Talk:List of current ships of the United States Navy/Archive 1

February 2006
''This is an archive of Talk page of List of United States Navy ships in commission, an article which has been merged into the current article. It is created to provide easy access to previous discussion, in the Talk page of the current article.''

''Please do not add to, or revise, the discussion here. It is an archive of a previous discussion.''

This should be merged with the article Current United States Navy ships. The US Navy article links to the other list. Brianhe 05:58, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

January 2007
''This is an archive of Talk from List of active U.S. Navy ships, sorted by homeport, an article that was merged into the present one and is now a redirect. This is created to provide easy access to past discussion, in the current article.''

Please do not add to, or revise, this discussion, it is an archive of a past discussion.

It would be nice if someone could incorporate a graphical map showing the locations of these ports. Don't know if it is possible, but it would be cool! 66.25.125.182 16:52, 23 January 2007 (UTC)William

Proposed merge
There is a current discussion here about the merge. --Brad (talk) 00:35, 12 April 2008 (UTC)


 * And there is a draft in progress at Current United States Navy ships/Temp. doncram (talk) 21:38, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Updating list
There is an update and refurbishment for this list being planned @ Current United States Navy ships/Temp where comments are welcome on the talk page there. --Brad (talk) 09:00, 20 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Comments there not welcome any longer.


 * Comments not welcome here either, I believe. Brad101 is in the middle of implementing some moves of article material to an intended final destination List of current ships of the United States Navy, and moves of Talk page material to archives of the Talk page of that destination.


 * This article and Talk page will redirect there. There are several open issues which can be stated in the new Talk page for discussion.  However, I believe that no comments are helpful right now, until Brad has completed the moves (or, Brad, let me know if you want me to help). doncram (talk) 05:49, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Images
Temporarily parking images here while table is replaced.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Brad101 (talk • contribs) 00:22, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

April 2008
''This is an archive of Talk:Current United States Navy ships/Temp, where the new list-table added to this article in April 2008 was constructed. It is created to provide access to discussion as the table was developped, and includes some issues that were resolved and others that are open issues, as of 4/30/2008.'' doncram (talk) 19:11, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Please do not edit this, it is an archive of past discussion

Comments on table building
I sometimes make things too complicated but here are some issues to be discussed while this table is built:


 * Table should not have a numbered listing. Default page view would be alphabetical. See United States Navy ship table headings or Current United States Navy ships. But table should be the full width of the article space.
 * Okay, first of all, thanks for moving the conversation here and providing guidance. That helps me understand how to contribute productively.
 * About the numbered lead column, that can just be temporary, and be deleted later. It is helpful to me while working, to keep track.  I fully intended to renumber as necessary, once the list items were rearranged into alphabetical order.  And to allow the editorial decision to drop the numbering later, if that seems best.  We don't need to fully resolve that later editorial decision now, but, presentation-wise, I and others over in WP:NRHP are finding that numbered lists, such as List of National Historic Landmarks in South Carolina, work well in presenting.  One advantage is that editors and readers can clearly see how many items there are in the list. doncram (talk) 22:42, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
 * If I'm not mistaken, the left hand column determines default list view? If so, it would be fine to move the numbered column all the way right or just before the comments section. That would give an alphabetical listing by default and the reader could choose numbered if they want to. And I see where a comments section would work better than i thought it would so that can stay too. --Brad (talk) 03:01, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Most ship names start with USS, but there are some starting with USNS and MV as well. Am i correct to assume that we will want those ships to appear among the USS ships, ordering them by name of ship disregarding those prefixes, for example as ordered here:

USS Chinook (PC-9) USNS Concord (T-AFS-5) USS Constitution MV Cpl. Louis J. Hauge, Jr. (T-AK 3000) USS Curtis Wilbur
 * ? If so then there would be another reason to have a number column at the left.  I hadn't mentioned, another big reason that we use numbered lists for List of National Historic Landmarks in New York is that it allows us to present buildings named after a person in a "first significant word" order, so we can file Millard Fillmore House, a place sometimes referred to as Fillmore House, among the F's instead of among the M's.  (Ships named after a person are treated differently, as I understand it is correct to consider the first name to be significant.  So we put Edward M. Cotter (fireboat) among the E's not the C's.)  The table could be organized like this:

References


 * Otherwise, I don't understand exactly what you are meaning by default list view. I do think that in tables there should be an obvious ordering in the first column of the table.  In other words, I would want the table to be presented as sorted already by whatever appears in the first column.  That could be ship name, in which case MV names would start the list, then USNS names, then USS names.  Or it could be a number column that provides some other ordering (such as "first significant word" ordering).
 * I do understand that a numbering could be put over in another column to provide a way for the reader to resort the list into some other ordering. And I see that would more or less deliver the benefit of having a numbering that provides a verified count of the items in the list, though the reader would have to sort by that column in order to easily identify what is the highest number.  I don't know of other wikipedia tables that have a numbering over in a right-hand column, though. doncram (talk) 19:59, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I can see at this point that tables can be switched around pretty much at any time. I'm going to respond to the Military Sealift Command topic below and that may change how the tables are laid out or require that new ones are created. --Brad (talk) 07:11, 20 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Both List of United States Navy ships in commission and ships already listed @ Current United States Navy ships need to be compared and duplicates if any, removed. However, all listings should be checked for accuracy with current US Navy sources. There are already some ships that are no longer in service and the updating on both WP lists has been poor. There isn't much sense in moving ships to a new table that don't belong there any longer. The best source for current ship status is the Naval Vessel Register.


 * Okay. I don't mind creating some rows that are later deleted, though.  It seemed easiest to start with the current list organized by type of ship and class, so I could be sure to get those fields in properly.  And then to rearrange into alphabetical order, and then to cross-check against other lists ordered alphabetically.  I'll take a look at that Naval Vessel Register though.  I think i will learn a lot through this process.
 * Whatever works best for you --Brad (talk) 03:01, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

--Brad (talk) 22:16, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Only ships that have been laid down (keel date in the NVR) should be listed. A planned ship is just that: a planned ship and shouldn't be considered a current ship as it doesn't exist.
 * Again, i don't mind creating some table rows that will get deleted out of a final presentation table. Though perhaps they would get moved to a separate table, perhaps in another article or perhaps below in the same page, of planned ships?  In the National Historic Landmark list-articles, we are including separate short list-tables of former sites, below long list of current sites.  Is there a separate list-article about planned ships somewhere?  If not, we could end up creating it.  If there is one, then i would move, later, all the planned ships over to that.
 * Thanks again for your consideration! doncram (talk) 22:42, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
 * A table for planned ships would work as it would separate them out of current. There is no list of planned ships that I know of and I don't think there are enough to warrant a separate list; we have enough ship lists as it is now.
 * Thanks very much! The table is coming along nicely so far and I've just finished another project so I should spend some time over here working. Likely I will compare List of United States Navy ships in commission to this one and start getting rid of that one. --Brad (talk) 03:01, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Military Sealift Command
This was a separate section in the article, after Current Ships. Are these to be included in the table? I rather assume so, as they sound like they are current Navy ships, just not warships. If included, how note that they are Military Sealift Command? doncram (talk) 19:09, 19 April 2008 (UTC)


 * As you will have seen, I've now tried dealing with that by a paragraph in the draft intro which provides a total count (was it 76?) of the ships in the Military Sealift Command and listing out its types.


 * Another way to treat these would be to split the big table into two tables, warships (up to row 276 or so) and the Military Sealift Command (what is now 277 or so to end). Then, within each of those now separate tables, we would present in alphabetical order by first significant word in ship name, but we would not mix across the two big types.  I am not sure how distinct the two types are, whether it is absolutely clear that a submarine tender, say, is a warship, while a replenishment oiler is not. doncram (talk) 07:32, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes you're following some of my thoughts as well. There is and likely always will be confusion about Navy ships and their naming conventions. Let me see if this helps:
 * USS = United States Ship. These are commissioned ships owned and operated by the US Navy and are almost always combatants with a few support ships like sub tenders.
 * USNS = United States Naval Ship. These are non-commissioned ships owned by the US Navy but operated by Military Sealift Command personnel and are almost always support ships for resupply etc. Some may have armament but only for defensive measures.
 * Chartered vessels. An example would be MV Capt Steven L. Bennett (T-AK-4296) which is owned and operated by Military Sealift Command and hired for military use. In regards to this particular ship, I'm seeing that its in service to the US Air Force so should not really be listed as a US Navy ship. Maybe it would be better off listed @ List of Military Sealift Command ships. Anyhow, in regard to chartered ships, the listing of those @ Current United States Navy ships, is questionable and I need to sort that out yet.
 * With the above in mind, I see a table for USS, a table for USNS and a table for planned ships, leaving chartered ships up in the air. --Brad (talk) 08:23, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
 * After thinking about it overnight, I would like to put in my 2 cents for having this article include all of the ships that conceivably could be termed, by anyone, current U.S. military ships. Although I don't know if this feasible, as I don't have any sense of how many usable ships may currently be under Army or Air Force control, like MV Capt Steven L. Bennett (T-AK-4296) as you point out.  :::Perhaps you had this in mind already, but as i get into this I think this list-article could really be very useful and prominent, and that if the article is ambitious enough, it could really provide an important service.  I think that providing one-stop shopping, to answer any reasonable question on how many Navy and/or military ships does the U.S. have, would be a very useful reference and would perhaps serve as the definitive source for news reports.  I imagine that there is no single place that maintains a current, complete list that can be used to say the U.S. Navy has exactly 348 ships in active service, and 20 stricken but not disposed of, or the U.S. military has exactly 365 ships, or there are exactly 276 commissioned U.S. Navy ships, and so on.  The list would be evolving, and any such counts would be subject to change as ships were added and removed from service.  But if we were out there trying to provide a current list supporting such counts, then I think we might enlist all sorts of people to chime in and keep it updated.  If we try to assert some very specific and useful counts, and show how we get to our numbers (by showing the list of ships we think are in each category), then people will be motivated to point out if we missed one, or to point out the fact that one has just been stricken but that is not widely known yet, and so on.  If you and WP:SHIPS cannot put it out there, and make it understandable for citizens and politicians and so on, who else will? :)
 * With separate tables for each big category, as you suggest. One table for current USS ships (which may be defined as "commissioned ships", all of them owned by the U.S. Navy, is that correct?).  Second table for USNS ships (not commissioned, but owned by the U.S. Navy?).  Third table for chartered vessels (these are under U.S. Navy control, they are used to support in Iraq or wherever else, they are part of the effective force?).   Fourth perhaps for Air Force and Army-controlled ships.  Fifth perhaps for ships stricken but not disposed of (so maybe but not really part of effectively available force, depending on what someone wants to say).  I'm sure i don't understand some of the nuances, so the subtables would no doubt have to be somewhat different than this.
 * I guess all this is to say that i am getting enthused about this list, and I am glad you are developing it and allowing me to support. I am willing to help in other ways.  You probably noticed i cleared a bunch of red-links, some of that was by creating stub articles for some ship classes and some types of ships (e.g. vehicle cargo ship), some was by finding pre-existing classes to point to properly.  I would be happy to do more of that for the obscure MV one-ship categories and so on, and to do a better job with them,  too, if it would support an ambitious list-article.  :)  doncram (talk) 17:58, 20 April 2008 (UTC)


 * The need for separate lists per military branch is necessary. There are already lists: United States Air Force ships; List of ships of the United States Army; List of Military Sealift Command ships; List of United States Coast Guard cutters; and as I'm sure you're aware List of Liberty ships. One of the most common factors is that some of those ships at one time or another served in multiple branches of the US Military, for example, USS General Harry Taylor (AP-145) served in the Navy, Army, Air Force and MSC! I think that trying to maintain one list of even current military vessels would be far too time intensive than I've seen WP editors willing to commit to. The condition this list was in before we started updating it should serve as an example of how attentive people have been in keeping it current. Even when people claimed that it had been updated, it was still in error as the decommissioned Osprey class was on the list a year after they were gone. Outside of Navy and Coast Guard ships there are no reliable sources to gather information that I've been able to find. And we haven't even begun to discuss the current vessels that never had a formal name and are referred to as unnamed vessels with just a designation like USS APL-15
 * Back to the subject of this list, a more realistic approach for the near future is a table for USS, a table for USNS and a planned ship table. So, three tables leaving whatever chartered vessels already listed here where they are for now until I can figure out where they belong. This seems to be the layout already completed and it wouldn't have even come this far without your assistance. --Brad (talk) 01:13, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
 * (outdent) Quick comments and $0.02 -- The Bennett (and most if not all of the MV's) isn't government owned. It's owned by a private company, chartered by MSC (which is a Navy command), and operationally under control of the USAF (i.e. it carries Air Force bombs).  I'd lean towards putting USNS/MV's in a separate table and dropping the extra sorting column.  Cheers.   H aus Talk 00:46, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

List of United States Navy ships in commission
List of United States Navy ships in commission has been compared to this working list and as expected there were many discrepancies but that list can now be considered deprecated and ready for a redirect. The redirect will wait as Current United States Navy ships itself needs a better name before proceeding. --Brad (talk) 04:16, 20 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Okay, great that you have done that comparing. Is there more comparing to do against the N V R register?  I think i am about done with adding some class articles and in refining the wikilink appearance for them. doncram (talk) 07:37, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, I need to verify what is on this working list vs what is listed at the NVR. For the most part I think the ships we have listed are current. I've noticed a few ships that need to be moved to the planned table from the current one as the keels have not been laid yet. There were also one or two USS ships that were turned over to MSC and now should carry the USNS designation but I've had enough of this for one day. --Brad (talk) 09:09, 20 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Should the new name be List of current ships of the United States Navy? I wonder also about using the number column to present the main table list of current ships in alphabetical order within USS, then within USNS, then within MV ships. Then separate table for recently removed ships, and for planned ships. doncram (talk) 14:48, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Table editing
USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) (and others) needs to move to the planned table. The question is how to remove it from the current table to the planned table without messing up the numerical order of both tables? How does this happen without having to renumber the whole table? --Brad (talk) 02:32, 21 April 2008 (UTC)


 * No way around it, the numbering is hard coded in. To update, have to go through and renumber all. :(  Just go ahead and move the rows that need to be moved.  I'm happy to do the renumbering later / when it is stable.  (Not clear if it would be altogether good if there were automatic renumbering, in a final table:  the lack of auto-renumbering makes it really clear when a new item is added, perhaps incorrectly.  It is often a pain to do the renumbering, though.)  doncram (talk) 03:00, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

List sorted by homeport
List of active U.S. Navy ships, sorted by homeport is another list which I think can be incorporated into this one. Seeing as there might be room to fit in a column for Homeport to the table layout. Well, planned ships do not have homeports so the comments column can stay in that table but maybe replace comments for homeport in the active tables. This project gets larger as I keep finding other lists. --Brad (talk) 07:16, 21 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Homeport information added, for all ships where it was available at source now footnoted in the article. There are about 16 current ships that we list as commissioned for which no homeport is found, so perhaps those should be checked, are those really current, commissioned ships?  Also there is homeport info available listing about 16 other ships that are not on our current list.  Perhaps those are all stricken ships, this reflects on the Homeport source quality.  Anyhow, i am about done with what i see i can do here now. doncram (talk) 05:43, 23 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm going to consider the list by homeport deprecated and merged into this article. I believe the list was very out of date and the source for that list hasn't been changed since 2005. Each individual ship has a homeport listed in its NVR page and will have to be verified. I suppose there are certain ships that may not have a designated homeport though the ships that have been placed out of service and the ones placed into service since 2005 are needing an update. --Brad (talk) 03:22, 24 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Okay i will check the homeport info individually there. doncram (talk) 03:37, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

non-comm vs comm
I've found problems with listing ships under construction in the commissioned ship table as these ships aren't commissioned. Therefore, despite what I said above about them being placed as current ships, they should move to the non-comm table along with the MSC ships until they do commission. I'm not sure I was clear enough until now. Note the difference between planned (keel not laid), non-comm (MSC or under construction w/keel laid) and then commissioned. I think this is straight now; at least for the next 5 minutes. --Brad (talk) 09:17, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Okay, so i see it as the division into two tables is not working so good. Also, the 3 salvage ships to add, being USNS would be in lower table, leaving one USS one up in upper table.  And the two tables was splitting up other types of support ships too.  So, it seems to me like Commissioned or not could just be one column in a combined table.  I went ahead and set that up adding a column in both tables (Comm = yes above, Comm = no below), ready to merge the two if that seems reasonable.  doncram (talk) 00:03, 22 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Doncram, I'm sorry that I vanished for a couple days; sometimes it can't be helped. I wasn't implying that the table layout wasn't workable; quite the contrary. I was simply trying to explain to you and others my reasoning behind sorting the ships in that manner. A ship commissioning is a very military thing and the tables that are in place now aren't making that distinction very clear unless the columns are followed. The problem I see with a very lengthy table is that once you're halfway or more scrolling through the table you tend to forget what each column stands for. Since I just came back I need some time to get caught up on things and I'll see if we can make things work with this new table layout but I'm not so sure that its going to work very well unfortunately. --Brad (talk) 00:34, 24 April 2008 (UTC)


 * No problem. I went ahead and edited this way to see what it would be like, and to show you what some possibilities are, not to say it has to be one way or another. Do let's see if it can work, though I am sure some modifications will be needed.  One advantage is that as one table, it lets you sort and see all the ships of one type, USS and USNS and MV, together (in a few categories like submarine tenders there are some USS and some USNS).  Maybe we should focus on getting the information right for a while, and in adding/checking against reliable sources for each column.  Please note the question marks, find by sorting on each column. doncram (talk) 03:44, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, I've been thinking about it and I still think the previous table layout was the better way to go. The difference between a commissioned and a non-commissioned ship needs to be made very clear and the small column in the table isn't doing that very well. I had thought the list would be a good opportunity to allow the explanation of the differences between comm and non-comm and had seen where explaining each difference ahead of each table would have been the best place for it. As well, the table of recently stricken ships is going against the expected content of a list titled Current otherwise we're looking at naming the list Current and recently stricken or something along those lines. --Brad (talk) 02:27, 26 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I do think this list-article is a good place to provide explanation of differences between comm and non-comm, and I am trying to provide that discussion up front. I believe it is important, and would be concerned that providing the info only further below, after 275 rows or so of a first table, would bury it too much.


 * I just tried developing that a bit more. Can you add to that description?  Basically, I understand ship commissioning to be a ceremony that says a warship is ready for action.  What is the relationship between ship commissioning and USS vs. USNS designation, however?  Are USS ships to be commissioned, while USNS are not?  And, why would there be a type of ship that has one USS ship and three USNS ships?  These questions should be answered.


 * As for making the distinction very clear in the table, I think it is clear, but do you think a column title "Commission Status" instead of just "C" (with a footnote) would be better? I'll try to change its appearance somehow.  Note, the commission status can be, or already is, clarified in the Comment column for all unusual  ships (USS ships like aircraft carrier Bush that are not yet commissioned).  I believe you that the distinction is important for some purposes, and so I think the table should be very clear.  Separating current ships into two tables would be one way to make the distinction clear.  However, there is benefit for other purposes to having one table:  for example, someone interested in the current U.S. aircraft carriers can find them all together, including the Bush which was launched 2 years ago and is apparently in sea trials now.  For many purposes, such as understanding U.S. capacity to project air power in the next year or two, perhaps for politicians to argue about budgets, it is relevant to include Bush or at least to be very clear that it is coming on-line all the way soon   The one-table format with use of the Commission status and Comment columns allows for that to be very clear, too, which is a good thing.
 * About the title of the article, and including a supporting related list or two. Having a supporting related list or two does not require changing the article title.  The purpose of having the Planned ships and the Recently removed ship lists is to support the Current ship list.  It provides verification for readers/editors that we have not missed something.  As you pointed out, other editors had not been aware that some ships were stricken.  The recently removed table can serve the purpose of informing others that those are really no longer part of the current list, that our listing of current ships is deliberate and well-informed, it is not just that we omitted certain ships that other editors will chime in again and erroneously add back in again.


 * FYI, there are wikipedia Featured Lists such as List of Pennsylvania state parks which include similar related list-tables, such as former state parks, below the main title-relevant table. doncram (talk) 14:54, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Add these

 * USS Gladiator (MCM-11) (MCM-11) Avenger-class mine countermeasures ship, replaces a misnamed ship at that hull number
 * USS San Juan (SSN-751) (SSN-751) added
 * USNS Grapple (T-ARS-53), was USS Grapple; Safeguard-class Salvage ship added, with Commission status "N?" (As this is USNS, that means not commissioned?)
 * USNS Grasp (T-ARS-51), was USS Grasp; Safeguard-class Salvage ship No article exists as yet. added, with Commission status "N?" (As this is USNS, that means not commissioned?)
 * USNS Salvor (T-ARS-52), was USS Salvor; Safeguard-class Salvage ship added, with Commission status "N?" (As this is USNS, that means not commissioned?)

Need to check facts; don't add just yet

 * USS Grapple (ARS-53) (ARS-53)
 * USS Grasp (ARS-51) (ARS-51)
 * USS Honolulu (SSN-718) (SSN-718)
 * USS Salvor (ARS-52) (ARS-52)

Homeport issue
Homeport info is missing for about 16 ships that we have listed as Commissioned. To see, click on Commissioned column and then click on Homeport column.

The Homeport source also provides homeport for about 16 ships NOT listed in our current ship list. These are: Norfolk, VA:
 * 1.In homeport source, Camden AOE-2 is listed at homeport Bremerton, WA, but this ship does not appear in list above. (Note, the homeport source also included 2 recently stricken Bahrain ships, too.)
 * Decommissioned and struck in 2005
 * 2.Similarly, USS Tempest, PC-2 is listed with homeport Little Creek, VA, but does not appear in list above.
 * On loan to the Coast Guard; still listed as commissioned with no homeport
 * 3.Similarly, USS JOHN F KENNEDY, CV 67 is listed with homeport Mayport, FL, but is not in table above.
 * Decommissioned August 2007
 * Similarly, homeports reported also for:
 * Austin
 * Decommissioned and struck 2006
 * Saipan
 * Decommissioned and struck 2007
 * Shreveport
 * Decommissioned and struck 2007
 * Trenton
 * Decommissioned and struck 2007
 * Pascagoula, MS:
 * Thomas S. Gates
 * Decommissioned and struck 2005
 * Pearl Harbor, HI
 * Honolulu
 * Still questionable
 * San Diego, CA
 * Belleau Wood
 * Decommissioned and struck 2005
 * Coronado
 * Decommissioned 2005 and struck 2006
 * Cushing
 * Decommissioned and struck 2005
 * Dolphin
 * Decommissioned and struck 2007
 * Duluth
 * Decommissioned and struck 2005
 * Ogden
 * Decommissioned and struck 2007
 * Valley Forge
 * Decommissioned and struck 2004

Unnamed
As of 2006, the following ships are
 * Authorized but unnamed:
 * T-AKE-6 – T-AKE-11, (I added these to planned section. doncram (talk) 21:07, 22 April 2008 (UTC))
 * DDG-108 – DDG-112, (I added these to planned section. doncram (talk) 21:07, 22 April 2008 (UTC))
 * SSN-780 – SSN-783. (Actually 780-782 are named already and all 4 already listed, with more, in the planned section. doncram (talk) 21:07, 22 April 2008 (UTC))

Row numbers in table…
Sorry I'm late to, um, well, the table guys (bad pun, I know), but I didn't realize this discussion was going on here. Numbering the rows will accomplish what you're trying to do, but it doesn't seem the best solution to me. Any time a ship is added or removed—admittedly, not a frequent occurrence—the table will have to be redone. Plus, numbers imply a either a ranking of ships or a Navy-sanctioned number, which, if I understand correctly, is not the case. What I'd suggest is using  tags to 'hide' the real sort key. Take a look at the code for this table:

The formatting is a little trickier to start out, but doesn't have the disadvantages that the numbering scheme has. — Bellhalla (talk) 03:17, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Part of it is my fault; I thought I had posted a link to this project on WT:SHIPS but then realized a week or more later that I hadn't. Anyhow, I very much like your idea as I wasn't thrilled about the numbering myself. Unfortunately, I've just moved the tables over to Current United States Navy ships but I think it would be well worth while to implement this scheme into the tables now. It would appear that by using the span tag, the entire table won't have to be renumbered each time a ship is removed or added; just inserted alphabetically, which is a huge plus. --Brad (talk) 05:22, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I like table row numbers for a number of reasons. A major advantage that they provide is that they all you to make statements like there are 345 ships in the table.  The number of current ships is a very valuable number to make clear in this way.  There are other reasons.  I also think you both over-estimate the difficulty of renumbering a table.  It is very easy, very obvious to do, when a new ship is added.  It is somewhat of a pain, but it forces the editor to come to a new verified total of the ships in the table.  However, before trying to finish discussing the merits of row numbers vs. hidden fields (which have disadvantages too), I think it is better to settle some other questions about the article first.


 * Let's move this discussion over to Talk of the new, hopefully permanent location. doncram (talk) 05:41, 30 April 2008 (UTC)


 * This is becoming somewhat annoying in that your work on this list has been on your terms so far and while your help has been an immense plus you've steamrolled most of the changes I wanted to implement. I'm also puzzled over why you seem so intent on closing down conversation in one place and wanting to move it somewhere else. Bellalla's idea is more inline with surviving without a numbered list and imo allowing for easier editing of the tables. I'm able to count the number of rows as much as anyone else can and I never bothered to ask why you brought in a second numbered column which doesn't seem to add any value to the tables. What works for a list of historic places does not necessarily work for a list of ships. At this point I can go and post a new topic @ WT:SHIPS to gather consensus over a numbered list versus one that is alphabetical but this is becoming silly. --Brad (talk) 14:14, 30 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I appreciate what you are saying. I think there has been some friction in our misunderstanding each other as we developed this so far.  Some friction is probably unavoidable when two people have different perspectives to bring to bear on a problem, but I would like to do better at avoiding it if possible.  I thought, though, we were working on the article together in a sandbox, and that in doing that together we have already achieved something quite good, though definitely having a number of open issues.  I thought you were going to move it out into an intended-to-be-final destination, and do the Talk archiving that we discussed at your own Talk page.  I don't mean to close down discussion, but rather to open it in an organized way as I thought you also wished to, putting in an archive the talk that we had already gone through so that others would not have to wade through it (which you agreed they should not have to), and I am trying to follow your lead in doing that and/or offering to help open it in that way.  It would be, or would have been?, nice to come out with a positive announcement that you and I had completed a certain amount of work that replaced 3 out-of-date lists and accomplished a bunch more already.  I think it gets harder to open it constructively in that way, once others come in and pick up on all the back-and-forth that went on already and perceive bigger differences than are in fact present.
 * About steamrolling or not, I don't think i have been doing that in any sense of disrepecting what you have wanted to do. In the process of developing this list so far, I have indeed "been bold" about doing some things, like putting together the main big table to start with, and putting in a numbering of the rows.  This at least settled some questions, like whether the entire list can fit in one article and be loadable and sortable in a reasonable amount of time, and it showed what a numbered list could look like and how that could support a bunch of statement about numbers of ships, draft statements that i put into the intro text.


 * About there being two numbered columns, I agree that there should not be two. I should perhaps have clarified already that I did not want for both of them to be kept.  I expected we would finalize some discussion about whether there should be separate USS vs. USNS tables, whether the ships should be presented in alpha order within each or combined, or whether the ships should be presented by type of ship, and then we'd reorder if necessary and strip out one numbering at least.  As Bellhalla has now edited the table, it stripped out both numberings.  It would be a lot easier to rearrange the table into the ship type ordering, if that was chosen, if the second column remained so it could be reorganized by that numbering, and then drop the first column.  I was keeping the second column to preserve the option of going that way.  It is quite laborious to do a manual sort of the whole table into a significantly different presentation order.  (Bellhalla, FYI, I already did one manual sort that way, converting from the ship type order into the alphabetical order.  Creating the table in the ship type order was useful for getting all the ship types and classes in and verified consistently, without introducing errors that would probably have entered if the ship types and classes were added into an alpha list by individual lookups for each ship.)  No harm done if it is chosen not to go in the second ordering way.  It would not be a big deal to restore row numbers if the presentation order is to remain alphabetical.  I could feel a bit steam-rolled now, but i will choose to understand Bellhalla's edit as well-meant.


 * About any other aspect of steam-rolling, I believe that my edits directly followed your lead and direction in many other respects, such as creating new rows for ships that you identified as missing, and in adding the homeport information once you called attention to that other list which could be merged in (although I took the data from its source rather than from that list). Where my edits did not follow your lead, I thought we had open issues, some of which would go away upon some more discussion.  Although our Talk back and forth reflected different opinions at times reflecting our different editing experiences in wikipedia, I thought and expect that some remaining "differences" are not contentious but would go away as other information came out.


 * For example, about the "difference" of whether finally to include one row numbering vs. none, I think that would be consistent with taking on a goal for the list to provide a fairly authoritative count of the current ships (and counts of each type) at the U.S. Navy's disposal, based on best available public information. I think that would be a very worthy goal but I do not regard it as agreed, because I don't think you have endorsed it, and because I am  not familiar enough with the sources available to know whether it is feasible to put out credible counts and thereby to create new (well-supported) information.  If the list is merely to be an index to selected current specific ships, merely a combination of the several previous lists, then I would be disappointed, but I would then agree that row numbers don't serve much purpose and that "difference" would go away.


 * And, specifically I believe that I did not ever delete any large amount of work that you had put in. The closest to that was my recombining the USS and USNS ships and moving to the front/edit what you had started as intros to separate sections.  I do not disrespect, and don't believe that I have disrespected, your opinions.  If I did I would not have invested the considerable time that i did to actually show you how some things could be done, while identifying and leaving open a number of decisions that are of more editorial nature until later.


 * I am still stuck though, feeling stymied about where to present what are the open issues to get others' feedback about, and which I expected would show you even more strongly that i did not disregard anything you said coming to this point. But isn't this Temp/Talk page to be deleted eventually? doncram (talk) 18:29, 30 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I think given what seems to me like misunderstandings how this is/was to be rolled out, that I should just do the Talk archiving, etc., now, rather than be frustrated and/or cause frustration. Am doing that.  Moved article from Current United Navy Ships to List of current ships of the United States Navy.  Putting this talk, up to this entry, into Archive 2 of the Talk page of the renamed article.  Then will try to open the discussion in the Talk page there.  Please bear with me. doncram (talk) 19:11, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

April 2008
Where are the remaining 16 ships. We have 276 ships in the Navy, yet only 260 are listed here. Please correct me if I am wrong. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Doncram (talk • contribs) 19:36, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Major revision accomplished
In Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ships, User:Brad101 proposed merging what was then Current United States Navy ships and List of United States Navy ships in commission and putting them into sortable table form. Later he noted that List of active U.S. Navy ships, sorted by homeport also could be merged in. He and I implemented those mergers, leading to the current list-table.

We have put into Archive 1 of this talk page the previous Talk from the "Current United States Navy ships" article, an article which had started in 2005. Its edit history is preserved within the current article, moved from that name to the current name. Archive 2 contains Talk from the temporary sandbox area, "Current United States Navy ships/Temp", where Brad and I developed the current table, but which may itself be deleted. Archive 3 contains archived talk from the "List of United States Navy ships in commission" article, an article which had started later in 2005. That article's edit history is preserved in the edit history of List of United States Navy ships in commission, now a redirect. Archive 4 contains archived talk from "List of active U.S. Navy ships, sorted by homeport". That article is now a redirect that preserves its edit history, too.

While much has been accomplished by the development of the tables in the current, merged article, there are a number of open issues which ought to be discussed. It's revision accomplished, not mission accomplished. But for the moment, I want to thank Brad101 for leading this merger and for allowing me to contribute. doncram (talk) 19:26, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Some open issues
There are several substantive and/or editorial issues that came up in discussion while developing the current article, and perhaps some more are obvious too. To keep this organized and understandable, can we try to list them here and then actually discuss them in separate discussion sections? Anyhow, to start, this is my cut at some of the open issues. Please add to the list. I probably missed some, will try to add some more too later when i can review the previous Talk and edit history. doncram (talk) 20:39, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
 * 1) Purpose To provide an authoritative source on the total number of current ships at US Navy disposal, and of numbers of ships of various types, or is that goal not feasible? Or other goals?  If goal is to provide an index to selected current ships without attempting to be comprehensive, then draft intro putting forward counts needs to be cut entirely, probably.
 * 2) Sources What are sources for all data in table / can the sourcing be provided more clearly to meet verifiability standard throughout. Note the homeport column is sourced and footnoted (although its source is apparently outdated).  Some text and/or footnote discussion of quality of sources is perhaps needed, to explain how well we can know what are the current ships of the US Navy.  Determine what is the best possible "best available information" that can be achieved, and then convey that to the readers.
 * 3) Separate or combine USS and USNS and MV ships, in one or two or three tables
 * 4) Presentation order Is it most useful to present the table in ship name alphabetical order, mixing USS and USNS and MV or not if one table. Or is it more useful to present the table alphabeticallly by ship type.  Some orderings can be recreated more easily than others by the reader sorting of the table.
 * 5) Size of ships (not discussed yet) Is it useful / sufficiently important to add a column with some size measure for ships, construction cost or tons of displacement or another measure, which conveys relative importance of ships. The total of this column could be added up and provided as another goal / output of the article.
 * 6) Age of ships (not discussed yet) Is it useful / sufficiently important to add a column with some age measure, such as date of commission or construction. The average age, simple average or perhaps weighted by size of ship, can be provided as an output of the article.


 * 1) Commission status How can the importance of commission status be conveyed properly? Options are to separate commissioned ships into a separate table (but then that splits some types of ships into two or more tables).  Currently conveyed by C=Yes or No column.  Another option: retitle that column "Status" and put in Commissioned / In sea trials / Under construction / other options.
 * 2) Row numbering Can provide some benefits, has perceived disadvantages
 * 3) Hidden fields and template calls (not discussed yet) Don't mean to pose this in a loaded way, but the article can include hidden fields and calls to undefined and other templates that add a lot of bulk to the article and slow down loading and sorting.

Please add others. Of course anyone can edit this any way they want to, but perhaps discussion should be in separate sections below. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Doncram (talk • contribs) 20:39, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Sources, use of footnotes
An anonymous editor just moved some ships to/from current status, removed from service status, and planned ship areas. I expect the editor has specific knowledge and is correct in these updates, but the moves (and all the rest of the information in the table) ought to be supported by specific citations. If the rest of the information is not supported clearly, then anyone providing new reports like this has little reason to provide specific support for their updates, and we cannot sort out what is accurate / verified or not.

What are the basic sources for the current status of ships? Is there any one definitive source? I know that one source, the source footnoted for the homeport column of the table, is not a current source, it appeared to be last updated in 2005. doncram (talk) 17:01, 9 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I would really like to understand what are intended to be the sources for accurate information about the Commission status and other information in the list-article, and how accurate are those sources. The quality of available sources affects the possible goals/purpose of this list-article, so I think this is about the most important question to discuss first.


 * The Naval Vessel Register is currently the only major source cited. What is the quality of that source?  It is not maintained on an extremely current basis, because that is proven by it currently listing North Carolina as "in service" but not yet commissioned, while we have news reports proving that North Carolina was commissioned.  Also, for homeport information, which was, I think, based on a NVR specific page, no longer linked, the information was clearly bad, clearly not updated since 2005, missing information for about 15 ships and providing homeport information for about 15 ships no longer in service.


 * At a minimum, we need to amend the statement of sources for the Commission status column to say that sources also include specific news reports and/or otherwise indicate that we will provide (and welcome) further corrections. I think we should explicitly discuss the quality of the NVR source in the article.


 * For every change that we implement in the table based on an update of status, I think that should probably be sourced by an explicit footnote.


 * The source now given for the homeport information, all of which I edited, now points to the Naval Vessel Register, rather than pointing directly to the source that was used previously and which I used (which was perhaps a specific page within NVR, now lost). So currently I do not believe that column is sourced accurately. doncram (talk) 03:47, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
 * The Naval Vessel Register is a US Navy site maintained by the US Navy. How much more authoritative can you get than that? I'm not aware of any other site that could be considered a reliable source other than reputable news publications. Yes, the NVR is often a bit buggy in nature and updates don't happen hourly or even daily. In the case of the North Carolina, the ship was commissioned on May 3rd and today is the 12th. Can we allow the Navy more than 9 days to update the register?


 * Well there are many Federal websites on many subjects that are not kept very current and/or have inaccuracies, which makes using them as sources in wikipedia articles like this one a bit problematic, although manageable. I am suggesting that the list-article should, at least in footnotes, try to describe the data quality of the main sources in the article.  I gave an example of the NVR website not instantly updating one fact, and we have the other example of the NVR not updating one of its webpages for 3 years.  I'm sure you could give more examples, and that you have a more developed general sense of how quickly on average they update for status changes;  I wonder if that can be put into words in a factual way that can be used in the article.  By the way, since the office supporting the website has a name suggesting it is involved in ship-building, I wonder if they are more up-to-date about ship-building status changes, and less so for homeport station and other in-service information.


 * The homeport page of the NVR clearly states it has not been updated since 2005 so I'm not sure why you would continue using that as a guide when each individual ship page likely has the latest information as to homeports. Please stop using that outdated homeport page.
 * I used that source because it was the source cited by the predecessor article "List of US Navy ships by homeport" that was one of 3 lists merged to make this list. Actually I believe I told you I was doing that before, during, and after i did so. :)  In doing so, I verified that every homeport reported was as listed in the source.  It was/is the source of data in the homeport column, so I think it should be shown as the source, or a source, unless or until the data is all re-checked against another source.
 * I would certainly be happy to look up each and every one of the homeports in the NVR individual ship listings if those are likely to be more current. Checking a couple, I notice the individual listings provide homeport info for a couple ships, perhaps newer ones, for which the homeport source did not provide any homeport (Bainbridge was one).  But checking a couple others (Kitty Hawk and Mustin) for which the homeport source did provide homeports, I notice that the individual ship listings provide no homeport.  Do you think it would be best to use the individual listing as the source, if a homeport is provided there, with a footnote referring to NVR and giving an accessdate for the lookup, and otherwise to use the homeport source, with a footnote referring to the 2005 date mentioned in that source?  I guess I  could do that.  So each line will have one or the other footnote, because not all the data in the column will be from the same source footnoted at the top of the column. doncram (talk) 00:07, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
 * The current condition of the tables is one reason why I did not want to move away from the /Temp page we had because now I have to do all the editing on a live page. This is a painstaking task as I have to look up each ship in the NVR one by one to find the current status. Keeping that in mind, there isn't much reason to start citing sources for ships until the tables are sorted. The ones that I have been able to sort out now have a link in the comments row leading to the corresponding NVR page so that checking facts later on will only require a mouse click. --Brad (talk) 15:46, 12 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Oh, i hadn't yet noticed row-specific footnotes about current status. Sounds like that painstaking work is necessary.  Maybe indeed a separate footnote is needed, is a good idea, for each row then.  Besides providing source for commission status, that would provide the sourcing for homeport for most rows.  A separate homeport footnote, tieing to the 2005 homeport source, could be added for only those rows like Mustin and Kitty Hawk where there is no homeport given in the individual ship listing.  I don't happen to understand how sorting the table differently would facilitate the checking and footnoting of sources, by the way. doncram (talk) 00:07, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
 * There isn't any concrete source for these ships and we will have to live with that. Reading around the NVR pages shows that they rely on official notices from the Navy before they make changes to the ship listings. So, they won't update a ship based on a newspaper story etc. They also claim that updates are made once a week and the last update listed was May 2nd. Sources that we can use are NVR, News releases, and possibly Navsource. Navsource is a privately run site but their accuracy is quite good in my experience. Sources for homeports are sketchy and in relation to this article they aren't a high priority need. Military Sealift Command ships (USNS and MV etc) don't seem to have assigned homeports as the 15 or so articles I looked up don't have homeports listed for those ships. If we don't have a homeport listing, then we don't have one. --Brad (talk) 17:11, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Ships in the news
Not only no, but hell no! News items are better placed at the individual ship article or on wikinews. Section removed. --Brad (talk) 01:25, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Organization of list
Brad101 pointed me to some hidden comments now added to the article, which I take it are in effect proposals for how different sections should be managed, aimed at future editors.

I am not clear on some aspects of how the table(s) should be organized, but I think it is more important to clarify the sources for, and the purposes/goals of the list-article, then some of the organizational / management questions are settled.

For what it's worth, about the hidden comments for the "recent removals" section, I certainly agree it is fine to clarify that only recent removals should be listed. I don't know if that has to be hidden, or whether an exact policy has to be defined, but the proposed policy there that only removals 2 years old should not be a problem. (But, i wonder what if a ship was removed several years ago, yet reflected in the article as current? It would seem appropriate to me to list that in the recent removals section for a while, if not for two years from when the correction news is noted, to convey the news for a while, because it is evidently news to some of us.  This was the case for some ships on the predecessor lists, that Brad101 found.  But maybe now we have completely accurate information, so this shouldn't be an issue going forward.  So how a two-year policy should be implemented doesn't really need to be debated, it can just evolve as cases come up.)

Brad101, would you care to highlight any other points now in the hidden comments? doncram (talk) 04:03, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Some of the hidden comments could actually become unhidden and added to the explanation for each table but it's also important for the drive by editors to be able to see there is some protocol in how the list is maintained. Obviously we can't quote an editing policy into the readable version of the page so some comments will have to be hidden.
 * I'm not planning on hunting down any ships that may have gone out of service in the past two years that aren't already listed here. The recently removed table is more like a courtesy for the reader than anything else. And the more I think about it, if this table becomes a problem over what ships and how long they remain in the table it would be easier for all to just remove it. I wasn't keen to the idea to begin with.
 * Lastly, I need to stress that the tables need sorting first before anything else gets done. --Brad (talk) 15:46, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

There needs to be a list including only commissioned ships that is actively updated. Ships under construction but not yet commissioned should be in a separate list and not yet given the "USS" designation indicating they are in commission. More properly, they should be referred to as "PCU name" for "pre commissioning unit" which is the designation of the ship and its command until comissioned. When commissioned they can be moved to the commissioned ship list, and when ships are decomissioned they can move to the recently removed list. Mdewman6 (talk) 20:18, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Each section of this article is editable on its own so I don't see the reasoning behind making separate lists. There were separate lists prior to this one but they were all combined into one. For purposes of Wikipedia we assign USS to any US Navy ship article regardless of its current status. Of course Sealift Command ships get the USNS prefix. Your suggestions would be more militarily correct but since Wikipedia has ship articles from all countries it is better to designate accordingly by prefix. --Brad (talk) 11:52, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

USS Zumwalt
Currently USS Zumwalt is in the commissioned ships, but as far as I know, she should either be in the underconstruction or planned columns. -MBK004 11:21, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Maybe that's why there is a big tag currently on the article that says This article or section is in the middle of an expansion or major revamping ? --Brad (talk) 15:46, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Ahh, just wondering ... that was the only blatant error I could see on my first look. -MBK004 17:54, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Filesize and file-loading-time issues / Hidden fields and template calls
The current list-article, at filesize of 106,996 bytes, is hitting the suggested limit for articles. Adding a ship-specific footnote for each row will cost more file-size. What can be done? I think basically reversing one big edit done on April 30, which took the filesize from 74,661 bytes to 103,951 bytes would fix most of the problem. User:Bellhalla may have improved the appearance somewhat, but most aspects of that big edit were not helpful in my view, and it was at cost of a lot of file-size directly within this file. It was at additional cost of loading time for the 730 or so template calls added (2 per row times 365+ rows). For example, 11 characters per row and a 365 calls to a template were required to use the "nowrap" template around the Hull numbers, when beforehand there was no line-wrapping issues present. The filesize increase of the big edit would have been larger still, if Bellhalla had not at the same time deleted a column of row numbers and a second column that provided for an alternative ordering.

Consider the following two versions of a short table. They look and function pretty much the same. The top one is edited to remove two template calls per line (nowrap template and sclass template) and otherwise reduced in file-size and speed of loading, although adding a column to convey size of ship (Full displacement, in tons, from N V R). It is also edited to combine 2 homeport columns back into one column.

Following is an extract of the current version of table including template calls to nowrap and sclass on each line, and hidden sort field. It uses 2 columns for homeport information, although it seems we are coming to consider that to be less important information. Filesize is larger, and loading time is slower, for this as a fullsize table vs. the above as a full-size table. The centering of the Y or N for Commissioned status looks better, but costs about 14 characters per line.

I would prefer to spend the limited available file-size on row-specific footnotes, on providing a size column (perhaps tons of displacement as above), and also in adding back row numbers to support the list-table being a verified, clear source of the number of current ships (in total and of various types). The filesize could be spent differently; perhaps others would prefer other additions instead. doncram (talk) 22:25, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
 * As things are now, with the split of the tables to comm and non-comm, the C column can be eliminated entirely from both tables and in the non-comm table the homeport columns can be eliminated. As far as the nowrap tags are concerned, they aren't required on entry's that only have one word. For example the hull number entry will never wrap since its one word T-AK-3005 where as USS Salvor or Cargo ship could potentially wrap at anytime if the table layout forces it to. In the Under Construction table I had a problem with wrapping the dates as they were forcing the table to scroll the article to the right --> which was unsightly; I removed those wraps. I'm not sure if the span tags are required any longer since the table numbering was removed, though I continue to use them not knowing otherwise. In an article that is 100k in length the former Current Ships table was taking about 90k of that space which was also unbalanced. --Brad (talk) 17:53, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Today's observation is that in the hull number column where a hull number is a single digit such as AK-9, you need to use the span tag to hide AK-09 or else the hull numbers will not sort correctly when sorting by hull number. --Brad (talk) 21:09, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

The file-size is now over 140k, largely for good reason of adding all the individual row footnotes. But I remain mystified why all the NOWRAP and SCLASS template calls are used. The NOWRAP template calls fight against the very smart table display algorithm which chooses when to wrap text pretty well. What is so bad about wrapping words so that "Attack submarine" or "San Diego, CA" shows up on two lines, if that works best in adjusting column-widths so the table displays well? These template calls could be reduced dramatically, saving much file-size directly and many calls to many-line templates which I believe slow down file-loading considerably and add to the effective file-size. Also one other small trick is to delete the one non-essential space after the | bar in each line.

Consider, one row currently in article (with 5 explicit template calls):


 * Asheville USS Asheville (SSN-758)
 * SSN-758 SSN-758
 * Los Angeles-class submarine
 * Attack submarine
 * San Diego, CA

Consider, this could be reduced to (one explicit template call, and roughly 2/3 the direct file size by my rough estimate):


 * USS Asheville (SSN-758)
 * SSN-758
 * Los Angeles
 * Attack submarine
 * San Diego, CA

Note, I certainly follow Brad101's point that use of the equivalent of SSN-758 SSN-758 is needed to support proper sorting for some rows of the table, so that those rows slot into the right place when sorting.

However, note that this type of heavy-handed sorting support is not needed for the first column of the table, i.e. Asheville in the first column of the table is not needed. The table can be resorted to original order by hitting refresh in your browser; this can be pointed out by a footnote to the first column title.

If all these NOWRAPS and SCLASS calls are stripped out, and the column-widths are allowed to adjust freely (not fixed to any specified percentages), then perhaps everything will look great. Or perhaps there will be one column or another that may not look good, in which case just a few strategic NOWRAPS (perhaps just one in the first row of the table) may be needed to force an appearance improvement.

I would still like to add a tonnage displacement or other size measure column of real data into the tables, too. doncram (talk) 20:45, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure why this is such an issue at this point. My concern from day 1 was to get the list updated so it would be as accurate as possible and it's now very close. The more time I spend carrying on these verbose conversations the more time it will take to finish what still needs to be done. In the meantime two things come to mind: Don't worry about performance and Wiki is not paper. --Brad (talk) 18:32, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
 * In 3 nicely labelled edits on 30 May, Bellhalla implemented most of the specific suggestions discussed above, freeing up 20k of space, bringing article size from 146k back down to 126k. There remains some smaller gain yet possible from eliminating SCLASS calls in one or two of the four tables. Thanks Bellhalla!  doncram (talk) 00:06, 1 June 2008 (UTC).

List accuracy is developing
I knew the former version of this list was inaccurate but I hadn't realized just how inaccurate it was until now. Let's just say the old list was a total farce and move on from there. All ships on this list and the ones I'm discovering that were excluded need a verification. If you see a link to an NVR page in the comments section of the tables, consider the ship approved for inclusion here. There are of course many ships that I still need to check. --Brad (talk) 22:52, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Checked so far
Tables that can be considered accurate are:
 * 1) Commissioned
 * 2) Non-comm
 * 3) Ready Reserve Force
 * 4) Under construction
 * 5) Planned
 * 6) Recently removed

And I'm entertaining the idea of deleting the Recently Removed table as its really not in the scope of "current ships"; would require a lot of effort to locate every ship removed from service in the last two years to be anything close to accurate, and we can certainly benefit from the lessening of the article size if it was gone. --Brad (talk) 01:58, 16 May 2008 (UTC)


 * How about moving that table to a separate article then (see further note below about moving out planned ships too then). As a separate article, it could still serve its function of documenting, with sources, why a given ship has been removed from the tables of current ships.  Note, given potential conflict in various sources, there may be cases where you/we choose to remove a ship while there exist non-updated sources saying it is still a current ship.


 * In general terms, keeping a record somewhere of recent changes is something that i view as a fundamental part of maintaining a current inventory list of anything. The N V R source on U.S. military ships is aberrant in that that office appears neither to maintain a current list (in any one document or webpage) nor to provide recent changes reports.  They only update individual ship pages, apparently.


 * For another system of lists maintained by the federal government (of National Historic Landmarks for example), the government provides individual pages about each item plus an overall list-document which is updated every six months or so. Each new version of the list-document includes bolded notes about any changes (such as the move of a ship from one location to another location often in another U.S. state) that are new to the new edition.  The notes about changes may be repeated in several versions, until a given change is old news and then the change is no longer noted.  I have been supporting use of a short "Recent removals" section to provide a similar service.
 * For another type of item, places listed on the National Register of Historic Places (including ships sometimes), there is a weekly report of new listings, which NRHP list-maintaining wikipedians subscribe to by email or check at a webpage regularly. It is weird, in my view, that N V R only puts out the info in individual pages about the individual ships, and does not issue changes reports.  I suppose they don't view it as their job, they just update the individual ship pages when they receive an official change report from somewhere else.


 * You have no obligation to go back and fill out every ship that was removed in the last 2 years, if the section is kept in this article or if it is moved to a new one. No one, including me, has wanted for there to be a lot of effort invested here.  Going forward, I would hope that any removals would be recorded.  Hope this helps you to understand why i was supporting maintaining something on recent removals. doncram (talk) 00:27, 20 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Actually, I think it is logical to keep a section on recent removals if the article has a section on planned ships / ships under construction, for symmetry. If recent removals is to be  moved out to a separate article, then it would make sense to move out planned / under construction ships as well.  However, i would somewhat prefer to keep them both in. doncram (talk) 00:37, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

USS No Name
See: No Name at the NVR. There are a lot of these ships or craft that are currently owned and operated by the USN, in non-comm service without having names assigned. If you thought this article was already too long then just imagine what the length will be after these are added. Naming convention for unnamed ships on WP thus far has been to use USS APL-2, for example, which isn't perfect but works all the same. --Brad (talk) 03:42, 20 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Yikes, I estimate roughly that there are 300 or so listed there. So should all those be added in?    With the current article name, I am inclined to think they should be added, and then it is so long that the other sections do have to go to other articles.  Or, an alternative would be for this article to be a "List of named current ships of the U.S. Navy", which seems to me to be less helpful than a list of them all (with the useful information, not obtainable anywhere else, of how many there are, which would be about 700 now).  Or, another alternative would be to impose a size cutoff, and have this list be only ships above a certain tonnage.  Probably many of the unnamed ships are small ones.  The smaller ones could go into a separate list-article like this one. ?  doncram (talk) 02:56, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Home ports
I suggest linking to the appropriate naval base, rather than to the community in which it's set. Some of them do already, e.g. Little Creek, Mayport, Pearl Harbor. —WWoods (talk) 00:11, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
 * So in the case of San Diego we could use Naval Base San Diego? Or perhaps use NB San Diego. Either way, it would allow us to kill out another column. I like that idea. --Brad (talk) 01:58, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

More lists found
Articles posing as lists; noting for possible merge or needing work: --Brad (talk) 03:28, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
 * United States Naval Ship, a redirect of USNS and should be compared to List of Military Sealift Command ships.
 * United States Navy ships

Kitty Hawk status
In the main ship article USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63) there is a reference to: which says in part: The Navy's last fossil-fueled aircraft carrier, the Kitty Hawk is being retired, moved from Pier 6 at the Bremerton Naval Station to the shipyard next door, where it will ultimately be decommissioned. and the NVR Entry makes note that a decommissioning ceremony took place on 31 January and shows her as still in commission. I'm moving Kitty back to commissioned ships table with a note on the status. A ceremony does not always mean actual status. --Brad (talk) 15:29, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Date of Ship List
Is it possible to insert a prominent date of the ships in this entry? As noted in discussions, much of the info was compiled in 2005, but it would be helpful for users to know at a glance how current the material actually is.

BTillman 23Feb09
 * I keep the list as current as possible. The entire article was revamped some months ago. The trouble with placing a note saying "this page was current as of xxx" is that as soon as you do, its outdated. --Brad (talk) 22:15, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Service craft
I noticed there are a number of service craft listed in the Non-commissioned list. These include 2 ARDMs (misspelled as ADRM), 2 APLs, 2 IXs, 1 YD, 15 YTBs, and 2 YTTs. If we are going to include these, then all the other service craft would have to be included. This would include numerous barges, lighters, tugs, cranes, and IXs (all the ones listed here: ). We should probably limit the list to those vessels classified as ships on NVR, otherwise this list will quickly become far too bloated. Lest69 (talk) 01:33, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
 * See the mention here on a similar topic. So far I've tried to limit entries here only for ships that have names. The idea of adding all of those unnamed craft to this list is not something I wish to think about. The majority of those unnamed craft are hardly notable enough to actually warrant an article. --Brad (talk) 07:38, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

A peevish note
I might as well self-label this as a peevish note. I happen to have put a good amount of work into developing this list-article and its current form largely reflects that. Brad101 has throughout the process been rather sour and complaining, in my view. Just now he finished wiping out one section, Recently removed ships, which had been subject of plenty of discussion. In the context of that discussion, his edit label "Recently removed from service: rm section. No apparent need for this and article is already too long" is snide and just mean. This is after he, just recently, removed the previous discussion including everything i previously said here to an archive, cutting it so that this talk page starts out with his self-serving note about how, gee, the previous accuracy really was poor, as if only he was able to improve it and all work by others previously was poor. Further, it is irritating to me that Brad101 puts himself in an ownership box using maintained at the top of this Talk page, which proclaims himself as an authority on sources for this article, and please see him altho no he does not claim ownership. He just makes it a point to take over credit for what he likes and otherwise to eradicate others' contributions (at least my ones) that he doesn't like! I happen to think that Brad101's judgment about sources is poor and shows undue respect for the one main source for this article (NVR, www.nvr.navy.mil). I frankly don't believe the accuracy of this list, I doubt that it agrees with any official counts that the DOD or others maintain. In fact the Recently removed ships section was one supporting section, with others, that provided some support, indirectly, for the accuracy of the list: it provides clarity for users who might evaluate the quality of the list in part by the accuracy of its changes, and to see whether the current version took them into account properly and promptly or not. It also could be used to shed light on the accuracy of the NVR source. Having the recent changes in makes the list more useful to anyone who might actually want to use it and/or the NVR as a source. This was discussed previously, in the archived Talk, that having just a flat list with no recent changes, just like the main source for this article, is a lower quality way of supporting a complex/big list. It was also discussed that if space considerations were a big problem, the section could be moved to a different supporting article. And Brad101 previously actually scoffed at my work to save space, yet now he uses space as reason to simply obliterate a supporting element. I really never post a note like this in wikipedia, but I thought I should call it as I see it, which is that Brad101 has been a real jerk on this one! doncram (talk) 00:29, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I think the recently removed section should be added again. As mentioned above its the only way to have a fast look what changes have been done. It is also an important information what ships have been decomissioned recently which is hard to find somewhere else. --Dangermouse600 (talk) 22:24, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I also concur. Having "recent decommissionings", perhaps for a period of five years after said decommissioning, would be quite useful, and sensible. - The Bushranger (talk) 22:27, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

USS San Jose (AFS-7)
Is there a reason that this ship is still in the list? As I can see it is no longer in service. --Dangermouse600 (talk) 22:24, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
 * USNS Concord (T-AFS-5) is another case. It is also no longer in service. --Dangermouse600 (talk) 22:41, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

And what about RFA Stromness (A344)? Tell me when I'm wrong. But what makes this ships "current" ships? --Dangermouse600 (talk) 22:52, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
 * And it continues with USNS Kilauea (T-AE-26).--Dangermouse600 (talk) 23:00, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Another one: MV PFC William B. Baugh--Dangermouse600 (talk) 11:42, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Next One: MV Pvt. Franklin J. Phillips. --Dangermouse600 (talk) 11:48, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Overlap
There seems to be a lot of overlap between this article and United States Navy ships. Should they be merged?99.108.205.213 (talk) 11:34, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Current ships
The page states: "There are currently 1111 aircraft carriers". There must be some mistake here. The details show 11+9*, ie 11 'real' Nimitz Class aircraft carriers, + 9 in secondary status. Dawright12 (talk) 18:56, 5 April 2013 (UTC)


 * 11 Nimitz?! I thought 10 Nimitz and the other carrier, was an old which used oil as a fuel which was retired in late 2009 or so? I don't think the US Army can afford 20 Nimitz carriers since it will see budget cuts, but the Army would need yearly increases only because of inflation, I mean 600 billion from 2003 are different to 600 biilion in 2015. The navy needs a lot of oil-based fuel too, the Abrams is a good tank but its fuel consumption is a desaster which was no problem at the time the tank was designed... also there will be cuts in F-35, I really can't see the Navy and Airforce to replace their old fleet for a multi-role fighter like the F-35 in a number of ~3000 (thats what I read on German Wiki), this is too expensive. First it hit the Russians, now with a much smaller country and budget. The USA are the same, but the cold war is over. Look at C-130, I mean this transport aircraft is in service for over 55 years and I think more than 20 years are planned! Of course smaller upgrades are being made and a small number of C-130J Super Hercules was produced, but even from this 250 Super Hercules there have been exports to Italy and the UK. Now the debt crisis, the B-52 Bomber is the same... it will be in service longer than most of us live like the C-130.


 * Together with the budget problems (they even shut down .gov websites, the jobless rate wasn't released because the Ministry was forced to close to save money, the EIA-Website was updated weekly for like 20 years, in 2 days there should be a report coming, it will become the third record missing, the States are now solvent because the Reps gave finally their OK to a new debt limit, the old limit of 16.7 trillion was increased and debt is over 17 trillion in fact, the States are solvent until February, 7! In earlier debt limit "fights" the intervals were larger, but now we almost have november and at early february its already over.


 * This is very bad for all of us who live the "western style", Americans, Europeans... since the USA are losing their worldpower status anyway I hope they do not invest large amounts in projects in the hope to get back on top. I hope this money is invested in the country, for the people, the economy... so that the easy worker keeps his job, maybe with a bit less money or no raise in salary for a while, but this is the Way. I'm no "real" German, but Germany or Italy (after US help from Marshallplan) showed that it is possible to get out of even the deepest shit if you work hard. Now Russia is back on its way, oil, gas and all kinds of minerals make it a large power. The only NON-OPEC Producer which delivers to almost all parts of the world, oil, gas, coal, nickel, copper, uran... lucky they lost so much territory, especially Kazakhstan, another Country with extreme large ressources in almost every important mineral or energy-source. Lets hope there will be no West vs China (maybe backed by Iran, Pakistan?) conflict, since India does not like the cooperation between Pakistan and China. It is like after 1929... it can take a while, much longer this time because they handled the crisis a bit better, or they "bought" time, but this time the outbreak of great strikes and clashes could be in India, China or somewhere in Asia. This is not like Libya with its 5 million people or Syria with 22, it is China with ~1,340 million or 1.34 trillion or India, growing fast with over 1.21 trillion. Imagine a war with China on one side of an alliance and India on the other... the menpower mass...stalins dream in world war 2, unlimited menpower and outnumbering the enemy with high own losses.... Kilon22 (talk) 17:43, 21 October 2013 (UTC)


 * TLDR... summarize, perhaps? What is relevant to this article? - the WOLF  child  10:02, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

editing
hey there I remember we used to be able to sort the ships with arrows from oldest to newest and alphabetical order etc... could we do that again made it easier to sorting out the ships to keep it current I would do it but don't know how to thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yoctownyocol (talk • contribs) 23:07, 6 March 2014 (UTC)


 * The list is sortable by date. The problem is, the dates are day - month - year (ie: 31 July 2014). Only the number of the day of the month is sorted, instead of the year (which is useless). What is needed, is to have the date order reversed; year - month - day (ie: 2014 July 31), this would at least organize the ships chronologically by year (just not by month & day). It's a rather large task, editing every. single. ship's. date. I have considered doing it, but just haven't had the time. Please feel free to take this on if you like. This applies to anyone. - the WOLF  child  10:10, 26 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Disregard above. I found a small line of code to add to the table template that will sort the dates as is. They can remain as day-month-year, and the table will still sort them in proper chronological order. I learned something new... yay. - the WOLF  child  12:22, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Reserve Fleet
Would it be beneficial to list the ships that the USN currently maintains in reserve? Those ships which have been decommissioned but not struck from the NVR are still property of the Navy and could be reactivated just like the MSC Ready Reserve Force (which is listed). 98.194.13.148 (talk) 02:29, 16 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Go for it. - the WOLF  child  10:13, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Well, I just happen to have already mocked-up that edit last week. I've gone ahead and put it live. Now to work on the text in the intro and counts. That might take some time to count... 98.194.13.148 (talk) 05:52, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Major edits
- the major changes you made to the Commissioned Ships table (dividing it into multiple tables based on ship type) was unnecessary as the main table was already sortable by type, along with every other category (name, hull no. & class). Also, before making such large changes to article, you should seek consensus beforehand on the talk page. - the WOLF  child  01:49, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

Also, for a list of current USN ships divided by type, see List of currently active United States military watercraft. - the WOLF  child  01:40, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

Update October 2015
As of Oct 2015, the following ships need to be moved from the "Planned Ships" list to the "Future ships, under construction" list: Thomas Hudner DDG-116, laid down 11 Nov 2012; Paul Ignatius DDG-117, laid down 30 Sept 2014; Daniel Inouye DDG-118, laid down 31 Oct 2014; and Delbert D. Black DDG-119, laid down 21 July 2015. MR2David (talk) 19:20, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

✅ - - the WOLF  child  02:34, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

Planned Ships
Right now, there are 7 Burke-class destroyers listed under Planned Ships. Once the contracts went out, bringing the class up to DDG-126, someone went and added them. They currently have no names and it could be several years before the last of the keels are even laid. The reason I bring this up is, if we're going to do this for the Burkes, then why not Fords? Why not create entries for CVN-81 to CVN-87? And the Americas? (LHA-8 to LHA-16?) And any other classes with confirmed "planned" numbers. See where I'm going with this? If we do it for one, we have to do for them all. Which mean adding another 20 Virginas, and however many LCSs they're gonna make (52? 32? 24?). And so on, and so on, along with any new classes that come down the pipe-line. So, do we add everything? Or remove these Burkes and only added ships that are closer to either being started, or named (or whatever...). I don't really care either way, I'll go with whatever consensus says. - the WOLF  child  01:39, 29 October 2015 (UTC) Also see: List of aircraft carriers in service - Carriers in planning stage - the WOLF  child  15:31, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

Here is an example of what we would be adding;

Planned Ships (cont'd)
✅

Last 8 LCS/Frigates

❌

I listed these potential frigates separately. We don't know exactly what the navy has planned yet. Just that The last 20 of the LCS ships would be frigates. Do we even know if they will be FF or FFG? Will the number scheme pick up after the Perry class at FFG-62? Or the after the Garcia class at FF-1099? Anyways, other than these frigates, the rest of the entries are on the main table above. I added every currently in production class with multiple ships still remaining to be built. - the WOLF  child  17:26, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

Additionally, there is some sources that state the navy is considering using the Legend class for this group of 20 frigates. We also know this as the National Security Cutter, currently in use by the US Coast Guard. These ships certainly do look like they would fill the role of frigate nicely. But there's also talk of lengthening and 'beefing up' the LCS Freedom class or using something different altogether. We'll just have to see. - the WOLF  child  11:31, 1 November 2015 (UTC)


 * I've added these ships the article "planned" table. All but the frigates. - the WOLF  child  18:10, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

I would suggest to remove those ships, as they are not yet reflected in actual Navy ship building budgets. These plannings are preliminary and might (and certainly will) change. These are currently only speculation and wishes. --GDK (talk) 19:18, 12 December 2015 (UTC)


 * You're correct in that these numbers could change, but as it stands right now, those are the numbers cited in reliable sources. Should those numbers change, we can always change the table as well. - the WOLF  child  02:59, 13 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Reduced the proposed "Frigates" table from 52 to 40 due to announced reduction in LCS numbers. - the WOLF  child  05:49, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

fyi

 * To reduce the length of the table due to all the 'unnamed' entries, I've commented out the bottom half of the list. It's still there, just not visible except with the edit window open. I've left an edit note both explaining and requesting that entries that have new name added also have a source attached. - the WOLF  child  18:01, 1 April 2016 (UTC)