Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Peer review/Iowa-class battleship/Archive 2

Iowa class battleship
I'm listing this for Peer Review because I need feedback now from everyone else. I've been reading through the comments made for improvement on this article for the last few months, while I know I have not addressed all of them I believe enough have been addressed to warrant this new version and the peer review to find and fix the rest of the issues. The previous peer review is located here. TomStar81 (Talk) 06:10, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Nick-D
This article is in good shape but still needs work to return to FA status. My comments are:
 * The article is focused entirely on the ships' service history and main technical specifications. There's nothing at all on the 'human' side of the vessels. For instance, what were the living standards for the crew like? were they popular ships to serve on? how did the Navy go about training crews to operate 40 year old technology in the 1980s?, etc.
 * The article could do with a comprehensive copy edit
 * I asked someone from the guild of copyeditors to look into it, so I hope something develops along those lines soon. TomStar81 (Talk) 03:22, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
 * What are "Communist targets"? (copies of Das Kapital and photos of Lenin?) - I think that you mean North Vietnamese communist positions, or words to that effect. The section on New Jersey's service in the Vietnam War also says that she served in areas other than the DMZ.
 * Both altered per your suggestion. TomStar81 (Talk) 03:22, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The paragraph in the lead begining "Initially, all four battleships were removed from the Naval Vessel Register" isn't covered in the body of the article
 * This one is actually covered in an entirely separate article: United States Naval Gunfire Support Debate. Its linked in the paragraph, but not present in the article because it appeared to be a point of conflict in the FAR. Brad101 felt the section to be in need of updating, and as the page got bigger I finally elected to simply drop the dedicated section and a paragraph or two the article so that the material would be covered to some extent in this article and covered in detail elsewhere. If you feel this approach doesn't work then let me know and I will go back to the drawing board to see what we can do to rectify the situation. TomStar81 (Talk) 02:54, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I've added a whole new section for the article covering this so I've dropped the paragraph from the intro altogether to cover it there. Now, though, the problem is that the section was called by Brad101 for needing updated. I've tried to rebuild it to be both current and focused to the class specifically, but input on what or how I could do to improve the article would be appreciated. TomStar81 (Talk) 01:53, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
 * "the legendary Yamato-class" - "legendary" is POV and should be dropped. Many authors regard the Yamatos as a waste of lives and resources.
 * Done.
 * "and World War II military brass" - this is needlessly vague. I'd suggest something like "other senior officers" or equivalent
 * "Throughout June, Iowa trained her guns on targets" - did she fire them, or was this for show?
 * Corrected to reflect the fact that she fired her guns at said targets. TomStar81 (Talk) 18:39, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
 * "Iowa operated in the Atlantic Fleet, cruising in North American and European waters for most of the decade" - did she really spend most of her time at sea as this implies?
 * Clarified. TomStar81 (Talk) 18:39, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
 * "Iowa is currently" - suggest 'as at December 2010' or equivalent
 * Changed, although I will point out that using "currently" somewhat negates our need to update the article for every month the battleship remains in the reserve fleet. TomStar81 (Talk) 18:39, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
 * You might consider using as of.  bahamut0013  words deeds 14:05, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The sentence in the section on New Jersey starting "She completed fitting out and trained her initial crew in the Western Atlantic" is rather long and could be split into at least two sentences
 * Done. TomStar81 (Talk) 18:39, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The statement that "After this battle New Jersey would spend the next eight months at Ulithi" is contradicted by the source provided, which says that she was based at Ulithi but took part in operations throughout the western Pacific
 * Oopsie, your right :) Noted and fixed. TomStar81 (Talk) 18:39, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
 * What's a "littoral" capability?
 * Its capability to operate close in shore, what the navy vaguely defines as an enemy's territory or the range at which ships can be struck by coastal emplacements. Where do you see this in the article? I'll fix it or link it or something so we can some clarity in there.
 * I added a link in the term in the armament section overview paragraph, is this better? TomStar81 (Talk) 18:39, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I think a very brief explanation might be in order, along the lines of "By the Gulf War in 1991, these guns had been largely relegated to littoral defense, that is, close to shore."
 * The section on the ships' main battery is written in the present tense while the rest of the article is written in the past tense. Given that the ships are now out of commission the past tense seems more appropriate.
 * To be fair, this sort of goes in with the "article needs a comprehensive copyedit" comment above :) TomStar81 (Talk) 02:54, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
 * "a single battleship can put 36,000 pounds (16,000 kg) of ordnance on a designated target every minute, a figure that can only be matched by a single B-52 Stratofortress of the United States Air Force" - or a small nuclear warhead in a fraction of a second, or various combinations of other kinds of military hardware, etc. This should probably be dropped from the article as it's basically bluster. It also wrongly implies that the battleships could consistently hit their "designated targets", which is obviously not the case.
 * Removed, all the to be fair "can" and "will" are two separate things so the info is technically correct. At any rate I thought it only interesting for a comparison of actually active equipment, so I see no real harm in removing it.
 * While the comparison isn't really worth much, I think mentioning the rate of fire is (the distinction between OR and simple math). I suggest "The maximum firing rate for each gun on an is two rounds per minute, or 36,000 pounds (16,000 kg) of ordnance on a designated target every minute with a full broadside."  bahamut0013  words deeds 14:05, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
 * "The Iowas have five Stinger positions where the weapons and service-ready rounds are located" - that seems a bit paranoid for museum ships! ;) (suggest changing this to the past tense)
 * Done.
 * The para which begins with "In the 1980s, as part of President Ronald Reagan's plan to rebuild the U.S. military and create a 600-ship Navy and to provided a counter to the new Soviet Kirov-class battlecruisers" repeats a lot of material already discussed in the article.
 * I thought it important to include the material here again since the ships were converted in the 1980s, even if only slightly. Again, this is a direct result of Brad101s comments at the FAR, and this was the solution I worked out. If its a problem then I can go back to the drawing board and see if I come up with something that works better. TomStar81 (Talk) 02:54, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The final sentence ("Since decommissioning proposals have been put forth to use these ships as fleet flagships in place of the currently used Blue Ridge-class command ships, however nothing to this effect has ever been carried out.") suggests that it's possible that the ships could still be reactivated as command ships yet is referenced to a 2001 publication.
 * To be fair here, the source cited was the only one that I could find that meets RS standards. There are a good number of blogs and forums out there that discuss the idea of using the battleships in place of the blue ridge class vessels, just as they suggest ideas centered around reactivation and modernization of the battleships to face today's current military challenges, but as its been well established here we can not use the blogs and forums as reliable sources for citations. If you like I can reword that or remove it fro the article. TomStar81 (Talk) 02:54, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
 * It would probably be best to drop it entirely per WP:CRYSTAL. I mean, some buzz about speculation and suggestions is interesting, but not really encyclopedic until some policy-making individuals start thinking out loud about it.  bahamut0013  words deeds 14:05, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The choice of photos seems heavily weighted towards the 1980s, and the article contains no photos of the ships early in their careers (eg, during their important World War II service). Some photos should also be left justified - at the moment they're all right justified. Nick-D (talk) 00:44, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I'll look into it. TomStar81 (Talk) 03:22, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I understand that the desire might be to use the more modern photos because they are color and tend to be of higher quality, but the Iowas really made thier name in WWII. If you alternate left and right positions, you can almost double the images without reducing readability or gapping whitespace. You also don't need to use {{tl|multiple images}] unless the layout really calls for both images being on the same side or adjacent for some reason. The image in the infobox is also probably not the best choice: it's really tall, and the box already is three screen heights at my resolution. I'd suggest an image that has more than one of the ships: File:All Four Iowas.jpg might work if cropped, File:USS Iowa and USS Wisconsin mothballed.jpg is dramatic but probably not the best choice for EV, while I favor File:USS Missouri transfers.JPG. Or at least one of guns being fired!  bahamut0013  words deeds 14:05, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
 * To be fair to the infobox our previously used images was about the same height when in the infobox, and these large pictures are aesthetically pleasing. In the past I have used File:Uss wisconsin bb.jpg and File:BB61 USS Iowa BB61 broadside USN.jpg for the lead image, both of which are roughly this size (though I do grant that this one is a little bigger overall). What I would like to do is set up a rotating image display for the article like what we have for the portal so that the image in the infobox can switch between different ships, but I understand that this is not really acceptable unless we have a darn good reason to rotate images. At the moment I am trying to find an image from one of the two ships yet to be featured in the infobox for display - to date New Jersey and Missouri have never held this coveted spot. TomStar81 (Talk) 22:59, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Your point is fair, to be sure, but the issue I had was not so much which ship gets the top spot as how tall the image was. I don't want to burst your dreams of rotating images, but sadly, probably not a good idea for an article. You might be able to get the folks at the Graphics Lab to gin up a montage image, like on the main articles for various wars.  bahamut0013  words deeds 16:02, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

bahamut0013
Baha sez:
 * Not all of your unit converstions are consistant, nor do they all consistantly use convert. It's very flexible, and using it for ranges means you don't have to manually use dashes.
 * I Nick brought up the images issue. The "Specifications" section is probably unavoidable due to the availability of articles, but otherwise, you can probably fit in a couple of WWII and Korea images.
 * How are Garzke and Dulin calculating that "Illinois was 22%" and "Kentucky was 72%" complete when cancelled? It seems like it might be a bit subjective to me... I would avoid a firm number like that, even if you're referencing an RS, because it seems like a hard number to quantify, especially in a war economy. I would reword it to make it a bit more vague without restoring to weasel words, such as "approximately a quarter" and "mostly" complete, respectively.
 * Don't know, haven't got the book. These were figures supplied by on the talk page, and I took his onformation and added it to the conversion section as you see it (NOT in a plagiarizing manner, I should add, I reworded parts of it and trimmed what I thought was excessive information before adding it here). You'd have to raise the matter with him if you want an answer. I do seem to recall my own research into Kentucky turning up evidence of this number either in a naval vessel register report or in a private publication, so I do believe that number to be accurate. TomStar81 (Talk) 23:11, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not so much questioning the accuracy of the figures as much as how they were measured. I mean, square footage of hull, pipes fitted, systems installed, even crew training are not necessarily meaningful figures. Please invite Dank to this, because the figures make me feel like they are trying to squeeze a number onto something that is fluid and not necessarily easily quantified.  bahamut0013  words deeds 16:02, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I've rewritten the statistics so that they are a little more open to interpretation and less exacting in the calculations, but this still doesn't answer your specific question about how they calculated how complete the ships were. I've tried to look into this, but have had no luck on this point thus far. TomStar81 (Talk) 02:16, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
 * OK, well I think it's moot with the more generalized numbers.  bahamut0013  words deeds 16:46, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
 * There are more redlinks than I would be comfortable having in an article when sending it to ACR or FAR. For example, the names of the various Korean locations probably are either misspelled or unlikely to be created soon, so you can probably unlink them.
 * I believe this to have been addressed after the return of the original paragraph long descriptions for the ships, if more need be done to satisfy this then let me know and I will work on it. TomStar81 (Talk) 02:29, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * There are still a few more (especially in the "fast battleships" section), but it's a reasonable amount now, and they probably have a reasonable chance of being made someday, and I don't think anyone would oppose a promotion over it.  bahamut0013  words deeds 13:30, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Similarly, there are a lot of greenlinks. I know there is nothing wrong with redirects, but the number of them looks just a bit sloppy, and I see a couple that might be confusing disambiguation. Take a look and see if any are pointing to the wrong target (like battleship battle group going to carrier battle group).
 * "Greenlinks", you say? Are you using some kind of tool to find these that highlights the links in color? If so please enlighten me as to where I could find it. TomStar81 (Talk) 17:49, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Gosh, I'd forgotten that it's not standard. I added some code to User:Bahamut0013/monobook.css, and this turns the links of redirects green; if you are savvy with hex color values (see web colors), you can use any color you like. Some articles are a virtual forest!  bahamut0013  <sup style="color:#000;margin-left:-1px">words <sub style="color:#000;margin-left:-16px">deeds 16:02, 21 December 2010 (UTC)


 * There are a few places where acronyms are used only once, when introduced (i.e. "MARDET"). If you're not going to use them, it's probably best not to introduce them (unless it's commonly used in the references).
 * I've removed two (I think two) of these one time only acronyms from the article (and thanks for spelling acronyms btw, I tried eight times and still mispelled it until it dawned on me you'd already spelled it above), if you spot any others let me know and I'll go fishing for them again. TomStar81 (Talk) 02:16, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I can't spot anymore. Silly Tom and his spelling deficiencies. :P  bahamut0013  <sup style="color:#000;margin-left:-1px">words <sub style="color:#000;margin-left:-16px">deeds 16:46, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
 * In the lead, the meanders from replacing the class's capabilities to the gunfire debate. Since there is an article for that topic, I would tighten it up (or at least move it out of the lead); for example, you can easily lose the AGS/railgun/laser sentance and nobody would miss it.
 * That is does, but then tightening this gets a little complicated since the problem then moves to the R&D clause: info in an article needs to be complete, and not lacking anything. I can trim out parts of this, or perhaps make use of the note system to place non-essential information in the notes section, but however the issue be approached its important that the essentially information presented stay there. Since you are the second person to raise this paragraph as an issue here I will see about fiddling with it when I get back from my daily errands. TomStar81 (Talk) 17:49, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Played with it a little, let me know what you think. My gut tells me that others are probably going to hit on this as well, so I am going to attempt to rebuild the old reactivation potential section and add it back to the article with a new name and hopefully better information. This could take a while though, just letting you (and anyone else interested) know. TomStar81 (Talk) 23:11, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
 * It's a start, but I agree that this section would be better under it's own header. Even if you can't pan that out, you probably ought to move everything from "The debate lasted until 2006..." and on to a subheading under the conversion proposal about gunfire support debate.  bahamut0013  <sup style="color:#000;margin-left:-1px">words <sub style="color:#000;margin-left:-16px">deeds 16:02, 21 December 2010 (UTC)


 * In the "Conversion Proposals" section: "the terrier missile after World War II, and construction on Kentucky was far enough along that proposals were made to remove the aft gun turret and install a pair of RIM-2 Terrier missile launchers." Do you have to link to RIM-2 twice in the same sentance, especially since one is a more vague redirect?
 * Noted and fixed, in the process also fixing the redirect. TomStar81 (Talk) 23:11, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
 * In the same section: "Charles Myers' proposal for replacement of the turret with vertical launch systems for missiles and a flight deck for marine helicopters"... does "marine" refer to Marine Corps or naval? You've consistantly (an properly) capitalized Marine in the rest of the article.
 * Marine Corps. Capitalized per you comment. TomStar81 (Talk) 23:11, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Much of this section was built with info provided by Dank that was moved in a near absolute form into the article. In all probability, it refers to the USMC, and ought to be capitalized. Sorry for missing that :) TomStar81 (Talk) 17:49, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Fixed. TomStar81 (Talk) 23:11, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Awesome. :)  bahamut0013  <sup style="color:#000;margin-left:-1px">words <sub style="color:#000;margin-left:-16px">deeds 16:02, 21 December 2010 (UTC)


 * In the "Illinois and Kentucky" section, when discussing the Kentucky BBG proposal, you probably want to link to the "Conversion Proposals" section, because it talks about the possible fate of the ship much more in depth there.
 * Done. TomStar81 (Talk) 23:11, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
 * That's a lot of portals. Would the states be mad if we trimmed them out? And I think that the War portal is redundant to the BB, US military, and WWII portals.
 * In adding the portals I checked to see which of the currently active portals were using the page in the rotations, then added each that came up in alphabetical order. We can trim it with no real loss, however I should point out here that to my knowledge there are no guidelines or policies governing which portals get added. In either case, if it works, then I will not complain. TomStar81 (Talk) 17:49, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I've actually raised this matter on the coordinator's talk page, if you want to weigh in there. TomStar81 (Talk) 23:11, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
 * OK, no big deal. The section is long enough that it doesn't look bad, but I think that's the most I've ever seen.  bahamut0013  <sup style="color:#000;margin-left:-1px">words <sub style="color:#000;margin-left:-16px">deeds 16:02, 21 December 2010 (UTC)


 * If you could find some more information about the Iowas and nuclear armament, that would be awesome.
 * I've come up with some info on the nuclear shells, but I am not having any luck yet with the rest of the nuclear armament. I remember reading somewhere that Greenpeace alleged that the battleships had nuclear tipped tomahawks in Gulf War I, but a) Greenpeace is not exactly the world's most reliable source of information, and b) for the life of me I can not relocated the article (being out of town doesn't help much either). I will continue to look into this though, so with a little luck I may be able to turn up more info on the nuclear complement.
 * Well, I think we can leave the nature loonies out of the article. If that's true, the Navy will eventually release the info, and there will be plenty reliable sources for it. I'm suprised, for some reason, I'd assumed that Atomic Annie was the largest gun. I've tweaked the wording a tad, highly recommend you copy this info over to Armament of the Iowa class battleship and maybe even 16"/50 caliber Mark 7 gun.  bahamut0013  <sup style="color:#000;margin-left:-1px">words <sub style="color:#000;margin-left:-16px">deeds 16:46, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

All in all, I think this is ready for ACR once you get some copyediting done.  bahamut0013  <sup style="color:#000;margin-left:-1px">words <sub style="color:#000;margin-left:-16px">deeds 14:05, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Not quite yet, I still have a sourcing problem: Brad101 (who has thus far remained noticeably absent from the PR) has claimed that veteran's sites are not reliable sources, which means that the bulk of the Iowa an New Jersey sections are going to need rewriting since they rely on veteran association websites for their information. In addition, I am trying to find material on the communications suites used by the battleships during their carriers. I have info that they were fitted with a cruiser communications suite in the 1980s, but that still leaves the other two to three deployments unaccounted for. And these issues are only those I am aware of; when and Brad reviews the article I expect he will come up with 10-20 things that need fixing that I either ignored or did not realize were issues in the first place. In either case, thanks for the review, and I will look into fixing the points when I return from my initial errands for the day. TomStar81 (Talk) 17:49, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
 * That's a trenchant point, but I think you can easily pull sources from the ships articles, as there seem to be plenty of good ones in each (I think DANFS alone can source most of each ships' histories). I don't think that missing the communication suites would be a serious oversight on completeness, however, so I wouldn't encourage you to sweat it if you can't find much sourcing. WWII-era military radios were considerably poorer documented than modern systems; I imagine this correlates into ship-board systems as well.
 * Ed's got a good eye as well. I would invite him in to review.  bahamut0013  <sup style="color:#000;margin-left:-1px">words <sub style="color:#000;margin-left:-16px">deeds 16:02, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
 * On the matter of DANFS as a source, Brad (its always Brad, btw, have you noticed that reoccurring theme here? :) complained about the reliance on DANFS as well, which is why I know that he is going to complain about the ships section since material in there is still cited to DANFS. You can check out the wholly united points of improvement at User:TomStar81/Iowa class battleship; the entire top of the page is all material taken from the talk page, Good Article Nomination, and Featured Article Review/Featured Article Removal Candidacy that was cited as the reasons being for the article's fall from grace. Its also, incidentally, been one of the building blocks for the newer version. As far as Ed goes, he actually hasn't been on here the last few days, otherwise I am sure that we would have heard from him here by now. I'll go ahead and leave a message for Dank though so he can get in on this. TomStar81 (Talk) 22:14, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Dank
The argument is iffy to me, but I think that your idea is worthy of bringing up at WT:MILHIST.  bahamut0013  <sup style="color:#000;margin-left:-1px">words <sub style="color:#000;margin-left:-16px">deeds 20:45, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Above, "Illinois was 22%" and "Kentucky was 72%" are credited to me, but I've search Talk:Iowa class battleship for "Illinois" and "Kentucky" and I'm not seeing it ... a little help? - Dank (push to talk) 22:56, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
 * My apologies, it has apparently been archived. You can check the archives on the talk page over at the class article, or you can view a copy of your comments at User:TomStar81/Iowa class battleship (its near the top of the section titled "from the talk page"). TomStar81 (Talk) 23:11, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I meant I checked the archives and didn't see it. I also don't see it on the page you're mentioning.  Btw, I agree with Baha's objection that just to say baldly that Illinois was 22% complete, even when we're sourcing that, does suggest that we think that progress can be measured that accurately ... and it's not, of course, engineers typically use figures like that just for accounting and accountability, they don't actually "believe" the figure. - Dank (push to talk) 23:27, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
 * No offense Tom, but I think you fell victim to the same "numbers" mentality that the admirals of the day did. A bit more approximate is probably the best way to go about this.  bahamut0013  <sup style="color:#000;margin-left:-1px">words <sub style="color:#000;margin-left:-16px">deeds 14:56, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
 * In Tom's defense, you could make the argument that most readers won't care what exactly the figures mean, and the ones that do care will already have a healthy dose of skepticism. Still, I side with you on the general principle, Bahamut.  Would this be suitable for the A-class checklist?  Something like, "If you believe most readers will doubt, distrust or misunderstand the degree of precision or specificity the source reports, it's acceptable and sometimes necessary to approximate or summarize the information." - Dank (push to talk) 15:25, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I suggested the general argument for the A-class checklist here, although I'm not sure myself if it's concrete enough for the checklist. - Dank (push to talk) 20:52, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually ... thanks, I see now that if we try to package that into something pithy for the checklist, then it could easily get misapplied. I've removed it from my suggestions for the checklist. - Dank (push to talk) 20:58, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Comments coming soon. I'll finish copyediting it today. - Dank (push to talk) 21:08, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I see it's been archived; I'll put comments on the talk page. - Dank (push to talk) 22:25, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

The Land
Generally pretty good. I can see one fairly major problem of fact, and a few less serious issues, mainly about style. I haven't yet had a chance to cross-check every thing, fact-by-fact, against the sources I have to hand but could find time if that would help. The biggest problem I can see is this sentence from the lead, and reflected a bit further down the lead section.
 * "The Iowa class battleships were a class of fast battleships ordered by the United States Navy in 1939 and 1940 to escort the Fast Carrier Task Forces which would operate in the Pacific Theater of World War II."

I don't think this is the case - the strategic situation when the Iowas were ordered was very different to that when they were commissioned. In 1938 no-one was thinking about battleships as only being responsible for escorting carriers (a role at which they are, in any case, very inefficient). Friedman's account of their design says ;
 * "Ten thousand tons was a very great deal to pay for 6 knots. The General Board was willing to pay that price because it wanted fast capital ships to fight its version of a future Pacific war. The U.S. ORANGE war plan envisaged a fleet advance through the Central Pacific, at the end of a long line of communication that would attract Japanese cruiser-carrier attacks. For its part, the U.S. 21-knot battle force would be unable to bring these Japanese task forces to battle. Detached carriers might have a chance, but their cruiser escorts would be unable to defeat the three Japanese Kongo-class battle cruisers, which might well be detached ... By 1939 it was also argued that fast-striking groups might be needed merely to bring the Japanese fleet to battle". He goes on to say that one alternative in the North Carolina design was 33 knots, for the same reasons. Basically, the design of the Iowas predates the idea that a battleship's job was to escort aircraft carriers.
 * I can't see the relevant page of Hough's book, which this section is referenced to, but I doubt it's a better source than Friedman.


 * I've heard it said in books and interviews concerning the Pacific Theater that these ships were built to be fast carrier escorts. Like you, I too share some skepticism of these proclamations since they were on the drawing board well before the carrier became a mainstay of sea power. Still and all, WP:V says it just has to be verifiable, not truthful; having said that, though, I will concede that this is an issue that can not be ignored. TomStar81 (Talk) 02:27, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I think it's important to take the quality of sources into account. Friedman's work, aside from being pretty much the definitive study of US battleships, is a secondary source: he has directly examined the source material. I don't know much about Hough's work so can't comment on how reliable it is, but I have my doubts. The Land (talk) 19:50, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Moving on to other issues:
 * Structure. Wouldn't it make more sense to have the "Specifications" section next to the "Background" section, so that you have an uninterrupted account of the ships' design? Would it be better to move the material about the 1980s refits into a second section, so that you have one account of their development as 1940s batttleships and another account of their development as 1980s battleships? Also, I would treat "aircraft" as just another sort of equipment, rather than being worth its own section. If I were structuring it, I would do it something along the lines of;
 * Background
 * Design
 * Armour (sorry, Armor ;-) )
 * Armament
 * Propulsion
 * Aircraft
 * Conversion proposals
 * 1980s Refit
 * Armament
 * Electronics
 * Aircraft
 * NGFS debate
 * Retirement
 * Ships


 * Length. The article is getting on the long side. To some extent this is inevitable but I think there are places where economies can be made, specifically;
 * The lead section - there are a few things here which aren't in the body of the article, mainly about the retirement homes for the class - also see above my comments about the planned uses. Some of this needs to be worked into the body of the article but generally I think this needs to be crisper and more of a summary.
 * I've been fiddling with the lead on and off; we did have four paragraphs in it for a while. TomStar81 (Talk) 02:27, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Background. Definitely think the first two paragraphs are unnecessary - in this article the Naval Treaties don't deserve more than a sentence between them.
 * Ships. I think a one-paragraph summary of the career of each ship would suffice. After all, none of this is new material to the encyclopedia as all the ships are FAs themselves!
 * I'll concede this point but it was brought to my attention that these sections should be expended to include more detail. If you like I can return the sections to their pre-write states which were roughly 1 paragraph long. TomStar81 (Talk) 02:27, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I'll second this one: conciseness should be priority and the redundancy can be eliminated.  bahamut0013  <sup style="color:#000;margin-left:-1px">words <sub style="color:#000;margin-left:-16px">deeds 12:59, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
 * OK, I've switched out the descriptive sections for the shorter versions previously available in the article. Let me know what you all think, if we need more info or more tightening I'll get to it. TomStar81 (Talk) 00:19, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Prose. I'd like to give the article a bit of a detailed prose edit, but I don't want to start on it until I've discussed the other thoughts with you!
 * Yes, please wait until we get the rest of the issues above more or less addressed. Then, feel free to tweak :) TomStar81 (Talk) 02:27, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Right, how do we fit a cultural significance section into this structure? It is rare that a ship actually needs a section like this - though some do - Mikasa and Yavuz Sultan Selim spring to mind. The Iowas might do but I'm not sure. The assertion that they're the best battleships ever certainly needs a better source than the Discovery Channel. But for this section to work I would really prefer to see some material about their frequent occurrences in fiction and the amount of time and effort that is going in to their preservation as museum ships. Perhaps "Cultural significance" isn't the best title? Anyway, in terms of structure, I think this material should go below "Retirement" or possibly as a sub-section of it. The "Ships" section still goes at the end because it's distinct from the narrative (the brief summary of their careers is almost supporting material). Anyway, just my two cents! Regards, The Land (talk) 20:51, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Working on the sources - the problem is that this is sort of a commonly accepted thing stateside, so its hard to find a source that actually matters site the information. FWIW, the Discovery channel cite is only when one of the two professionals interviewed for the segment actually speak, so I am quoting them and not the announcer or the script. I know it seems like I am splitting hairs, but that to me matters since the men interviewed are knowledgeable about this sort of thing. As for your section headers, I've reformatted them per your suggestion, the reformatted version appears here at the moment since I want to here back from you on whether this reformatted version needs any major work before putting it back out in the article main space. TomStar81 (Talk) 01:30, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Structure - that looks fine to me - I also tweaked the "conversion" section a bit an added a ref you were looking for. In terms of "significance" - I think someone saying "there were the best battleships ever" isn't actually cultural significance, it's more an assessment of their military significance. I also remain sceptical that anything on a Discovery Channel show about "Ten Best Warships" is a reliable source - it isn't a format that lends itself to reliability, even if the people concerned would be considered reliable sources in books they'd written. It will do for now but rellay there must be something better out there. I still think that there is plenty more to say about their actual cultural significance. Someone must have studied their occurrences in fiction, there is plnty to say about the memorialization of the ships, and so on. The Land (talk) 20:08, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Remember that one of the cornerstone's of American culture is "Anything you can do we can do better", so it is a kind of cultural thing that we have the bragging rights to the world's greatest battleships. Its this same cultural mentality that allows us to brag that we won the war with help from other nations, not we helped other nations to fight and win the war. I have to constantly remind myself of that–which may be one of the reasons why I appear to be having a hard time making this section work. TomStar81 (Talk) 02:20, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I think this might be converting the "in pop culture" section into something encyclopedic, instead of a list of every movie, TV show, and video game that they ever appeared in? I think that adding something like this falks a very fine line of OR and NPOV... though I agree that they do have that charismatic reputation that is significant even today. If you really want to do it, you could probably reword it as "a Discovery Channel show titled Ten Best Warships declared the Iowas as the "best ships ever"." You will have to do some pop culture mention examples for that reputation, but only ones that can be referenced well (I'm sure you can find something good for MGS4, for example). You'll also want to talk a bit more about the memorialization, like the museaums and Mo on V-J Day.  bahamut0013  <sup style="color:#000;margin-left:-1px">words <sub style="color:#000;margin-left:-16px">deeds 15:53, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I added a whole new paragraph to the article for the hell of it to see if any of what is mentioned should stay. Honestly, I am back to considering whether or not this section should be scrapped altogether, not that I do not think we can not support one, it just seems to me like an awful lot of work to have to go through to find something everyone would be happy with. TomStar81 (Talk) 05:47, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I couldn't blame you: that's a potato that is delicate in addition to being hot. However, I think the current wording is pretty good, as long as it remains fairly stable.  bahamut0013  <sup style="color:#000;margin-left:-1px">words <sub style="color:#000;margin-left:-16px">deeds 13:10, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Well that'll be easy to do since OMT is listed as being the maintainer of the article, therefore we get first dibs on the determination of the worthiness of the material to be in the article. Throwing out the stuff that shouldn't be there will be easy on that count, however I always expect that whoever adds the material will come to whine or yell at its removal, and handling that part of the removal is always the hard part :) TomStar81 (Talk) 03:13, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

TomStar81
Just adding a link for my convenience and create a spot for me to leave personal notes.
 * User:TomStar81/Iowa class battleship
 * Gonna need to rethink the cultural significance section, preliminary suggestions include adding more fictional appearances to the article governing the appearance of the ship(s) in games, films, tv shows, etc. Need to trim the discovery channel references out of the article since as TL observed they go to the same link that was previously called as being suspicious. TomStar81 (Talk) 23:50, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Section reformatting has left some spots a little thin, perhaps it may be worth while to look into adding some more meat to the sections, or alternatively look into a reformatting of the article so that some of the smaller sections may can be combined. TomStar81 (Talk) 23:50, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Look for the ed17's hidden comments and see about addressing them. TomStar81 (Talk) 19:59, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Fifelfoo

 * Coming in a bit late in the process, I know:
 * Further reading:
 * "Bonner, Kit; Bonner, Carolyn (1998). "Explosion". " It is unusual practice to separately cite a chapter in a book that isn't a compilation of chapters, each chapter authored by different authors.
 * I've removed the chapter from the citation template, let me know if this works. TomStar81 (Talk) 00:03, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * "Hoskins, Lawrence E., LT USNR" Volume, issue, page ranges for this apparent journal article?  Articles are normally "Article Title" Journal title
 * I'm using a citation template for this one and was under the impression that the templates plugged in all the information correctly once the fields were filled out and the page saved. If this assumption is incorrect then I will go back and add the material manually. TomStar81 (Talk) 00:03, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Templates don't produce correct information. Use |title= for the article title and |journal= for the journal if using cite journal.  Templates correctly order correctly identified and entered metadata. Fifelfoo (talk) 00:18, 18 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Bibliography:
 * "Bishop, Chris (1988)." ; "Hore, Peter (2005)." ; "Keegan, John (2000)." ; "Lyon, Hugh; Moore, J. E. (1978)." Sole authored encyclopaedia?  Or edited encyclopedia with articles authored by other authors?  If the former, it is fine, if the latter, the individual articles ought to be cited.
 * I'm going to have to look at the book in the University library, but unfortunately I am not in El Paso at the moment, and even if I was the library won't reopen until the 18th. I will get to this, I'm just saying that its going to have to sit on the back burner for a while. TomStar81 (Talk) 00:03, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * "Gardiner, Robert (1980). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships, 1922-1946." ; "Newhart, Max R. (2007)." ; ""Sharpe, Richard (1991)."" has a page number listed in the bibliography?
 * Removed the page numbers from the above mentioned citations. TomStar81 (Talk) 00:03, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * "Neubeck, Ken (2002)." Is the publisher "#185" or is it book in series #185? If a book in a series of books, the series number usually comes before the publisher.
 * Not sure about this one, will have to check when I can get back into the UTEP library. TomStar81 (Talk) 00:03, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Fixed a known authormask problem with Stilwell
 * Thanks. TomStar81 (Talk) 00:03, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * "Sharpe, Richard (1991)." London, England?  Really?  London, UK surely.
 * Fixed. TomStar81 (Talk) 00:03, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * No location for the publisher "Thompson II, Charles C. (1999). " ; "Terzibaschitsch, Stefan (1977)."
 * Need the library to fix this one, sorry. TomStar81 (Talk) 00:03, 6 January 2011 (UTC)


 * References:


 * Check your n-dashes: Hough, p. 214-216. Yenne, p. 132-133. Compare " - " with " – ".
 * Should I be using ndash for the pages or using the "-" button? Let me know and I will take a pass through the article to fix all instances of this discrepancy. TomStar81 (Talk) 00:03, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm under the belief that page ranges use n-dash according to the manual of style. Same with year ranges, or number ranges generally. Fifelfoo (talk) 00:18, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Ok, I took a pass through and fixed what I beleive to be all instances of this concern. If you spot any hold outs let me know and I'll fix'em. TomStar81 (Talk) 02:22, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
 * "Rogers: Fastest Battleships" etc: Full citation ought to come first (short citation is cite 33, long citation is cite 105).  Short citation by title ought to be like your other short citations try, "Rogers, "Fastest Battleships""? ; same problem "DiGiulian, United States of America 16"/50 (40.6 cm) Mark 7." ; same ""National Defense Authorization Act of 2007" (pdf) pp. 109th Congress, United States Senate and House of Representatives. 193-194.".  Didn't find any other instances.
 * Should I put the full citations in the bibliography section rather than here in the notes section? From a position of uniformity it would appear that this would be the best option, but I would like a second opinion on the matter.
 * You've got two options, if only citing in the notes, the full citation must be in the first note (ie: 11 versus 99, full citation in note 11). OR you can add it into the bibliography and short cite it both times. Fifelfoo (talk) 00:18, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
 * "Vinson: Congressional biography" is not cited anywhere in full
 * I'll look into it. TomStar81 (Talk) 00:03, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Cites 63 and 64 jar on the italicisation of Illinois
 * Fixed TomStar81 (Talk) 00:03, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Needs page no "Garzke, p. ??"
 * Oops, I forgot that I put sourcing information in here and sometimes omitted page numbers in the process. I'll need to get back you on this, but since I have the book name it should not be too hard to find the needed information. TomStar81 (Talk) 00:03, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Atypically placed date "Thomas, Vincent C. The Almanac of Seapower 1987 Navy League of the United States (1987) ISBN 0-9610724-8-2 p.191"
 * Removed the first instance of the year. TomStar81 (Talk) 00:03, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Lacking correct positioning of pp. ""National Defense Authorization Act of 2007" (pdf) pp. 109th Congress, United States Senate and House of Representatives. 193-194. Retrieved on 2010-12-16." Fifelfoo (talk) 04:05, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Removed the pp., added a "p." in front of the page numbers. TomStar81 (Talk) 00:03, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Brad101

 * I agree completely with The Land and the layout and structure of the article. It should follow his suggestion though I'm not convinced that length is a problem.
 * To clarify a comment made above about DANFS: There is nothing wrong with using DANFS as a source but like any other source it should not be relied upon for the majority of sourcing. Sources should mix as evenly as possible. There has been much improvement on this issue since I last commented on the article. However, this does not mean that an article headed for A and FA status should include large amounts of DANFS text. This also seems to have improved since the last time I commented on this article. Brad (talk) 18:13, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
 * With the exception of the section on New Jersey and Missouri the other four ships listed in the ships section all cite to DANFS to some greater or lesser extent. I would have removed the DANFS referencing if I had better sources, but at the moment I do not and thus four of the six ships still rely on DANFS for citations. If this is not going to be a problem for this article then that is awesome, and I will take heed of your advice concerning DANFS and work to remove that as much as possible from the individual ship articles as I get to them in the coming months. I've discovered over the years that DANFS tends to omit or gloss over rather important parts in the histories of the ships covered, and that won't do for me since I want the ships articles to have as much info about their history as I can get into the articles here while adhering to policy and guideline points on Wikipedia. TomStar81 (Talk) 03:11, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Just like any other source. :P  bahamut0013  <sup style="color:#000;margin-left:-1px">words <sub style="color:#000;margin-left:-16px">deeds 13:10, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Last comment: The references are still in disarray. There are missing page numbers, missing publisher info, no standard date format on retrieval dates, use of 'p' where multiple pages require 'pp' and vice versa. This should be fixed before A-class nom. Brad (talk) 14:39, 28 January 2011 (UTC)