Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Indiana-class battleship


 * The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page.  No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Indiana class battleship

 * Promoted --Eurocopter (talk) 10:30, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Nominator(s): Yoenit (talk)

I am nominating this article for A-Class review because it passed GA class recently and I think it is ready for A-class now. I will probably be taking this to FAC afterwards, so feel free to nitpick. Yoenit (talk) 14:01, 2 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Comments
 * No problems reported with external links or with alt text. Two dab links need to be located and if at all possible removed.
 * ✅ Fixed two links pointing to disambiguation pages and several pointless redirects while I was at it.
 * Can you adjust the cost of the plan in the first section to include the cost today when adjusted for inflation? I will not hold this one against you, but it would be interesting to see what the cost would have been.
 * ✅ About $6.7 billion.
 * What was the point of having torpedo launching devices on the battleships? Were they designed to counter some sort of threat, or was their purpose more along the lines of 'walking softly and carrying a big gun'?
 * Torpedo launchers were practically standard on early battleships. They don't appear to have ever successfully hit something, but were included anyway. I assume it was just the idea of more weapons = better.
 * In the propulsion section you note that the original engines were switched out, did this include the engines used for the auxiliaries? The article doesn't say but I would like to know.
 * Engines were never switched out, but boilers were replaced. Reilly and Scheina do not mention if they also replace the auxiliary boilers, but looking at their data table I assume not. Auxiliary boilers have no direct effect on a ships speed and their low speeds appear to be the reason for the upgrade, as the faster Oregon kept her original boilers.
 * You need a citation for the information provided in the second footnote. TomStar81 (Talk) 22:20, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Support TomStar81 (Talk) 04:31, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Support TomStar81 (Talk) 04:31, 5 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Support per usual disclaimer. I'm doing my usual copyediting; feel free to revert any of the changes, but please tell me if you do.  Please fix the problems with units from the Indiana class battleship section to the end; for instance, "3 inch (76 mm) outside it" (inches), "2.75 inch (70 mm) thick inside" (inches), "14 inch (360 mm) armored bulkheads" (14-inch).  Don't use a hyphen when the unit is abbreviated ... hyphothetically, "4 ft ladder", although to be consistent in this article, "4-foot ladder" would probably be better.  More to come. - Dank (push to talk) 14:28, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
 * ✅ At least, I think so. Stuff like hyphens in abbreviations and feet/foot (which to use as a plural?) is completely new to me, always used the SI system before. Don't happen to know a tutorial which treats that kind of stuff by any chance? Yoenit (talk) 15:05, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
 * For American English articles, we're fortunate that almost all copyeditors for journalists follow AP Stylebook (by online subscription, or get the book, but wait a month or so for the 2010 edition), and Chicago is persuasive on things that AP Stylebook doesn't cover, and generally in the publishing industry. But I pretty much covered it in the examples above; use a hyphen when "2-foot" is modifying a noun and use "2 feet" when it's not, and don't use hyphens with abbreviated units.  "4-inch-thick plating" would be okay, except that we like to convert these units at every occurrence (a decision I disagree with, but that's another story), and "4-inch-(10 cm)-thick plating" would just be silly. - Dank (push to talk) 16:51, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I see you're going with "17-inch (430 mm) thick barbettes"; that's technically wrong but good enough (because hyphen usage is waning in general in professional American writing). I'll leave it alone.  If you're going that way, make an effort not to use the word "thick" whenever "thickness" is implied by context. - Dank (push to talk) 17:04, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Also, "a 10 inch (250 mm) thick single forging" (best would be "a single forging 10 inches (250 mm) thick", to avoid the impossible "10-inch-(250 mm)-thick"). - Dank (push to talk) 14:41, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm starting to wonder if the word "nominal" has a special meaning in battleship design, because the authors we rely on the most tend to use it a lot. "designed based on the nominal draft" doesn't make sense to me; it sounds like "designed based on the design".  - Dank (push to talk) 14:45, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
 * ✅ Is "The placement of the belt armor was based on the design draft" an acceptable replacement? Yoenit (talk) 15:47, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Works for me. - Dank (push to talk) 16:53, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Ah, wait, now I see, I misunderstood "draft". I've changed it to "... based on the design, which called for a draft of 24 feet ..."; how does that work? - Dank (push to talk) 17:10, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I think that would change the meaning of the sentence, since the design provided the draft instead of calling for it. I tried something else and went with "The placement of the belt armor was based on the draft from the design, which was..."
 * "she decommissioned, only to be temporarily recommissioned": I think "she decommissioned" is a little jargony, and I'd probably prefer "she was decommissioned", but I've seen it in sources and it's not that bad. But if you're going to use it, I think it would be better to be consistent: "she decommissioned, only to temporarily recommission ..." - Dank (push to talk) 17:36, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
 * readded the "was" (I am pretty sure it got removed by an earlier copy edit)
 * Hm, gotta love "anyone can edit". Okay, check on the other instances of "commissioned" and "decommissioned", please. - Dank (push to talk) 00:18, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
 * ✅ I missed this reply at first. I fixed four more instances of a missing "was"
 * "re-designated": I changed it to "redesignated", but feel free to revert if the sources seem to insist on the hyphen. - Dank (push to talk) 17:38, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Okay done. Don't get discouraged by all the edits; in the publishing world, it's not considered the writer's job to catch all that stuff.  Again,  feel free to revert, but tell me please. - Dank (push to talk) 17:41, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Anything that improves the article is good, so no problem here. Thank you for your very thorough copy edit. Yoenit (talk) 20:11, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
 * One more thing, I've mentioned this in previous ACRs: I don't think we should assume that the reader automatically knows what "the Indianas" means, because that's uncommon jargon outside of naval articles. Per WP:LEAD, if there's another name for "Indiana class battleship" used in the article, it should be bolded in the first sentence, and I made it so: "The three Indiana-class battleships, also known as the Indianas, were ..." - Dank (push to talk) 02:58, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I thought about this for quite a while and looked up my sources, but Indianas does not seem to be a commonly used nickname for the class, so I replaced all cases of Indianas with Indiana Class. Yoenit (talk) 13:50, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Even better. - Dank (push to talk) 14:21, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Support  YellowMonkey  ( vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll )  01:18, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Support  YellowMonkey  ( vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll )  01:18, 7 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Source review - I don't think spanamwar.com is reliable. Otherwise everything looks good. I did have a look at that Scientific American article, but I didn't have my computer with me and I didn't have time to go back in the middle of my exams. Sorry :-/ — Ed   (talk  •  majestic titan)  15:03, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
 * What exactly is your problem with spanamwar, besides that is a website? The site is neutral, provides sources and seems well established. I have more faith in them than the DANFS, which is blatantly pro-American and does not provide sources. In the ideal world I would have used the sources given on spanamwar, but I don't have acces to any them. Yoenit (talk) 17:19, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
 * The difference is that DANFS is an official source, whereas there is no indication that the author of spamawar is a recognized expert in the field. See Wikipedia Signpost/2008-06-26/Dispatches for more information. — Ed   (talk  •  majestic titan)  21:02, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
 * How about this? Spanamwar credits page Yoenit (talk) 22:01, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, that was unexpected. IMHO it is reliable, although better sources could be used (as you stated at 17:19) — Ed   (talk  •  majestic titan)  00:29, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Comments
 * The lack of consistent conversions within the battleship clique is getting really annoying. But once again: Conversions for nautical miles and knots need the English equivalents of mi and mph respectively. Additionally you're missing conversions in several places.
 * ✅ Thank you for your comments. I have corrected the conversions. I only convert units the first time I mention them in a section, especially for things like gun sizes, which are treated as names. If this is not compliant with the MoS, feel free to oppose or change them yourself. Yoenit (talk) 15:44, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Agree that spamawar is not a good source. If anything, use the books that are referenced there. --Brad (talk) 23:30, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Support - Excellent Work! Cam (Chat) 03:05, 10 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Comments Support
 * As per Brad's comment, the tonnage needs a conversion, and it needs to be specified which ton it is (i.e., short, long, metric).
 * 4,000 tons in the General characteristics needs conversion as well.
 * ✅ Circumstantial evidence points to everything being given in long tons. Do I need to convert it to short tons as wel? Yoenit (talk) 11:32, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
 * As far as I know, the USN always used long tons for ships, but it might be useful to give it in both short and metric. You can just use 4000 LT to give both conversions. Parsecboy (talk) 11:52, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
 * That template does only give metric tons and 4000 LT does not work, despite what is stated in the list of conversions, so I used 4000 LT Yoenit (talk) 13:50, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Everything else looks pretty good. As to the spanam.com source, it's probably reliable, but I too would prefer sources of the dead-tree variety. Parsecboy (talk) 10:33, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
 * The only dead tree source I have is a book of 1898, writen by Schley's son from 1902, written by a journalist about Schley's heroism in the Battle of Santiago de Cuba, but I can probably link most of the text to that book and the first hand accounts of witnesses given on spanamwar, if that would be considered an improvement. Getting hold of a proper dead tree source is gonna be somewhat expensive, as the Spanish-American war is not a topic widely covered in Dutch libraries. Yoenit (talk) 13:50, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Since there seems to be consensus that dead tree stuff beats Spanamwar, I have tried to relink all citations to Spanamwar directly to the book Schley and Santiago, a witness account from a journalist aboard Schley's flagship. Although rather pro-American I am using it for facts, not opinions. The only thing I still have to link to Spanamwar for is Oregon's nickname, but I can easily spotcheck that by looking at the titles of these books Battleship Oregon: Bulldog of the Navy : An Oregon Documentary and McKinley's Bulldog, the Battleship Oregon. Is there no way I can use the book title as source? Yoenit (talk) 13:14, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Looks good, I've moved to support. Parsecboy (talk) 21:25, 26 May 2010 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.