Talk:History of the United States Navy/Archive 1

Untitled
Midway? The Battle of Coral Sea? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.56.210.195 (talk) 20:37, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

''The most notable American naval hero of the Revolution was John Paul Jones, who defeated the British ship HMS Serapis in the Battle of Flamborough Head. Partway through the battle, with the rigging of the two ships entangled, and several guns of Jones' ship Bonhomme Richard out of action, the captain of Serapis asked Jones if he had struck his colors, to which Jones replied "I have not yet begun to fight!"''

This paragraph is rather partisan and fail a npv, John Paul Jones was considered a war-criminal in British History for his actions during this battle.


 * Going by your IP address, you're the same semi-literate who added the poorly-written accusations to John Paul Jones that I just reverted. If you'd spent two second studying the JPJ article, you'll notice that it originally came from 1911 Encylopedia Britannica, which as a British source would presumably report all these dastardly deeds of his. In any case, you're going to need a documented source if you want these claims to stay in. Stan 05:09, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Full of Errors
At a glance,

However, the Taft and Wilson administrations failed to capitalize on the Navy's progress, and by World War I the Navy did not have sufficient strength or credibility compared to Britain or Germany to guarantee the neutrality that President Wilson desired.

Taft and Wilson continued the Naval Build up at the same rate as Roosevelt, two balltleships a year right to to the eve of the US entry into the First World War when the program was expanded.

widespread revulsion at the prospect of further carnage led to the Washington Naval Conference

The primary reason for the Washington Naval Conference was cost not revulsion. The Naval Race that preceded World War I was horribly expensive and the major powers wanted to avoid another race triggered by the rapid building plans of the United States, 6 Battle Cruisers and 6 Battle ships that were under construction.

The first new battleship since 1921, Washington, was laid down in June 1940.

This is dead wrong. The Washington was launched in June of 1940 and by the time it was launched the USA was in the midst of a major buildup that would have seen 17 Battleships built.

The Washington wasn't even the first Battleship in the new buildup.

FY 1937 Ships USS North Carolina, Laid down October 1937. USS Washington, Laid down June 1938.

FY 1939 Ships USS South Dakota, Laid down July 1939 USS Massachusetts, Laid down July 1939 USS Indinia, Laid down November 1939 USS Alabama, Laid Down Febuary 1940

FY 1940 Ships USS Iowa, Laid down June 1940 USS New Jersy, Laid down September 1940

FY 1941 Ships USS Missouri, Laid down January 1941 USS Wisconson, Laid Down January 1941 USS Kentucky, Laid Down March 1942 Construction suspended twice, never compleated USS Illinois, Laid down January 1945. Canceled August 1945 Never compleated.

5 Super Battleships of the Montana class were authorized for FY 1941, but were suspended in May 1942 before the Keels were laid, and canceled in 1943. They would have been far larger than the Iowas Class Battleships that were compleated.

It also became clear that the era of the battleship had come and gone; while the battleships at Pearl were raised and repaired (with the sole exception of the demolished Arizona),

This did NOT become clear right after Pearl Harbor, construction continued on the Battleships that were being built. It wasn't until after the Carrier battles of 1942 that it became clear that the days of the Battleship as the primary offensive weapon were over. The Arizonia wasn't the only Battleship tha was sunk at Pearl Harbor that wasn't repaired. The Oklahoma was righted and raised to clear it's bearth, but the ship was considered to be too old to be worth repairing.


 * As you'll soon discover, WP has lots of mistakes to fix - so go for it! I tried to summarize my understanding from reading Howarth, but did a hamhanded job at times, and improvements would be greatly appreciated. Stan 00:21, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Decline of the Navy Section
The decline of the Navy after the Civil War really could use some references, the whole thing seems a little light to me, especially considering its importance in the whole 'Old/New' Navy organization in this article. I added some tags, please add the information if you have it. Thanks! Kirk (talk) 18:54, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
 * more thoughts...


 * Definition of the time period (1865 - 1880?)
 * Comparison of 1865 personnel and ships vs. whatever year was the minimum.
 * What they did with the ships (in ordinary/active?)
 * Comparison of US Naval forces to other countries
 * Fiscal Budget of US Navy during this period
 * Evidence that the Navy was too small
 * Important people during this time period
 * Any actions during this period. 'None' would be significant in my opinion.
 * Kirk (talk) 19:08, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
 * All done - could use some better comparison info & I left out the budgetary stuff, but its much better now. Kirk (talk) 16:08, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Federal Navy?
I renamed the "Federal Navy" section "United States Navy" because I've never seen it defined that way. Note: I've seen "Federalist" Navy apply to the period when the Federalist Party controlled the presidency (1787 - 1800), but I don't think that applies here. There was a Continental Navy, then no navy at all, then the United States Navy.

Federal Navy seems to be applied during the Civil War to distinguish the United States Navy, often called the Union Navy from the Confederate Navy, as well as to identify the many Confederate naval officers who served in the United States Navy ... for some reason.

This article probably should have a Confederate Navy section since it was formed from the ships and men from the United States Navy, with a link to the main article.

If you come across a source that discusses the term Federal Navy (this article does not need more unsourced material), please add the info to the article. Thanks Kirk (talk) 15:41, 14 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I probably got the term from Howarth's book, which was the main source I used for the original version of this article. It could very well be Howarth's invention, deriving from Federal Period. I could take offense at the "unsourced material" remark but won't - in 2003, best WP practice was to list the sources at the end of the article, the whole line-by-line footnote/reflist machinery came much later. Stan (talk) 19:49, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Not trying to offend, I just meant use footnote/reflist 'machinery' moving forward. FYI: I looked in Howarth's book, but I don't find that term.  I see it all the time in DOANFS-based articles.  Kirk (talk) 20:47, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Hmm, then I don't remember, Chappelle maybe... If only I'd cited a page and line, eh? :-) In any case, don't want it if the term is idiosyncratic. Stan (talk) 21:21, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

B-class Project
After yet another random date change in this article without a reference, I've had enough! :)

For those of you watching this page, I want to form a small team to elevate this article to Milhist B-class. I suggest we primarily use quality secondary source US History 1775 to Today-type monographs & I sugggest Miller, Howarth, and a third one(ideas?) Chapelle. The goal is to go through each section and add a date range for the section, then find references for the unreferenced statements, ideally one per sentence but at least one per paragraph, and of course fixing all the stuff which is unreferenced or wrong, but not totally rewriting the prose.

Update
The article needs a lot more work, but I think its B-able now. Kirk (talk) 21:04, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Action in the Gulf of Sidra (1986)
There should probably be some mention of this somewhere in the text since it was one of only a handful of naval battles fought by the us in the modern era.XavierGreen (talk) 15:32, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Assessment
Nice work, B-class. I did, however, make a large number of minor fixes throughout the article. Djmaschek (talk) 04:19, 24 December 2010 (UTC)