Talk:Bath Iron Works

NPOV? This page seems to be almost an advertisement for Bath Iron Works. Could someone take a look at it? I don't know anything about shipyards, but this page needs work.--V. Joe 00:03, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

What do you expect, a criticism section? I think we would be hard pressed to find someone who knows about the Bath that doesnt work there or for the Navy. I think it's fine. --72.177.29.129 21:57, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree that it's probably tough to find an "authority" on BIW (I've not seen the term "the Bath" before?) to write up the article. But the Man from Mars has a point: this article has three paragraphs of content and an irrelevant quotation (which I'm actually about to strip unless I find a citation for it,) and of those three paragraphs there's only two sentences of history, two or three of opinion (where does BIW stand, in fact, among private employers in Maine?) and a paragraph and a half on a single (if singular) job, the Roberts overhaul.

What's missing? Maybe a few more graphs on history, citing Bath's shipbuilding history (the multiple yards on the river,) the evolution of BIW from Hyde Windlass, its start on Navy ships and how that business grew to squeeze out all other work, perhaps links to the (many) different classes of ships produced there (I know there's extensive destroyer class information already in Wikipedia, maybe there's someone who could help with links,) and a thumbnail description of the transition from slip-ways construction to the new(ish) land-level facility.

Am I the only Wikipedian with both Snow and Sanders (see the "Further Reading" section) on my bookshelf? - Pjmorse 01:45, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

This page is definitely POV. And why no mention of when the "borrowed" confidential navy documents?IsaactheNPOVfanatic 13:01, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

On Why POV
I appreciate that someone finally discovered the origin of my wikiname. That said, this article still has serious problems
 * 1) I don't expect a criticism section, but I would like some facts. Such that:
 * a)I assume that the article is correct in that the US Navy has been the primary source of Bath contracts, but the article does not say whether or not the Bath Iron Works has produced contracts for other major and minor US and foreign government agencies... For example, the US Army Transportation Corps, the Royal Canadian Navy, the US Coast Guard, Military Sealift Command or NOAA Not to mention completely private concerns like various merchant marine companies? Some shipyards were also put to use producing other mil. equipment like tanks and artillery as well
 * b) Labor relations? Is Bath Iron Works a Union concern like some of the other U.S. shipyards like Northrop Grumman Newport News or Electric Boat?
 * 2) Why the paragraph about the USS Samuel B. Roberts? I admit that it was a singular repair job... but the page on Northrop Grumman does not talk about the repair job on the USS Cole (DDG-67).
 * a) Nota Bene: the page on Northup Grumman DOES have a criticism/scandal section!

Therefore, I am going to be bold on this article. Cheers V. Joe 16:09, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

I've started a history section based largely on skimming Snow (see References section.) The book is essentially only a whisker from being an Official Company History, so while it's free to talk about contentious issues in the company's past, he doesn't cover all sides of the POV issues discussed here. (Speaking of full disclosure: Snow's publisher was my grandfather. I grew up within sight of the yard.) I was able to address 1A. 1B I don't have the references to answer beyond the bald statement that BIW is in fact a union yard; they've struck twice in my lifetime. I'll add that if I can find a reference beyond personal memory. 2... well, I'm hoping to make that graph just one more section in a number (perhaps even moving it to the Roberts own page rather than keeping it here.)

Some of the "scandal" mentioned above happened post-Snow and therefore requires newspaper research. I remember it being in the headlines but not enough particulars to sketch out. --Pjmorse 05:08, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Roberts Repair
While I appreciate the work done on the Roberts, the graph was stripped from the article because it seems to have more to do with the ship than the yard--and it is well-covered in the article on the Roberts. (See discussion above.) I'm going to take it back out now, but I'd love to see discussion. (And no, I haven't yet had time to continue the history section I started months ago, if anyone wants to pick it up...) --Pjmorse 19:17, 31 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Think the Roberts repair deserves at least a sentence, if not a whole graf, and not just for the ship's sake. By surviving a hit that NAVSEA engineers thought should have sunk her, the Roberts validated the penny-pinching design of the entire Perry class, the U.S. Navy's largest post-WWII class until the Burkes. More to the point here, Roberts' performance validated the Navy's against-the-odds decision to award the design-and-build contract to BIW, and demonstrated the skill and work ethic of the shipyard that conceived and executed it. So the Roberts would be worth mentioning here even if the repairs had not been done in Maine. But they were -- and they proved to be among the most complicated and difficult warship-repair jobs ever performed, perhaps the most remarkable since the 72-hour turnaround of Yorktown in 1942. Unlike the repair of the Stark, which required the reconstruction of upper modules, the Roberts repair required the 315-ton replacement block to be sledded under the damaged ship and jacked up into place, with a tolerance measured in tenths of an inch. Really, there's not a post-World War II ship that deserves mention in this article if the Roberts does not. PRRfan 04:23, 1 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Seeing no objection, I've readded the graf, with a bit more context.PRRfan 13:37, 11 June 2007 (UTC)


 * OK. Your added context makes the connection with BIW more specific and relevant to the main article. --Pjmorse 18:08, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

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Multiple liquidations absent
As is the article is more a list of ships built at a location by a series of companies that took the name Bath Iron Works. Yes, the name was quite famous during and after WW II with a notable reputation for destroyers in particular. Any quibble with "Bath built" during that wartime period as a note of excellence can easily be refuted by references, including naval. That company had not much to do with the BIW that existed on the site before 1926. That company, largely by then building standard yachts on its own account, was in the hands of receivers for auction of all assets by 1925 and 1926. There was an even earlier case that is also not mentioned. The troubles again came with naval construction and the grand old destroyer builder of WW II was taken over by a conglomerate (There was a U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings article in the 1970s using that as an illustration of degraded expertise in shipbuilding as long term shipbuilding executives were replaced by corporate people with zero experience with ships or naval matters.) In summary, the existing article leads one to think this was one entity that continued into the present. That is not the case. Palmeira (talk) 13:06, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
 * This article has been structured as the history of a location and its shipwrights rather than the financial entities which profited from those resources. I suggest the more diversified of those companies may be appropriately recognized in separate articles with links to this article as appropriate, while this article might briefly discuss those companies as their success or failure contributed to local history, with appropriate links to the articles about the more diversified of those companies. Thewellman (talk) 17:43, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I would support its continuing as the story of shipbuilding at that location for the very reason the corporate entities varied. That provides structure rather than scattershot articles about companies that occupied the site. The World War II entity might warrant a stand alone because it was famed in naval circles and there is a fair amount of documentation. That said, the current article does not make clear that a number of entirely separate corporations bore the name at that location. A reader can quite easily fall into the false view that a single corporate entity occupied the site the entire time. The same applies to the ships. The builder that ended building a series of production yachts into liquidation in 1926 did not evolve to building notable destroyers. The problem could be fixed by either sections at those change points or even simple paragraphing with a brief discussion of the corporate change.
 * I focus on ships and occasionally shipbuilding developments but have references and could perhaps take on something of that sort. Then someone focused on shipyards and that area and history could do that too and perhaps better with local resources. Palmeira (talk) 19:57, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

A re-read brings me to now disagree. It is treated as a corporate entity, not at all a location with multiple entities. Just look at the GD logo and "Since 1995, Bath Iron Works has been a subsidiary of General Dynamics" to get a "Nope!" to it being about a location. That is going to take considerable work to change into a unifying story about a series of corporations occupying a location building ships. To be "the history of a location and its shipwrights" an introduction more on the lines of "A shipyard located on the Kennebec River in Bath, Maine, has been operated by a number of corporate entities since 1884" and development from there as a location. The article as is misleads readers on basic fact. Palmeira (talk) 20:24, 4 January 2021 (UTC)