Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/List of battlecruisers of the United States


 * 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.

Closed/promoted -- Ian Rose (talk) 06:27, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

List of battlecruisers of the United States

 * Nominator(s): Sturmvogel 66 (talk), Dank (talk)

I am nominating this article for A-Class review because I believe that it meets the criteria. Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 16:12, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Adding myself per conversation with Sturm. - Dank (push to talk) 23:33, 5 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Images all fine. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 19:45, 24 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Comments
 * Neither von Spee's or Hipper's squadrons were raiding commerce, so I'm uncomfortable with the connection between hunting down raiders and the Falkland Islands and Dogger Bank engagements. Perhaps rephrase it to "track down and destroy enemy cruisers..."?
 * True enough, but both examples comprised independent squadrons of fast cruisers/battlecruisers. Ideal formations for commerce raiding, which is what the Navy was worried about.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 20:16, 5 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I've clarified this in the lede.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 15:31, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I think the fates of the two BC classes should be mentioned in the lead section.
 * That's all for me, looks to be a pretty good list otherwise. Parsecboy (talk) 21:26, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Done.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 15:31, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Looks good now, moving to Support. Parsecboy (talk) 23:33, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Oppose for now. Sorry Sturmvogel, but this article - and especially its lead - isn't up to your usual standards yet. My comments are: Support My comments are now addressed. Nick-D (talk) 11:48, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
 * The article needs a lead paragraph which summarises its content
 * Lemme look at the other lists of capital ships and see if I'm missing anything that they have.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 20:16, 5 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Not true of any of our ship FLs. See List of battleships of Germany, List of battlecruisers of Germany, or List of battlecruisers of the Royal Navy. Generally the lede consists of some material providing context for the development/acquisition of the ship type and some brief material covering the various classes.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 15:31, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't call those good examples of leads, to be honest. Anyway, the leads for List of battleships of Germany and List of battlecruisers of Germany do at least start off with a sentence which introduces and defines the scope of the article: this one's first sentence is about the Royal Navy and USN ships which weren't battlecruisers. I'm sorry for the slow response by the way. Nick-D (talk) 10:10, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Better now, Nick? - Dank (push to talk) 04:19, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
 * A bit, though it still didn't summarise the content of the article. I've basically re-written it, which I hope is OK. Nick-D (talk) 11:48, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
 * The current first paragraph is confusing: it says that a) the Invincible-class made the US Navy's armoured cruisers totally obsolete but b) the US Navy didn't think that speed was important and c) the Navy had changed its mind several years late. This needs to be fleshed out.
 * I'll come back to these two points after we're done with other changes. - Dank (push to talk) 19:17, 5 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Reworked this a little bit.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 20:16, 5 May 2012 (UTC)
 * "Over the next several years fleet exercises revealed that the Navy lacked effective scouting forces that could find and track an enemy fleet in all weathers and a consensus gradually emerged that the battlecruiser would be ideal for this role and they would be effective during fleet engagements by concentrating their fire on the enemy fleet's leading ships as the Japanese had done to the Russians at the Battle of Tsushima in 1905." - this is a very long sentence, and should be split into at least two sentences
 * Done.
 * The lead should note that no Lexington-class BCs were ever completed.
 * Not true; see the table.
 * Not entirely, none were completed as BCs and that's probably worth a mention.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 20:16, 5 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Ah, now I see. - Dank (push to talk) 20:28, 5 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Were there further proposals to build such ships in the 1920s and 1930s? The material on the "cruiser-killer" concept appears quite suddenly
 * Reading up.
 * The Washington Treaty effectively killed all capital ship construction from '22 until '37 so nobody really bothered to do much design work during the interregnum. The cruiser-killer concept really gained traction in the mid-thirties as the various naval treaties were set to expire shortly. I wonder if a hat note would help even though I linked cruiser-killer.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 20:16, 5 May 2012 (UTC)
 * "The U. S. Navy was most concerned about the threat posed by Japanese cruisers raiding its lines of communication in the event of war with Japan" - the second 'Japan' is not needed
 * Done.
 * The lead should note that two Alaska class ships were in fact built, though more were cancelled
 * I added a sentence about the two that were built; again, waiting to see how the text plays out before I return to the lead.
 * "It did regard the design's firepower as inadequate" - who's the 'it' here?
 * Done.
 * "Both saw extensive action in World War II" - not really; while Saratoga deserves this plaudit several times over, Lexington only lasted six months and was sunk the first time she met serious opposition.
 * Done.
 * Should the Alaska class be in this article? The section on them argues that they were not BCs.
 * Sturm? Do you want to tweak the page title?
 * Nope, plenty of historians call them BCs, even if the Navy formally did not. All of the cruiser-killer designs were effectively BCs.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 20:16, 5 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Nick, correct me if I'm wrong ... I think he's saying that either their section should make the case that they're battlecruisers, or else we shouldn't call them battlecruisers in the title. That section starts: "The Alaska-class cruisers were a class of six very large cruisers ordered on 9 September 1940. Although often called battlecruisers, the Navy officially classed them as large cruisers (hull symbol: CB)."  If those were the only two sentences you had ever read on these ships, and you were asked what they were, you'd probably say they were large cruisers ... so if they're not, let's make the case that "battlecruiser" is a more accurate term. - Dank (push to talk) 20:26, 5 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Garzke & Dulin call them battlecruisers as I cited ; it's not just my opinion. So I don't think that we need to make the case one way or the other, especially since internal Navy documents use both terms, but we probably do need to clear up the language used here.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 21:04, 5 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Dank's interpretation of my comment is correct - if this how independent historians describe the ships, that's OK, but this needs to be emphasised. Nick-D (talk) 23:40, 5 May 2012 (UTC)
 * How does it read now?--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 15:31, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
 * The delicate dancing around 'battlecruiser' and 'cruiser' in the Alaska class article was the result of, who essentially argued that we couldn't call them battlecruisers because official sources never called them that. I've tweaked the text a bit more -- hope you both like it. :-) Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 00:53, 12 May 2012 (UTC)
 * That looks pretty good. Nick-D (talk) 00:55, 12 May 2012 (UTC)
 * "A large number of design studies were made comparing trade-offs between 8-inch (203 mm) or 12-inch guns, armor and speed, but the detailed design was finalized in January 1941, although changes continued to be made until about June." - why the 'but'?
 * Done.
 * The empty 'external links' section should be removed Nick-D (talk) 08:55, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Seems to be gone. - Dank (push to talk) 19:17, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Comments. Sturm and I are interested in collaborating on some articles, and since I've got most of the sources already for this one, I decided to have a look. Given the comments by the delegates at Featured list candidates/List of battleships of Greece/archive1 and its talk page, I have no interest in taking this to FLC. Sturm, reviewers, if you're comfortable with removing the "List of" from the title, I believe with a little extra material and some formatting work it would be much more welcome at FAC than it's going to be at FLC. - Dank (push to talk) 16:44, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

Comment: is 'Scarpaci, Wayne' actually used as a reference? Have I overlooked it, because I can't see it? Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 20:07, 5 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Good catch, moved.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 20:16, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

I've cut a bunch of the development histories of the ships out as extraneous. How does this read now?--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 15:31, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Support Comments: overall this seems fine to me. I have the following suggestions:
 * in the lead, inconsistent: "the US Navy changed" v "The U. S. Navy's main impetus";
 * in the lead, "aircraft carrier" is probably overlinked;
 * in Note 1, I wonder if "Jane's Fighting Ships" should be put in italics due to it being the title of a work;
 * Footnotes # 1 and 2 appear to be the same and probably should be consolidated like the others (for example 10, 11, 12, 13 etc.);
 * in the References, Garzke & Dulin is missing location details for the publisher, while all the other works have them;
 * incorrect section capitalisation per WP:Section caps. "Further Reading" should just be "Further reading". Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 09:19, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Got them all except the footnotes and references. (Sturm?) Thanks so much for spotting these. - Dank (push to talk) 11:45, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Fixed the refs and footnotes.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 13:59, 26 May 2012 (UTC)


 * The discussion above is closed. 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.