Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2019 January 18

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January 18

Sexualities

Lgbtqhx,?? How many different sexulaities are present on earth and why?86.8.202.148 (talk) 02:42, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

You could start with Template:Gender and sexual identities... -- AnonMoos (talk) 03:43, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

ALL of them. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:52, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

The ever-growing initialism does so because it lumps together multiple distinct but inter-related topics: sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, and so on. For the literal question being asked about the number of sexualities, human sexuality spectrum is the place to start. To better understand why the initialism encompasses so many things, see sex and gender distinction and LGBT. I've found this to be of use. The page goes on for some time into details, but the graphic at the top summarizes the topic about as well as possible, given the complexity. Matt Deres (talk) 14:54, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

Your question is difficult to answer because you are talking about things that shade into each other rather than existing as discrete categories. It's similar to asking how many races or ethnicities there are. It depends where you draw the lines between them. Beorhtwulf (talk) 21:57, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

battleships

Japanese battleship Nagato's secondary guns, the 14 cm/50 3rd Year Type naval gun, was the primary gun of many cruisers.

HMS Nelson (28)'s secondary guns, the BL 6-inch Mk XXII naval gun, was the primary gun of many cruisers.

Italian battleship Roma (1940)'s secondary guns, the 152 mm /55 Italian naval gun Models 1934 and 1936, was the primary gun of many cruisers.

French battleship Richelieu's secondary guns, the Canon de 152 mm Modèle 1930, was the primary gun of many cruisers.

Basically, WWII-era battleships used "cruiser guns" as their secondary armament. This is true for every country with the notable exception of US. WWII-era US battleship were all armed with "destroyer guns" as their secondary armament (AFAIK).

1. What's the reason behind this idiosyncrasy? Were there some sort of US doctrine or a commissioned study that advocated for this arrangement? Are there any naval history books that cover this design choice in more detail?

2. Were there any major exceptions to this rule? I.e. were there other countries that also used "destroyer guns" as their battleship secondary armament? Or were there any US battleships that had "cruiser guns"? Mũeller (talk) 07:43, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

The 5" guns used on US destroyers were somewhat heavier than than the guns used on British destroyers at the time, the 4.7-inch gun. However, more modern British battleships, the King George V-class battleship (1939), had moved away from a 6" low-angle secondary battery to the QF 5.25-inch naval gun which could also be used against aircraft and was much closer to the US secondary armament, although admittedly it was also used to arm Dido-class anti-aircraft cruisers. Alansplodge (talk) 09:12, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the input!

Interesting that the British went with a slightly smaller caliber as the war progressed. Mũeller (talk) 10:28, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

Yes, the Queen Elizabeth-class and Revenge-class battleships had their 6" batteries stripped out and replaced by 4-inch dual-purpose guns to improve their anti-aircraft capability. The secondary batteries were originally intended to deal with destroyer attacks, which were too quick for the big guns, but aircraft turned out to be a bigger menace. Alansplodge (talk) 11:26, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

The importance of aircraft to naval warfare of WWII should not be understated here, as Alansplodge points out. There's an aphorism in military history "Generals fight the last war", and at the start of WWII, it was expected that the naval supremacy would rest on giant battleships, as had happened in WWI, where battleship-centered naval warfare ruled the waves. So the admirals prepared for a battleship-centered war. The change to different guns came about because WWII wasn't ruled by battleships, it was ruled by the aircraft carrier and the submarine, with the major naval threats coming from a directions (above and below) that it had never come from before. Aircraft in particular were a threat that required major changes in tactics and weaponry, and that's why the major decisive battles of the war tended to involve carriers, Attack on Pearl Harbor, Battle of Midway, etc. Once the leadership came around to understanding the threat carrier groups presented, they started to arm their ships in a way to defend against them. --Jayron32 14:49, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

To be fair, nobody has a crystal ball and things don't always turn out as intelligent people predict. In the pre-war Royal Navy, considerable efforts had been made to rearm capital ships with the best anti-aircraft technology available, so that big ships could put up very impressive barrages that were thought to be unsurvivable for enemy aircraft, and armour on the most modern ships was thought to give good protection from bombs and torpedoes. In the Norwegian Campaign in 1940, the Home Fleet survived weeks of bombardment from the air with fairly limited losses, which suggested that the air theorists were wrong and the naval theorists were right. Later experience was to prove otherwise. Alansplodge (talk) 18:12, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

Todays 155 mm Artillery (see Category:155_mm_artillery) has a reach of up to 30 Km. The 155 mm projectiles in the widely used M109 howitzer weight around 50 Kg (see M795), so they can still be handled fast enough manually by one loader Its just a size that works optimal in reality. Smaller is a loss of impact, bigger is to difficult to handle. Its also an logistic advantage when one type Ammunition can be used by multiple platforms and even allied forces, like the 5.56×45mm NATO ammunition. --Kharon (talk) 03:54, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

Responding to the original question: (1) Japan and the USA got into the war much later than the other countries with major surface fleets. (2) Japan had a history of using unusual armaments; no other country (with the exception of wacky experiments) used 18-ish-inch guns on capital ships, for example. (3) The US had more than two years to watch what was going on in European naval warfare, including decisive and lesser aerial victories over capital ships. Nyttend (talk) 01:59, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

Not so, the design of the Iowa-class battleship was finalised at the end of 1938. It takes a long time to build one of these things. Alansplodge (talk) 18:23, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

What's the latest back pay has been?

Which would depend on when the missed paydays of the other other long shutdowns were and how many days after it ended before they got paid. Will the next payday be soon after the shutdown ends or will they have to wait for the first or second regularly scheduled once per 2 weeks day after it ends? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 16:25, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

Still seems vague as to when exactly furloughed workers will receive their back pay, but the President has signed legislation that will guarantee that they receive it "as soon as possible when the shutdown ends." [1] Of course, the shutdown has to end first and that may still take a while the way things are going. --Xuxl (talk) 18:32, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

Well, the longest may be 21 years (as planned) or 12 years (as finally adjusted) per the World War Adjusted Compensation Act of 1924 and modified via the Adjusted Compensation Payment Act of 1936. Soldiers from WWI were granted extra combat pay in 1924 in the form of certificates that matured only after 21 years. They were OK with this until they all lost their jobs in the Great Depression, then a bunch of them came to Washington to demand their pay in 1932 (see Bonus Army). Congress moving at the pace Congress does, finally agreed to pay them their back pay in 1936. --Jayron32 19:48, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

But that could also be seen as them being paid 9 years ahead of time. --76.69.46.228 (talk) 05:16, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

“QSC” in acknowledgements of the book “Lethal White” by Robert Galbraith/ JK Rowling

In the acknowledgement of her book “Lethal White”, JKR writes:

“The QSC, on the other hand, just got in the way.”

I have no idea what she means and am very curious. Is she having a go at a British institution? —Lgriot (talk) 23:14, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

Someone asked this question on a Rowling fan forum and got no replies [2]. I suspect it's some kind of private reference that the general public is not supposed to get. There is no British institution going by those initials. --Viennese Waltz 07:00, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

In the Q code, QSC apparently means "Are you a cargo vessel?" if that helps (probably not ). -- AnonMoos (talk) 09:52, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for trying, AnonMoos and Viennese Waltz! --Lgriot (talk) 16:39, 22 January 2019 (UTC)