Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ships/Archive 4

New Images Uploaded
Folks, I've uploaded some external and internal snaps of replica HMB Endeavour at commons:Category:Endeavour — superbfc  [  talk  |  cont  ] — 13:28, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Template:WAFerry
Has anyone noticed: Template:WAFerry? It looks huge, takes up about 3/4 of my 1024x768 screen resolution. Would the standard ships infobox be more appropriate for the ~30 ferries transcluded? --Dual Freq 17:09, 1 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't know anything much about templates so I don't know if the normal ships one can be made to work for this (easily), but it shouldn't be too hard to make this one look the same as the normal ship one... Martocticvs 22:14, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Guess I should have checked Template:Infobox Ferry first. The variable names are different though, anybody know how to convert from Template:WAFerry to Template:Infobox Ferry using a bot or AWB? There are only 30 so maybe it wouldn't be that hard to convert. I guess I could just copy the Ferry infobox to the WAFerry one and change the variables, but then wikipedia would have two identical ferry infoboxs with different names. --22:26, 1 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I've slimmed it down to 300px from 500px but that still leaves the matter of having two templates for Ferries and a main ship template. Should all these be merged? I think the Ferry ones should be merged, but I'm not sure how to implement. The WAFerry one has more information and a few more articles that use it than the regular ferry one. Any ideas? --Dual Freq 00:07, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Commercial vessel template
The use of naval templates for commercial vessels has caused problems, amd has led to confusion between displacement and tonnage, launch date and service entry date, etc. There is an effort beginning now to standardize a template for commercial vessels. See Template:Infobox Commercial Ship and the related talk page. Perhaps that page belongs here. It is time however to create a specialized template for commercial vessels, and in all likliehood a number of templates for different kinds of vessels. Your thoughts are requested. Template_talk:Infobox_Commercial_Ship Thank you. Kablammo 22:45, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
 * This is a good idea. Would it also apply to USNS ships or civilian ships that used to be run by the Navy and aren't any more?  I work on a lot of articles for those types of ships and would be interested in the box having an option for dates they were run by the navy as well as commercial dates. --JAYMEDINC 23:02, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
 * The template could work for any commercial vessel, including those in naval service. It could also work for ferries-- we were unaware of the discussion on a ferries template when our project started.  We probably should combine discussion on Template talk:Infobox Commercial Ship and this one in one place-- where does not matter.  Kablammo 17:59, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Redirects & Categories
After searching the archives, I didn't see what I was looking for. I may have missed it. Here is the example. USS Serene (AM-300) and RVNS Nhut Tao (HQ-10) are the same ship.

Now it make no sense to look at the Category:Republic of Vietnam Navy ships and see the USS Serene listed, it does make sense to see the RVNS Nhut Tao (HQ-10)  Having two seperate articles don't make a lot of sense. My solution is on the redirect for which ever would be the smaller article put the category for that respective Navy's entry. Opinions? --71Demon 18:51, 8 January 2007 (UTC)


 * If you do that, there's no link from the article from the category, which is half of the purpose of categorization. We just put USS Serene in Category:Republic of Vietnam Navy ships instead. TomTheHand 19:28, 8 January 2007 (UTC)


 * The Category makes more sense if you see the Vietnamese names of the ships, than the US names. I understand about what your saying, and there is no good solution to that. It would be nice if we could  do something like [Category:Republic of Vietnam Navy ships|USS Serene (AM-300)|RVNS Nhut Tao (HQ-10)] that way in that catergory it would display the later.  I believe that the names appearing are the category reflect the ships name in that category is more important than and easy hop. --71Demon 19:42, 8 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree that it would be better for the Vietnamese name to appear in the Vietnamese category, and it would be nice if categorization supported it. However, it's not a matter of just not having an easy hop: if we make a redirect, and categorize the redirect, there will be no link from the article to the category, which is literally 50% of the purpose of categorization.  You don't just need to be able to get from a category to an article.  You also need to be able to get from an article up to a category to find similar articles.  Categorizing redirects makes that impossible.  This has been discussed many times in the past, and we've concluded that it's necessary to categorize the articles themselves and not the redirects in spite of the disadvantages. TomTheHand 20:15, 8 January 2007 (UTC)


 * While I agree that is the problem, the way I got around it is to put a link under the ships new name in the article. This allows the person to jump to the redirect, and get the category link. I would say that ships are one of the few things on Wiki, that present this problem. The should be a way to link to a category, without.... brb --71Demon 21:42, 8 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Not pretty, but problem solved. Category:Republic of Vietnam Navy ships --71Demon 21:56, 8 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I would much prefer to just categorize the ship articles under Category:Republic of Vietnam Navy ships. The solution you've described doesn't work: the person cannot jump to the redirect by clicking on the link in the article.  Instead you've put a link to the category at the bottom of the page, which I think is ugly and isn't the way people expect to find category links.  I think that it is better to accept having USS ships in the Republic of Vietnam Navy category than to try to do what you've done.  Do any other project members have an opinion? TomTheHand 22:24, 8 January 2007 (UTC)


 * The solution I described works perfectly. I don't like the way Category:Republic of Vietnam Navy ships looks, but it works.  It allows the ships to appear in their respective category under the correct name, and gives a direct link back to that category after the redirect.  It also appears that several others have been done in a similar way (looking at the category of the Tiawanese Navy) although they do not have the hard link. --71Demon 22:45, 8 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I know you don't like the way Category:Republic of Vietnam Navy ships looks, and I know you think your solution is fine. I think it's ugly and unintuitive, and I don't think there's a huge problem with having USS ships under Category:Republic of Vietnam Navy ships if it allows proper category navigation.  We need to hear from other project members. TomTheHand 22:48, 8 January 2007 (UTC)


 * If your looking in Category:Republic of Vietnam Navy Ships and find USS Serene, there is no way to know it is the RVNS Nhut Tao (HQ-10). I don't believe it does allow proper navigation.  --71Demon 22:55, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Tom thanks Category:Republic of Vietnam Navy ships works great, much better. --71Demon 23:16, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I posted about our situation at the help desk and got an interesting suggestion. Not sure how I feel about it, but I wanted to post about it here to get opinions. TomTheHand 22:09, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

As I think WikiProject Military History is a little bit more active than this one, I posted about this on the talk page of their maritime warfare task force to get some input. Please check it out here. TomTheHand 22:35, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Ship article naming

 * I've been away for a couple days and maybe I missed something. However what I think needs to be mentioned is, I am pretty sure in the Naming Convention guidelines, a naval ship is supposed to be named by it's newest navy name.  If the Vietnam name is most recent, shouldn't that be the name of the article?  USS Serene should redirect to it and be mentioned in the article. Correct me if I am wrong. --JAYMEDINC 01:33, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Not really the issue we were discussing. The issue is when looking in the RVN Navy ships for the Nhut Tao (HQ-10) how would you know it was the USS Serene? My solution was to put the category in the redirect, so that the correct name would appear in the correct category. THis left no link in the actual article to the category.  My solutions that is this.

Categories|Category:Republic of Vietnam Navy ships It allows the categories, articles, and names all to work together. --71Demon 01:41, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
 * No, a naval ship is supposed to be placed at its best-known name. TomTheHand 02:11, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Best known name to who? To the USN vetrans that served aboard her and those researching it actions while in the US Navy? Or the Navy vetrans of the ROC who served aboard her, in many cases much longer than the ship was in USN service, and those people researching the actions of the ship while in the ROC Navy or any navy. This policy is subjective.  If the ships entry is under the original, then that is something concrete. --71Demon 14:48, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I see what you're saying, but in most cases it's uncontroversial. For example, HMS Shah (D21) was laid down as USS Jamaica (CVE-43) and acquired by the USN but was transferred to the Royal Navy before seeing USN service.  The article is located at HMS Shah, and I would strongly oppose moving it to USS Jamaica.
 * As another example, USS Liberty (AGTR-5) was laid down as Simmons Victory, a Victory ship, and served under that name for about 18 years before being acquired and commissioned by the USN. She is best known for the USS Liberty incident, and we are not moving it to SS Simmons Victory.
 * In your above hypothetical, if a ship served in the USN and the ROC Navy, and we have equal amounts of information about each career, the article should be split. If a ship served in the USN and the ROC Navy, but the article focuses almost entirely on one career, the article should be named for the career actually covered.
 * If you have a case that's actually controversial, we can debate it specifically. If you have another idea for the naming guideline, let's discuss it, but giving the article the ship's original name will not work. TomTheHand 15:06, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Tom, this thread was never about article naming. I just offered an opinion on that.  On the HMS Shah is was commissioned in to the Royal Navy, and not the USN, so I wouldn't have a problem with it being the main article. As for the USS Liberty (AGTR-5) I see your point, but as it stands now the guidelines you are using are subjective to the editors point of view as to which is more important.  A merchant marine may argue that Simmons Victory is more important, which would be a weak argument, but not invalid.  A hard guideline should be established.  I would say articles should be listed as First Commissioned As with other names being used as redirects. I also added '''Name: Ships Name (Hull-##) to the box on the right.  I think this will help. Example USS Serene (AM-300) --71Demon 15:26, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I've split off the article naming thread. I'd still like to see other project members comment on the above categorization issue. What you're suggesting is contrary to Wikipedia naming policy, which is to give articles the names that are most likely to be searched for.  It's not a completely objective guideline and there are debates about specific cases all the time, but naming the article after the thing most people will search for is the most useful to users of the site, which is the most important thing.
 * A name row has been added to the new ship infobox template, which was discussed above. I'll be moving the new template to the Template space soon. TomTheHand 15:36, 9 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the split. Wikipedia naming policy is going to have things that do not fit well.  Ships are somewhat unique in the fact that their two main identifiers name and hull number change. Some special allowence is going to have to be made, but it is best to have a naming convention that doesn't change.  That is why I suggested "Commissioned As" --71Demon 16:01, 9 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I completely disagree. Articles should be placed at the name most likely to be searched, and there's no reason at all that ships don't fit with this.  Again, if there's a specific controversy, we can address it, but what you're proposing is cutting off your nose to spite your face.  We're not going to name ship articles exclusively after the first name the ship carried or was commissioned as.  I'm sorry.  It's a bad idea. TomTheHand 16:11, 9 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Most likely to be searched by who? Wikipedia is not exclusively US --71Demon 16:57, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Most likely to be searched by Wikipedia's English speaking population. Once again, if you have a specific case where the naming convention is a problem, we can discuss it.  Otherwise, I will not debate theoreticals with you.  Your "Navy vetrans of the ROC" or "merchant marine [who] may argue that Simmons Victory is more important" are in a tiny minority.  A person who served aboard Simmons Victory and feels the ship's service under that name is more important than its service as USS Liberty is, to be kind, expressing a fringe opinion.  If we name an article after the ship's first name, when the ship is far better known by a later name, we are harming the article. TomTheHand 18:06, 9 January 2007 (UTC)


 * English is one of the most common spoken langages in the world. I'm not debating the theoretical. We have no set standard for naming of ship articles, that is not theory, that is fact. The UK Royal Navy and the US Navy shared some ships, both countries speak english, no theory in that, just fact.  I would like to see a guideline to follow, first name commissioned is my offering.  --71Demon 18:50, 9 January 2007 (UTC)


 * The guideline is the name most likely to be searched for, which is the standard across Wikipedia and which applies just as well here as to every other article. That's the last thing I'm going to say.  Enjoy responding to this to have the last word. TomTheHand 18:58, 9 January 2007 (UTC)


 * It would be nice to have a simple and unambiguous convention, but then you're forced to end up with some ridiculous examples, like CVEs that were US ships for 15 minutes before being signed over to the RN. If you accept making a "special allowance" for situations like this, then you're simply restating the status quo, where we exercise some judgement as to which is the best name to use. Stan 16:37, 9 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I understand what you're saying, but the status quo has no guideline, basically do what feels right. I never really even had a problem current naming anyway, and not sure who we got on the subject. I would have never brought it up, but since it was, I stated my idea. Those CVE's were not commissioned into the USN, just assigned names I believe. --71Demon 16:57, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

OrphanBot
OrphanBot is ignoring {PD-USGov-Military-Navy-NHC} tags. I have put that tag on photos I have personally gotten from the National Archieves, that were taken by the USN. The bot needs to be fixed, but the editor that programmed it stated, that {PD-USGov-Military-Navy-NHC} is not enough. Then what is the point of the {PD-USGov-Military-Navy-NHC}? --71Demon 14:53, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
 * In addition to the tag, you've got to say where you found the picture. For example, if it's from the Naval Historical Center's web site, you need to provide a link to where it came from.  If you went to the NHC and scanned the picture yourself, you've got to say that. TomTheHand 15:10, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Why? That is what the {PD-USGov-Military-Navy-NHC} is for. If you put on the photo, I got it from the National Archives, then it is pointless to up {PD-USGov-Military-Navy-NHC}, because you already told them where it came from. It is like chasing your tail.  It is basically saying, You told us it was a work of the USN, but we need you to tell us it is a work of the USN again --71Demon 15:30, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
 * The template is a use rationale: "It's by the USN, and therefore public domain." You also need to provide a source: "I got it from their web site, http://navalhistoricalwhatnot.mil/pictures.html" TomTheHand 15:40, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, but that only covers website sources and there is no way to varify anything else anybody puts.  If you put, "These were USN photos found at the Library in Mobile, Alabama" How do you varify that? Your trusting editors to put {PD-USGov-Military-Navy-NHC}, that should be enough.  IF they are going to lie, then they are going to lie not matter what you ask them to put. --71Demon 15:56, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't know what to do for you beyond explaining what Wikipedia's policy is on this sort of thing. If you tell me where you got the photos, I can try to tell you what needs to be put on them to conform to Wikipedia's policy. TomTheHand 16:13, 9 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I understand the policy, I don't agree with it. {PD-USGov-Military-Navy-NHC} should be sufficent. I think it waste editors time, if they had not created a Bot, they would not do it themselves because then they would be wasting their time as well. --71Demon 17:11, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

SS Abyssinia - new article, pls help
Hi. I'm not a member of this WikiProject, though of a few others and so have my hands full. So I'm posting this in the hope that someone more experienced with ship-articles and their expected/standard formats and various categories and stubs can please have a look at the article/stub I just made on the SS Abyssinia, which was the Canadian Pacific Steamships vessel that halved the Trans-Pacific shipping time from Yokohama to New York, via the port of Vancouver, the Canadian Pacific Railway and Montreal. I'll be creating various other ship articles to do with Vancouver's and BC's history in the next while (lots of them, mostly stubs to start; we have a large coastal/int'l shipping history, as well as a large number of inland steamer/ferry services, current as well as historical), so general guidelines as to content, layout and appropriate stubs/cats appreciated in general. Also, I've noticed that Canadian Pacific Steamships doesn't have its own article, and perhaps it should; Canadian Pacific currently redirects only to the Canadian Pacific Railway but even by the end of the 19th Century CP was a megacorporation with a number of subordinate companies, e.g. Cominco (the Columbia Mining and Smelter Co.), as well as CP Shipping (as CP Steamships was, I think, known later on).Skookum1 05:26, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I added the commercial ships infobox to it and filled in what information I could, also using this site: . There are some contradictions between that site and the article, though, so I didn't try to fill in things like capacity. TomTheHand 14:36, 15 January 2007 (UTC)


 * You have two read links Canadian Pacific steamships and CP steamship. I am assuming that CP stands for Canadian Pacific.  If so seems when the article is written this should be one. If so, then I think CP steamship should be the format.  I wanted to make sure that was your intent, before I made a change, or you can do it yourself it.  --71Demon 17:14, 15 January 2007 (UTC)


 * No, the opposite should be the format; we expand abbreviations. In the time period of the article, the company was Canadian Pacific Steamships. TomTheHand 17:35, 15 January 2007 (UTC)


 * You should have clicked on it. CP steamship It was expanded. --71Demon 18:07, 15 January 2007 (UTC)


 * What? It doesn't matter that it linked to an expanded name; the expanded name should be used in the article. TomTheHand 18:10, 15 January 2007 (UTC)


 * The expanded name is used in the article above. It is accepted practice in writting that once you define the name Canadian Pacific, that using CP after that is ok. It is less ackward for the reader. --71Demon 18:15, 15 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, but only the first use should be wikilinked, and the first use should be Canadian Pacific Steamships. TomTheHand 18:16, 15 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't have a problem with CP being wiki linked the first time (and only) in this article.   It confirms we are talking about the Canadian Pacific.  I agree with you on not wiki linking a 2nd CP, if one existed --71Demon 18:20, 15 January 2007 (UTC)


 * It turns out we do have an article on Canadian Pacific Steamships under its modern name, CP Ships. TomTheHand 17:41, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Ship classes of the Nelsonic era, and other ramblings...
User:ChrisMCau has started creating class articles for ships of the Nelsonic era. From my point of view, this is unnecessary, as ships were referred to at the time purely by the number of guns they carried, and did no receive a class name until sometime later (perhaps the late 19th century, but don't quote me on that). That's the first point, the second is a particular page (also by him): Anson Class. I have added a self-contradict template to the page, for reasons that should be readily apparent after reading the first sentence. If you are going to assign these ships to classes, then none of them would come under an 'Anson' class - there would be no such class in fact. Indefatigable would be Ardent class, the others I can't remember off the top of my head. At the very least I think this article should be renamed to something like 'Razées of 1794'... but probably better would be to delete it. Any thoughts/opinions on these two points? Martocticvs 18:04, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately I don't know much about ships of that era, but what you've said matches with what I know: very few ships were actually built in "classes" at that time, in the sense we think of them today, and class names are a modern invention retroactively applied. Two things: first, I agree with you entirely about Anson Class, and Razées of 1794 might be a good name.  It might be good to get the country into the name as well, though.  Second, class articles should also specify the type of ship, so Minerva class should probably be Minerva class frigate.  I'll rename the Minerva class myself, but let's discuss the razées further before renaming. TomTheHand 14:19, 16 January 2007 (UTC)


 * That makes sense to me. You're quite right about the retroactive class naming - for example HMS Agamemnon (1781) was built from the plans of HMS Ardent (1764), thus making her, by today's naming conventions, an Ardent-class ship. However, no one of the time would have called her that - she would have been a 64 to any and everyone. So really assigning class names for these ships is an entirely academic exercise and doesn't represent accurately how they were referred to at the time. As for razées - it wasn't particularly common for this to happen... there weren't lots of razéed ships in the service. A few of the more outdated 2-deckers were cut down to become frigates, but the vast majority of them remained as built for their careers. So on second thoughts, Razées of 1794 is probably not a good title, as it suggests that several ships were cut down every year, when this was certainly not the case. Razées of the Royal Navy might be more suitable. Martocticvs 18:00, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, Razées of the Royal Navy sounds pretty good to me. It would allow a larger and more complete article.  I've asked ChrisMCau to join the discussion and left a note over at Anson Class to see if anyone else has anything to say.  TomTheHand 18:17, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

While its true that the ships at the time were not 'comonly' refered to as "classes", certainly large groups of ships were built to the same draft, for example the Coventry class 28's, a group 13/15 28 gun frigates built between 1756-1757/85. The majority of the large RN 38's built after 1805 were either to the draught of the Leda or the Lively. The major refewrences on the period refer to them by classes - for example "the sailing navy list" by David Lyon, or Gardniners works on Royal Navy frigates. It seems the most sensible way to group the ships, as well as being the way the current litrature in press deals with it.

The three Razee's of 1794, or the three of 1813 pose a slight problem, but I dont see why they could be refered to as the Razzee's of 1794, or 1813 - it is my intention to work through the sailing frigates of the Royal navy, by class and by individual ships, the "Anson class" that is not a class fits in with the other large ships of the 1790's, Pommone etc, whereas those of 1813 fit in with the War of 1812.


 * Thanks for commenting here Chris. Whilst I don't have anything specific against pages listing these ships by 'class', the problem I do see is that in doing so we are applying modern categorisations (which have been done out of convenience by the authors you mention) rather than documenting the reality of the time. If there are to be Class articles, then they should state early on that the ships would not have been referred to as being a member of any class at the time, but is rather a modern contrivance. Additionally, these class articles have to be just that - named after the first ship built to that particular plan, rather than being grouped by a particular other similarity (such as being razéed). I think that there were too few razées for them to warrant a page by year, but a page for all razées of the RN would be a good idea I think. Martocticvs 21:17, 16 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Of course its not, strictly speaking a modern convenience either. The Admiralty often ordered repeated ships from the same draught, clearly in an attempt to replicate their properties in the pursuit of particular goals. And we do have one clear case of the modern usage in the period, the 74's built to the combined design of Mr Rule and Mr Peake - commonly refered to at the time as "the Surveyors of the Navy class".ChrisMCau


 * I think it would make more sense to have a single article for a size, and have the "classes" as sections in it. Identifying a class and naming it is perilously close to original research - if there is a book or book chapter calling it the "Anson class", it could be justified that way. Stan 23:55, 16 January 2007 (UTC)


 * The Surveyors' class is the only one I can think of that was referred to in such a way. In that instance, obviously an article could be created, but for just about any other, without a contemporary source it would basically count as original research. As for 'Anson class' - it is a terribly misleading title and should be changed. Martocticvs 00:17, 17 January 2007 (UTC)


 * The others of which I am aware would be the "large class" and the "common class" of 74's - used to differentiate between those 74's built after 1785 that were 5-8 feet longer than the predesssors. Thats a different use from the modern use of course, I suspect that Lord St Vincent would never send a captain to a new command "of the Phoebe class", but he might send him to take command of a ship "built to the draught of the Phoebe". However, if you said to StVincent the frigates of the "Apollo class" were the ideal type of frigates, I suspect he would take your meaning, before damning you for the worst type of fool, then praising those frigates built to the draught of the Inconstant. I agree that "Anson class is not strictly accurate. Gardiner groups the three together, under the name "Razee 64 gun ships, 38 gun then 44 gun frigates...." The three ships certainly belong to a different group than the Majestic, Goliath and Saturn. Individual listings is far to unwieldy for a group of 250 ship, most of which shared a draught with one or more other from the group.ChrisMCau


 * I certainly see how there would be some benefit in creating articles to list ships built to the same draught, as that obviously would be useful to people. I do think we should try and avoid using the word class to describe these groups, however. Excepting where the term was used at the time, it just carries with it meaning that doesn't quite apply to these ships. Ships of the same class you would expect to be, barring a few differences in outfitting, to be basically identical, owing to the fact that the ships were built from the same set of comprehensive plans. Ships of this era were not designed with comprehensive plans, instead it was up to the shipwright to interpret the draught sent to him and build the ship from it (that's a generalisation but you get the point) - so there would have been many differences between different ships of the same 'class' - certainly stylistically, but sometimes functionally as well. Ships built to the plans of HMS Ardent would be a better, and completely unambiguous way of grouping these ships... though that title is a bit clunky obviously. If there aren't any objections though I think we should go ahead and rename the Anson Class article to Razees of the Royal Navy. Martocticvs 18:03, 17 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I would prefer the term "class" for a number of reasons, namely that the term is not completely anachronistic, that "to the draught of" is clumsy, and that the major authors in this field, David Lyon and Robert Gardiner use this terminology for these vessels. As to the Razee's - I have no objection to a name change, but to repeate myself, I think the 64/44 Razee's of 1794 need to split off from the 74/50 gun Razee's of 1813.ChrisMCau


 * OK well that's reasonable enough. Perhaps just include a short section in those list articles mentioning how the ships generally wouldn't have been referred to by class at the time... by the way, don't forget to make sure you follow the article naming conventions for your pages, Naming conventions (ships) (note no capitalisation of the word 'class' in the title, and the inclusion of the type of vessel). Martocticvs 21:55, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

List of Royal Navy ships in the Pacific Northwest
Hi. I just created this as part of an onslaught of at-least-stubs on marine history and ships in the history of BC and the Pacific Northwest; it was titled this way because BC didn't exist as name until 1858, and HM ships show up as far back as Drake...not sure if the Golden Hind should be included, as I'm not sure there was an RN back then; if it was a military-commissioned ship I'd say it qualifies (as in an inline comment on the page). The HMS Racoon is connected with the Fort George (Fort Astoria) incident during the War of 1812, and there are others who figure less in BC history than in Oregon's/Washington's, or perhaps Alaska's, so "Pacific Northwest" was used in the title instead of "British Columbia", which was too exclusive of other variables (notably the Colony of Vancouver Island, which predated the Colony of British Columbia and also is where the RN base was. As for the rest, I pulled them from the British Columbia Chronicle by husband-and-wife historians Helen B. and G.P.V. Akrigg, which is a standard opus on pre-Confederation BC history.  On the list I'm meaning to add the names of their commanding officers but that's going to take some hunt-and-peck with the index vs. particular pages; some of these vessels were extremely significant in local history (the Tribune, the Plumper, for starters). Anyway once again could someone please look over the categories and stubs and add or change any needed as appropriate. A further article on the naval shipyard and another on the naval hospital at the RN base at Esquimalt (before it became CFB Esquimalt) will also be written; likewise the coaling stations at Fort Rupert and Nanaimo, although in both those cases the RN information will fit in the articles of the same name. A similar list of Spanish ships in regional history, and maybe Russian ones, is intended. A US one would be exhaustively long because of the military complex around Puget Sound, unless there were a cut-off date, e.g. 1940, pre-World War II.....Skookum1 07:48, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * PS I've dab'd some vessels which had bluelinks, but not all, to distinguish them from later or earlier vessels. Anyone who'd care to continue this process please do so.Skookum1 09:46, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

New ship infobox: bloaty?
Having used the new ship infobox a little, I've had some time to think about it and its features, and I've become concerned that it's become bloated. I was wondering what you guys think. See Template:Infobox Ship Example and its talk page to see the copy-and-paste code and read a little documentation about the template.

I'm up for suggestions on how to de-bloat-ify the template. I think that what actually appears on the article is fine, but I think the copy-and-paste code is excessively long, with many rows that would only be used in very specific circumstances. When you edit an article that used the infobox, the first couple of screens are all template, and most of the rows are empty. We generally discourage people from removing unused rows, because someone else could come in and fill in the blanks, but some blanks make no sense on some ships.

This issue sort of exists with the old Template:Infobox Ship, but the new infobox has a number of new rows, and the problem is magnified if you have a ship with multiple career sections or something.

One idea that I have is to possibly have different copy-and-paste code for different situations. For example, you'd have one set of the copy-and-paste code for age of sail ships, and another set for modern ships, because "sensors" make no sense on the old ship, and "tons burthen" make no sense on the new.

We could maybe have a tree or a table to help you navigate to the right one: What era is it? Is it civilian or military? American or Commonwealth English? The templates themselves would be unchanged; each set of code would call the exact same templates. We'd just be eliminating rows that would never ever get filled in.

A possibly easier solution is to have just two sets of copy-and-paste code: simple and complex. 90% of cases would use the simple code, which would contain only the most used rows, and if you needed extra features you'd grab the complex code.

Another idea is to reverse the guideline about leaving unused rows intact, and instead have a comment in the code that says something like "This infobox supports additional rows; see here for full information."

Anyone else have any ideas? Anyone think it's simply not a problem, or the above solutions make things worse? TomTheHand 19:25, 17 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I had a similar thought whilst I was updating a few articles with this last night... maybe if there were different versions for the different eras as you suggest - the language specific variations can be left in as they don't account for much... Martocticvs 21:17, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

I put together some of my ideas at User:TomTheHand/infobox-simplified‎. Please have a look, and feel free to edit that page directly if you want by adding or subtracting fields from different sections. TomTheHand 19:39, 18 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I added a couple of fields back into the Age of Sail section - captured, nickname, and honours - all of which I have need to use on several ships of the time. Other than that, looks good, and much more streamlined. Martocticvs 21:34, 18 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I am of the opinion that any fields which would be used on very few ships should be copied and pasted on a case-by-case basis. If you feel that you're going to use nickname and honours often, then I think they're appropriate for inclusion.  I doubt you'll be able to use captured often, so it seems like a field that's best to paste in only when it's needed.  Still, I imagine "captured" would apply to Age of Sail ships far more than any other era. TomTheHand 21:38, 18 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Well perhaps we can lose nickname... there aren't a vast number of ships where we can reliably state their nicknames. Captured I would leave in though - a reasonable number of articles would make use of this. Honours definitely needs to be there I think. Martocticvs 21:50, 18 January 2007 (UTC)


 * As I don't really know much about the Age of Sail, I will leave the inclusion/exclusion of fields up to you :-) If, in your edits, you find that you never use a particular field, please remove it from my page; if you find that you need one, please add it. I'm in the process of editing a lot of submarine articles right now, so I'll work to further develop the submarine one.
 * After a little bit of time and development, we'll move the guideline to WikiProject Ships/Tables. TomTheHand 21:55, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Another new article - SS Pacific
First draft, working from source; pls revise as necessary for WikiProject ships article parameters; more to come on other naval disasters in the Pacific Northwest Coast aka Graveyard of the Pacific (which hmmm should have the ships project template, as it's entirely about ships sinking in that region...).Skookum1 01:23, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Dreadnought capitalization question
How should Dreadnought be capitalized when it is used to refer to the type of ship, rather than HMS Dreadnought herself? This may seem a bit nitpicky, but it's an inconsistency that's been bothering me. I've been doing some work on the Pre-dreadnought article, which doesn't capitalize dreadnought when used as a ship type. On one hand, it seems to me that it should, since the ship type is named after HMS Dreadnought, which is rightly capitalized as a proper noun. On the other hand, when used to describe a type of ship, dreadnought is not a proper noun. The Battleship article is split about 50/50, with about half the uses (other than references to the ship proper) being capitalized and half not. I've seen it both ways in other articles as well, though at least they tend to be more internally consistent. I don't really care which way, but some consistency would be nice. Blackeagle 22:09, 28 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, I suppose if you take the dreadnought part of the term refers directly to HMS Dreadnought, it should really be capitalised in all situations. However if you take it to refer to the type of ship (not even the class, just the fact that it was a significant shift in naval architecture), it could rightly be written uncapitalised. So the question is, to which does it refer? Martocticvs 23:26, 28 January 2007 (UTC)


 * All the examples I'm talking are where it refers to the type of ship. Blackeagle 23:29, 28 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Hum. I'd say if it's a specific reference to the first ship, capitalise and italicise; otherwise, don't do either. It seems a lot more sensible to use lower-case - "dreadnought" became a generic term pretty fast, no longer a proper noun.
 * So "Exemplar, with fifteen-inch guns, was essentially an improved Dreadnought" versus "Exemplar, launched 1907, was the Royal Navy's most powerful dreadnought when launched". Most of the references will be the latter, but context may sometimes require the former... Shimgray | talk | 23:32, 28 January 2007 (UTC)


 * As the original author of most of the pre-dreadnought articles, I go with User:Shimgray. The ship, H M S Dreadnought clearly should be capitalised, but the generic category should not, any more than "cruiser", "destroyer" or "submarine" should.


 * Sounds like the consensus is lower case when not referring to the vessel proper.Blackeagle 23:21, 29 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree that lower case is the way to go. I've also just checked Norman Friedman's U.S. Battleships, An Illustrated Design History, a well-respected text on the... um... design history of U.S. battleships, and he uses lower case. TomTheHand 23:28, 29 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, if you want to go by reference sources: Sail, Steam and Shellfire (part of Conway's History of the Ship series) uses lowercase, Warrior to Dreadnought (D.K. Brown) and Birth of the Battleship (John Beeler) both use uppercase. So reference books could be used to argue either way (not that anyone's arguing for the capital 'D' so far, but I'm just saying). Blackeagle 07:17, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

DEFAULTSORT
Just wanted to make everyone aware of a new Wiki feature, which you can read all about here. It's the magic word. It lets you specify one default sort term to apply to all of an article's categories. I wrote about it on our categorization subpage, and you can also read about it here. Check out this diff to see where converted an article to use it. TomTheHand 19:18, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

dab for Constitution
It seems like there should be disambiguation page for Constitution seeing as we have USS Constitution, USS Constitution (CC-5), and SS Constitution. However the usual name for the naval dab page is taken and I don't think anyone seriously wants to move USS Constitution to USS Constitution (1797) to give equal time to an unnotable hull cancled when 13.4% complete. So how about Ships named Constitution? Although I suppose List of ships named Constitution is more wiki canon. What say ye WikiProject Ships? --J Clear 00:57, 11 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I think that the 'pedia standard in these cases is "USS Constitution (disambiguation)" or perhaps "Constitution ship (disambiguation)". Compare Denmark (disambiguation). Jinian 03:07, 11 February 2007 (UTC)


 * "USS Constitution (disambiguation)" would be just two entries, so I wanted to include the SS Constitution to make it three and avoid going back to three dablinks at the top of USS Constitution. Much as "Constitution ship (disambiguation)" doesn't sing for me, it may be better than the list formats.  Or maybe I should just go for Constitution (disambiguation) and include the documents.  Seems like another cup of Kona coffee is called for to decide such weighty matters on a sleepy Sunday morning.--J Clear 14:46, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Title format for new list?
I'm going to start List of ships in British Columbia as a companion-piece to List of Royal Navy ships in the Pacific Northwest but am wondering about the suitability of the title; would List of ships in the history of British Columbia be more appropriate? Open to suggestions; I can always make the original a redirect if there's a more appropriate/correct title format. NB I'm using British Columbia in this case, despite the Pacific Northwest usage in the Royal Navy one.Skookum1 03:24, 14 February 2007 (UTC)


 * OK, I went ahead and made it; if someone doesn't like the title pls let me know and we'll work on it. I was uncertain with Spanish and Russian vessels as to whether or not to use "SS" so left that off the entries in question; also in some cases I'm pretty sure the British/Canadian vessels may be "MV" instead of "SS" but I didn't mine the texts of the sources, only the indexes, and the distinction may not be present in the texts anyway; but please have a look at the "edit" version of the page for the dabs I've used on SS Massachusetts and SS Enterprise; might be the "(Northwest Coast)" isn't needed; I didn't examine those disambiguation pages to see if the vessels in question might already be listed/titled.Skookum1 04:29, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

UK naval ship stub types
The UK naval ships stub type has become very large; I've made a proposal here to create a number of more specific stub types to help bleed off some of them...  Please comment there if you have any thoughts. Alai 23:39, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

USS Worden (CG-18)
I'd like a second opinion on new information being added by a user citing themselves as a source. See and most recent edits to. Thanks. --Dual Freq 23:28, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Might be legitimate, but it sounds a little like sour grapes to me and I'm not sure if it needs including in quite so much detail. Martocticvs 23:33, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
 * True maybe, though not reliably sourced, is it encyclopedic? --Dual Freq 23:54, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
 * With the claims being made there, I think it absolutely needs to be sourced. Martocticvs 00:28, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Wow, what a mess. I'm glad that it's gotten trimmed down to something reasonable, but I hate dealing with sources that aren't easy to verify. I'm especially uncomfortable because he said that the information about the location where the ship was sunk was from the U.S. Navy's site, when it doesn't come up on any Google searches of navy.mil. I found a source for that info and put it in, but I'm still concerned about him just making sources up. TomTheHand 16:34, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Sorry to drag other editors into it. --Dual Freq 04:15, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Suggested changes to ship infobox
has suggested some changes to the ship infobox over at Template talk:Infobox Ship Example. Essentially, he feels that the motto, nickname, honours, honors, notes and badge rows should be moved from Characteristics to Career, and class should be moved from Career to Characteristics. I see the logic, and I really just stole the current arrangement of fields from the old Template:Infobox Ship without really thinking through the reasons for putting the fields where they were.

However, if we make these changes, every article that uses the infobox will need to be updated to copy the fields from one subtemplate to the other. That's a little over 100 articles, which is not unmanageable. However, as usage of the templates expands, this sort of change will become harder and harder to make, so we shouldn't get too used to doing it.

Another possibility is to have both the Career and Characteristics sections support all of the fields, but only document the usage that we currently consider preferable. In this case, I think we can update the 100 usages without too much pain, but in the future if we absolutely need to make this kind of change again we could do it that way.

What does everyone think? Good idea? Worth the effort? Hopefully Saintrain will pop in and give details. TomTheHand 17:15, 20 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Ahoy! I missed this page and the discussions about the new infoboxes and didn't mean to get ahead of any concensus.  Sorry.


 * My reason for the edits was to have a generic "Class" table that can be used in the ship's class description article, e.g. Gilliam class attack transport, and also in the separate articles of each ship in that class. Details to be worked out.  (I had a WHOLE lot of fun trying to do that with the old Infobox_Ship template before discovering the new templates.  I'm happy.  The new infoboxes are great.  Very clever ability to display multiple careers etc.)


 * I think having duplicate attributes in both templates is just fine: backward compatible; no disruption in functionality; no back edits/updates; and for all I know "classes" of ships get honors(?) and certainly have nicknames ("tin can", "flat top").


 * So for a kind of after-the-fact announcement, I've
 * copied some attributes, "motto, nickname, honours, honors, notes and badge", from the Template:Infobox Ship Characteristics template to the Template:Infobox Ship Career template
 * added "sponsor" to Career
 * copied "type" from Career to Characteristics and
 * updated Template talk:Infobox Ship Example to reflect the changes.
 * There's no change in functionality exept to duplicate the attributes.
 * Hope I didn't cause any trouble (or worse, any work) --Saintrain 18:39, 20 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Glad you like the new infobox! I've found it to be pretty useful.  I've spent some time thinking about your proposal to use the new ship infobox for classes as well, and I have a few thoughts about it.
 * First, we already have two class infoboxes (which might be a bit of a mistake, but different people like different things): Template:Infobox Class and Template:Infobox Ship Class. Classes have some fields you wouldn't put on a ship, and ships have some fields you wouldn't put on a class.  I think it's necessary for class infoboxes to contain some different information from ship infoboxes, and I don't think we can simply use the ship infobox on classes directly.
 * However, certain things would be identical between ships and classes. The same Image and Characteristics subtemplates could be used.  Career would only be found on ships, and classes would need a different subtemplate with class-specific information.  That'd allow some code consolidation, which would be pretty neat, and it might mitigate the learning curve: once you know the new ship infobox you know the new class infobox as well!
 * You mentioned above having a generic table that could be used on each ship and on the class itself. Yes, we could definitely do that: there'd be a Template:Characteristics Gilliam class attack transport which would provide the entire characteristics box for each ship and for the class itself.  Each ship would have its own career, and the class would have its own class info subtemplate.
 * I have two concerns. First, I'd worry about the learning curve, but it might not be too bad.  Second, as I said above, we already have two class templates, and I don't like the idea of forking yet again.  It could be confusing, and I also don't want to slight the creators of the other two infoboxes by implying that they shouldn't be used any more.
 * Anyone else have any thoughts? TomTheHand 19:29, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Help using infobox Ship
Hi, Can I ask for some expert help. At Wikiproject Bristol we are trying to ensure that all the articles for the city have infoboxes (and pictures etc) & I've tried using the ships infobox on SS Great Britain, Matthew (ship) and Pyronaut which are all permanently in Bristol Harbour. I've read through all of the discussion above, about its use, but I can't make any sense of this infobox & a lot of it only seems to apply if the ship was military. Any help or advice appreciated.&mdash; Rod talk 20:49, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I'd be happy to help. We have a new ship infobox that we're trying to use, and I think it will be very useful in this case.  First off, check out Template:Infobox Ship Example.  Click on the "Show" button for the code for a civilian ship, and you'll see what you need to copy and paste into an article.  Paste it at the top and fill in all the fields you can. TomTheHand 21:09, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I originally planned to put an infobox on one ship as an example, but I need to do some thinking about how I want to do it, as these ships don't have much of the information I usually try to fill in. If I've given you enough information to proceed, please do so, but I'll still try to put an infobox on one of them. TomTheHand 21:16, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks thats great. I've had a go at SS Great Britain & Pyronaut but there seems to be lots of gaps eg what should go in "status" for a ship which is now a museum piece & was never military? Is the capton supposed to be to the left of the image rather than below it? where should height above the deck be recorded? what should be put in complement when the ship has had so many different uses? Is gross tonnage the same as displacement? Any further help appreciated.&mdash; Rod talk 21:36, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
 * For "status", I would say "Museum ship in Bristol Harbor" or something of that kind. For the image, replace "thumb" with "300px" and the caption will go below the image.  Infobox Ship doesn't actually have any place to put height above deck, and it's something that's not specified too often, so it might be strange to add it.  Not sure what to tell you there.  Complement would generally be the crew and wouldn't include passengers; not sure if that'd help you.  You could also specify the conditions that the complement applies to, like "70 sailors (as launched)" or "110 sailors (in 1878)".  Gross tonnage is not the same as displacement; gross tonnage is a measure of volume while displacement is a measure of weight.  Infobox Ship doesn't support tonnage, only displacement, so if you want to list tonnage you'll need to use the infobox I suggested above. TomTheHand 21:57, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Insert image here
The insert image here symbol has been questioned as breaking the 4th wall and lacking professionalism by telling / ordering people to insert an image on Image_talk:IIH.png. I noticed www.imdb.com uses "no photo available" rather than insert image here so I uploaded a different version, which is also narrower vertically. Possibly something more artistic could be done, but I like a thinner version and despite being called IIH.png I like the wording better. I like having the placeholder image because it allows me to find articles without images. It's allowed me to add numerous images to ship articles using the File links section on the image page. Any comments? Perhaps I should have asked first, but reverting is fairly easy as has been done with other versions of the image. --Dual Freq 00:56, 21 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I think this is a great idea. First, I think shrinking the image is a really good step.  Second, I think "no photo available" really addresses the issues people have mentioned in reference to the IIH tag.  Currently, Template:Infobox Ship Image does not use the IIH image when no image is specified because of the fourth wall issues, but I'll happily insert this new image later today when I get a chance.  I do think an svg version would be a good idea, but I've got no idea how to make one. TomTheHand 13:44, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Here's the svg version, slightly different font and I kept the original 299px width. --Dual Freq 00:56, 22 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I've added the svg version to Infobox Ship, as well as Infobox Ship Image, which is the image portion of the subtemplated infobox. TomTheHand 18:14, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Wait, no, looks like I messed it up. It's not working right now.  I'll get it fixed. TomTheHand 18:17, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Ok. It looks like the "No Photo Available" pic appears when no "Ship image=" line is present, but if one is present and empty, the pic won't display.  If anyone can fix it on either Infobox Ship or Infobox Ship Image I'd be grateful. TomTheHand 18:29, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Revision to main page
Yesterday I made some revisions to our project main page, somewhat based on ideas I got looking at WP:MILHIST. I tried to reorganize things, grouping similar topics together. I moved some long stuff to subpages. I also removed some stuff and added some things of my own. I think it's much cleaner now, but it's not very pretty. Looking at all that plain text makes my eyes glaze over. Anyone have any suggestions?

I also really dig the navigation box that MILHIST uses. See Template:WPMILHIST Navigation. I think I'd like to work up something similar for us.

I think it'd be really cool if we could get a project to-do list going. Maybe we could do it as a template, so if people wanted to they could transclude it onto their user pages. We could all add to it, so that people who might want to join can see the types of things we do. We could also help each other out with our projects.

I'd also like to make a push for putting Template:WikiProject Ships on the talk pages of all of the articles we touch. It'd get some fresh blood into the project. TomTheHand 15:52, 21 February 2007 (UTC)


 * What can I say? Great effort TomTheHand.  I wish I had some suggestions but I'm having enough problems beautifying a wiki of my own atm.  Next time I consult a ship article (very frequent) I'll stick in the template if it needs one.  --Harlsbottom 16:54, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

G/A-Class review for Battleship
The Battleship article is up for a G/A-Class review. Any input is welcomed as always! --MoRsE 17:33, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Submarines
Is the normal ship infobox meant to be used for submarines as well?

(I ask because someone has now created Infobox Military Submarine; if this is, in fact, redundant, its deployment should probably be nipped in the bud as quickly as possible.) Kirill Lokshin 20:52, 27 February 2007 (UTC)


 * The normal ship infobox is meant to be used for submarines as well, so I would agree that this new infobox probably should not be used. TomTheHand 21:05, 27 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I've created the Submarine infobox because the Ship infobox doesn't at all contains the parameters needed for describing a specific submarine and/or u-boat like Unterseeboot 47 (1938), not just a type or class which ship infobox in some cases can be used for. I know a submarine is categorized as a ship but if you take a good look at the two infoboxes and their parameters you will see the differences. Usually ships are not massproduced in a specific type or class like a submarine/u-boat. I understand you concern but the ship infobox just isn't adaptable for the purpose of the submarine/u-boat infobox in my opinion and also the other way around. If you take a look at the German wikipedia you will see that their solution was the same and u-boats are much better and streamlined documented than the english is so far. I have the outmost respect for people working on ships and creating standardized templates but I simply don't see these two types of infoboxes merged together Keallu 22:36, 27 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Wouldn't it be simpler to just add the missing fields to the ship infobox (particularly given that it already supports a major point the separate one doesn't: submarines serving with multiple navies)? There's not that many of them, and most would apply to other ship types (particularly commerce raiders) besides submarines. Kirill Lokshin 22:47, 27 February 2007 (UTC)


 * It might be done but I think we will have the experts from WikiProject Ships do it. I won't touch their template out of plain fear :-) The ship infobox isn't very well documented either. "Characteristics" is not very well suited for submarine/u-boats in my opinion since that dependes solely on type of sub/u-boat. Eventhough this is forced by the ship template. Besides that specific u-boat details such at Fieldpost number, yard number, commanders and successes are not part of the ship infoxbox as far as I can see. I'm in support for standardization of infoboxes but the ship template needs severe adjustment in my opinion to fullfill goals for u-boats. Besides that I like the submarine infobox and design better but maybe it's a question of taste :-) Keallu 23:14, 27 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, the design is being discussed just below, so the ship infobox may yet be adopting the MILHIST style.
 * As for the fields, it should be easy to add them; but I'll wait for some feedback from the regulars here before starting to play around with their template. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 23:22, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I'm sort of coming into this conversation late, but I'll try to summarize my thoughts. First, your infobox is pretty much U-boat specific; it is not a general submarine template. I don't think it's a good idea to have such a specific template. Second, the ship infobox is intended to describe individual ships belonging to both large and small classes, whether they are surface ships or submarines. The "Characteristics" section is appropriate for u-boats; information like displacement, dimensions, armament, and test depth would be helpful for a reader to see.

I believe we should discuss which fields, if any, would be appropriate to add to the general ship infobox, and put them in. I think many of the fields on Infobox Military Submarine are way too U-boat specific, though, and the information should just be covered in the article.

Please check out Template Talk:Infobox Ship Example for documentation on how to use the ship infobox and some examples of its use. TomTheHand 01:17, 28 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Greetings fellow wikipedians. I've found the documentation for Ship infobox, sorry for the misunderstanding and inconvenience for this. Eventhough I still think the above discussion depends on the eyes that are looking. Some of the elements in the Ship infobox is by my opinion also very specific for certain ships, so I can't see why submarine/u-boats shouldn't be able to have that. If you have to go through the whole article to search for a detail (like fieldpost number or yard number) that are common for all submarine/u-boats but maybe not surface vessels, and thereby belongs to an infobox for such an article, it's just looses the value of the infobox. An infobox should sum up the most important facts and details about the "thing" and for submarine/u-boats some of them are important which are not for commerciel vessels or warships. If infoboxes are to be merged I must strongly suggest that all needs are covered. I have used quite a lot time of putting together a proper infobox for submarine/u-boats based on many articles and source/references. I would be very sorry to see that going into the "sea" because more ship-focused (vessels on the surface) people gives priority for their descriptive elements in an infobox. Keallu 17:05, 28 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree that some fields in the ship infobox are pretty specific. However some of your fields, like fieldpost number and yard number, are entirely specific to u-boats and aren't useful for submarines in general.  I don't think I should be characteritized as a "ship-focused person."  I have an interest in submarines as well, and I have lately been hard at work cleaning up articles for the Balao class submarines, but I think standardization across infoboxes is more valuable than including information that is only relevant to ships of one type serving with one country.
 * Please check out USS Balao (SS-285) for an example of how I think a submarine article should look using the standard ship infobox.
 * If you insist upon using this infobox instead of a standard ship infobox, I'd request that you make it clear that the infobox is not for submarines in general, but only for u-boats. TomTheHand 18:22, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Mmm, couldn't some of the things simply be worked into more general fields? For example, rather than having specific fields for fieldpost and yard numbers, we could add a general "identification number" field of some sort, and then have it set as |number=123 (fieldpost), 456 (yard).  Similar things could be done for the commander and unit.
 * (As far as the record of successes—which is really the hardest thing in the new infobox to place—is concerned, we have an alternative possibility available. If the ship infobox is converted to use the MILHIST style, we can create an auxiliary template where this material could be developed in more detail; see, for example, command structure.) Kirill Lokshin 18:30, 28 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I wouldn't have a problem with adding "commanders" or "unit" (or something along those lines) to the ship infobox. As I said, I think fieldpost number and yard are so specific that I don't think adding them to the infobox is a great idea, but since we do have different sets of code available for different types of ships, we could just add U-boat specific code with U-boat specific parameters.  It's just that I think the infobox should primarily focus on information that's common across many different ships.
 * I'm not sure that converting the ship infobox to MILHIST style is possible; we'll lose the flexibility that the current structure allows or end up with something difficult to use and maintain. However, we could potentially add an optional subtemplate for successes/awards/battle stars/etc to the ship infobox; I'm really more in favor of putting that information in the article, but I do think "How many ships did it sink?" is a common enough question that perhaps we should make it very easily accessible to a casual browser. TomTheHand 19:28, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Seems like we might be talking about different things here. What I meant by "MILHIST style" was the visual style of the box (which you just created an implementation of one section down); it wouldn't entail any functional changes. Kirill Lokshin 19:31, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Ah, sorry about the misunderstanding. I remember a few months ago we discusses revisions to the infobox, and you supported a one-template solution as opposed to the multi-template one.  I thought you might be suggesting that.  We could honestly create another auxiliary template whether we move to the MILHIST style or not, but I do think the MILHIST style is a good idea in the interest of standardization. TomTheHand 20:47, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
 * True, that. The main advantage of the common style is that the resulting auxiliary template could be used with other MILHIST infoboxes as well; I could see, for example, a more complex "service record" template being used for both ships and military units. Kirill Lokshin 20:57, 28 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm at the point where I get your ideas and agree upon the rightfullness of a standardized ship template (infobox) including submarine and u-boats. My wish is simply that appropriate fields and/or sub-template will be available so it is possible to have an infobox containing the same information as the current submarine infobox does. I know fieldpost and yard number are specific for u-boats but in the end it is important information and there are over 1000 u-boats in total to document from both WWI and WWII. Just to let you know there exists an even older U-boat infobox implementation but not very stylish or good-looking in my opinion and far from the perspective of this discussion. I find that implementation of multi-templating very confusing and un-userfriendly. See it at e.g. Unterseeboot 172. It also lacks a lot of information. Keallu 22:51, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Okay, as a way of removing the need for some changes to the primary ship infobox, I've created the auxiliary service record template; comments would be appreciated. Kirill Lokshin 03:44, 1 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I have a few questions before I make suggestions. First, can fieldpost number change?  Would it be possible for a U-boat to transfer to a different flotilla, and would it then receive a new fieldpost number?  Second, I've tried to look up "yard number," and it seems to be a number assigned to a ship by its builder.  Is that the case?  So it can't change, and two boats from the same yard can't share the same number? TomTheHand 14:24, 1 March 2007 (UTC)


 * If my above assumptions are correct, here's what I'd suggest:


 * 1) Adding yard number to Infobox Ship Career, right below the "Builder" row. Though I wasn't previously familiar with this information, it seems most, if not all, shipyards assign yard numbers to each of their projects.  I think this field would be widely useful.
 * 2) Possibly separating Commanders and Units into their own fields in the "Service record" box.
 * 3) Adding fieldpost number to "Service record" box. It could potentially just be mentioned in the "Units" row, if my understanding of fieldpost numbers is correct.
 * Thoughts? TomTheHand 17:57, 1 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree that auxialliary type-specific class templates are a good idea, both "Career" and "Characteristics". See my comments in the next section.  --Saintrain 18:04, 1 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Kirill was not suggesting that auxiliary type-specific class templates are a good idea, for either Career or for Characteristics. He was suggesting that an additional, optional "Service Record" template could be added where appropriate in addition to the standard Career and Characteristics templates. TomTheHand 18:12, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

As desired, service record, MkII. Kirill Lokshin 19:40, 1 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I think we are very close to a good solution. I like the service record template and that yard number will be part of the default template. The fieldpost number is anglofied from the Germen Feldpostnummer and most u-boats only have have designation eventhough they have been part of multiple flotillas. I found the following definition on :


 * Feldpost numbers are coded Wehrmacht units.

Another description :


 * To preserve the secrecy of troop movements, each battalion was assigned a five digit code number called Feldpost Number (FPN). By the end of 1939, letter prefixes "L" and "M" were attached in front of each FPN to units belonging to the Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine. A breakdown by military units was added by attaching letter prefixes "A" through "E" at the end of each FPN. The letter A generally signified headquarters company, the others stood for line companies. The sequence of a FPN does not necessarily mean that the location of the units were at the same area. The postal cover/postcard itself was usually stamped with a military Feldpost Cancellation and Official Military Unit Seal. Feldpost numbers were sometimes reassigned to other units, particularly when a unit ceased to exist. Normally Feldpost mail could not be dispatched nor received by civil post offices.

I'm not sure exactly how Feldpost number were and possible are used in Germany. We might need some experts for this. It seems like it was used for mailing postage to the e.g. the crew on a u-boat and therefore didn't change eventhough it changed flotilla. I think this article covers it, but we might need confirmation from experts. The German wikipedia article could be a reference as well. Keallu 13:05, 2 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Just found a proper and precise definition on :


 * Each German Unit throughout the war had a Military Feldpost number. This was the unit's identification number when family members and friends wanted to send mail to the corresponding unit. It wasn't unusual for the same feldpost number to be used for different units throughout the war. As one unit would be destroyed, then the number might have been reallocated at a later date. Keallu 13:24, 2 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Ok, so would fieldpost/feldpost number be better suited to placing in the Career section, or the Service Record section? And where, exactly?  While I don't have an issue with putting it in the Career section, I can't really decide what spot in the section would be most appropriate (at the end? after the commissioned date?), and so I'd prefer to put it in Service Record. TomTheHand 14:48, 2 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I think the Feldpost number should be renamed to something more common amongst all nations regarding military mail. Feldpost is just the German name for military mail and Feldpostnummer or anglofied fieldpost/feldpost number the specific number assigned to a unit to sent militatry mail to from civilians, e.g. family and/or friends. I'm sure ships as well is fitted with a sort of ID for military mail. Maybe it should be called Military mail tag, id or number or something like that. I would think it should be in the Career section around status but I can see your point. It could just as well be in the service record. The number can be assigned at multiple units if the units is discharged, destroyed or something like that. A new unit can then receive an identical number. Keallu 12:56, 4 March 2007 (UTC)


 * So, has anything actually been implemented here? What changes do we still need to be able to convert Infobox Military Submarine to a regula ship infobox? Kirill Lokshin 13:13, 12 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Sorry Kirill, guess I stepped on your toes with the mail tag thing. I went ahead and added "yard number" to the main ship infobox, but I think the military mailing address is a service record issue.  It doesn't really fit anywhere on the Career template, which is pretty event-focused: when the ship was built, who built it, when it commissioned, when it decommissioned, what happened to it since.
 * I've been really swamped at work lately and have only been making sporadic edits, not working on any of my projects. I think we need to find a place to put the military mail ID/tag/whatever, and then stop using Infobox Military Submarine and eventually replace all uses of it with the regular ship infobox. TomTheHand 13:37, 12 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Eh, it's no big deal. ;-) (But I don't think the mail code is really part of a "service record" as the term is commonly understood; it doesn't have anything to do with what the ship does, but rather with what the ship is.)
 * More generally, I'm wondering if we shouldn't just create some sort of ID number oriented auxiliary template for this type of thing. There's recently been a request to add facility codes to the military structure infobox, for example. Kirill Lokshin 13:38, 12 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, I might just be misunderstanding military mail codes and/or the way they apply to ships, but it seems that if you're listing commanders and units a ship was part of it's equally logical to list mailing addresses it held. Feldpost numbers may be pretty static, but I think British Forces Post Office numbers are based on the location where the unit is currently serving, so if it's transferred from, say, Loamshire to Iraq, I think it would use a different BFPO number.
 * As far as an ID template goes, I'm not necessarily opposed, but I wonder if it's a good idea to have a template that just puts one line onto a page. You're not going to use both the feldpost number and facility code fields at the same time. TomTheHand 13:48, 12 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Hmm, that's a good point; I admit I hadn't thought of the codes in that way. Maybe they would work better in the service record box, after all.
 * Possibly obvious question: are there any other kinds of codes aside from the mailing ones that would be assigned to ships (or other units) in this manner? (Would it be worthwhile to make the field more generic, in other words?) Kirill Lokshin 13:55, 12 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't know of other codes (I don't know much about mailing codes either), but I don't have a problem making the field more generic. I'll leave a message on Keallu's talk to let him know this discussion is active again so we can get his opinion.  What did you have in mind? TomTheHand 14:29, 12 March 2007 (UTC)


 * At the most generic, we could have it be something like "Identification codes: M 18 837 (feldpost)", with the field thus usable for pretty much anything. I don't know if that would be over-complicating things, though. Kirill Lokshin 08:51, 13 March 2007 (UTC)


 * That sounds good to me. Want to wait a couple of days to see if Keallu drops by, or just add an ID code field? TomTheHand 15:53, 14 March 2007 (UTC)


 * We can probably wait for a bit to see if anyone has a better idea; there's no real rush at this point, I think. Kirill Lokshin 22:44, 14 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Okay, given the lack of comments, I've gone ahead and added a "codes" field to the box. Kirill Lokshin 17:59, 18 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Sorry for my lack of response, but I've been busy with other things recently. I think your discussion endede well and the result is somewhere close to my suggestion with the Military mail tag, id or number so fine by me Keallu 09:26, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Custom fields in new ship infobox
In the new ship infobox, it's possible to add custom fields using standard Wiki table syntax. I wouldn't really encourage doing this, because I think for the most part infoboxes should be standard, but I've written up some information about how to do it here. TomTheHand 21:41, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

New class template
I'd like to start this new thread so we can have a clean slate to discuss the creation of a new infobox for classes, which would integrate with the new individual ship templates.

Currently, to make an individual ship infobox, we use the following templates, in this order: If we can come up with a new class-specific subtemplate to replace Career, we can use the other three templates as-is and consolidate a lot of code, with advantages in consistency and ease of maintenance. I'd love to call it Infobox Ship Class, but that one's taken, so we need suggestions.
 * 1) Infobox Ship Begin
 * 2) Infobox Ship Image
 * 3) Infobox Ship Career
 * 4) Infobox Ship Characteristics

We currently have two class templates:
 * 1) Infobox Ship Class
 * 2) Infobox Class

They can be compared at Saintrain's test page: User:Saintrain/S2/Tester2

In my opinion, Infobox Ship Class provides insufficient information, but Infobox Class goes a little overboard. I think the following fields are necessary:
 * 1) Builders
 * 2) Operators
 * 3) Preceding class
 * 4) Following class
 * 5) Service (a range of years from the beginning of the service of the first to the end of service of the last)

I think that Infobox Class's Ships In Class section is a good idea but needs work. When I've tried to put this template into ship class articles, I've wondered exactly what information I should be putting in each field (numbers? names of the ships?), I've been frustrated by the order that the fields are presented in, and I've often felt like I've had insufficient information to fill it in properly. I was thinking maybe the following fields, in this order, but not with these long, wordy names: Though perhaps we could do names instead of numbers, or both (start with a number, and then list the names). Any thoughts? TomTheHand 20:11, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
 * 1) Number of ships planned for future construction
 * 2) Number of ships currently under construction or fitting out but not yet in service
 * 3) Number of ships cancelled before completion
 * 4) Number of ships currently in service
 * 5) Number of ships sunk
 * 6) Number of ships in reserve
 * 7) Number of ships retired


 * There's a new User:Saintrain/S2/Tester3 that demos an auxilliary "Ships In Class" template (the bottom of the 3rd column. The code is something like
 * Infobox Ship Begin
 * Infobox Ship Image
 * Infobox Ship Characteristics
 * I rather like it. (This is just a quick and dirty, re: args and labels etc.  I just grabbed the stuff from SIC.)
 * I agree about only using it in a class article, but to each his own.
 * I'm still working on having a single "Characteristics" table that can be pulled into all ship articles, so having a separate "Ships In Class" template works very well for me.
 * (P.s. thanks for the "tl|" in "Infobox Ship Image". Lots fewer nowikis)  Saintrain 02:18, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
 * (P.s. thanks for the "tl|" in "Infobox Ship Image". Lots fewer nowikis)  Saintrain 02:18, 2 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Looks good, though as I said above, I'd like to do some adding, subtracting, and shifting of fields. Ordering of the fields aside, I like the order that Infobox Class puts its sections in: Class Overview, Ships in Class, and then General Characteristics. TomTheHand 02:43, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Template help
There are quite obviously a number of users gifted in the way of the template keeping an eye on this project, I wonder if any would be so good as to quickly browse Template:British Shipbuilders evolution and help me with 2 problems; Many thanks in advance, Emoscopes Talk 18:56, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
 * 1) How can I remove the white background around the blue area, so that it forms a homogeneous block.
 * 2) How can I get the template to add every page it is linked from to the category Category:British Shipbuilders Corporation - what I thought would do this doesn't.


 * In reference to the second issue, it's possible that it needs to propogate through the ether and we should just give it time. I'll look at the first, though if a true template expect sees this request for help, please check it out.  I have no idea where to start. TomTheHand 19:01, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Is that what you had in mind? I don't think there's a way to remove the cell spacing from just the blue cells. TomTheHand 19:06, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes and no, it was really to make the blue area homogeneous, for visual appeal really. I think a blanket removal of borders affects the clarity between years and companies too much, no? Emoscopes Talk 19:09, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
 * P.S, I hope you aren't offended that I reverted it back, I think it just loses too much clarity. Emoscopes Talk 19:10, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Haha, no, not offended. I agree with you that removing the spacing completely sacrifices clarity.  A real template expert might know how to just combine the blue fields, but it's beyond me. TomTheHand 19:25, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Tfd assistance required
I have been working rather painstakingly on developing and improving the template Template:British Shipbuilders evolution, but appear to have incurred the wrath of a busybody who has listed it as "listcruft" at templates for deletion. I would appreciate any editors comments (positive or otherwise, if I am being too protective of my "baby" perhaps its about time I saw the light). I just feel rather mystified about it. In my more than humble opinion, as I express at Tfd, the template is clearly notable and far from just a list, and the individual proposing deletion has no other edit on WP - I can't help but let my suspicious mind think "sockpuppet". Emoscopes Talk 13:16, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I put in my two cents. I think it's an excellent template.  Sockpuppetry seems obvious here; have any ideas as to who the puppetmaster may be? TomTheHand 13:31, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I really have NO idea, I don't think I've ever offended anyone on WP, and certainly never have intended to. I really should assume good faith, I just find it all too suspicious when what would appear to be a brand new user is so in tune with the inner workings and lingo of WP. Emoscopes Talk 13:38, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
 * And why someone would have it in for something as offensive and controversial as a timeline of modern British shipbuilding just boggles the mind!! Many thanks for your support anyway :) Emoscopes Talk 13:40, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I can assume good faith about the nomination, but I can't believe that it's actually a new user. TomTheHand 13:41, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I've read up WP:SOCK, but I don't think there's much that can be done until the puppetmaster (if there is one) rears its ugly head. As it is, its a minor annoyance rather than blatant vandalism or personal attack and I'm happy to let it lie, but I shall keep one eye half open to it and see if anything else develops. Emoscopes Talk 14:28, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Request for help with Balao class submarines
Hey all. I've been wanting for some time to work through the Balao class submarines and clean up their statistics, but I've run into some problems. Essentially, I'm looking for truly definitive information about the engines, motors, and batteries each boat carried. It seems that two different sets of engines and two different sets of motors were used, and I keep running into contradictory information because I think people see the information for one specific boat and assume it applies to the entire class. Does anyone have access to a definitive source, that we can be reasonably sure will be free of copy-and-paste issues? I friggin' bought Norman Friedman's U.S. Submarines Through 1945: An Illustrated Design History, thinking that surely it would have that specific detail, because from what I remember of his destroyer volume it had that kind of info. Well, for the Balao class it has one set of information for the entire class. It's very specific about early submarines, giving the specific differences between boats nominally of the same class but built at different yards. However, it totally lumps the mass-produced fleet boats together.

The questions I'm looking to get answered are: I would really appreciate any help anyone can offer. I don't think the Internet will help us here; it's going to take a trip to a serious library. Maybe I should just dumb down the propulsion sections of each article if I can't be sure of their factual accuracy. TomTheHand 18:28, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
 * 1) What diesel engines, electric motors, and batteries were used on which submarines? I am tempted to just say the article Balao class submarine is correct, because it's so specific about its info, but my local university library does not have the source that the article references so I can't double-check.
 * 2) How powerful were the engines and motors? I don't think the two different sets of engines and motors were rated exactly the same.  I think the General Motors engine was rated at 1,350 hp, but the Fairbanks-Morse engine was 1,600.  I don't really know about the electric motors.


 * Hi Tom. According to "Jane's Fighting Ships of WW2" (1989), "Machinery: G.M., Fairbanks-Morse, or H.O.R. 2-stroke diesels.  B.H.P: 6,500 BHP = 21 kts."  That's all there is.  I was surprised at the BHP but the other boats have comparable and it's the same as Gato.  Want a scan of the page?
 * I've got "Conway's all the world's fighting ships, 1922-1946" (1980) on inter-library loan and will see what it says in the next few days. (It's a reference book.)
 * Who's H.O.R.? --Saintrain 22:35, 17 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi Tom. Sorry, real life intervened.  According to "Conway's", Gato, Balao and Tench are all grouped together with identical specs:  "Machinery: 2-shaft diesel-electrics plus electric motors, 5400shp/2740shp = 20.25kts/8.75kts".  That's 1000HP less than "Jane's" but 1000 more than you had, so it all averages out. :->
 * Aint authoritative sources fun? --Saintrain 17:18, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
 * P.s. I just realized I didn't scan all the history page for the subs; only got the end. I've reserved the book til next week if you want copies.  (I'm lucky.  I've got the whole LA City and LA County Library systems' catalogues available to me a la web.  That's how I got "Jane's" and "Conway's".  (I've even got a request in for a mainenance manual for a LCVP!)


 * Yeah, you're pretty much exactly where I am ;-) "This source says they were 1,600 hp engines, that one says 1,350." The Navy says both the GM engines and the FM engines were rated at 1,600 apiece, and I consider that to be pretty authoritative.  For the GM engine, it just gives the one 1,600 hp figure, but the FM engine has both "emergency" and "continuous" figures.  The "emergency power" is 1,600 hp and the "continuous" is 1,280 hp.
 * Perhaps that emergency/continuous issue is the key here. Assuming that the GM figure is also "emergency" or "maximum" then we could be looking at the engines being run at 1,350 hp for long life, and the 5,400 total per boat is the correct figure to use.
 * I had someone tell me they were pretty sure that 1,600 was design horsepower, and 1,350 was after postwar fitting with snorkels, which were very restrictive. However, this guy says that 5,400 hp (1,350 each) was design horsepower, and snorkel horsepower was even less, 4610 hp. TomTheHand 18:40, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I am having someone send me some very complete information on exactly which boats carried which engines, which will help clean that up, but I still don't know quite what to do about power. TomTheHand 18:40, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Consolidated Ship Templates
I've tried to consolidate the Template:Infobox Class, Template:Infobox Ship Class and Template:Infobox Ship Characteristics templates and a have an almost-ready-for-prime-time Gilliam class attack transport to show it off.

I just wanted to get all the data on one (set of) template and don't really care about the order or wording. (Some of the fields aren't applicable so just have the argument name in as a placeholder.) (I put the blue bar on top because it makes the crummy old picture look better, but I kinda like it.)  And the recent change to MILHIST style isn't reflected.

Comments of the kind, generous variety are always welcome. --Saintrain 23:17, 17 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Good work! When you feel like it's ready, please let us know, as I'd like to put in my two cents about possibly removing and reordering some class-related fields.  I talked about it a little bit above already.  It's much easier to discuss that after there's an example to talk about, but much harder to make changes after it's been applied to a bunch of different pages, so it'd be really cool if we could get a prototype working and discuss the best way to proceed with it.  I promise I'll give prompt input and not drag my feet! TomTheHand 04:29, 18 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I meant that the article wasn't quite ready for live.  The new template is ready to be shredded.  I guess I should give some details.  For this class-article infobox I'm using 4 templates:
 * User:Saintrain/S2/Infobox Ship Begin is just like Template:Infobox Ship Begin but adds the top banner.
 * User:Saintrain/S2/Infobox Ship Image is just like Template:Infobox Ship Image but I added a /TR to "close" the row. A stylistic quirk on my part.  I suggest that this be added to "Image".
 * User:Saintrain/S2/Infobox Ship Class Overview. This is the new one, "consolidated" from Template:Infobox Class & Template:Infobox Ship Class.
 * Template:Infobox Ship Characteristics is used unchanged.


 * The 3 styles can be viewed side-by-side at User:Saintrain/S2/Tester4.


 * Also see "Maintaining centralized "Infobox Ship Characteristics" template databases" below. --Saintrain 17:54, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Maintaining centralized "Infobox Ship Characteristics" template databases
The infobox template, Template:Infobox Ship Characteristics, is used to describe the general physical characteristics of the ships in a particular class. Since it contains (mostly) the same data for each ship in the class, only one copy of the data need be maintained and can be used in all the articles for ships of that class.

This is quite easily accomplished. The usual scheme is something like By creating an article/file, say, "Gilliam attack transport characteristics" that looks like any articles referencing the data would look like

As an example, User:Saintrain/S2/GCAT Characteristics is an article/file that "calls" Template:Infobox Ship Characteristics with all the pertinent data for a Gilliam class attack transport. This file is transcluded into both Gilliam class attack transport (an article describing the ships in the class) and USS Barrow (APA-61) (an article on a ship of the class).


 * This looks great. In the past we've occasionally used templates to populate certain fields.  For example, every ship of a class might use whatever class ship armament to populate their armament fields.  That had its advantages, but it had a lot of problems as well.  This is an awesome solution, as it cleans up ship articles considerably while also putting the characteristics in one place instead of scattered across ten tiny templates.
 * I have one suggestion. When we use this, perhaps we could make an effort to include comment telling editors how to modify the characteristics.  For example:


 * That comment won't be visible in the article, but it will be seen by editors, and it will provide some guidance to editors who aren't familiar with templates and transclusion. TomTheHand 17:03, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Project banner changes
I see we had some bold editing of the WikiProject Ships banner. Editors should note the new class (rating) and importance parameters. If an article had been rated/reviewed "class" will need to be set as rated. The dual images that symbolize the dual scope of the project: naval and civilian ships, as well as old and new, were added back. --J Clear 12:46, 28 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Looks like we'll need to put together a couple of pages regarding the assessment process then, as links are provided to currently non-existent pages on the revised template...Martocticvs 14:18, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Infobox styles
Out of curiosity, would there be any possibility of the various infoboxes used here adopting the MILHIST infobox style? (Please feel free to tell me to go away and take my stupid ideas with me, of course! ;-) Kirill Lokshin 21:17, 27 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I wouldn't mind one bit, but it might take me a little while to get enough time to sit and learn how to do it! I do agree that standardizing our styles is a good idea. TomTheHand 21:39, 27 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Ok, I... think I did it. Could everyone please look at User:TomTheHand/test?  Kirill, does it look like I did it right?  Everyone else, is this something we want to do?  To me it's a little jarring, because I've used the old infoboxen for so long and I'm kind of stubborn about change. TomTheHand 01:42, 28 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Yep, that looks right. You might want to add a valign to the first header in the career section, though; it looks a bit weird with the country name aligned at the top, since the flag size causes the row to stretch. Kirill Lokshin 02:39, 28 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't know how to add a valign. I spent a few minutes just trying different stuff and didn't have any luck.  Could you have a look at User:TomTheHand/Infobox Ship Career and see if you could insert the valign? TomTheHand 03:26, 28 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Heh, that didn't work quite like I expected. Easy solution: I just added the correct alignment to the base style template. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 03:34, 28 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks Kirill! I'd like to give WP:SHIPS members some time to look at it, and if there's no opposition I'll convert the real ship infobox in a few days. TomTheHand 04:01, 28 February 2007 (UTC)


 * The new look from MILHIST to the Ship infobox looks great! Good work, gentlemen :-) Keallu 17:07, 28 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi! I've been fooling around with various "Class-type" infobox templates (Template:Infobox_Class, Template:Infobox_Ship_Class and Template:Infobox_Ship_Characteristics that I know of) with the aim of merging them.  To visualize, I put together User:Saintrain/S2/Tester2 where all 4 (including User:TomTheHand/Infobox_Ship_Characteristics) can be seen side-by-side.  The real arguments are set to the formals; some, like "name" and "class", are quoted to distinguish them from template text.


 * I like the idea of making class infoboxes out of the same family of templates as ship infoboxes. We'd use Infobox Ship Image and Infobox Ship Characteristics for both, and come up with a new class-specific template that would be used in place of Infobox Ship Career.  I'd definitely like to start up some discussion on what fields should go on class articles.  I think Infobox Ship Class provides too little info, but Infobox Class is probably more info than I'd prefer. TomTheHand 18:51, 28 February 2007 (UTC)


 * One question: I haven't looked, but is there anything in the MILHIST framework that would be inappropriate for non-warships? The Mayflower and QE2 come to mind.  How about a field like "Style MILHIST=[yes]".  This might break the all-ships-look-alike thing, but was the Immer Essen really a warship?


 * On a different tack (:->), there have been several discussions about fitting specific ship-types into the generic template. This can be solved by making a few additional type-specific templates, something like

...

...
 * or "Infobox Ship Characteristics Cruiseship", etc. Yes?No?  The generic "Characteristics" template is just about right now.  Adding templates would keep things simple and modular.  --Saintrain


 * I don't think see the advantage to having type-specific templates over the current solution of only pasting in appropriate fields (for example, for a civilian ship, grabbing the civilian code from Infobox Ship Example which lacks rows for armament and whatnot). TomTheHand 18:47, 28 February 2007 (UTC)


 * One current/obvious advantage is that the U-Boot people could discuss their appropriate fields separate from (but happily included in, don't get me wrong) the Ship crowd in general and the Cruiseship (it's bound to happen) crowd in particular. No trade-offs between which is more important in an ever more bloated template, torpedo tubes vs swimming pools.  Each ship class template would have its own advocates and experts.  Decisions, therefore implementation, would happen more quickly.  --Saintrain 18:04, 1 March 2007 (UTC)


 * But I still don't see how that's an advantage over simply adding fields to the generic template but only pasting in appropriate fields. The ship template would support both torpedo tubes and swimming pools, but when you paste in the submarine code it wouldn't include the swimming pool line, and the cruise ship code would be missing the torpedo tube line.  I'm really against fragmenting the ship template.  It'll get harder to maintain and they'll all gradually become more and more different in appearance and functionality. TomTheHand 18:10, 1 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I apologize if I've misunderstood your comments, but it appeared that you objected to adding certain fields as too specific for the template. (I assume that we're talking about the new(?) composite "Begin+Image+Career[s]+Characteristics" templates as "the template".)  So if one user wants a field and another objects, then what?  An auxilliary template?  It's not a fork, just an addition. (There are too many Class templates already, and even more in MIL???)
 * I have no objections to adding anything to the template. I'd like to see some of the fields in the other class templates (preceder, successor, etc) "appear" in Characteristics.  Likewise no objection if those were added to an aux.  --Saintrain 19:41, 1 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I didn't realize you were proposing additions instead of forks. I see where you're coming from now, and that does dispel some of my concerns.  However, using additions means that we can't add a field in the middle even if it'd be more appropriate.  I still think it's better to just add the field to the general template.
 * I do feel that we should try to limit excessively specific fields in the general template, but it's less about bloat and more about how I think infoboxes should be a place of general information. In my opinion, if User A wants a field and User B thinks it's too specific, the solution is not to find a way to add the field without annoying User B, it's to have a discussion to figure out if the field is really necessary and act based on consensus.
 * I completely agree that the number of class templates we have is inappropriate, and it's something we need to fix in the future. I would prefer to add class-specific fields to another aux, and really try to stop using the old class templates. TomTheHand 19:56, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

As there were no objections, I've converted the ship infobox to MILHIST style. TomTheHand 19:47, 15 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Will the Template:Infobox Class be changed to MILHIST style as well? It will look much better if all the infoboxes regardings ships (both specific ships and classes) have the same design in my opinion.Keallu 17:40, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Future ship commissionings
In a table listing ships under constructions, with dates of laying down / launching etc., would it be correct to say "commissioning" or "commissioned" if none of ships are due to commission for another 2 years at the earliest? Does one go with the correct use of language (i.e. future tense) or some sort of undefined convention that ships can only be "commissioned"? Emoscopes Talk 10:38, 31 March 2007 (UTC)


 * The USN has (had?) something called a "pre commissioning unit", which I believe consisted of the nucleus of the future crew. Not sure of the particulars, but at least it's a term.  Hmm, I think perhaps "fitting out" might fit.  I'm not sure the concept of commissioning enters into it until the builder is "finished" and "delivers" the ship to the navy.  Not sure if that helped any, I seem to be rambling.  --J Clear 13:28, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

US Navy WWII ship?
I think this must be the right place to ask this question: Was this photo taken on a US Navy ship? (the Stars and Stripes and the uniforms suggest it's American ...) The Japanese man shown, Lt-Col Tatsuji Suga attended a surrender ceremony in Borneo on 11 Sept 1945 on HMAS Kapunda, but the US Navy were also involved - was this photo possibly taken on a US Navy launch/small ship used to take Suga to and/or from Kuching to the Kapunda? I don't know anything about naval architecture but it looks like a ship to me. Also - it appears to say 'Peacock': would that be the name of the ship or weren't the smaller vessel named? Thanks. Jasper33 09:36, 11 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Judging by that radar dome, that is a US-made PT boat of some description. Emoscopes Talk 19:11, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
 * The USN and RN didn't name minor vessels like this officially, but it is likely this might be some unofficial embellishment added by the crew. Emoscopes Talk 21:38, 11 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for that Emoscopes. Jasper33 21:59, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Cruise Ships
Is it ok if I go ahead and put the wikiproject box on the talk pages for the cruise ship articles? Splamo 00:50, 12 April 2007 (UTC)


 * That would be a good idea. Though I think most of our members have a warship focus, we're definitely supposed to be covering all ships.  Our coverage of civilian ships is what distinguishes us from the Military History WikiProject's Maritime Warfare Task Force (well, that, and WikiProject Ships is a way more manageable name!). TomTheHand 02:43, 12 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Alright. I'll start working on it. Should I just use the standard 'Wikiproject Ships' box or anything special? Splamo 14:37, 12 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Just the regular one. It shows a warship on the left and an ocean liner on the right, which is intended to show that the project covers all ships. TomTheHand 14:53, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Infobox styles
Will the Template:Infobox Class be changed to MILHIST style as well? It will look much better if all the infoboxes regardings ships (both specific ships and classes) have the same design in my opinion. Keallu 17:42, 16 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Is there an assumption that WP:Ships is a complete subset of WP:MILHIST, which it isn't? It may look that way at times, but its charter includes commercial and private ships as well as naval.  You could make the case that Ships belong under Transport (is there such a project?) first.  And in many cases the class article will have less or no "military history" content. That said, I'm not adverse to style improvements.  --J Clear 22:54, 16 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Actually there is a WikiProject Transport, but it has no style ... er, that didn't come out quite right ... yet. And Transport does claim Ships as a child project.  And while I may personally like MILHIST's color scheme, the only time I ever "sailed" on anything that color was when the "ship" was made by Boeing. --J Clear 23:16, 16 April 2007 (UTC)


 * It's true that we're not a subset of MILHIST, but we have significant overlap and so I think using their infobox style (see USS Bang (SS-385)) is not a bad thing. There's nothing military-looking about the style, so I don't see any problem with it being used on civilian ships as well. TomTheHand 23:55, 16 April 2007 (UTC)


 * The intention is definately not to see or make WP:Ships a subset of WP:MILHIST. I see you as a fellow project on equal terms and have the outmost respect for your work, also in the WP:MILHIST-uncovered areas like civilian ships etc. I myself provide mostly details about U-boats and surrounding subjects which crosses both projects and so it is just nice to have the same look and feel for both projects and since the regular ship infobox was changed to MILHIST style, it would just look a bit more streamlined to change the class as well in my opinion. Keallu 15:17, 17 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Above we were discussing actually using a variant on the multi-template ship infobox to cover classes as well. Saintrain, if you're around, how's that going? TomTheHand 15:39, 17 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Any update on this? Keallu 17:02, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Battleship is now a Featured Article
The article Battleship has been promoted to Featured Article status! --MoRsE 04:54, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Templates USS and HMS
I just added an optional parameter to USS. It gives the editor control over which pieces are displayed in the linking article. It will let the editor supress displaying the "USS" or hull number in the linking article text, while retaining a non-redirected link to the linked article. It's backward compatible so omitting the 3rd parameter will do the same as before and display everything. The updated usage is on Template talk:USS, including the reason to use it if you haven't before. Comments, criticism and fixes welcome. --J Clear 17:57, 22 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Hmm... that looks like quite a useful template - any objections to copying and adapting for HMS usage? Martocticvs 18:42, 22 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Absolutely none. If I did, I wouldn't be working with the GFDL.  I was actually thinking HMS would be useful to do so when I made USS months ago, but never had a need.  Should be very straightforward, if you've got no template experience, give me a yell and I'll set it up, but you'd need to edit the examples to suit.  Hmm, wonder if we could make some sort of meta-template.--J Clear 20:45, 22 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I hadn't done much with templates before, but it seemed like a simple case of switching any example of USS out for HMS and that has done the trick nicely. Martocticvs 22:05, 22 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I forgot one of the more useful permutations, "6". USS and Template talk:USS have been updated.  I'm not that happy with the examples tables, but the pre formatted was too flaky (kept wrapping the line), so I went that way.  Anyway you ought to update HMS already.--J Clear 23:25, 22 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I've made the Template_talk:HMS page match up - I noticed you already added the extra function to the template so I think that's it sorted for now. Martocticvs 20:46, 23 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Just changed the error messages in HMS to say "Pendant Number Missing" rather than Hull Number. I think we're good to go.--J Clear 23:12, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Iranian frigate Sahand
Some anons have added that the Iranian frigate Sahand, which was heavily damaged and sunk during Operation Praying Mantis, was raised and now one has cited Janes fighting ships 2006-2007. If anyone has access to a copy I'd like to get verification from an established editor (and a page number, ISBN, etc) to further confirm this. Further status beyond just "raised" would be nice as well. Was it raised to scrap, or because it presented a navigational hazard, etc. Thanks. --Dual Freq 11:23, 23 April 2007 (UTC)


 * may be the source of the claim. Grain of salt, I think. Shimgray | talk | 19:44, 23 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Sack of salt, imo. I've added some stronger tags to the article and started a discussion. Emoscopes Talk 20:04, 23 April 2007 (UTC)


 * A more civil discussion here. Iranian frigate Mowj?  Claimed Janes ref, anyone have Janes to confirm?  --J Clear 13:55, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Infobox bug?
I'm not sure if this is a bug, or just something I'm doing wrong, but there are a couple of instances in an infobox where I want to produce a bullet list of certain things (ie battles and aramament). For some reason, the first one of these lists seems to then break the template. You can see what I mean here: User:Martocticvs/sandbox/infobox demo Martocticvs 19:03, 23 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Hmm, that is interesting. It appears to happen in the old Infobox Ship as well, if you put bulleted text in the upper (career) fields. TomTheHand 19:27, 23 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, I noticed this and never thought much more of it... Emoscopes Talk 19:30, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
 * FWIW, I usually just stick " " in between list items in an infobox.--J Clear 23:06, 23 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I use • ..  • .., instead of *s, to make bulleted lists within infoboxes, to save space. The bullet is available from the list of symbols below the edit box, or type &amp;bull;.
 * —wwoods 00:07, 24 April 2007 (UTC)


 * This is wierd! I looked at the HTML generated for User:Martocticvs/sandbox/infobox demo and WP inserted a   . I've linebreaked all the parameters so bullet lists should work now regardless of whether you use placeholders like   or  . –Pomte 01:43, 26 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks Pomte, that helped. Any text (not just funny text) following a LIST will prevent the break, but if the last output is a LIST, the infobox still breaks.  Wierd.  I left User:Saintrain/T/infobox demo busted.  Saintrain 12:42, 26 April 2007 (UTC)


 * One solution I have just thought of, would be to re-order the fields slightly. Every ship has either a fate or a status, so if these two fields were placed after the honours field, this situation could be avoided... Martocticvs 14:11, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Deletion of images from www.navyphotos.co.uk
We have a number of images from navyphotos.co.uk. Unfortunately the terms under which those images are licensed are no longer allowed here on Wikipedia. These images will eventually be deleted unless they are actually free licensed (some of the photos are probably public domain). They will be nominated for deletion soon, so if anyone is able to confirm that any of these images are, in fact, public domain, and can note a source, please change their copyright tags!

See this discussion for a little more info. TomTheHand 14:42, 24 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I've left a note there listing the most obviously deleteable ones (about 50%) - the rest may be worth hanging fire on. Shimgray | talk | 21:02, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Need some help with categorization of USCG cutters
I'm cross-posting this note from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Maritime warfare task force --Dual Freq 02:26, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Category:Famous class cutters came up in Categories for discussion on 25 April 2007. The problem, obviously, is that people look at this and think, "famous truants?" I think I've managed to convince them of the ship category conventions, but it would be good to try for something a little clearer, such as Category:Famous class USCG cutters or something like that. Please discuss and visit the CfD. Mangoe 01:54, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Project Page Surgery
After many months of feeling our project page was too cumbersome, I finally amassed enough round tuits and boldly did something about it (as you may have noticed). I'm much happier, but I freely admit the main page and new sub pages need a polishing. All the material should still be ... somewhere, just most of the detail was pushed down to sub pages.

There are two further structural things I'd like to have happen.
 * 1) a TOC like structure at the top to directly link to the sub pages (wouldn't be surprised if there is a template to do that).
 * 2) get the text to flow around that scorecard.  (I'll take a stab at this later.) done--J Clear 18:39, 28 April 2007 (UTC)  Oh, and 3(our three main weapons...)
 * 3) the aforementioned polishing
 * 4) A sub page designed for experienced WP:Ships editors.  Include (transclude?) the most used resources directly (e.g. blank infobox), and links to all other resources.  What have you had to dig for recently?  Or will this turn into a bikeshed?

Feel free to add more and strikeout those accomplished. --J Clear 17:21, 28 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Your hard work motivated me to get out there and start adding our project tag to relevant articles. Are there any plans for updating the Statistics section with less-bogus data?  :-)  I admit to being quite curious as to what our numbers look like (and just how big our assessment hole is).  --Kralizec! (talk) 05:57, 20 May 2007 (UTC)


 * The current statistics box is up to date, which should measure the "hole". I just didn't convert all the historical data, because it seemed all the percentages were hand calculated on the page.  Someday... as that would be good for measuring "progress".--J Clear 12:48, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Project Scope Discussion
As part of the Project Page Surgery, I reworte the Project's Scope. I put this comment here as a place for debate, kudos and brickbats.--J Clear 18:34, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

WP:SHIPS /Assessment and /Review Created
Observant editors may have noticed that our project banner had redlinks in it for "rated". This was a link to our previously non-existant assessment "department". I took it upon myself to plagerize WP:MILHIST heavily and imported their assessment department. I also brought over their Review department to make our Review page. If you have any interest at all in reviewing other Ships editors work or seeing what is being reviewed, please add it to your watch list now.

Also, if there are any bored template hackers out there, WPMILHIST has hooks into their review process that could be imported into WikiProject Ships. The instruction for using those are still in "our" instructions on the Review page, but commented out. Actually there is room for additional automation in the process. --J Clear 15:01, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Request for infobox conversion
The article USS Phelps (DD-360) has a manually made infobox. Can someone convert this to use the infobox Template:Infobox Ship I'm inexperienced with infoboxes so I am requesting that someone help out. Thank you. Sodaplayer talk contrib ^_^ 02:52, 20 May 2007 (UTC) This has already been dealt with Sodaplayer talk contrib ^_^ 04:43, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Dealing with Multiple Project Banners
FYI WikiProject Ships is compatible with WikiProjectBannerShell. So, if you're adding our project banner to an article claimed by two or more other projects, try the Shell (see the template doc for our banner or the Shell). This happens a fair bit as we have a large overlap with WP:MILHIST and often with the shipwrecks project and some US state project. In at least one case 5 projects claim one ship article. The general rule of thumb says don't bother with the Shell if there are only one or two projects, though.

If you encounter another project that doesn't have the "nested" parameter implemented, it's fairly easy to add if the other project banner is a table already (most are). You only need the the first few lines (up to the USS Constitution image link) out of our banner (be sure to change the project link). If you don't want to edit another project's banner, leave a request on the Shell's talk page.

--J Clear 13:52, 20 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I usually use WikiProjectBanners similar to the way it is used on Talk:H. L. Hunley (submarine). Is one better than another? WikiProjectBanners doesn't appear to need a nested= parameter, but I don't know about compatibility. I don't think I've had any problems with it in the past. --Dual Freq 17:54, 20 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Personally I prefer WikiProjectBannerShell because it can show just the banner of the project you are working on, rather than WikiProjectBanners's "all or nothing" approach. Yesterday I tagged quite a few of the World War I-era ships of the Kaiserliche Marine for our project, and while I was at it, I went ahead and added other project banners as appropriate (mostly WPMILHIST, WikiProject Germany, and/or ShipwrecksWikiProject).  --Kralizec! (talk) 19:07, 20 May 2007 (UTC)


 * is an all or nothing. You either see no list of projects, or you see all the details.  You can see an example of  at Talk:USS Constitution.  With the Shell, each project is displayed as one line with the associated rating.  On the other hand  is useful if some of the projects don't support "nested", although lately I've just been updating those project's banners for them (occasionally trying to divert them to Ships...). --J Clear 19:33, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

To infobox, or not to infobox
As per my comments on Talk:County class cruiser, I don't really see the purpose of the infobox in this article. Do we *really* need one in every article, when all it achieves is over-simplistic innacuracies? I really feel it detracts from the quality of an article I have worked very hard to improve; to me it is the equivalent of scribbling over it with crayons! Your thoughts, gentlemen? Emoscopes Talk 22:40, 23 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, I agree with you that the current infobox harms the article with its generalizations and inaccuracies. However, I want to eventually start using an infobox for classes based on the multi-template infobox I'm currently using for ships.  That would allow General Characteristics (Kent), General Characteristics (London), etc.  While I prefer what you've done (separate specifications, down in a specs section) to the current infobox, I think the best solution is to eventually provide a better infobox. TomTheHand 23:26, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Battleships vs. ships of the line
A few months ago, we tried to discuss battleships vs. ships of the line, from a categorization perspective, and tried to figure out what ships should go into battleship categories and what ships should go into ship of the line categories. We had trouble really nailing anything down, and I'd like to bring it up again. What should the dividing line be? TomTheHand 13:29, 24 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Well the term battleship is descended from line of battle ship / ship of the line of battle... deciding where one should end and the other start is quite a difficult task. In a way it is correct to say a ship of the line is a battleship, but then again that would be applying the modern label to it. Personally, I would say a battleship would have a metal hull, and wooden hulled ships would be ships of the line... I do think it is slightly misleading to term a ship that was always under sail, never received engines, had a wooden hull and always mounted canon along her broadsides a battleship - its not what people think of as a battleship as such. Martocticvs 17:39, 24 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, if we do it by "iron hull" then how do we classify the iron-armored but wooden-hulled La Gloire? I would hesitate to classify her as a ship of the line, with her single gun deck and small number of very heavy guns.  To me, her disposition of armament makes her a frigate, but I would have no problem calling her a battleship.  I would be more comfortable placing the dividing line at metal armor. TomTheHand 17:52, 24 May 2007 (UTC)


 * My tuppenny bit as requested. The term 'ship of the line' could be equally applied to ships of the dreadnought class, etc into the twentieth century as well, as they tended to deploy in line formation.  I think the term is popularly held to mean ships with their guns ranged along their sides, that would fire mass broadsides, 'lining up' parallel with each other  I would say that the use of armour wasn't really a revolutionary change to the way these ships fought, rather their durability.  I'd suggest that the term battleship might be applied to ships that didn't carry their main armament in their hulls, but on turrets, as being a major change to the way these ships fought.  I suppose that would make HMS Prince Albert (1864) the first British battleship on these terms. To conclude, I'd say the change was when ships no longer needed to line up in parallel lines, but could use turrets, etc to alter their firing.  Anyway, feel free to tear that appart ad nauseum, just my opinion really.  ttfn.  Benea 18:18, 24 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I wouldn't be terribly opposed to making turreted armament the defining criteria, but I do think that "oceangoing" should be an additional requirement. By that criteria, I obviously don't think that Monitor and similar vessels should be considered battleships.  Prince Albert's article describes her as a "shallow-draught coast-defence ship," which implies that she is not oceangoing, but it does say she had 7 feet of freeboard, which makes her considerably more seaworthy than Monitor.  With that said, 1. Would "oceangoing" be an acceptable addition to the criteria, and 2. Was HMS Prince Albert oceangoing? TomTheHand 18:25, 24 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Sorry, another thought from a few minutes later. We could potentially have an overlap, where, for example, all armored oceangoing vessels carry battleship categories, and all line-of-battle broadside-armed oceangoing vessels carry ship of the line cats.  Categories exist to help people find articles, and so we might be best off double-categorizing disputable vessels like HMS Warrior so that more people could find her article.  TomTheHand 18:30, 24 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree with pretty much all of that. Oceangoing is fair enough, I also wouldn't call Monitor a battleship.  Not sure about Prince Albert, it's not very famous so you'd probably have to go to the listed sources.  I imagine she was capable of oceangoing, but probably never left coastal waters.  Double catagorising also sounds sensible.  Benea 18:56, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Ok, so I propose that we do this: *excluding aircraft carriers and any other bizarre technicality one could come up with!
 * 1) Put battleship categories onto armored, oceangoing capital ships*
 * 2) Put ship of the line categories onto oceangoing capital ships with broadside armament

We'll have overlap with ships like HMS Warrior and La Gloire, whose armor will give them a battleship category and whose disposition of armament will give them a ship of the line category. I think this will allow the widest possible range of people to find what they're looking for when browsing through cats, and I think that that's the top priority: even if you wouldn't consider La Gloire to be a battleship, I imagine you'd agree that there are people out there who would, and they'd benefit from having her categorized that way. Anyone opposed? TomTheHand 15:01, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes it's difficult, especially as the Royal Navy thought of Warrior as an "armoured frigate"! Emoscopes Talk 19:49, 26 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree with that in principle, I think... The transition between the age of sail and the modern era is pretty muddled and there is obviously no clear dividing line, so double categorising is probably the best way to go. Martocticvs 10:45, 27 May 2007 (UTC)


 * So by the above criteria, USS Ohio (SSGN-726) and her kin would fall into both. I'm applying a liberal definition of armor, but you've got to admit they have tougher hulls than most surface vessels.  And her primary weapons all point to one side, topside.  Or are we going to quibble about them being boats, not ships. ;-) --J Clear 02:10, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

CFD
Please pop by CFD to weigh in on the deletion of the newly created United States Navy heavy cruisers. TomTheHand 19:42, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Please also check out the umbrella CFD for the rest of the newly-created US cruiser subdivisions here. TomTheHand 12:56, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and someone proposed merging Cruisers of the United States into Cruisers of the United States Navy here. I really, really hope this doesn't happen, as it goes against our category structure. TomTheHand 13:51, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

HMS Hermione (1893)
Hi all - while writing up the Avro Type D, I've come across a reference that an example was used for seaplane trials from "airship tender Hermione" in late 1911. I've tentatively identified this with the cruiser of that name, but does anyone here know for sure that they were one-and-the-same? --Rlandmann 21:16, 29 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Check out this site, which says that "in September 1910, she became a sea-going depot ship for the first Naval airship of the lighter-than-air type at Barrow, but when the building of this craft was abandoned, HMS Hermione rejoined the 4th division of the Home Fleet in January 1912." Sounds like that's the Hermione you're looking for! TomTheHand 21:39, 29 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the speedy reply! --Rlandmann 22:27, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Issues with submarine names - help requested
USS Lamprey (SS-372) and USS Macabi (SS-375) were two Balao class submarines that were transferred to Argentina. Different sources say different things about which one was renamed to what:


 * 1) Our articles on the ships say Lamprey was transferred on 21 July 1960 and Macabi was transferred on 11 August 1960. Lamprey was renamed Santa Fe (S-11) and Macabi was renamed Santiago del Estero (S-12).  Our articles cite DANFS, so I imagine that's the source.
 * 2) Spanish Wikipedia's articles say they both started serving with the Argentine Navy in 1960. Macabi was renamed Santa Fe (S-11) and Lamprey was renamed Santiago del Estero (S-12).
 * 3) List of ships of the Argentine Navy says Lamprey entered service with Argentina in 1960, but Macabi entered service in 1948. Pretty sure that's wrong.  It also says that Lamprey was renamed Salta (S-11) and Macabi was renamed Santa Fe (S-12).
 * 4) Spanish Wikipedia's list of ships of the Argentine Navy has the weird "1948" issue that ours does.  It says that Lamprey was renamed Santiago del Estero (S-12) and Macabi was renamed Santa Fe (S-11).
 * 5) My print source, Register of Ships of the U.S. Navy, 1775-1990, says that Lamprey was transferred on August 21, 1960 and Macabi was transferred on August 11, 1960. Lamprey was renamed Santiago del Estero and Macabi was renamed Santa Fe.
 * 6) DANFS says Lamprey was transferred on 21 July 1960 and Macabi was transferred on 11 August 1960. Lamprey was renamed Santa Fe (S-11) and Macabi was renamed Santiago del Estero (S-12).
 * 7) NavSourge.org says that Lamprey was transferred on August 21, 1960 and Macabi was transferred on August 11, 1960. Lamprey was renamed Santiago del Estero (S-12) and Macabi was renamed Santa Fe (S-11).

So here's what I think:
 * All sources seem to agree that Macabi was transferred on 11 August 1960. There is some disagreement between whether Lamprey was transferred on 21 July 1960 or 21 August 1960.
 * The only sources that say Macabi became Santiago del Estero are DANFS and our articles, which are most likely based on DANFS. That makes me feel reasonably sure that Macabi became Santa Fe, but... you'd think DANFS would be reliable, right?

TomTheHand 17:03, 31 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Huh. Checking around, I see two versions:
 * DANFS says Lamprey was transferred 21 July 1960, and renamed Santa Fe (S-11). Hazegray.org mirrors DANFS, and globalsecurity.org has the same data.
 * (An online version of) Register of Ships says Lamprey was transferred 21 Aug 1960, and renamed Santiago del Estero. Navsource.org has the same data, with a note that unspecified "Corrections to photo and text data were supplied by John D. Alden, author of The Fleet Submarine in the U.S. Navy: A Design and Construction History. Mr. Alden served on the Lamprey from her commissioning to decommissioning."
 * Everybody says Macabi was transferred 11 August 1960 and received the other name.


 * The Armada Argentina's website is insufficiently specific:
 * "En 1960, llegan los primeros submarinos norteamericanos tipo Flota de la Segunda Guerra Mundial modernizados, fueron los nuevos "Santa Fe" y "Santiago del Estero" y con ello fueron radiados los viejos submarinos "tarantinos" italianos que habían formado la primera escuadra submarina."
 * There's a page with a list of email addresses, but none of them seem quite relevant.


 * I can send a copy of this to the DANFS people (shiphistory@navy.mil) and see what response I get.
 * —wwoods 18:39, 31 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Sorry, my version of the Register of Ships also says Lamprey 21 Aug and Macabi 11 Aug as well; I missed that slight difference and I've updated my above comparison. It would be great if you could e-mail the DANFS people about this.  Thanks! TomTheHand 19:17, 31 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I emailed them. Their website says
 * "Please be advised, however, that requests for research assistance or information sent to this e-mail address will not be answered. All queries of that nature must be sent to the [snail mail] address listed above. All suggested corrections will be reviewed for accuracy. If you have documentation supporting a change please provide it to assist us in making pertinent changes."
 * so I presented it as a possible error in DANFS rather than a request for help. We'll see what happens. I know they've accepted some error corrections from me in the past.
 * —wwoods 21:15, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

A bit of data mining from Google news archives yields the following:


 * Pasadena Independent (Newspaper) - July 22, 1960, Pasadena, California, "US Sub to Argentina SAN FRANCISCO The submarine USS Lamprey was transferred 'to The Argen- tine Navy yesterday Jri cere- monies At SAN FRANCISCO naval ... "
 * Oakland Tribune (Newspaper) - August 10, 1960, Oakland, California "THE USS Lamprey was given to Argentina July 21. THE Macabi, which will Chain Manager HM 2 Club Speaker ALBANY, Aug. 10 Abe Lemes, New Manager for a Chain ..."
 * Washington Post - Nov 5, 1960 MAR DEL PLATA, Argentina, Nov. 4 (AP)--"Two Submarines bought from the United ... their names from Macabi to Santa Fe and from Lamprey to Santiago DEL Estero." Use Google news archive terms Argentina Macabi santa fe with no quotes and that gives the last one. Hope it helps. --Dual Freq 23:53, 31 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Dual Freq is awesome. Ok, so above is absolute proof that USS Lamprey was transferred on 21 July 1960, and another bit of evidence that Macabi became Santa Fe and Lamprey became Santiago del Estero. TomTheHand 00:17, 1 June 2007 (UTC)


 * So everyone was wrong!? DANFS about the names; Bauer about the month? Thanks for the help; that's a new trick to me.
 * On a minor note, the Post says, "Ceremonies at the naval blue[sic] here yesterday [3 November] changed their names from Macabi..." Presumably that's when they were recommissioned.
 * —wwoods 01:05, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I think the google archives have misspellings because of OCR, when you click them they bring up images of newspapers. I tried Lexis academic, but it doesn't go back far enough and I found another wrinkle. Wikipedia's article on ARA Santa Fe and Lexis articles say USS Catfish (SS-339) became Santa Fe in 1971. The New York Times, April 26, 1982, Monday says "Santa Fe ... was commissioned by the United States as the Catfish in 1945 and was sold to Argentina in 1971". They cite Janes as their source. The other articles seem to say Santiago del Estero and Santa Fe were two former US subs used by Argentina in the 1982 Falklands / Malvinas war they also have a lengthy story of the capture of the Santa Fe. I'm not sure where that leaves it, but it seems to muddy the waters a bit more. --Dual Freq 01:53, 1 June 2007 (UTC)


 * USS Chivo (SS-341) became Santiago del Estero in 1971, so that was the one in the Falklands. May 14, 1982, NY Times article agrees with that as well. I guess both were replaced in 1971 by sister ships, so at least 4 from the same class went to Argentina. --Dual Freq 02:01, 1 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Our article on List of ships of the Argentine Navy states "By tradition, Argentine submarines bear the names of provinces whose names begin with the letter "S", thus, the pool of names is limited to only six ("Santa Fe", "Salta", "Santiago del Estero", "San Luis", "San Juan" and "Santa Cruz") resulting in repeated class names." In the process of updating and fixing all of the Balao-class articles, I've found a number of cases where a small navy will buy an old submarine from the USN, use it until it's worn out, and then buy another one and give it the same name as the previous.
 * This page on the Argentine Navy's web site explains that they've gone through five generations of submarines and recycled the names the whole time. The Santa Fe and Santiago del Estero of 1960 were replaced by another Santa Fe and Santiago del Estero in 1971.
 * Lamprey and Macabi were unmodified Balaos; when those two wore out, Argentina bought a pair of GUPPYs (Chivo and Catfish) and gave them the same names as the two previous subs. TomTheHand 02:11, 1 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for clarifying that. Would a dab page be in order listing / linking all 5 generations of ARA Santa Fe's, etc? The List of ships of the Argentine Navy looks good, would a dab page be needed? --Dual Freq 03:27, 1 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Definitely. Jeez, you'd think they could at least rotate the names, so different classes had different lead ships.
 * —wwoods 06:23, 1 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I created the index page for ARA Santa Fe but I haven't touched the other names yet. TomTheHand 13:34, 1 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Created ARA Santiago del Estero. I don't think I'm going to bother with the others at the moment because of the lack of articles to link to.  Incidentally, are we pretty much agreed that most sources say Macabi = Santa Fe and Lamprey = Santiago del Estero, and DANFS is probably incorrect in this case? TomTheHand 14:03, 1 June 2007 (UTC)


 * [Added 20:08, 12 June 2007 (UTC)] I got a response from Dr. Timothy Francis at the NHC. I'm adding a copy to this archive page because it's part of this discussion, and simply confirms our guesses. —wwoods
 * {| border=1 width=90%


 * Looking in the files, I have found A Navy "speed-letter" dated 4 Jun 71 that notes Macabi (SS-375) was transferred on 11 Aug 1960 and became Santa Fe; with Lamprey transferred 21 July 1960 as Santiago del Estero.

We also have copies from an unreferenced printed Argentinian source in Spanish that confirms the above date for the former submarine [Macabi -> Santa Fe on 11 Aug 60]. But in the case of Lamprey, the Argentinian source says 21 August, not 21 July. Interestingly, there is an inspection survey document dated 6 Aug 71 that claims Lamprey went on loan in August 1960, not July.

But, to confuse matters even further, there is an Op-09B status change sheet that has the date as 21 July. This is seconded by a memo from Commandant, 12th Naval District to Chief, Bureau of Ships, 26 Jul 1960 that states the transfer of Lamprey took place on 21 July.

As it is almost always better to go with the most contemporary documents, rather than later ones that probably had typos, SH is going to go with the 21 July date.

I'll make that change, but we'll also put them in the hopper for a complete rewrite since the histories are so poor.
 * }

Ship class template
Ok, so this has come up a few times before but nothing's come out of it. As you guys know, I put together a new ship infobox that can be used on ships that have served in multiple navies, have had multiple periods in commission, have changed greatly during a refit, etc. It works by dividing the different sections of the infobox into different templates, so that each section can be repeated by just repeating that template. Typically, a ship will use the Header, Image, Career, and Characteristics templates.

We had discussed making another small template that would work for ship class infoboxes. Then, you'd use the existing Header and Image templates, the new hypothetical Class template, and the existing Characteristics template. The Characteristics template could be repeated, for example, to support subclasses.

I'd like to go ahead and create this small Class template now, since it's holding me back. I'd like to get input on what features it should support. Right now we have two class templates in use: Template:Infobox Class and Template:Infobox Ship Class. They each have things I like and dislike:
 * Infobox Ship Class is very simple, and it includes "Type", which I actually think is really important. Your infobox should definitely mention that you're dealing with a battleship, or frigate, or whatever.
 * Infobox Class has a lot of features. I like some of them, but others I think go overboard.  I like its support for fields that indicate the range of service, but I think that having one set of fields for "First commissioned" and "Last decommissioned" and another set for "First in service" and "Last out of service" is redundant.  I like the idea behind its "Ships in class" section, but it's got way too many fields and I have no idea how they're intended to be used.  It has fields for total ships in class, ships active, building, fitting out, converted, stored, out of service, sunk, scrapped, preserved, unbuilt, and planned, in that order.  I'm unsure of whether I'm supposed to put numbers or names into each of those fields.

For the new ship class template, what I'd essentially like to do is this: I'm a little iffy on the placement of the "Cancelled" field, as I feel like chronologically it should go earlier, maybe before "Active", but perhaps logically it should be separate. I feel like there should be a "total number of ships that actually entered service" field, but I don't know where to insert it and I don't know what to call it. More fields could be added later if they're needed, but realistically fields can't be removed after the creation of the template, so I want to have the bare minimum. It would be up to the judgement of the editor whether a list of ships or just a number would go into each field, depending on the size of the class. How does this sound? TomTheHand 17:36, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
 * 1) Use Infobox Class as a base
 * 2) Add "Type" to the first section
 * 3) Remove "First commissioned" and "Last decommissioned" fields, and just have the "In service" and "Out of service" fields
 * 4) Overhaul the "Ships in class" section, to have: "Planned:" "Building:" "Active:", "In reserve:" "Sunk:" "Preserved:" "Scrapped:" and "Cancelled:"


 * Ok, I'm going to try to implement this when I get some free time. TomTheHand 15:09, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Possibly change how we categorize class articles?
I started categorizing ship articles just about a year ago. At that time, I started organizing class articles according to a hierarchy:


 * Type category (example: Category:Destroyer classes)
 * Class category (example: Category:Fletcher class destroyers)
 * Class article (example: Fletcher class destroyer)

There was some objection to this, right around here: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Ships/Archive03. The compromise solution was to put Category:Destroyer classes on both Fletcher class destroyer and Category:Fletcher class destroyers.

The compromise makes it easier to navigate from the class article to other class articles. I understand that, but it kind of makes a mess of Category:Destroyer classes. Only 200 articles+subcats can be shown on one page, so the cat is messily divided.

Could we revisit this? We revisited the issue of putting (Ship) of (Country) cats on every ship article, and decided that in order to clean categories up, we should put (Ship) of (Country) on the class category and leave it off the articles where possible. We decided that well-maintained list articles, like List of United States Navy destroyers, are a better way to have a complete list of ships. We already have List of destroyer classes of the United States Navy. It's short and to-the-point, but it seems to be complete; with a little work I think it would be a great replacement for double-categorizing the class articles. TomTheHand 15:25, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

RMS Titanic FAR
RMS Titanic has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. Sandy Georgia (Talk) 03:40, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Possible copyright issue with an article
The article for HMS Ocean (1805) was apparently at least in part copied from the Royal Navy's web site, and since creation has carried the message "Parts of this page &copy; Crown Copyright 2003, used with permission. " I'm pretty sure this is totally unacceptable on Wikipedia today, even if it was ok in 2003. The link is dead, so I can't verify how much of it is a copy. Is anyone up for rewriting the article? If not, I think I may need to speedy delete it as a blatant copyright infringement (I don't think it gets any more blatant than saying right on a page "This is copyrighted material."). TomTheHand 21:53, 6 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Cut it down to a bare-bones stub, it would probably only end up being re-created at some point if you speedy it. Emoscopes Talk 22:01, 6 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree with cutting it down. I noticed that a while ago, thinking back, and the link was dead then, but I didn't have time to do anything with it at the time and then forgot all about it.Martocticvs 22:13, 6 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Ok, I Googled the ship, found a web site with a tiny bit of info, and cut the article down to almost nothing, citing this site as a reference for the one sentence that remains. Added a stub tag too. TomTheHand 19:39, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Bot to add WikiProject Ships banner
I've asked the operator of PbBot, that did the recent DANFS category move, to add WikiProject Ships to various ship articles. Discussion goes back and forth between User talk:Pb30 and User talk:J Clear (included below). I'm sure further comments on how to find them all would be welcome. I've tried to redirect the discussion here.--J Clear 19:30, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for cleaning up the DANFS category. It sure made my watch list interesting....

Any chance of going back through the same list and adding WikiProject Ships to all those talk pages? Or at least the articles that start with "USS" as I see you hit some navy bios too. Articles starting with HMS and SS are likely candidates for the same project banner. If filtering on just USS, you might want to eliminate articles that contain NCC or NX, which would indicate a Star Trek reference. If so, the full string would make it easiest for future editors. Perhaps a safer way to add them is to drill down through the ship categories. I think you could start at Category:Ships.

Thanks, --J Clear 00:29, 7 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I'd be glad to do it. I requested approval to start the new task. Once it's approved I'll start -- pb30 < talk > 01:04, 7 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the response. Should be interesting to see how many articles fall under WP:SHIPS.  I suspect tagging USS and HMS will account for a large percentage.  I was looking at Category:Ships, and there's some obvious items not to tag right at the top (e.g. Category:WikiProject Shipwrecks participants), so I hope you don't have too much trouble setting up the filter.  If any of the other sub categories seems to have too many false positives, leave a note at WP:SHIPS about which and we'll do it manually.  I look forward to my watch list being blitzed again. ;-)  --J Clear 16:29, 7 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Do you know of a handful specific categories or templates that are used on articles within your scope? Some examples would help me figure out exactly whats covered by the project. Thanks -- pb30 < talk > 17:19, 7 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm not certain how you set up your bot, so this may be hit or miss. I'd start with Category:Ships and drill down it's sub-categories (don't know if that's an automatic option), except the one noted above.  I wouldn't be surprised if that expands to a couple thousand articles, the USN and RN have had a lot of ships.  I'm assuming the bot is smart enough not to re-add the template if it's already there, or we're in trouble to begin with as 1500 are tagged already and ships fall into multiple categories.  Other possible searches were mentioned above.  Without knowing much about programming wikibots, I'm not sure I can advise you futher.  I'm going to be away for a few days, please use Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ships for further questions on what a "Ships" article is.  Also I'm not expecting a perfect job (too many exceptions), just trying to get the bulk of the obvious ones tagged. --J Clear 18:11, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Interesting question, as I guess it involves defining our scope. Most of the subcats of Category:Ships seem to be obviously ours, but do we want to take ownership of Category:Ship construction, Category:Marine occupations, or Category:Maritime incidents? As you said, obviously we need to exclude Category:WikiProject Shipwrecks participants, but I'd go so far as to say that it doesn't belong in the category in the first place. I'm going to remove it, and hopefully nobody will get too angry. TomTheHand 19:43, 7 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I'd argue that Category:Ship construction is in scope, but agree with your other observations. I too thought about removing Shipwrecks, but it ought to be related some how.  Is there a "maritime" super category?  Oh, well off to a weekend without Internet and wikipedia.--J Clear 19:54, 7 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Have a good weekend! Looking further at Category:Maritime incidents, I would say that it probably is within our scope.  For example, I'd say Russian submarine Kursk explosion is just as much within our scope as Russian submarine K-141 Kursk is.  The only subcategory of Ships that I continue to be iffy about is Maritime occupations, but the more I think about it, the more I kind of think "Why shouldn't it be in scope?".  It's a ship-related topic, and honestly it's less than 50 articles so it's not like it's a big deal.  Why don't we go ahead and say "Our scope is Category:Ships and all of its subcategories!"? TomTheHand 20:11, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

The bot's list can come from a Category, articles that use a tempalte (like Mil-ship-stub), or a list of links (either a text file or something like List of United States Navy destroyers). If you have some examples of any of these that fall within your scope it would help give me a starting point and an idea of your scope -- pb30 < talk > 19:58, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

My bot's trial has been completed. See a log of all changes here. Any questions or comments please post them here. Theres about 3000 USS articles that use DANFS that I plan on tagging once the bot is approved. -- pb30 < talk > 01:50, 8 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Looks good. I do want to comment that the very first article the bot hit, USS Arizona, for some reason doesn't have the WP:SHIPS tag. TomTheHand 13:48, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Yeah that is a logging error, or maybe I didn't fully save it in order to make sure all the settings were correct. Either way it normally would be tagged when the bot is running. -- pb30 < talk > 14:34, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Cool. Well I think tagging USS articles that use DANFS will be 100% safe.  I honestly think we can do every article in the Category:Ships hierarchy but that issue should wait on other input.
 * We're going to have our work cut out for us assessing these articles when they've all been tagged! TomTheHand 14:40, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Categories may be difficult to use since each category or subcategory is loaded separately. This will be what I start with. If anything is incorrect or if there is anything to be added feel free to edit the page or post it here. -- pb30 < talk > 15:14, 8 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Ah, I see the issue with categories. Ok, well, I have a few comments on your sandbox:


 * Yes, submarines are in scope.
 * 1) I noticed "SMS" next to List of naval ships of Germany. The SMS prefix was only used by the Imperial German Navy (WWI and before), so please don't limit yourself to it.  I think most German naval ship articles will used the format "German (ship type) (ship name)", like German cruiser Admiral Hipper.  Modern ships will use the FGS prefix.  In fact, limiting coverage to SMS, FGS, and German might be exactly the ticket.
 * 2) I added List of ships of the Japanese Navy, which should be pretty straightforward. In order to excluse non-ship links, you might go for articles beginning in "Japanese" as well as articles ending in "Maru".
 * 3) I added List of Royal Navy ships. This may be more useful than List of Royal Navy ship names, as many of those articles will be disambiguation pages for names that have been used many times.  Ideally I'd say the disambiguation pages are in our scope as well, but I think it's more important not to miss the ship articles themselves.  List of Royal Navy ships is not the list itself; the list is divided into 26 sublists by first letter, but you seemed to be able to handle that for List of United States Navy ships so I hoped it'd be ok for the Royal Navy too.
 * 4) I might also suggest including all linked articles with the word "class" in them. I can't imagine many false positives there.
 * Thanks so much for helping us with this. Manually tagging articles as I worked on them just wasn't doing the job!  We have less than 1500 articles tagged now; it's hard to believe that there are ten times that many US Navy ship articles alone! TomTheHand 15:36, 8 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Ship class articles are also in our scope, but I'm less sure of the best way to provide those to you. Let me give it some thought.  The best way to go might be through Category:Ship classes; I imagine it'd be reasonable to at least hit the biggest six (Category:Frigate classes, Category:Destroyer classes, Category:Submarine classes, Category:Cruiser classes, Category:Battleship classes, and Category:Aircraft carrier classes), ignoring their subcategories and just hitting the articles contained in those. TomTheHand 15:41, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

The bot has just been approved. I'll get started tagging tomorrow. -- pb30 < talk > 21:55, 19 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks Pb30. For anyone wanting to review the bot approval: Bots/Requests for approval/PbBot 2. --J Clear 23:16, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Update
I've started tagging articles, you can see the logs here. At the beginning I've tried to only run it when I was at the PC just to make sure nothing went wrong. I do have a couple of questions. Also my sandbox outlines some of the criteria I've been using, feel free to add or edit things there. -- pb30 < talk > 19:14, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
 * 1) Should ship disambig pages like USS Cabot be tagged?
 * 2) Yes, although we may ask you to set a certain class/importance to all of them, perhaps later. I believe they should all use Shipindex, rather than some variation on dab.
 * 3) Should ship pages tagged by WikiProject Shipwrecks also be tagged by this project?
 * 4) Yes, since shipwrecks is a peer project.
 * 5) Should ship class pages like Yorktown class aircraft carrier be tagged
 * 6) Yes. There has been discussion recently on class/importance to initialize these too, as well.--J Clear 19:39, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, starting another round of tagging now. Another question, should lists of ships be tagged? (List of convict ship voyages to Western Australia or List of clipper ships) -- pb30 < talk > 20:13, 24 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I would think those lists would be in scope for the project, certainly the latter. The debate would be on what class/importance to give them, which should occur in a different thread than this. ;-) --J Clear 20:43, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Bot is still tagging. I've started doing some articles based off stub templates and auto adding the stub class to the template. These articles also have the auto=yes parameter added which places it in Category:Automatically assessed Ships articles and should be removed once it's a confirmed stub. Here's an example: Talk:RFA Robert Middleton (A241) -- pb30 < talk > 04:13, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Battlecarrier AFD
Please weigh in on the AFD for Battlecarrier, here. I'm really bothered that this article presents a neologism as a real type of warship. TomTheHand 18:26, 12 June 2007 (UTC)


 * CVB: Battle Carrier (PDF). Certainly not a combination battleship / carrier or anything else written in the Battlecarrier article. This doesn't even use the term to describe a CVB. Maybe it can be re-written? -Dual Freq 23:00, 15 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't even think the "B" in "CVB" stands for "battle." The "B" in CB, the Alaska class large cruisers, didn't.  I suspect they're related: CB is a large cruiser, CVB is a large aircraft carrier. TomTheHand 15:39, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

List(s) of sailors
I'm tempted to remove the list of "Known sailors[sic]" from USS Vella Gulf (CVE-111), but thought I'd see if anyone saw the value or if we have such a list elsewhere.--J Clear 15:57, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Not sure I see any significance in it, personally... such sections also have the potential to become stupidly long. If there was a person famous for some event who served aboard, then that's a different matter, but a list of people who served on a particular ship is probably best kept on a dedicated website or in the public records office... Martocticvs 16:10, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Ticonderoga carriers
I just undid a set of edits to USS Philippine Sea (CV-47) that appeared to be based on confusion between the Ticonderoga sub class of the Essex class carrier and the later Aegis cruiser class. I considered just cleaning up the edit (i.e. changing ESSEX -> Essex) until I realized that the edits had changed the length of the ship! However there seems to be incosistency among the rest of the "Ticonderoga" articles. Spot checking a few in DANFS finds them consistently listed as Essex class, so I think we probably should follow suit. However we need to take care that we maintain the distinct specifications. Even if we want to stick to calling them Ticonderogas, we should do so consistently. If we go with Essex, we should clean up (delete) all the no longer needed Ticonderoga templates. Unfortunately I don't have enough time today to start on it, so I'll leave it here.--J Clear 17:26, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Help with POV issue
An anon keeps copying and pasting a gigantic, rather POV, lengthy tale into the article for Arthur Leopold Busch, a naval architect who worked with John Philip Holland. If possible, could a few folks watchlist this article and help to keep it sane? Thanks! TomTheHand 17:26, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Ships with multiple rebuilds
I'm in the middle of adding and improving infoboxes on RN ship of the line articles, and I just came up to HMS Monmouth (1667). She was rebuilt 3 times over the course of her 100 year career - the changes in naval architecture over that period were significant enough to be able to say fairly reasonably that by the time she was broken up, not one single timber from the original build would have been part of her structure. I just want to know what you people think about this: should it stay as one article, or should it be split into separate ones for each build? Each rebuild would have been ordered as a normal build, though specified as a rebuild... so instead of starting from scratch, they would have dismantled the old ship, salvaged what they could, and then carry on as they would for any ship. I'm of two minds, myself. Martocticvs 16:29, 22 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Puts me in mind of USS Constellation (1854). However in the case of Monmouth there's really not enough article to break up.--J Clear 20:41, 22 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I think what you've done is perfect. If the article gets long, let's split it up, but as long as the article is shorter than the infobox it should stay combined.  This kind of article is the perfect use of the multiple "Characteristics" sections. TomTheHand 21:37, 24 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Yeah I agree... I think I just thought it looked a bit odd because the infobox ended up about 5 times longer than the article, but what you say makes sense. Martocticvs 19:23, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

New editing shortcut template - sclass
If you are tired of typing out class names twice, like Haskell-class attack transport, then this is for you. All that can be reduced to Haskell-class attack transport, that's it. Inspired by USS and HMS, sclass is the same thing for classes instead of ships. And like USS and HMS, you can tweak the output, too!

sclass is an editor's shortcut for creating properly formatted links to ship class articles that follow the standard naming format of Class name class ship type. See the fine documentation for more details. You can also see it in use at USS Lanier (APA-125).

I hope you find this useful. --J Clear 01:12, 27 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Excellent - that will come in useful I suspect! Martocticvs 22:25, 29 June 2007 (UTC)


 * If anyone else would like to nominate another linkage, where trying to properly italicized the ship/class name while linking to an article title w/o italics results in twice the work, for a template let me know (here). For instance it should be absurdly easy to do HMAS from HMS.  In fact I should probably look at a generic ship prefix template that they all could call.  It would keep the editors interface intuitive and short, but do the logic once.  --J Clear 22:34, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Steamships and paddle steamers categories
Hi, I've done several sternwheeler articles for British Columbia sternwheelers such as BC Express (sternwheeler) and about 14 others and categorized them all simply as steamships. Should they be in the sub cat of paddle steamers instead? Ci ndy Bo talk  07:54, 27 June 2007 (UTC)


 * If I were being pedantic, I'd point out they are river boats, not ships. ;-) However, in general if an article fits into a lower sub-category you use the more specific sub category only. Apply the rule recursively, and fork the search each time two or more sub categories apply.  Say for instance one of your paddle wheelers had been used by the North in the Civil war.  If you started at ships, you'd think Category:Ships by type, Category:Ships by navy, and Category:Naval ships would apply.  The first fork would yield Category:Paddle steamers and the others both yield Category:Civil War naval ships of the United States, among others (probably a USN class of vessel as well).  So add both those leaf categories to the article.  Make sense?  Generally, you don't include the less specific categories because an interested reader can always traverse the category tree toward parent categories.  --J Clear 00:50, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. I'll fix those then. They are all just paddle steamers. By the way are there any categories for riverboats? Or sidewheelers or sternwheelers? Or are they all just put in paddle steamers for now? Ci ndy Bo talk  03:20, 28 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Didn't notice any yesterday, but hunt around the Category:Ships tree, there is a lot there. If you think there are a significant number of articles to group together with a more specific category that doesn't exist yet, then go for it.  If you do create your own, go into that Cat page and add parent categories to link it in.  --J Clear 01:29, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I peeked around a bit, didn't see riverboats. Category: Paddle steamers should be fine anyway. Someday if there's enough articles on them, a category like British Columbia paddle steamers might be handy. We had a lot of them, over 300, and many were (at least locally) notable. Ci ndy Bo talk  01:50, 29 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Seeing how we're a project determined to write an article on every single Destroyer escort (457), LSM (558), Victory ship (~2700), Liberty ship (2751), and tramp steamer (like rats...) that ever was, we're not going to complain. ;-)  --J Clear 22:25, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Continuing issues with Balao class submarine propulsion
I had previously posted about Balao class submarines and all the difficulties involved in determining the details of their propulsion. Since then, I've found numerous reliable sources giving the surface power of the Gato, Balao, and Tench class subs as 5,400 hp and the submerged power as 2,740 hp. I'm reasonably inclined to rely on those figures. shafts. The diesels did not drive the boats directly. That means that whether surfaced or submerged, the boats are being driven by the same motors, and so I don't know why surfaced power differs from submerged. Theories: I have an issue with them, though. The U.S. fleet boats were true diesel-electrics: their diesel engines drove generators only. The generators provided power to the electric motors, which drove the
 * 1) The batteries don't generate as much voltage as the generators can.
 * 1) The 2,740 hp figure is the amount of power that can be maintained for a certain period of time, like perhaps half an hour.

Another problem I have is with figures on GUPPYs provided by Norman Friedman's U.S. Submarines Since 1945. According to the book, four-engine GUPPY conversions are rated at 5,400 hp surfaced and 4,610 hp submerged. GUPPYs with one engine removed are rated at 3,430 hp surfaced and 4,610 hp submerged. Those numbers don't seem to work for me, though, for several reasons:
 * 5,400 hp divided by four engines is 1,350 hp, while 3,430 hp divided by three engines is 1,140 hp.
 * 1) Just for the heck of it, 4,610 hp divided by four is 1,150 hp. What a coincidence!
 * 2) Mild GUPPY conversions which were only streamlined, whose batteries are just mildly updated Sargo II's, are listed with 4,610 hp submerged.
 * 3) From pg. 35 of the same book, which discussed early results with GUPPY-type batteries, it was thought that 496 GUPPY cells would be capable of producing 6,800 hp for a half hour. As converted, GUPPYs actually had 504 cells.

I've also seen a few scattered sources saying that GUPPYs were downrated to 4,610 hp on diesels. Here's one source and here's another. That first source quotes a forum post that says they were derated because the snorkel systems were much more restrictive than the old intakes and exhausts and because lower-compression pistons were fitted. That's sufficiently detailed for me to believe it, but neither source is what I'd consider reliable enough to cite.

The above point #4 is interesting. If 496 GUPPY cells can produce 6,800 hp for half an hour, that's 14 hp per cell. Multiply by 126, the number of cells in fleet boats, and you get 126 cells producing 1,700 hp. So... compare that to the 2,740 hp "submerged power" figure for fleet boats. This is a little bit of original research, but I think you could deduce that the 2,740 hp figure is the absolute maximum the batteries can provide to the motors, and the "half hour rate" must be much lower.

Anyway, here's what I think based on the available information:
 * 1) GUPPYs were downrated to 4,610 hp surfaced, and Friedman mixed up and/or misinterpreted some figures.
 * 2) From the information I have available, it isn't possible to determine the submerged horsepower of GUPPYs and it should not be listed.

Does anyone know any really detailed, in-depth sources on GUPPYs or perhaps have any reliable sources related to this possible downrating of their surface power? TomTheHand 17:50, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I still don't have any reliable sources that really explain the 4,610 hp thing. However, I was reading Norman Friedman's sub books this weekend and I came across a passage that explains the relationship between submerged and surfaced power and the reason why they're different even if the motors are the same. On the surface, four-motor subs run on all four motors, and two-motor subs run on both armatures of both of their motors. Underwater, four-motor subs only run on two motors, and two-motor subs only run on a single armature of each of their motors. This is because pre-GUPPY boats did not have the battery capacity to run on all of their motors for any length of time. When battery capacity was greatly increased with the GUPPYs, it became possible to run on all motors while underwater. TomTheHand 14:01, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Oh, but on the subject of the exhaust backpressure thing, I'm looking right now at a diagram of the snorkel system used on GUPPYs and Fleet Snorkels. When the sub's not snorkeling, the exhaust does not exit through the snorkel. It has a direct path out to the deck and through mufflers. A page I linked to above does say that the compression ratio of the diesels was reduced, but I can't see that costing so much power. TomTheHand 14:10, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Importance rating
Could someone from this project assign an importance rating to the battleship USS New Jersey (BB-62)? I would rather not have that box left with a question mark. TomStar81 (Talk) 21:02, 16 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't think we have established importance criteria for this project. The class and importance flags were imported to the project banner by another editor.  I copied the class assessment guidelines from WPMILHIST to WikiProject Ships/Assessment, but we have no importance guidelines (which are supposed to be relative to each project) yet.  Personally I think the NJ rates a Top or High, but until we come up with some guidelines and consensus, it's probably best to leave them unrated for importance.  I wouldn't worry about the ??? too much until then.


 * To kick off the discussion we need to have to create the project's Importance Critera, review Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Release Version Criteria. Given the Editorial Team's global criteria, I guess we have to ask which of our topics are essential to an encyclopedia.  This would seem to correspond roughly to a notability scale.  That suggests that RMS Titanic be of higher importance than the NJ.  It puts me in two minds on ship indexes though.  Including the index before the individual articles at least gets some mention of a given ship in the encyclopedia, but on the other hand the individual ship articles are meatier.  --J Clear 23:41, 16 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't think NJ rates "top" importance. I think only the most notable ships ever should be given "top" importance, like RMS Titanic, as you said.  Maybe RMS Lusitania.  Bismarck.  I think that most of our "top" importance articles should be ship types, like battleship and aircraft carrier, with a few of the most important individual ships mixed in.  The most important ship classes might rate "top" as well, like the Essex class.
 * I think that "high" importance should be important ship class articles, like Fletcher class destroyer, and fairly important ships, like USS New Jersey (BB-62).
 * I think "mid" importance should be less important ship class articles, like perhaps Mackerel class submarine, and the majority of individual ship articles.
 * "Low" importance should be ships that were cancelled before completion and other ships that are not very notable. TomTheHand 02:37, 17 June 2007 (UTC)


 * About criteria: this will be tricky. Criteria such as design can be relatively objective - is there an technical advance, does it represent a new direction for a navy, perhaps - but importance also includes subjective elements that will be national and emotional. To me, eg, the NJ is just another WWII US battlewaggon (one of many), whereas the Hood was iconic and disastrous and demonstrated the weakness of a particular approach and a Viking ship was a real ground breaker. Criteria? Design innovation, international importance, national status (ie importance of the topic to a nation), public awareness (?). Any more? BTW, "importance" has been abandoned on the Mil Hist project. Folks at 137 07:19, 17 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I would agree that HMS Hood (51) is probably "top" importance, as well as HMS Dreadnought (1906) and HMS Victory. As far as American ships go, I'd call USS Constitution, USS Monitor, and USS Arizona (BB-39) about as important as they come.
 * I could also see abandoning "importance." Seems like there's way too much room for fighting there, and I don't know how helpful it actually is. TomTheHand 12:33, 17 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Personally I'd prefer if we didn't have the importance rating, as like you say there is just too much room for arguing over what constitutes an important ship. Martocticvs 14:06, 17 June 2007 (UTC)


 * If we have clear (no pun intended) criteria, that should keep the arguing to a minimum. Seems like Tom has at least a start for the criteria above.  I'd think the criteria for Top and High should be the a bit more detailed just to cut down on the arguing.  For intstance, for Top and High, I think it should be criteria plus peer vote/review.  We should also make sure that Importance remains relatively orthogonal to Quality rating.  One of the points of Importance is to help with "workflow".  I.e. a "Top Stub" would be something we'd want to do something about, while a "Medium GA" could be ignored.--J Clear 16:37, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Ok, so how about this. General criteria will be essentially as above: Articles can be given an importance either higher or lower than the guideline as appropriate. A rating two or more levels different from the guideline should be the result of peer vote/review, while importance ratings within one level of the guideline can be initially assigned without discussion. That will cut down on bureaucracy. If there's a dispute about importance rating, a discussion will obviously be necessary. The discussion should be held on the talk page of the article, so that people can find it easily, but a note that a discussion is taking place should be put here, on WP:SHIPS talk, so that people can be made aware of it. TomTheHand 17:51, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
 * 1) Top importance - ship types, like aircraft carrier and galleon
 * 2) High importance - ship classes, like Fletcher class destroyer
 * 3) Mid importance - ship themselves, like USS Fletcher (DD-445)
 * 4) Low importance - relatively unimportant articles, like stubs for cancelled ships


 * Well that seems reasonable enough to me, my earlier reservations aside. If everything goes smoothly, then excellent! Martocticvs 18:51, 21 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Sounds good to me! When do we splice it into the project (maybe WikiProject Ships/Assessment?) and update the banner?  --Kralizec! (talk) 04:46, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
 * As a general rule it sounds good, but should there not be higher ratings for revolutionary ships (Warrior and Dreadnought come to mind), or those which by virtue of their service have achieved a higher degree of recognition (e.g. Enterprise and Warspite)?
 * "Articles can be given an importance either higher or lower than the guideline as appropriate." TomTheHand 13:20, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I'll copy it over in a bit. I'd like to clarify that it is one step higher or lower w/o a review.  Also what is the default importance for shipindex type pages like USS Constellation?  Does the WP editorial board have general importance guidelines for DAB pages? --J Clear 19:50, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I would personally call disambiguation pages "NA" importance but I don't have a strong opinion. TomTheHand 21:31, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

In a fit of boldness, I went ahead and added an Importance assessment section based on our above discussions. --Kralizec! (talk) 22:51, 1 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I copied in the bit about assigning ratings higher or lower as appropriate, because I think it's important. I also changed your example of a low-importance article, because I would sort of say that Soviet aircraft carrier Ulyanovsk is an unusually important cancelled ship: first Soviet supercarrier and all.  I used USS Turbot (SS-427) instead, because she was simply one of dozens of ships cancelled at the end of World War II. TomTheHand 23:04, 1 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for including the higher/lower text. You also make a good point on the Ulyanovsk, however to avoid any perceived USN or RN preference, we should probably use a non-US or -UK ship.  (My intention was to only use one each from the RN and USN in the examples.)  Perhaps Soviet submarine TK-210, French aircraft carrier Verdun, or something else from Category:Proposed ships ... ? --Kralizec! (talk) 23:28, 1 July 2007 (UTC)


 * No arguments here. The two ships you just named look like good examples, and a little bit better than the articles in Category:Proposed ships.  I'll add the Soviet sub to the guideline. TomTheHand 17:02, 3 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I added some notes about not copying importance from another project and doing due diligence in copying class, as we may have additional required elements.--J Clear 01:37, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Just one comment regarding the relative importance of a ship such as BB-62 New Jersey. The New Jersey does happen to be the only US battleship to have fought in each of the WWII, Korea and Vietnam campaigns. In that regard, she is not only unique, but of greater import. xl_five_lx 16:29 30 July 2007

List of ship launches - which flag is correct for civilian ships?
This has been puzzling me for a while so I thought I'd finally ask. In the Category:Lists of ship launches, which flag is correct to display in the "Country" box: the nationality of the shipyard or the nationality of the company it's being built for? For military craft this is always the same country, but for civilians it isn't and there doesn't seem to be an established guideline.

Currently the nationality of the shipping company is used (which, if incorrect, is mostly my fault as I've been practically the only one adding civvie ships to the lists). - Kjet 11:35, 30 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I wouldn't assume that it is always the same for Naval vessels. I believe I saw on one of the Amphibious ship articles that some other country is having some made by Spain, Juan Carlos class sticks in my head.  --J Clear 15:48, 30 June 2007 (UTC)  Here it is Amphibious assault ships, used to say Juan Carlos class there.


 * And of course several Japanese naval ships were built by Britain before the second world war... Martocticvs 16:02, 30 June 2007 (UTC)


 * OK, admittedly not always, but nitpicking aside that still leaves the original question. - Kjet 20:22, 30 June 2007 (UTC)


 * It occurs to me that List of ship launches in 1942 through 1945, are going to get pretty fat. See my recent remarks on this page about trying to write an article about every Liberty and Victory ship (over 5000).--J Clear 16:20, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Regarding Lists of Ship Launches- I love the idea and layout - looks great. I just modifed the List of Ship Launches 1943, but the changes necessary might save whomever is working on these files a lot of time when applied to articles for other years.


 * Seattle-Tacoma built CVEs were listed as being built in Seattle, Washington. Sea-Tac had yards in both Seattle and Tacoma. The Tacoma yard built all of their CVEs, regardless of class, and Seattle built destroyers.
 * Kaiser built CVEs were listed as being built in Richmond, California. Kaiser built CVEs were built at the Vancouver, Washington yard and only at the Vancouver, Washington yard. Kaiser's four Richmond, California yards built: Oceans, Libertys, Victorys, LSTs, Big C-4 Transports and tiny Frigates - but never any CVEs.
 * Also just noticed that all Kaiser built CVEs in the 1943 article are listed as modified S4 hulls. There is no such thing as an S4 hull. They were built on heavily modified P1 hulls which was smallest of the four sizes of, what the US Maritime Commission classed as "standard" pre-war transport designs. The confusion comes from MarCom's designation of S4-S2-BB3 assigned to the Kaiser CVEs. Deciphering contemporary Maritime Commission parlance, all the S4 meant was it was the 4th time it was asked to build a "Special" military type for one of the services - S, in the S4 meant Special Military Type, the 4 meant 4th special ship type built by them. The center portion of the S4-S2-BB3 designation connotes length of final design. It asks two things: 1) Was the length modified, and if so 2) how long is it now? And since the length of the P1 hull was indeed lengthened to accommodate a minimum required length for a flight deck, the S in S2 answers "yes", it was modified, and 2 means it was lengthened to within the range of our standard types with a 2 suffix - ie C-2, P-2, etc. Lastly, the final subset in the S4-S2-BB3 connotes on whose request are we building these ships for, and which iteration of preliminary designs actually got built. The BB, in BB3, was "MarCom speak" for they received the task by direct order of the President on 08JUN42. FDR's files were arranged such that anything warship related had a BB prefix. The 3, in BB3, indicates that the Chief of Preliminary Design at MarCom, Ivan J. Wanless, had two prior versions of his design before getting approval to turn it over to a design agent who would then take his preliminary design and convert that into detailed working plans. Example: His first design was called BB1, second BB2, and so on. It's merely a tracking device used by Naval Architects in the course of preliminary design. In other words, all S4-S2-BB3 is/was/will ever be is a file name. Kaiser CVEs are built on P1 hulls - albeit heavily modified. Using the S4-S2-BB3 designation is tantamount to calling what is essentially a "design name" and elevating it to a "hull form", which it is not at all. Hope this helps save both time and effort.xl_five_lx 12:50 03AUG07