 1956, the bow of the uncompleted USS Kentucky was removed and grafted on Wisconsin, which had collided with the destroyer USS Eaton. " Citation?
Done --Brad (talk) 23:25, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
"All four Iowa-class battleships were outfitted with Oerlikon 20 mm and Bofors 40 mm," Any chance we know how many of each were installed?
The totals are in the infoboxes of the 4 ships, look for "20 mm" and "40 mm". The totals vary by ship and over time. - Dank (push to talk) 03:08, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
"ECM level background" I know what it means, but this needs at least a link to Electronic countermeasures as an acronym that everyone won't know.
Done ... now it reads "The AN/SPS-49 performs accurate centroiding of target range, azimuth, amplitude, electronic countermeasures level background, and radial velocity with an associated confidence factor to produce contact data for command and control systems." So I still have no idea what it means :) Help, someone? - Dank (push to talk) 03:08, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
"In response, the Navy has pointed to the cost of reactivating the two Iowa class battleships to their decommissioned capability. The Navy estimates costs in excess of $500 million,[73][74] but this does not include an additional $110 million needed to replenish the gunpowder for the 16-inch (406 mm) guns because a survey found the powder to be unsafe." This passage, and these numbers, need a year for context. (refs 73 and 74 give full explanation, but what year dollars this is in would still be helpful in the text."
The section has been deleted. - Dank (push to talk) 03:37, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
Feel free to tell me I'm nuts, but the Notes section would read better formatted like Jupiter_Trojan#Notes with superscript numbers instead of full references- especially since they're all repeated in the next two sections. (Especially since Note 9 uses a superscript reference) These full citations make the notes hard to read.
Yep, doing. And you're nuts. - Dank (push to talk) 20:46, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
Done. - Dank (push to talk) 17:23, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
What makes http://www.navweaps.com/ a reliable source?
Please see Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#http:.2F.2Fnavweaps.com. - Dank (push to talk) 20:44, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
Alright. Courcelles (talk) 17:37, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
  • I'll go through the referencing with a fine-tooth comb over the next couple days. Courcelles (talk) 20:34, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
  • One more, Single page: "Johnston, The Battleships, pg. 161" " Friedman, U.S. Battleships, 311" "Garzke and Dulin, Battleships, p. 3" and "Friedman, pg 449". All slightly different in the pages formatting. Multiple pages, "Newhart, pp. 90–101", "Friedman, U.S. Battleships, 311–312" and "Garzke and Dulin, Battleships, p. 218–222" Each of these groups should be a single style. (I'm being harder than the GA criteria here, so feel free to tell me to stuff it.) Courcelles (talk) 20:54, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
  • No you're right, not a problem. - Dank (push to talk) 20:59, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
Done. - Dank (push to talk) 17:23, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

FROM THE FAR

  • Comments This is still a good article, but it needs a comprehensive tune up to retain FA status. I've had a quick run through the article, and have the following comments:
    • Some material isn't cited
      • This should all be out of the article body now, save for two statements in the infobox.
    • Some of the article is written in the passive voice (eg, "primarily to provide anti-aircraft screening for U.S. aircraft carriers" could be changed to "provide anti-aircraft protection to aircraft carriers")
    • I spotted some typos through the article
    • The caption "A look from the waterline back at the ship. Note how fine the hull is; this was a central part of how the ships were able go 31+ knots, but it also made them very wet forward in rough seas" is confusingly written - which ship is it referring to, what's meant by saying that "this was a central part", "31+ knots" is informal and "very wet forward" won't mean much to people who are unfamiliar with naval terminology
      • I fiddled with the caption, let me know what you think. TomStar81 (Talk) 21:23, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
        • This photo seems to have been removed
    • Some paras in the history section are a bit short
      • Rewritten, please tell me if this is better.
    • It's unclear what relevance the material on the London naval treaty has to these ships - this needs to be made explicit if the material on it is retained
      • Attempted to clarify by using a version by The ed17 (talk · contribs), let me know if this requires further improvement.
        • Seems OK now
    • The article has way too many notes, many of which contain material of limited or no relevance to these ships. Moreover, some of the notes are unreferenced.
      • Reduced the number of notes and those left should have sources, more or less. Is this better?
        • Some still aren't cited and notes 7, 13 and 15 aren't needed (the purple prose in note 13 is also out of place)
    • Writing that New Jersey was reactivated to "delivering the ordnance necessary for the escalating war in Vietnam" makes it sound like she was used as a cargo ship. Moreover, it's both vague and factually incorrect: while the ship's firepower was very useful, it was hardly 'necessary'
    • The sub-sections on the ships repeat their names too often - for instance, Iowa is in almost every sentence in the para on that ship.
    • Some uses of the term "enemy" should be replaced with the names of the national forces in question ('enemy' isn't NPOV when referring to a specific country)
    • What's a "Montana-class type torpedo protection system"? (this could be replaced with something like "the torpedo protection system planned for the Montana-class battleships")
    • "The Iowa-class battleships were among the most heavily armed ships the United States ever put to sea" makes it sound like the US has stopped putting ships to sea. It's also factually questionable; many of the hundreds of ships which have embarked nuclear weapons since 1945 had a much heavier armament than these ships, and the SSBNs' firepower is vastly greater.
      • Removed altogather.
    • "When commissioned these battleships carried a wide array of 20 mm and 40 mm anti-aircraft guns, which were gradually replaced with Tomahawk and Harpoon missiles" isn't correct; the guns were replaced with missiles when the ships recommissioned in the 1980s, and not 'gradually' over time
      • Removed altogether.
    • 'broadsides' shouldn't be italicised in "When firing two broadsides per minute"
      • Unitalicized.
    • The section on the Pioneer UAV seems over-long compared to the coverage of the other aircraft which operated from the ships
      • Shortened it.
        • The aviation section works much better now
    • The 'Engineering plant' section is heavy going for people (like me) who are not familiar with mechanical terms (eg, text like "However, at full throttle more power is developed in the low pressure turbine by expanding the steam from 50 pounds per square inch (340 kPa) to 29 inches of vacuum than in the high pressure turbine which expands the steam from 540 pounds per square inch (3,700 kPa) to 50 pounds per square inch (340 kPa)" doesn't mean a great deal to me; can this please be translated? ;) )
      • Removed much of the material, attempted to simplify whats left. is this any batter?
        • Looks fine
    • The 'Radar' section doesn't identify or discuss the make of radar the ships used during World War II, and provides too much detail on the AN/SPS-49 system. Technical details such as "The transmitter/receiver is capable of operation in a long (1.0 msec), medium (0.25 msec), or short (0.10 msec) pulse mode to enhance radar performance for specific operational or tactical situations. Pulse repetition frequencies (PRF) of 750, 1,200, and 2,400 pulses/second are used for the long, medium, and short pulse modes, respectively" could also be omitted in the interests of readability.
      • Shortened the section, working on obtaining WWII specs, will advise.
    • The statement that the USN didn't think about ECM until 1967 is questionable; US warships were fitted with ECM systems from 1943 in response to German rocket bomb attacks. Moreover, the history of the ships' ECM system isn't really relevant.
      • Removed entire section from the article.
    • The 'Reactivation potential' section is much too detailed given that there's an article on this topic and now next to no prospect of them re-entering service. Moreover, statements such as "members of the United States Congress remain skeptical about the efficiency of the new destroyers" seem questionable when they're referenced to a 1999 publication - is this still the case 10 years later? The section also suffers from weasel words (eg, 'This move has drawn fire from a variety of sources familiar with the subject') and implies that Congress has been unanimously behind keeping the ships, which seems unlikely.
      • Removed much of the section.
        • I think that it's still too long
    • The 'popular culture' section should discuss how these ships are portrayed rather than recount some of their many representations. Stating that news coverage of Wisconsin during the Gulf War is 'popular culture' seems questionable (and omits the vast amounts of coverage the ships received throughout their careers). Nick-D (talk) 07:59, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
      • Removed the entire section.
        • Are there no sources which discuss how the ships were popularly perceived? The fact that 3 of the 4 are now museum ships and the 4th will probably also become a museum ship suggests that they're well-known and popular (it's not cheap to put a battleship on display).
    • I just realised that I didn't summarise my comments against the FA criteria, as is common in FARs. In short, my comments relate to 1(a), 1(c) and 4. I don't see why they can't be addressed within the period of the review though, especially given the enthusiasm and experience of the OMT editors. Nick-D (talk) 09:50, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
      • Don't worry about it, like I said above, I have a pretty good idea about what's wrong with the article. The question now is can the OMT team save the article before it loses its bronze star.
        • Overall, the article is better, but not all of my comments have been addressed yet and Brad's comments below are quite serious. Nick-D (talk) 04:07, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
  • Brief comments
    • There're a lot of issues that need to be fixed, but I'll confine myself to those that stick out in my mind:
    • The design history is too long on stuff that doesn't matter and too short on stuff that does. I'd like to see a good discussion of the constraints, especially for time, under which the class was designed, to emphasize that these ships were flawed, especially in their anti-torpedo protection system, which, IIRC was going to be revised in the Kentucky and Illinois.
      • Its been rebuilt by The ed17 (talk · contribs), let me know what you think of the new section.
        • Better, I think, but still needs to emphasize that the design was a case of good enough, and that they didn't have the luxury of time to optimize everything, including the adoption of South Dakota's flawed torpedo protection system rather than that of North Carolina.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 17:29, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
    • The armor section needs more detail to disabuse people of the common notion that the entire ship was armored and invulnerable. Serious students know better, but that is the common perception, in my exasperated experience.
      • This needs to be lengthened with the normal description of the armor layout. Plus a summary of its effectiveness.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 17:29, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
    • There's too much detail in the propulsion and electronics section. Perhaps some of that can be dumped into articles on the relevant systems, but these are places where the article can profitably be shortened.
      • Shortened per your suggestion.
        • I've shortened it even more. The manning roster wasn't of much general use.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 17:29, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
    • I see references to Davis, but no Davis listed in the bibliography.
    • A better sense is needed of the changes made to the ships as they were mothballed and reactivated.
    • A little more detail is needed on the armament, IMO. I know that the subarticle covers that in good detail, but there needs to be a bit more detail. Forex there's no textual reference to the armored box launchers for the Tomahawks. I'd prefer to see something on the order on the amount of detail provided for Parsecboy's ship class articles. Oh, and BTW, I'm fairly certain that there are retaining clips holding the turrets in place, though I'll have to hunt for the citation.
      • I actually elected to shrink the armament section down dramatically on grounds that the material there is covered in much greater detail on the sub page. To be fair, at 122,000+ bytes, this article was big enough that WP:SIZE did factor into this decision, but I can readd the material if you feel its warranted.
        • I think a bit too much has been chopped from this section, but the armament subpage does certainly confuse the issue. Lemme think a bit more on what to do here. I think that we may need to put capabilities and numbers here and leave the details to the armament article.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 17:29, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
    • I don't think that my stash of Warship Internationals has much on them, other than some gunnery results, but I ought to be able to replace the hyperbolic quote currently used with some real hit percentages made during gunnery exercises.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 15:48, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
      • Hey, I just had a guy point out that MOS:APPENDIX says that the bibliography comes before all notes, footnotes, citations, etc.! I had no idea and I can't say that I really like it as I'm used to seeing footnotes before the bibliography in books.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 05:17, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
        • (a) this is why MOS is just a guideline (b) that doesn't happen in practice (c) that needs to be changed (I'm doing it now) —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 05:28, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Comments

  • I agree with everything mentioned above but must point out that using the Military Channel as a reference is ridiculous. The fact that the Military Channel considers anything worthwhile is a waste of time. It's references like these that lead to the general public's perception of WP as an enormous joke.
    • Its been removed.
  • Comment on long-standing conversion error: "Tomahawk could hit targets 1,350 nautical miles (2,500 km) away, more than 55 times farther than the 16-inch (410 mm) guns' 24-mile (39 km) range.[A 26][57]"
    • I've solved the matter altogather by simply removing every instance of measurement. Now we do not have to worry about incorrect conversions in the article's weaponry sections becuase there are none.
      • the range figures, and probably shell/warhead weight, are the bare-bones figures needed to this article. Therefore I've deleted the stuff about the gun weight and re-added the range that I'd pulled from Navweps.com earlier. I've also added it to the armament article to replace the BS range figure there as well. Tom, don't be quite so enthusiastic when removing data from the article next time; I had a valid, properly converted range figure that I had to dig out of the history. Dunno when I'll get around to adding similar data for the other weapons so, Gene, if you want to help out here, I'd be grateful.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 00:03, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
I've cleaned up the main armament section using navweaps for the data, something that could have been done years ago if anyone had chosen to be bold. As for the units issue I find that almost purely an artifact of using manual conversions rather than the template, a practice I've never understood.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 20:54, 23 January 2010 (UTC)
None of the various templates tell you if the miles you are converting are nautical miles or statute miles. None of the various conversion templates tell you which of the dozen or so tons used on Wikipedia are being converted; you need to figure out that yourself before using the template. Templates don't keep you from converting to less-than-optimal units, and templates don't always give you an appropriate precision in the results. And the one that takes well over a thousand template pages to work is so overwhelmingly complex, with contradictory workings with different units and a steep learning curve, that there aren't but a handful of editors who are really capable of using {{convert}}. Worst of all, that monster has trapped the unwary and thrown British spellings into thousands of articles using American English, such as the Nimitz-class article. I find many more problems with conversions done using templates than I find in conversions done without them. Gene Nygaard (talk) 08:11, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
I'll grant that the convert template isn't the easiest thing to work with. It was only after using it many, many times that I noticed that you can control degree of precision, spelling and adjectival vs. noun usage. It's all laid out in the documentation, but you actually have to read the damn stuff because it's really easy to over look. Forex, {{convert|305|mm|3|sp=us|adj=on|lk=on}} will render as 305-millimeter (12.008-in) with links to millimeter and inch. And some of what you bitch about is the problem with the source, not the template. I continually get mixed up if Conway's is using long tons or metric tons when I'm using it and I'm sure that I've confused the two when creating articles. In fact I have to go back and update my older, and not so old, articles with what I now understand about the template. So I see the template problem that you've identified as a user issue, not something intrinsic to the template itself. I find it far easier to use manual conversions that require me to use a calculator and add the stupid non-breaking space between the numbers and the units, but YMMV. I keep a text document filled with wiki code for terms that I use a lot and I've got most of the convert templates copied there so minimize any extra typing. One reason that I can be so productive and minimize the tedious parts of article creation.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 18:51, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Round 2 Getting better

  • The Naval Historical Center changed its name in December 2008 to Naval History & Heritage Command (just as I wrote it) so all of old naming needs to be updated.
  • I see at least two cites to veteran websites = Not reliable sources.
  • Citations are not consistent ie: periods or no periods Should be period (example) pp. 171–189.
  • What does pp. 108–23 mean? from page 108 back to page 23? Try pp. 108–123 instead.
    • I'd disagree with this. The last two digits in a range of pages is perfectly understood to have an implicit digit there because the range starts at first page and goes to the last.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 22:49, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
  • Date of publication missing. Should be: Newhart (2007), pp. 90–101. etc.
  • Update the "retrieved on" dates. Retrieved in 2005 doesn't give me a lot of confidence that the article has been updated or paid attention to.
  • Conversions need work: Knots/nautical miles need the mph and mi conversions.
    • I thought I removed all instances of this, was this not the case?
  • Conversions are not consistent and or missing throughout the article.
  • The article is overlinked. Example: Okinawa is linked twice within two paragraphs. --Brad (talk) 22:25, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
    • I was expecting this, it is a consequence of the removal of material that terms once in thier own sections that have now been combined would be overlinked. I intended to make another pass to check for this the day I worked on the text removal, but thought it best to wait for updated comments so as to reduce the amount of go-back-and-fix-it work that needed to be done. TomStar81 (Talk) 01:25, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
  • I'm finding far too many occurrences of citations not matching the text. In the Service history section alone I found 4 like that. Since these troubles have a tendency to get "forgotten" I'll just keep on looking and tagging after I find some Pepto. --Brad (talk) 00:57, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
    • I did not honestly believe that so much would be wrong with this article and I wasn't even able to check the book references. The most disturbing issue is the close paraphrasing from the FAS article used repeatedly as a reference. The paraphrasing is most apparent in the "Ships" section where in describing Iowa we have: On 19 April 1989, an explosion of undetermined origin ripped through her No. 2 turret, killing 47 sailors. which is a direct lift of the passage. Other parts of the article read exactly the same with a few word changes to mix things up. The second most disturbing are the citations given that have absolutely no content to back up the passages they cite. It's almost like someone went around sticking cites on things to make it look good. This article has serious problems and they should not be hand waved away like they were in the last FAR from 2008. --Brad (talk) 06:02, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
      • @Brad, the stuff from Friedman should be alright (I just wrote it), but I can't vouch for the rest. @Tom, I can't stress how much we need that U.S. Battleships 1935–1992 book. I can source the ship service histories and designs from my book United States Battleships in World War II, but only from the 1940s to 1976. Anything after that isn't covered. @Everyone, I'm trying to get the time to start a more substantial rewrite, but being at home right now means I am away from my books, and when I get back to university I have a paper and three exams this upcoming week. —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 20:25, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
        • Interesting development here Ed. I happened across another Navy article on BB-61 where it appears that the FAS page has actually paraphrased (almost entirely copied) the Navy article without (plagiarism) proper attribution. I find it unlikely that the Navy article was based on the FAS article. Therefore I now call into question the reliability of FAS as a source. Regardless, Iowa class battleship paraphrases another source which it should not do. --Brad (talk) 00:34, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
          • Not to introduce a red herring, and correct me if I am wrong, but it looks like the chinfo link you gave is a copy of Iowa's DANFS article? I have no opinion on how reliable FAS is, but I'm sure a better source can be used. —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 01:46, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
            • Yes, the ships section is currently paraphrasing the FAS article which was apparently ripped from the DANFS article. Still, the Reactivation potential section paraphrases the FAS article heavily and I'm not aware of any PD source that FAS may have used for that information. And I'm still finding errors in the article but I've given up on listing them all. --Brad (talk) 18:13, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
  • Tom! In this difference you are citing to the NVR but you're linking to the DANFS article instead. In this difference you removed the maintenance tag saying "this is supposed to be here" but there is nothing in the DANFS article on New Jersey that backs up anything in the entire paragraph! The DANFS article history ends after the Vietnam era so why you would use it for anything past 1970 is beyond me. --Brad (talk) 00:34, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
  • Citation #[28] is used 8 times and references page 68 of the act. Page 68 contains wording related to the Army; has nothing to do with ships. --Brad (talk) 03:25, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
    • If this is the citation I am thinking of then it was actaully dead but not picked up as such by the internet checker tool; and the only number I could get when I treid to determine what page the amterial was on was 3862. I am positive that even for a US federal document there are not 3,862 pages, so I left it for later. TomStar81 (Talk) 03:35, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
  • Comments (criterion 1(c)): It has been stated here that the "USS" prefix is not applied to vessels under construction. As stated by the Navy Historical Center here:

    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.

    That issue needs to be resolved, and appeals to a few years of Wikipedia practice should not trump what the Navy itself uses. We should get it right. On a related point, I suggest that the use of the female pronoun not be applied to hulls under construction, especially Illinois, which was scrapped on the shipway, unless the Navy itself applied it to a hull which never became a ship. The few references to the uncompleted hulls can be rephrased to do without pronouns entirely. Kablammo (talk) 15:09, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
WP:MILMOS states that ships may use the female pronoun or it, but that the article must use the same format through the entire length of the text (full text here). We therefore can not remove she from the article without going against established guidelines. Also, the USS prefix debate has no formal guideline umph to back it up, so at the moment the policy we have concerning ship naming proactices takes precident, and that policy states that articles should be located at the most common name, which for now remains USS Illinois and USS Kentucky, despite the fact that niether ship was completed. In other words, the status quo of the information is being maintained in the absence of a compelling reason to change it, although I will take the suggestions you offer under advisement. TomStar81 (Talk) 20:38, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
I'm not sure the "USS [name]" construct is the most common, and Google results are useless given the number of sites relying on Wikipedia. Wikipedia guidelines and policies are not a substitute for reliable sources, and the US Navy source indicates these would not be classified as "USS". We can no more make them United States Ships than we can make all British liners Royal Mail Ships. And neither of these was ever a ship; Kentucky was a hull, and Illinois was not even that. To remove the "USS" from the names of these vessels would do no damage to a fine article. Kablammo (talk) 21:10, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
I see that DANFS does use the female pronoun for Kentucky. ("Her" hull actually got wet-- not sure that makes a difference.) Kablammo (talk) 21:58, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
The revelvent guidelines for the presence of USS are found at Wikipedia:Naming conventions, which states in part that "Articles are normally titled using the most common English-language name of the subject of the article." More over, as noted on the same guideline page, the "...practice of using specialized names is often controversial, and should not be adopted unless it produces clear benefits outweighing the use of common names," and that "...the choice of title is not dependent on whether a name is 'right' in a moral or political sense." Lastly, as note at the page, "if an article name has been stable for a long time, and there is no good reason to change it, it should not be changed." A discussion concerning this interesting nit pick is underway at WT:SHIPS, I suggest that the conversation be condense on thier talk page and kept off this page until such time as a clear consensus emerges for a change in the names, such as they were. Until that time, WP:NAME takes pressidence for both Illinois and Kentucky, unless a consensus of the majority of the editors at FAR feel that such a change is both necessary and warranted for the purpose of maintaining the article's featured status. TomStar81 (Talk) 00:00, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
Where we disagree is the statement that the "USS" name is the most common-- I see no evidence of that. If anything, the "USS" is more specialized than the actual (state) name for the projected vessels. I have posted on the ship project page, but the issue is relevant to criterion 1(c) here as well. Kablammo (talk) 00:23, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
  • Comment - I have finished a complete rewrite of the "Design" section with information from Friedman's U.S. Battleships: A Design History. —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 19:39, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
  • Question - what is the status of the rest of the article? I see many tags from Brad101 (talk · contribs) - are these being addressed, or is someone waiting for a source to come through inter-library loan so they can address these? —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 20:16, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
    • I've been addressing them on the weekends since milhist activity is usually low saturday and sunday, however the last time I went to work on the article you were editting it ed, and I did not want to cause an edit conflict, so I waited until today to do that. As for the other part of your question: I'm unable to check books out from the library, and I've lost my UTEP computer lab privelages, so I was going to use my laptop in the library to add information from some of the library books to help some parts of the article, but the week I went to do that my hard drive died. I should be getting the laptop back sometime this week, so you should see some level of additional material in the article then. I the mean time I am attempting to locate a book of mine that has class statistics for the article infobox material. TomStar81 (Talk) 00:15, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
  • Conversion to BBG I consulted a Garzke and Dulin book printed 1976 which claims that the entire class was considered for conversion to guided missile battleships. This is only mentioned as applying to Illinois and Kentucky. This needs to be clarified. --Brad (talk) 22:47, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
    • I'm going from memory here, but I recall that at the time of the reactivation of USS New Jersey for service in the 600-ship navy there were a number of ideas being floated around for conversions to the battleships; one of which involved the removal of a turret to allow for the installation of a 48-cell vls launcher for increased missile capability. I'll have a look at stillwell's New Jersey book on Monday, he covers the reactivation period so I ought to able to come up with something. For the hell of it, I'll check the naval publications of All Hands as well, maybe there's something in their about the proposal as well. TomStar81 (Talk) 22:52, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
      • I have that book and remember reading about it when I was looking at the conversion proposals for the North Carolina class battleship#Post-war alterations and proposals section. I'll try to add something, but I may not be able to get to it soon; have a lot of schoolwork still to do. —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 01:53, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
      • This particular omission is supporting what others have said here about the lack of research. I found mention of it in the book about 2 minutes after I started looking at the Iowa section. If the information is indeed true then an entire section in this article should be dedicated to conversion proposals. --Brad (talk) 08:17, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

With all of the argument and other comments made, maybe it would be best to just remove the statement about the ships moving sideways when firing a broadside. --Brad (talk) 08:17, 21 February 2010 (UTC)


Peronsal notes

  • Would like to see the article return to 100+kbs if possible
  • Would like to see 100+ citations to 100+ different sources if possible.
  • Explore possibility of switching out article pictures (see FA India for example)
  • More will need to be said on the power plant and the armor sections
  • Consider working the reactivation section into the template via the article USN gunfire support debate
    • Previously noted article may need to be re-afded, adivse as progress here continues
  • When updating the armement section see about adding information to weapony page or to individual weaponry pages before someone FARs or AFDs those on grounds that they suck.

Following the 1980s reactivation, the ships were fitted with a cruiser communication's suite, which included the oe-82 antenna for satcom systems srr-1 and wsc-3 (UHF); links 11 and 14 recieve only. they lacked the Naval tactical data system (http://books.google.com/books?id=VO8BAdZJ7SsC&pg=PA127&lpg=PA127&dq=SRR-1+satcom+battleship&source=bl&ots=UkHdmuY5tE&sig=ThOlrNjG2cY78AZ82uvuDRYF0-0&hl=en&ei=wcMATamcB4SglAet35CCCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBMQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false)

Holding Tank edit

Sergey Gorshokov

Aircraft

REFERENCES

  • Breyer, S., 1970, Battleships and Battlecruisers 1905-1970: Doubleday & Co., New York, p.
  • Brown, D.K., 1977, Speed on Trial: Warship, v. 1, No. 3, pp. 56-61.
  • Carlisle, R.P., 1998, Where the Fleet Begins: A History of the David Taylor Research Center: US Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 661 p.
  • Friedman, N., 1977, The genesis of the big fleet carrier USS Lexington CV-2: Warship, v.1 No.2, pp. 14-19.
  • Friedman, N., 1984, U.S. Battleships: An Illustrated Design History: U.S. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, 463 p.
  • King, R.W., ed., 1971, The David Taylor Model Basin, A Brief History: Naval Historical Foundation Publication, 1971, 1971. Series 2, Number 15 (Spring), pp.
  • Lewis, E.R., 1976, American Battleship Main Battery Armament: The Final Generation: Warship International, v. XIII, n. 4, pp. 276-303.
  • Melhorn, C.M., 1974, Two-block fox; the rise of the aircraft carrier, 1911-1929: U.S. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, 181 p.
  • Raven, F.A., Feiler, A.M., and Jesperson, A., 1947, An Annotated Bibliography of Cavitation: Department of the Navy, David W. Taylor Model Basin Report R-81, December, 205 p.
  • Sumrall, R.F., 1988, Iowa Class Battleships: Their design, weapons and equipment: U.S. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, 192 p.
  • Taylor, D.W., 1911, Some Model Basin Investigations of the Influenece of Form of Ships Upon the Resistance: Transactions of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers, v. 19 (November), p.
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