Talk:General quarters

Pop culture vs. IRL
Is it really necessary or appropriate to rely upon "Star Trek" to describe naval jargon? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.142.245.22 (talk • contribs)
 * A better example of a dramatic depiction of General Quarters would be the GQ scene from the movie The Final Countdown. After experiencing a freakish storm that sends his ship, the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz back in time and not knowing until later what had transpired, Captain Matt Yelland (Kirk Douglas) gives the order to the Officer Of The Deck to sound General Quarters. Wikiphyte 16:43, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Why use any such examples? They all seem to be evasions of the Wikipedia practice of deprecating pop cultural references in MILHIST articles. They should be removed. PKKloeppel (talk) 14:48, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Significance of "Battle Stations"?
This term is used in the lead, and bolded implying it's an alternative name for the same thing, but is not further explained. When would it be used rather than GQ? 86.132.140.171 (talk) 01:42, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

In the US Navy the standard word passed over the 1MC (general announcing circuit) is "General Quarters, General Quarters. All hands man your battle stations." The two are not quite the same thing-a Sailor's battle station is his assigned station when General Quarters is called away.216.137.233.186 (talk) 04:37, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

Term "General Quarters" not used in Roayl Navy?
I would like to question the fact that the term "General Quarters" is not used in the Royal Navy. At least it was used in the past. In "Scrimgeours Scribbling Diary: The Truly Astonishing Wartime Diary and Letters of an Edwardian Gentleman, Naval Officer, Boy and Son (Hardcover)" by Alexander Scrimgeour, ISBN 978-1844860753 the author always uses the term General Quarters, mostl abbreviated as G.Q.

Herby666 (talk) 19:53, 8 September 2009 (UTC)


 * My understanding is that the term is no longer used in the Royal Navy, but that it was in the past. The article reflects the modern usage, not the historical. I am not sure when the term was dropped but it was sometime in the 20th century as I have seen references to General Quarters in the Royal Navy in a 1920s book somewhere. Dabbler (talk) 13:54, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Hatnote or disambig for beat to quarters?
The Horatio Hornblower book The Happy Return is called Beat To Quarters in the US. Presently, trying to find the Wikipedia article for the book using that title brings one here via a redirect, with no indication that another article may exist. It seem to me that either beat to quarters should be made a disambiguation page between here and the book article, or this article should get a hatnote referencing the book, but I'm not sure which. Any opinions? gnfnrf (talk) 23:45, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

French equivalent
and was formerly branle-bas de combat, literally meaning that sleeping hammocks should be cleared off the gun deck, rolled, and stowed on the upper deck of the ship as protection against musket fire.

That's clearly not the literal meaning of the phrase. The literal translation should be provided along with the actions the crew would have taken in response. 72.200.151.13 (talk) 21:50, 31 May 2015 (UTC)