Talk:USS Washington (BB-56)/Arcchive 1

Battleship duels
I have removed the paragraph claiming that Washington was one of only two modern US battleships to engage another battleship, since I know of at least seven others (South Dakota in the same engagement against Kirishima as Washington; West Virginia, California, Tennessee, Maryland and Mississippi against Yamashiro at Leyte Gulf; and Massachusetts against Jean Bart during Operation Torch), and as I am no expert there may be others of which I am not aware. If "duel" is understood to mean a single-ship action then the term would not apply to Washington in any case, since there were two US battleships involved, to say nothing of the smaller ships on both sides. The statement that it was the only US battleship to sink another battleship during the war is also inaccurate. Yamashiro was also sunk during its engagement with the battleships in Surigao Strait; while Yamashiro was torpedoed as well as being damaged by the battleships and this damage was arguably chiefly responsible for the sinking, Kirishima was in any case not sunk by Washington but scuttled after being crippled.

All in all, the paragraph seems irretrievably flawed: if corrected it would become so underwhelming as to make its inclusion pointless. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zburh (talk • contribs) 21:12, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

It seems to me as if the author of the paragraph above missed two key words qualifying the cliam in the article. Those would be "modern", which West Virginia, California, Tennessee, Maryland, Mississippi and Pennsylvania (which was also present at Surigao Strait and uncredited in the paragraph above) decidedly were not, unless you count the rebuilt Tennessee, California and West Virginia as modern (because of their extensive rebuilds, this classification would not be without some foundation in fact). The other key word is "engage" which I am fairly certain that during the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal the South Dakota did not engage Krishima, due to a power failure among other reasons. By the time Washington engaged Krishima, it was the only American warship still capable of offensive operation, so duel is not entirely inaccurate. The escorting destroyers were all sunk or damaged and South Dakota was damaged and slowly recovering from a system-wide power failure and retreating from the action.

In the most complete sense of the word, Krishima was sunk by Washington. Was Bismark sunk by King George V and Rodney or did the Germans scuttle it? I credit Brittish fire with the sinking. Same situation, different ships.

More fertile territory would be to discount Krishima as a battleship. It was built as a battle cruiser (according to Jackie Fishers overall design guidance and similar to other ships that rapidly perished at Jutland) and although upgraded between the wars was still lightly armoured for a battleship. This is the reason that Krishima's sister Hiei suffered so badly several nights before at the hands of cruisers and destroyers.

The damage that Yamishiro accumulated before engaging the battle line is hard to judge as so few of the senior officers survived. In any case, both Fuso and Yamishio had poor protection and were poorly maintained, neither were engaged in first line operations after Midway. To illustrate this, Fuso sank as the result of a single torpedo hit. Yamishiro had already accumulated several torpedo hits and dramatically was reducing speed before engaging the battle line. The ship was probagbly doomed from accumulated damage and her demise was simply hastened by battleship fire. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.109.142.253 (talk) 21:13, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Questions

 * First a comment: I generally put more detail in my edit summaries than most, and it can come off as bragging but that's not how it's intended. For instance, when I change "went into" to "entered" and call that "tighter", all I'm saying is that that's how it seems from my perspective; if there's a particular jargon that I'm not picking up on that we might want to respect, please let me know.
 * "the third ship of the United States Navy named in honor of the 42nd state" ... per DANFS, "The first six Washingtons were named for George Washington; the seventh and eighth, for Washington state", the eighth being BB-56. Which two previous ships were named for Washington state?  (More to come) - Dank (push to talk) 17:00, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Your edits look fine (and I like them!)
 * ACR-11 and (the one I think DANFS isn't counting) BB-47. DANFS lists eight, USS Washington lists ten, but DANFS isn't counting never-completed ships, of which there were two. — Ed   (talk  •  majestic titan)  19:32, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks. - Dank (push to talk) 20:48, 10 March 2010 (UTC)


 * This used to be in WP:MOS, I don't know where it went ... we discussed this at WT:MOS, but it's not in WP:MOS, WP:MOSNUM or the MILHIST style guide now. AP Stylebook TCMOS and most style guides that state a preference recommend using "on February 1-3" (hyphen or dash), "of", or no preposition, but never "from February 1-3" (that requires "to" rather than a hyphen or dash) or "between" (that requires "and").  I'll make the changes but anyone is welcome to change them back if there's some precedent. - Dank (push to talk) 22:27, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Last discussion I'm aware of: Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Archive_106. - Dank (push to talk) 22:39, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not aware of any precedent. You are much more knowledgeable about MOS etc. than I am. :-) — Ed   (talk  •  majestic titan)  01:43, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I think I'm going to keep the link to shaft horsepower so readers can see the whole explanation and not convert to watts, but I wouldn't object if someone wants to do the conversion. This is just my personal take on convert, but it seems to me that people ought to be able to see just the units they're familiar with if they want to (many people outside the U.S. find most U.S. units to be an unwelcome distraction, and vice-versa), so I'm hoping one day that readers will be able to click a preference to hide all non-SI or all SI units in places where the convert template is used.  It might be a while before that's possible; in the meantime, I use convert in places where I think the reader is likely to want to see just their preferred units, and otherwise I avoid convert.  This is one of those times where I'd like the reader to click on the link and get the whole story. - Dank (push to talk) 17:04, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Friedman mentions the inboard propellers on p. 269, and I can Google plenty of images of "inboard propeller" blades, but I can't figure out what "inboard propeller" means in the context of a battleship ... are they propellers encased in a turbine housing? - Dank (push to talk) 21:42, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I found Their innovative hull design featured an internal armor belt, to protect the ships' vitals against 16" shells, and outboard propeller shafts that extended further aft than the inboard ones. on http://ibiblio.net/hyperwar//OnlineLibrary/photos/usnshtp/bb/bb57cl.htm Not sure what it means though. NativeForeigner Talk/Contribs/Vote! 22:51, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks much. From the description, I think they probably looked like the propellers on Indiana. - Dank (push to talk) 02:07, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * "It was the first time that American ships had ever operated with the Home Fleet." Does this mean the same thing as "It was the first time that American ships had ever participated in a Home Fleet operation"?  If so, would the second sentence be clearer? - Dank (push to talk) 17:30, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Ed has pointed out this link on the subject of Wilcox's death. That clears things up a bit; my concern is that it's hard for the reader to tell from the text whether we have actual information on the circumstances of his death or if we're just repeating scuttlebutt.  I'd be in favor of either telling the whole story or keeping it short ... but the whole story would probably work better in his article than in the article on this ship, so let's keep it short; I'll give it a shot. - Dank (push to talk) 21:26, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Ed, do any of the 3 cited sources mention what the website mentions, that Wilcox had been surveying the main deck and warning people away because of the hazardous weather? That would at least take some of the mystery out of it. - Dank (push to talk) 22:45, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I think I prefer King George VI to King George VI of the United Kingdom in that place in the text, since the ship was assigned to Home Fleet operations ... which other King George VI was it likely to be? Also, it's spelled out in the adjoining caption. - Dank (push to talk) 03:17, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Kirishima vs Washington
I've removed a few paragraphs from this section. They all seemed to be referenced by Hornfischer and made difficult reading (e.g. "battlewagon"s putting themselves out of action). The penultimate paragraph (referenced by the reputable Garzke & Dulin) summarises the same information without resorting to hyperbole and speculation. Wiki-Ed (talk) 19:30, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Post-war References
I've had a heck of a time finding good Post-War references. I have good library access but can't find a book that discusses the decommission, nor newspapers that cover it. Does anyone have a better idea what I should be looking for? NativeForeigner Talk 19:14, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
 * What are you looking for? The ship really didn't do much beside a little Operation Magic Carpet and sit in the reserve fleet. ;-) There was also a major proposal to convert the two ships (see North Carolina-class battleship), but the details of that are best left to the class article. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 23:36, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Just a RS to back up what is already there. My library hunting seems to have been successful today, fortunately. NativeForeigner Talk 08:40, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

In Action
Doesn't the USS Washington become the only US Battleship of WW2 to sink another battleship in a straight gunnery battle?AT Kunene 123 (talk) 13:44, 15 April 2017 (UTC)