User:Beachedwhale1945

This page is going to be a repository of in-progress items. While I correct inaccurate information rapidly if I have a source, there are some pages that are in need of major edits to add more important information or to bring to a consistent style (such as lists of ships for class pages, where the style varies in some articles). I tend to take time with such projects, bringing them not only to Wikipedia's standards, but my own.

If you are reading this page, feel free to add any thoughts/corrections/questions/recommendations on my talk page.

=Essex Class Aircraft Carrier=

Ships in class (Essex)
Original Table

Construction notes:

WIP Revised Table

Construction notes:

Considerations:

1. All surviving ships were reclassified as CVA-XX on 1 October 1952. Some of these were active, some in reserve, and some in a refit.

2. All dates are either years or month-year, not consistent with other class lists.

3. Some ships were decommissioned and recommissioned at the start and end of an SCB-27 or SCB-125 rebuild (Oriskany). Other ships came out of the reserve fleet for an SCB-27 rebuild and were only commissioned at the end of said rebuild (Essex), while others remained in commission during the rebuild (Bennington). This table should make an effort to make these more evident and consistent to make the table more usable, preferably without removing any actual commissioning/decommissioning dates or adding dates that were not commissioning/decommissioning dates.

4. The more common formatting is name-hull number, not hull number-name.

=Streamlining Formatting (Project Ships Talk)=

Overview
There are a couple areas where the formatting across multiple different pages is either not consistent or partially misleading. We should discuss a consistent formatting style. For some of these points I have suggestions or a common style should be made standard, for others I am point out a problem without a solution.

I will attempt to separate these out into different chains by topic.

Ships-in-Class Tables
Over the years I have used Wikipedia, one of the most useful parts has been the list of ships in a given class.

Two of the most egregious are the Essex class aircraft carrier and Oliver Hazard Perry class frigate pages, which I am working on bringing to the more common US Navy style. however, the formatting often differs for different nations, some understandably (Asian navies often don't report keel laying dates for modern ships) and some to make them far less useful (Cold War British frigates are common examples). I recommend the following:

Insert recommended table format here, noting required, preferred-if-known, and optional columns.

revise me

Japanese classes: Kanji should be in a separate column, not appended to the end of the ship name (for easier copying to external spreadsheets)

Order dates removed from tables: many ships were often ordered on the same day, so this should not be a separate column. A footnote can suffice in many cases.

For British ships split costs into separate table (this is nearly ubiquitous for post-WWII ships but not present in other nations)

Multiple fate columns so can sort by date AND sold to X navy/scrapped/sunk as target

Add lost to decommissioned column so can sort with decommissioned ships, but with color coding to denote fate.

Major modifications column, though that should have a more clear definition (flights for Burkes exists, ABL/VLS for Spruance does not but should).

Concurrent Classes (Posted)
The class overview template has standard "Preceded by" and "Succeeded by" ("Class before" and "Class after") to show the development of particular classes. However, in some cases multiple classes were built concurrently for different reasons, enough that a third line for concurrent classes should be added.

The clearest modern example are the US Littoral Combat Ships. Both classes were ordered and are being built concurrently, with the Freedom-class receiving odd hull numbers and the Independence class evens. Another would be the British Type 26 and Type 31 frigates: the orders were for three Type 26s in 2017, five Type 31s in 2018, and then five more Type 26s in 2022 (Royal Navy specific), with both classes being built concurrently by different yards. The Benson-class destroyer was not succeeded by the Gleaves-class, they were ordered and built concurrently with different shipyards building different classes (primarily Bethlehem yards building the Bensons, particularly the repeat ships). US Destroyer Escorts of WWII were not ordered/produced in the Evarts->Buckley->Cannon->Edsall->Rudderow->John C. Butler order implied by the Preceded/Succeeded Bys (in turn implied by the hull number of the lead ships), they were ordered/built as follows:

1. First 50 Evarts-class ordered under a British contract in late 1941

2. Another 70 Evarts-class along with 600, Buckleys, Cannons, and Edsalls ordered and built concurrently (classes mainly distinguished by different propulsion plants) ordered in early/mid 1942

3. Rudderow and John C. Butler re-ordered from 3" designs in late 1942/early 1943 and built concurrently (followed by a short-lived order for 205 ships)

These are just particularly obvious examples for ships of the same type built at the same time by the same nation. There are more examples, particularly if you start considering ships with the same official classification but different capabilities. Germany built a few different types of U-boats concurrently, but the bulk of their production were the Type VII medium-range and the Type IX long-range submarines (with some specialized boats). This is a grey area, and I have deliberately chosen an example that in my opinion should be included as concurrent classes, but other examples would likely not be suitable (continuing the theme, the specialized Type XB and XIV classes).

These are sometimes noted by the Preceded/Succeeded Bys. For example, the Type 23 frigate lists the Types 26, 31, and 32 as ships that will succeed this frigate, but the Type 26 and Type 31 pages don't mention the others in the Class Overview template (except the in-development Type 32 that may succeed the Type 31). The three pages make it clear that the Constellation-class was preceded by the Freedom and Independence classes, but neither LCS page notes the other concurrently in the Class Overview template. Others, particularly the WWII destroyer escorts, don't mention this at all and as it currently exists gives an incorrect view of progression between the classes.

Currently the best attempts to recognize the differences would be the Type VII U-boat. The Type VII page has the Type IX listed as a succeeding class, but as "Type IX (long-range complement)" (this is not mirrored on the Type IX page). It's clunky and works if there were a handful of cases (like the Type XXI page), but it's not as useful for a larger scale.

Given the number of examples I believe we should add a third group to formalize the concurrent classes, along with rules about when this should and should not be used to clear up the grey area.

Beachedwhale1945 (talk) 14:07, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

Revised:

The class overview template has standard "Preceded by" and "Succeeded by" ("Class before" and "Class after") to show the development of particular classes. However, in some cases multiple classes were built concurrently for different reasons, enough that a third line for concurrent classes should be added.

The clearest modern example are the US Littoral Combat Ships. Both classes were ordered and are being built concurrently, with the Freedom-class littoral combat ship-class receiving odd hull numbers and the Independence-class littoral combat ship-class evens. Another would be the British Type 26 and Type 31 frigates: the orders were for three Type 26s in 2017, five Type 31s in 2018, and then five more Type 26s in 2022 (Royal Navy orders only), with both classes being built concurrently by different yards. The Benson-class destroyer destroyer was not succeeded by the Gleaves-class destroyer, they were ordered and built concurrently with different shipyards building different classes (primarily Bethlehem yards building the Bensons, particularly the repeat ships). US Destroyer Escorts of WWII were not ordered/produced in the Evarts-class destroyer escort->Buckley-class destroyer escort->Cannon-class destroyer escort->Edsall-class destroyer escort->Rudderow-class destroyer escort->John C. Butler-class destroyer escort order implied by the Preceded/Succeeded Bys (in turn implied by the hull number of the lead ships), they were ordered/built as follows:

1. First 50 Evarts-class ordered under a British contract in November 1941

2. Another 70 Evarts-class along with 600, Buckleys, Cannons, and Edsalls ordered in January and August 1942 and built concurrently (classes mainly distinguished by different propulsion plants)

3. Rudderow and John C. Butler re-ordered from 3" designs in late 1942/early 1943 and built concurrently (followed by a short-lived order for 205 ships)

These are just particularly obvious examples for ships of the same type built at the same time by the same nation. There are more examples, particularly if you start considering ships with the same official classification but different capabilities. Germany built a few different types of U-boats concurrently, but the bulk of their production were the Type VII medium-range and the Type IX long-range submarines (with some specialized boats). This is a grey area, and I have deliberately chosen an example that in my opinion should be included as concurrent classes, but other examples would likely not be suitable (continuing the theme, the specialized Type XB and XIV classes).

These are sometimes noted by the Preceded/Succeeded Bys, or even Subclasses even when the latter is not appropriate. For example, the Type 23 frigate lists the Types 26, 31, and 32 as ships that will succeed this frigate, but the Type 26 and Type 31 pages don't mention the others in the Class Overview template. The three pages make it clear that the Constellation-class frigate was preceded by the Freedom-class littoral combat ship and Independence-class littoral combat ship classes, but neither LCS page notes the other concurrently in the Class Overview template. Others, particularly the WWII destroyer escorts, don't mention this at all and as it currently exists gives an incorrect view of progression between the classes. For Subclasses, the Type XXI notes "Type XXIII (parallel coastal submarine project)": these were two parallel branches of the Elektroboot concept, but the Type XXIII was not a variant of the Type XXI in the way that Subclasses is usually used (such as the Dunlap variants of the Mahan-class destroyer-class destroyer).

Currently the best attempt to recognize the differences would be the Type VII U-boat page. The Type VII page has the Type IX listed as a succeeding class, but as "Type IX (long-range complement)" in an attempt to be a bit more accurate (this is not mirrored on the Type IX page). It's clunky and works if there were a handful of cases, but it's not as useful for a larger scale, and other U-Boat pages don't use this nearly as well (like the Type XXI and Type IX pages).

Given the number of examples I believe we should add a third group to formalize the concurrent classes, along with rules about when this should and should not be used to clear up the grey area.

Focus on the Littoral Combat Ships and trim down the DE story. Retain for potential elaboration (and because it's a good reference).

The most clear example to me are US destroyer escorts in WWII. Currently the preceded/succeeded by list goes in hull number order: Evarts, Buckley, Cannon, Edsall, Rudderow, and John C. Butler. However, that is not how the ships were built and ordered. The process was as follows:

1. 1 November 1941: 50 Evarts class ordered under a British contract from four US Navy Shipyards. Many would be retained by the US, with the British getting later ships.

2. 10-25 January 1942: 250 DEs ordered under the 1,799 Vessel Program. These were 117 Buckleys, 66 Cannons, and 42 Edsalls. The primary difference between these ships was different propulsion plants, as the US diesel engine and reduction gear industries could not keep up with the demand for all warships (a key part of the DE saga). For this reason at the time the primary identifier used by the Navy was not the lead ship, but a two- or three-letter code identifying the propulsion plant.

3. 7 August 1942: Another 420 DEs were ordered, most likely 70 Evarts, 158 Buckleys, 70 Cannons, and 122 Edsalls. There is some ambiguity on DEs 438-515 (78 ships) that were later reordered to different shipyards/different designs, but at this stage each shipyard built a single type of DE.

4. 2-11 November 1942: Another 80 DEs were ordered to ensure 260 ships were completed by the end of 1943 and 720 by the end of 1944. These were 30Buckleys and 50 Cannons, with 12 Buckleys ordered from Consolidated Orange, a yard that to this point had only received orders for Edsalls (while I have no source on the matter, this was almost certainly due to higher production capacity for the turbo-electric plant than the Fairbanks Morse plant with single-stage reduction gears).

5. Reordered 5" designs (340 intended not-to-delay basis according to Friedman).

6. 205 New 5" orders and swift cancellations.

To summarize, there were three waves:

In Service/Decommissioned-For-Refit Clarity in Class Tables
In several cases a ship was decommissioned for a refit and recommissioned when the refit was concluded. At present the standard templates do not distinguish between these decommissioning/recommissioning dates and actually joining the reserve fleet. This is also not consistently used across different ships: some Essex class carriers were decommissioned for the SCB-27 and/or SCB-125 rebuilds while others were not (at least according to common secondary sources, I suspect digging into primaries would show more consistency, though that's beyond the scope of Wikipedia).

Discuss US ships placed In Service rather than In Commission, particularly for Naval Reserve Training/Naval Reserve Force ships. Also discuss that in general, noting the little I know about the British practice.

At present I do not know how to incorporate this into tables, and am open to suggestions.

=Projects I've joined=