Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/USS Iowa turret explosion


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

Please remember the Iowa47. As an Iowa Battleship Sailor from Mar. 85 - Mar. 90. and someone who was there, I would hope that none of this will every be forgotten. You can split it up but please DO NOT DELETE ANYTHING!!! Thank you. Muddrum

USS Iowa turret explosion

 * Passed --Eurocopter (talk) 12:31, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

I believe this article about one of the worst peacetime disasters in US Navy history is ready for A-class review. The article is long and detailed because, in my opinion, the story of what led up to the explosion and the investigation into why it happened is so convoluted and controversial. If you believe, however, that the article contains too much detail, as well as any of the usual issues such as prose, grammar, formatting, NPOV, or sourcing issues, I look forward to addressing your concerns. Cla68 (talk) 22:36, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Comments An initial look
 * The First Navy Investigation section should be broken out into an article of its own leaving behind about 50% of what is in place now. At 160k this article needs to be reduced of size.
 * The red bar in the infobox is a bit eye-watering. Suggest a more neutral color.
 * The Notes section should be given a |2}} option so that it is not so long when scrolling down the last parts of the article.
 * A copy editing is needed. I spied several spelling mistakes.
 * A great effort on your part for an important event in recent Naval History. --Brad (talk) 23:31, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
 * It should be noted that a large part of the size comes from the references, so reducing the size of the relevant prose may not be the best idea. JonCatalán(Talk) 04:46, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm seriously considering splitting the first investigation into a separate article, but am also still trying to figure out if would be best just to cut out a lot of detail. Thank you for the review. Cla68 (talk) 03:48, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I believe that I've now addressed all of your comments, including shortening the article . Cla68 (talk) 03:19, 22 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Support with comments:
 * I agree with Brad's comment about the article being too long. In particular, the lead section is a bit too long and the description of the inquiries probably goes into too much detail
 * The 'background' section needs a copy-edit as it's a bit choppy. The quality of the rest of the article's writing is excellent though.
 * 'turret' is repeated three times in the article's second sentance
 * You don't need to say both that 'Iowa was the lead ship of her class' and 'She was the first ship of her class of battleship to be commissioned by the United States' (the second sentence should be chopped, especially as the reference to the US is confusing given that no other countries ever operated Iowa class BBs)
 * Were any of the faults which caused Iowa to fail her InSurv inspection directly related to her main armament? Nick-D (talk) 10:19, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I included in the footnotes some details about the InSurv inspection which included problems with the main guns. I'll move those to the main text.  I'm still trying to decide whether to split the article or prune the details.  Thank you for the review and comments. Cla68 (talk) 21:27, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I believe I've addressed the rest of your concerns . Cla68 (talk) 06:25, 22 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Comments
 * I want to see what the prose size is before passing judgment - I think that with lesser-detailed refs, it wold be in the 90-100kb range (not saying that the detailed refs are bad!).
 * Is the last para of the lead really needed?
 * "Iowa was the lead ship of her class of "fast battleship" designs planned in 1938 by the Preliminary Design Branch at the Bureau of Construction and Repair."
 * Wait - fast battleship was not an official designation. According to the Wikipedia article, it was an "informal" term which "was not distinguished from conventional battleships in official documentation" or "recognised as a distinctive category in contemporary ship lists or treaties." This article makes it sound like they were called that when they were being built...correct me if I am being dumb.
 * Wikilink lead ship and get rid of the next sentence ("She was the first ship of her class of battleship to be commissioned by the United States.")
 * "16 inch (406 mm)/50 caliber Mark 7 naval guns"? Too long...I think that just " 16"/50 caliber guns" would suffice.
 * You then say that they could fire shells "some 24 nautical miles", but later (5th para, 'Gunnery training and experiments' section) you state that "Skelley claimed that one of the 16 inch shells traveled 23.4 nautical miles (40 km), setting a record for the longest conventional 16 inch shell ever fired." Is something wrong here between these two statements?
 * "After serving in both World War II and the Korean War, she was decommissioned 24 February 1958 and entered the Atlantic Reserve Fleet at Philadelphia Naval Shipyard."
 * decommissioned "on", Reserve Fleet "in", I think.
 * "After a quarter-century in mothballs, Iowa was modernized under the command of Captain Gerald E. Gneckow, primarily at Avondale Shipyards near New Orleans, Louisiana as part of President Ronald Reagan's "600-ship Navy" plan, and recommissioned 28 April 1984, one year ahead of schedule."
 * This sounds odd to me...
 * I will try to do a references check tomorrow, but I really have to get to bed. However, staying up was worth it - I thoroughly enjoyed reading this article. Great work, and I mean it.  Allanon   ♠The Dark Druid♠ 08:28, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I deleted a lot of extraneous text and footnote info which has reduced the article size down to about 134kb.  I'm not sure that I can delete any more without removing key details.
 * I removed the last paragraph of the lead.
 * I fixed the "lead ship" and "fast battleships" issues.
 * Done.
 * I couldn't reconcile the "24-mile" claim with the test fire "record" so I just deleted the "24-mile" claim.
 * Added "on" for the decommissioning sentence.
 * Changed sentence to read, "In 1983, Iowa was modernized at Avondale Shipyards near New Orleans, Louisiana as part of President Ronald Reagan's "600-ship Navy" plan. Under the command of Captain Gerald E. Gneckow, she was recommissioned on 28 April 1984, one year ahead of schedule."
 * Thank you for the helpful feedback. Cla68 (talk) 06:51, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Don't delete anything more if you have any doubts. A long article is not the worst of everyone's problems. :) Just make sure that everything is covered.
 * Looks good. Supporting now.  Allanon   ♠The Dark Druid♠ 07:44, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
 * O, and those portal links at the bottom have to be moved. They are squishing the references and making them thinner!  Allanon   ♠The Dark Druid♠ 07:53, 22 December 2008 (UTC)


 *  Conditional Support
 * Why did it fail the InSurv? You don't have to specify, since it is long, but if any of the reasons are related to the explosion you should mention them.
 * You need fixbunching where you have all those images on the loading procedure.
 * What's with the picture of Jerome Johnson? You can barely see him, or the plaque behind him. It looks like there's a guy standing behind the plaque, and he's semi-transparent.
 * In the Media section you like to tailhook, but capitalize it. Did you not properly disambiguate the link?

Please resolve these and the other issues brought up, but besides these I wasn't able to see any major problems. – Joe Nu  tter  22:49, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I added more details on the discrepancies that caused the INSURV failure, including some related to the problems with the main guns' maintenance.
 * Looks good now.– Joe Nu  tter  14:15, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't know what I'm doing wrong, but when I use the fixbunching it comes out like this . Perhaps I'm not computer literate enough, but until someone can explain to me what I'm doing wrong I reverted it back to how it was.
 * I don't know what we did differently, but somehow I was able to get it to work.– Joe Nu  tter  14:15, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I added some explanation in the image caption to explain what's going on in the Jerome Johnson image.
 * That's clearer now.– Joe Nu  tter  14:15, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I fixed the link to for Tailhook.
 * That, and everything else looks good now. Good luck with FA. – Joe Nu  tter  14:15, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I appreciate the helpful feedback. Cla68 (talk) 07:20, 22 December 2008 (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.