Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ships/Archive 69

Fiscalization boat
These two classes use the term "fiscalization boat".


 * Rio Minho-class fiscalization boat
 * Centauro-class fiscalization boat

I cannot find a definition online for what that is and I was wondering if someone had some insight. In the sources I have they are classed as patrol boats. Before I change their page names I was hoping for some clarity. Thanks. Llammakey (talk) 17:11, 21 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Is it a bad translation? The Portuguese Navy website describes the Centauro class as "A Lancha de fiscalização Centauro", with "fiscalização" apparently translating to inspection or oversight. Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 17:24, 21 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, translation "inspection boat" or "inspection vessel" (see Lancha de fiscalização). But as a particular function of the more generic "patrol boat" (they are both already in patrol boat categories), Rio Minho-class patrol boat/Centauro-class patrol boat would be more appropriate, and consistent with WP:NC-SHIPS.  Davidships (talk) 12:14, 22 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I will move the pages then, but Rio Minho is a single ship, so no need for a class page. I will just move that one to the ship's name. Thanks for the clarification! Llammakey (talk) 12:18, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

The schooner "Puritan".
I would like to add information about the schooner Puritan. The paragraph starting "In 1971 is not correct. How do I go about making changes? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tspooner2000 (talk • contribs) 22:31, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
 * If your're able to edit the page, then go ahead and make your changes. If not, then go to the article's talk page and request the edit be made there on your behalf, using an edit request template. Be sure to write your request in a "please change 'x' to 'y'" format. -  wolf  03:38, 29 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Do we really need separate articles for Puritan and USS Puritan (IX-69)? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mjroots (talk • contribs) 12:37, 29 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Nope. I just checked and everything on the USS Puritan page is on the schooner page, except for the measurements. I just made sure that DANFS was cited on the schooner page. Since the vessel is still named Puritan and had a much longer existence than that in the US Navy, the USS page should probably be redirected. Llammakey (talk) 15:47, 29 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Agree entirely, though the history and info box need more work. Davidships (talk) 16:29, 29 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Most definitely not needed is a naval stub. I've just added data from the 1933 U.S. registry to the yacht article that should be considered in evaluating length. I expect the original yacht article had LOA. DANFS usually uses LOA, but its length is far too close to the registry length to be that for this yacht. Palmeira (talk) 17:03, 29 October 2021 (UTC)

There appears to be nothing significant in the DANFS copy article that is not in the yacht article. As another infobox note, the "101 long tons (103 t)" displacement is almost certainly not as it is exactly equal to the GRT of the register (I've found a number of DANFS headers where civilian type vessels have GRT plugged into the dp. slot.) There appears to be no good reason to not delete the USS/DANFS page soonest. Palmeira (talk) 20:49, 29 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I have redirected the Navy article to the schooner article since no one has any objections. Llammakey (talk) 18:19, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

Frigates of the Napoleonic Wars
Hi, does anybody have access to, or know of a way to access, a copy of Robert Gardiner's Frigates of the Napoleonic Wars? I really don't fancy spending £100... Thanks, Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 21:06, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

FAR
I have nominated Armament of the Iowa-class battleship for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. TomStar81 (Talk) 12:16, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

Images, their use in infoboxes and articles
I'm thinking that we need to write up a set of guidelines for WP:MOSSHIPS; regarding images, their use in infoboxes and articles. The quality of images used so far is fairly good, as nearly all the images we have used are either contemporaneous with the ships illustrated, or at least painted by old masters. The PD restraint has served us well, in that respect.

So far the consensus has rightly been to keep it contemporaneous.

As your aware PD rules mean that only artists who died before 1951 are applicable. Before 1951 we are fairly lucky in that the art produced was largely contemporaneous; there being only a few exceptions, but that work was relatively rare and of a high standard.

Since 1951, art styles largely influenced by new techniques with inks, spraying, digitisation, photoshop etc. can look aggressively modern. Thats not a problem for modern shipping because we eschew art for photography. However there is a trend developing in commons where modern art is coming online for pre-photography ships, ships that were never portrayed in their own time. example. That image abuses all the established tacit rules; including the artists phone number with signature. I would personally prefer an article to be image less than to use such.

There will be an argument, coming up, that fantastically detailed and researched modern work will be acceptable in preference to older items, so we need to sort it out now. Broichmore (talk) 17:16, 1 November 2021 (UTC)


 * I would say that the example work given is...terrible. I've no idea what ships they think they are portraying there but they certainly aren't the correct ones. Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 17:47, 1 November 2021 (UTC)


 * This might be interesting (or not) but I recall we had a lengthy debate about images that started with the use of a colorized photo in the infobox for the Wright Flyer, perhaps it may be of some use (it can be found here: Talk:Wright Flyer/Archive 1).


 * As for the example noted here, info such as the "artist's phone number" shouldn't have an impact on the usage of an image. It's not in the image itself that I can see, and if it's somewhere on the file page, isn't that a Commons issue? I do agree that all information depicted in paintings should be accurate. -  wolf  19:58, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

Thanks wolf, your right, its not a phone number merely an extended date. My eyes were so assulted by this image I gave it insufficient time for analysis. The only way we have on keeping crappy pictures like off the project is to write a set of rules that for ships or events before 1951. The artist should have died before 1952, or have been an official war artist employed by his government, or be the author of a printed book, published by a reputable publishing house.

The wright photo contemporaneously was in black and white, and that’s the way it was used. However hand colouring did exist at the time, and no doubt this picture got that treatment. If that picture is available, then of course we should or could use it, but I would give preference to the original black and white. Restoration of pictures is of course acceptable in the art world. However adding colour with photoshop 120 years later is not. The rule to add is that the image must comply with the artists or photographers vision (expectation) of how it should be presented. Of course back in 1903, photography was often found inadequate, and engraved versions were used. So our preference should be use the b&W plate, and if not available or clear enough use the engraved. As far as we are concerned (in shipping) photographs only become clear winners over paint around the 1850's, and not in any useable quantity till the 1870s or 80s at the earliest. Broichmore (talk) 11:58, 2 November 2021 (UTC)
 * As the old adage goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. Any picture is almost invariably better than none - so long as it's reasonably accurate of course. In terms of style, I can't see much wrong with the example given above - if it's not an accurate rendition, that's a separate issue. Gatoclass (talk) 20:42, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

Gatoclass. Apart from being ugly, your of course right. That why we need a rule that the work should be contemporaneous with the subject matter, to keep rubbish like this in the bin. The painting in question was dated 2020, 193 years after the event it portrays, using techniques unknown at the time. Justification enough to say that it’s not contemporaneous and can therefore be ignored, and not used in the corresponding article. Broichmore (talk) 11:58, 2 November 2021 (UTC)
 * , that would be throwing out the baby with the bathwater. There is absolutely nothing wrong with using recently-created images to illustrate old ships, or old anything for that matter. All that matters is that the image is reasonably accurate to the best of our knowledge. Indeed, some of the best images of old ships are in modern works where the artist worked directly from original ship plans to create highly accurate images that in many cases are better and more accurate than paintings made from the day (though sadly the former are usually under copyright). Again, a picture is worth a thousand words, and especially for readers who may have no idea what vessels of a particular type or era looked like, they are invaluable. Gatoclass (talk) 13:59, 3 November 2021 (UTC)


 * A key point is "I've no idea what ships they think they are portraying" because I am almost certain we will see glaring examples of far too creative "works" by people with little idea of what they are portraying. "Artist's license" in recent works (we cannot know how much a 19th or 18th century artist took) should have no play with regard to usage regarding ships being portrayed here. I at least already have an issue with "made up" prefixes and classes in articles. Imagery is important and a "made up" ship is not appropriate as an illustration here. Regarding the colorized issue mentioned above use of some of the old, poor quality publicity jobs done by the lines is at least contemporaneous and supposedly done by someone that knows the shipping lines livery. My preference, except to illustrate the livery, is to use a high quality gray scale photo. Modern digital colorization is potentially excellent but there again the questions. Was there real research into actual colors? Were those applied accurately? On that subject I've seen some technically wonderful digital jobs — ones that completely misapplied colors because the "artist" mistook a modern look for the actual. The old Army uniform, "pink and greens" for example. Ooops. The more modern green was not the "green" of then! And I've seen some wild versions of the "pink"! The artist doing the colors obviously did not rigorously check those shades. The old Army peacetime ship colors made for an impressive ship with blue hull, red boot, white superstructure, buff rig and stacks and red, white and blue stack rings with Transportation Corps insignia in gold below. I would very much like to see a good PD color image but the few good ones I know of are a bit iffy on origin and potential copyright. I have a 1969 photo of an Army tug overseas in full livery that looks very much like that old one, but I'm not willing to state that "best I know" match is actual. I'd not want to mislead. Palmeira (talk) 20:46, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

Palmeira totally agree. Colourizing is always problematic, but then if its contemporaneous and even potentially wrong because of the technical limitations of the time then it is at least evocative of the time.Broichmore (talk) 11:58, 2 November 2021 (UTC)
 * It's a regret that we have to write up rules that may deprive us in the future of work by the likes of Derek Gardner, but in fairness as good as his work is, it does not have the look of the period often described. How else to save us from garbage. Broichmore (talk) 11:58, 2 November 2021 (UTC)
 * It is regretful that more of the color photographs taken during WW II in particular are not available. I grew up with those B&W photos and movies thinking that was all there was until fairly recently when we found much was shot in color but due to expense not reproduced in color. There too colors may not be "eyeball" accurate due to the film of the time and now fading, but restoration from color is generally more accurate than "colorization" with nothing but written or perhaps sample references. I believe some of the B&W stills we know are the same, cheap reproductions of something photographed in color. I am hoping to soon get to a reopened National Archives & Records Administration in College Park to dig into the still photo archives. A first target is the pre/post war Army transport in full color. Ever since laying eyes on that Army tug out in WESTPAC I have wanted to see a good full color photo of one of the big transports. I was sent a slightly faded copy of a photo of one of the big ones in about 1948-49, but I don't own rights of course. That was like seeing a Marine change from duty uniform into full dress. Palmeira (talk) 17:27, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

MOS: Inappropriate use of boldface
The article List of cruisers of the United States Navy has a MOS violation: boldface has been used to signify that a ship had been in combat. This has to change, but I would like to respect the original intent of the contributors who created this situation and see if another means can be developed to flag the ships on this list as combat veterans. I've also been concerned with the fact that this is a list and that lists need to be concise. If the list includes the count of battle stars awarded to a ship then that not only tells if the ship was in combat but also the magnitude of the combat. So for example this list:
 * (CL/CA-26) Northampton † (1930)
 * (CL/CA-27) Chester (1930)
 * (CL/CA-28) Louisville (1931)
 * (CL/CA-29) Chicago † (1931)
 * (CL/CA-30) Houston † (1930)
 * (CL/CA-31) Augusta (1931)
 * (CL/CA-31) Augusta (1931)

would change to:
 * (CL/CA-26) Northampton (1930), 6 battle stars, sunk
 * (CL/CA-27) Chester (1930), 11 battle stars
 * (CL/CA-28) Louisville (1931), 13 battle stars
 * (CL/CA-29) Chicago (1931), 3 battle stars, sunk
 * (CL/CA-30) Houston (1930), 2 battle stars, sunk
 * (CL/CA-31) Augusta (1931), 3 battle stars
 * (CL/CA-31) Augusta (1931), 3 battle stars

Would this make sense? Which would be preferred, '†' or 'sunk'? The principal negative is that the pre-WWII use of battle / campaign / service stars is spotty and so removing the boldface will require something different for that timeframe.Tfdavisatsnetnet (talk) 23:58, 6 November 2021 (UTC)
 * "Sunk" and remove all types of boldface except for in the lead. No need to list awards as awards should be kept for individual articles. See List of battleships of Germany for an idea of a good version of one of these articles. Llammakey (talk) 12:13, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

Warship costs
I would like to draw the project's attention to this discussion on my talk page. My edits adding useful cost information of pre-WW1 German battleships attested by reliable sources have been reverted by editor Parsecboy. In my view, if there are reliable sources giving the cost of a warship, it should be included in the infobox field provided by the template for precisely this purpose. As I point out in the discussion, cost information may be useful for readers in a variety of contexts, whether they're studying the escalating Anglo-German arms race, economic dislocations caused by navy outlays in Wilhelmine Germany or micro-history of German private shipyards at the turn of the century. Merrybrit (talk) 10:32, 9 November 2021 (UTC)
 * If someone is researching those topics, they are more than likely reading very specialized sources, not tertiary sources like encyclopedia articles. We write encyclopedia articles in summary style; we are not meant to be all things to all people, and the prospect of someone using our articles for such narrow research is both exceedingly unlikely and beyond our scope. In other words, we don't write articles with an eye to whatever implausible scenario one might dream up. Say someone found a crew list for one of these ships; one might argue that perhaps someone is researching their family history, so we should include the list of names on the assumption that someone somewhere might find it useful. But no, we have to exercise editorial judgement to decide what facts should and shouldn't be included. A case in point: The DANFS entry for USS California (BB-44) includes all sorts of extraneous details about the ship, including the rate of venereal disease among the crew in 1927 and 1928. Might you cook up a scenario where someone might find that information useful? Sure. But does it belong in an encyclopedia article about the ship? Absolutely not.
 * That a field exists in an infobox does not mean it's necessary to fill it in. The box also has a field for ship sponsors; in the vast majority of cases, the individual is non-notable and shouldn't be included in the box to avoid cluttering it with useless information. In some cases, the cost of a ship is significant and merits being included in the box, but in most cases, it doesn't. And in this specific case, where one is considering a cost expressed in terms of a currency that is almost impossible to adjust into terms legible to contemporary readers, it doesn't merit inclusion. Parsecboy (talk) 15:30, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

Great Lakes Storm of 1913
This FA (storm where 38 ships were lost) has been considerably re-worked at Featured article review/Great Lakes Storm of 1913/archive2, but the latest version could really benefit from some focused ship people attention, and prose fine tuning. Please weigh in if you are able. Oddly, the SHIPS WP has not tagged article talk, but there is a lot of ship detail in this article that might need expert attention. Thanks, Sandy Georgia (Talk)  22:25, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

Deletion discussion
Editors might wish to give their thoughts at Articles for deletion/List of cargo ships. Lyndaship (talk) 09:26, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

Categorisation errors
I have been running into many categorisation errors of categories while checking Great Lakes shipwrecks for recreational dive sites. I have removed some serious miscategorisation but do not have the time or interest to examine them closely and fix everthing, and there do not appear to be suitable templates for tagging some classes of errors. Cheers, &middot; &middot; &middot; Peter Southwood (talk): 13:43, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

Brigs retained as naval training vessels in age of steam
I am starting on rewriting Brig (see problems - mostly the very weak references - on the article talk page). I want to include the simple fact that even once the Royal Navy was largely an iron-hulled, steam-powered navy, they still retained one or two (need precision here) brigs for training use. Presuming that I have not imagined this fact, I cannot for the life of me work out where I saw it - so I have no reference and no dates (to-from) over which this situation existed. Can anyone help?

Anything else on sources for naval brigs would be welcome - my references are largely for merchant vessels. Thanks, ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 20:22, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
 * What time period are you after? The conversion to iron hulls happened over a period of time. One of the HMS Arabs was a brig-sloop in use until 1879. There are other examples I can find (the search started at ships beginning with A). From Hill To Shore (talk) 21:18, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
 * A later example would be the brig HMS Despatch (1851), which was sold in 1901. From Hill To Shore (talk) 21:50, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Would note neither of those examples were used for naval training. Arab was the coastguard watch vessel at Queenborough after 1863 and it might be argued that Despatch was never a Royal Navy vessel at all, considering she was never commissioned, and joined Arab as a coastguard watch vessel at the same time. HMS Martin is a better example; renamed Kingfisher as a training brig in 1890 and served as such until 1907. Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 22:03, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
 * In addition, the next Martin to be commissioned (HMS Martin (1890)) was a purpose-built training brig. Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 22:27, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
 * We also have HMS Dolphin (1882), which was launched as a sloop but later reclassified (converted?) to a training brig and then a submarine depot ship prior to the first world war. It was beached in 1925 but was still used after that date. It was scrapped in 1977. From Hill To Shore (talk) 22:48, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks, on HMS Martin (1890) - do you know if this was the only purpose built training brig? Do you have a reference for this? I have an RMG website page mentioning Sealark, but not clear which one this is. Incidentally, have also found a photo of the earlier HMS Martin which is presumably copyright free . On Dolphin, there's a hint of worry that the Navy might have bent the terminology for their own purposes - I'd like to know a bit more, including whether the engines were stripped out and whether truly rigged as a brig. I am probably being horribly over-cautious on this - but it just seems worth investigating. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 23:14, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
 * "Four further vessels (of which the last three were to this Acorn Class design) were launched after 1863, all at Pembroke Dockyard, as training brigs.":
 * HMS Seaflower: Launched 25 February 1873. Tender to HMS Boscawen from June 1873. Workshop January 1904. Sold to Castle to break up at Charlton 7 April 1908
 * HMS Nautilus: Launched 20 May 1879. Tender to HMS Impregnable. Sold to Cox, Falmouth, 11 July 1905
 * HMS Pilot: Launched 12 November 1879. Sold to Adrian Merveille, Dunkirk, to break up 2 October 1907
 * HMS Martin: Renamed from Mayflower April 1888, launched 20 January 1890. Coal hulk named C.23 from 15 November 1907.
 * Source:, p. 262. Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 23:32, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
 * For Dolphin (1882), Navypedia claims her engines were stripped out in 1896 prior to coversion to a sailing ship in 1899. There is an undated photo of her at worldnavalships. Like the others named above, she stopped acting in the training role in 1907. There may be a later one that slipped through the cracks but with all the examples so far pointing to 1907, that suggests a definite change in policy at that time. From Hill To Shore (talk) 23:56, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

Help needed to sort out problematic chapter in three separate articles
There has been a tug-of-war ("edit war" would be an exaggeration) in three articles (MSV Fennica, MSV Nordica and MSV Botnica) between myself, User:That Icebreaker Guy, and a few IP editors. Each article includes a chapter about criticism for the design, abilities and business model of these "multipurpose icebreakers". Previously the chapters covered mainly about the negative aspects; recent edits have introduced counter-arguments in form of e.g. crew experience. All claims are cited and while I don't have access to all used offline sources, there's no reason to doubt their validity. Furthermore, I don't have anything against making the articles more balanced per se, but over the past few days I feel we've ended in some kind of dead-end where we tag each other's edits with "citation needed", "better sources needed", "secondary sources needed"...

In order to sort out this situation, I would like to ask someone else from the project to take a look at the articles in general and these chapters in particular.

I have tagged each chapter with "more citations needed" template in lieu of a better one and directed all discussion about the topic to the talk page of MSV Fennica.

Thank you for your help in advance. Tupsumato (talk) 18:00, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

Naval Station Mayport
I recently noticed that many US naval ship articles refer to Mayport (Jacksonville). It would seem Naval Station Mayport would be more appropriate? --John (User:Jwy/talk) 16:21, 29 November 2021 (UTC)


 * I believe a change would only be needed if the article in question knowingly refers to Naval Station Mayport itself and not the city or port of Mayport. Most refrences may list 'Mayport' as a port of call/homeport, under the assumetion it would be read as Naval Station Mayport. For a project like Wikipedia, only the face value information in the refrence can be rewritten into an article, unless there is a specific reason why you know it means the Naval Station. --GGOTCC (talk) 12:38, 30 November 2021 (UTC)


 * Agree. If one reads the two "articles" and is at all familiar with the U.S.N. "Mayport" in any context of naval matters means the Naval Station Mayport. The Mayport (Jacksonville) "article" in total (my emphasis):
 * "Mayport is a small community located between Naval Station Mayport and the St. Johns River in Jacksonville, Florida.[1] It is part of the Jacksonville Beaches communities. The only public road to Mayport is State Road A1A, which crosses the St. Johns River Ferry to Fort George Island."
 * In Navy usage "Mayport" is an installation, not the "small community" and not Jacksonville. That is the "face value information" in any knowledgeable context of the U.S.N. Otherwise is a bit like "Congress" and "Washington" being face value Washington state. Wikipedia can be willfully obtuse and insist on the "samall community" but it makes it ridiculous among any with knowledge of the naval context and history. Ships, aircraft and personnel are assigned to the Navy installation. Palmeira (talk) 13:29, 30 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks for highlighting this. I've slowly been making the changes this morning. This could also be done for places like Long Beach, Norfolk, Charleston, Little Point, etc. Llammakey (talk) 14:51, 30 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, "Mayport" is very specific, as much as Pearl Harbor, to Navy. There is really almost no non Navy association with "Mayport" as the hamlet is fairly insignificant and completely enveloped by the installation. Yeah, that small community is Mayport, the civilian entity, separated from the runways and N.S. Mayport by high fences and mainly accessible by ferry unless one can pass through the installation on one road. The rest above may require a bit more caution. Norfolk, the largest naval complex in the world has a lot of facilities other than the main base where the big carriers and such are based. One sees "carriers" at Little Creek, assault vessela are/were based there. So "Norfolk" and "Hapmton Roads" is a huge complex that may not be specific enough. A major flaw on Wikipedia is the neglect of the past when it comes to U.S. military commands, installations and facilities. I've seen too many articles focusing on "now" and recent DoD public relations material that pretty much ignore a much more significant past. I ran across one early in the year where a numbered Task Force was all 2010+ Navy while that number for the very significant WW II TF of the same number did not have a page or mention there. Which in part signifies a misunderstanding of "Task Force" itself as they are created for a purpose, "die" and may be recreated as an entirely different entity decades apart and a world away. We have to be careful of some links to those "recent only" pages with historic links. Palmeira (talk) 17:00, 30 November 2021 (UTC)

French Royal Navy flag
An issue has been raised re the flag of the French Royal Navy which could possibly affect a lot of articles. Please head over to Template talk:Country data Kingdom of France where the issue is being discussed. Mjroots (talk) 17:45, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
 * It seems that the flag of the French Royal Navy before the revolution was, so many ship articles will need the flag changing. Mjroots (talk) 18:34, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
 * If I understand the situation, the solid white flag is listed incorrectly on articles about ships before the Bourbon Restoration when it should be the tri-chevron flag, or has it been resolved over at Template talk:Country data Kingdom of France? Should all articles be switched about ships before the restorations, or was a different ensign used at a certain point? GGOTCC (talk) 02:23, 4 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Please see the discussion at Template talk:Country data Kingdom of France. We'd just be repeating ourselves if we resume the discussion here. You are welcome to add to the discussion on that page. From Hill To Shore (talk) 18:06, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

Is completely copying ship fact files allowed?
A pattern I have been seeing on Wikipedia ship articles is relatively minor vessels (destroyers, landing craft and cutters mainly) have the text directly copied from that governments 'fact file' on the ship, such as the Dictionary of American Fighting Ships. The only difference is Wikipedia links and info boxes. Is that allowed with correct citation, or still against the plagiarism policy even though it is in public domain? GGOTCC (talk) 02:07, 4 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I would take this to MILHIST, since this could involve several American government sites, including biographies of officers, etc. Llammakey (talk) 19:25, 4 December 2021 (UTC)
 * This Signpost dispatch from 2009 gives some guidance. It is not a copyright violation to use verbatim content of US government sources. But that should not be the end of the inquiry. Is the content correctly attributed? And has it been altered? There are numerous articles directly copied from DANFS, with nothing but a general note to that effect at the bottom of the article.  No doubt many of those now differ significantly from the DANFS source from which it is copied.
 * WP:SHIPS has competent editors who should not need to copy articles. Kablammo (talk) 19:45, 4 December 2021 (UTC)
 * The point about altering a direct copy is important - because the note at the end of such an article saying it is a copy is therefore untrue. I am no expert on the legalities of this, but surely it is misrepresentation of a source to say you have copied it but then have the article say something different. That leaves such articles exposed to drive-by editing by anyone who has never read any of the sources. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 23:08, 4 December 2021 (UTC)
 * But the note doesn't say it's a copy. It says "this article incorporates text from" which is a different thing. There is nothing wrong with incorporating text from a public domain source, or indeed, republishing the whole thing verbatim. But if the article is referenced to multiple sources, then the referenced content should be appropriately cited. Gatoclass (talk) 14:54, 5 December 2021 (UTC)


 * All the DANFS copies need editing. All need the single DANFS template turned into an in-line citation with DANFS and other references used individually cited. There are distinct problems with DANFS copies, copyright and author credit not being among them. The "big" DANFS published in volumes was a "factory" effort driven by war. The authors are anonymous, though some of the articles now being maintained digitally are "signed" by authors. The only way to keep up with the huge expansion of ships required that and factories have specs. Thus the rather odd and stilted language prevalent in DANFS. Those "factory workers" applied a spec and churned out paragraphs from the ship history files and even recent reports (every ship had to file one) to the Navy's history people. The Navy is obsessive about ships since U.S.N. careers are heavily dependent on ships one served in or commanded so, unlike commercial entities, funded keeping those histories long after the ships had gone to scrap — ant the Navy has not been merged or gone bankrupt — so every "voyage" is recorded for posterity. Thus the "on (date) departed X for Y" regardless of the lack of events between X and Y. For major combatants we have a voyage record in detail unimportant to most readers here. That can be edited, summarized and otherwise "hit high points" of a ship's operations. On the other hand I've seen just recently a page here on a major combatant in which editing took blocks of DANFS out that included a couple of significant events involving other ships. That should not be done.


 * There is another big DANFS problem. Major combatants are usually covered in detail, particularly any actions. Ships built for the Navy as auxiliaries are usually covered accurately in fair detail. Ships acquired by the Navy are often not covered or too often inaccurately covered. Those Navy writers did not research those ship's histories and more than once got it wrong. A particularly rich lode of that sort lies in the Section Patrol boats. Every now and then I've run across one that had significant social or technology history covered only by a brief and misleading DANFS paragraph. Most of those SP-xxx boats were toys of the rich and some very famous. After war came to Europe in 1914 many of those rich men even had boats built in coordination with a very special U.S.N. office with the intent to become "patrol officers" if war came. Many a young Ivy League yacht type became the "captain" of daddy's (or his own) yacht. For some it was "war yachting" and yacht clubs provided "fleets" as described in "Eastern Y. C. Patrol Fleet" in The Rudder of January 1918. A few of the big yachts got sent to France, but most served right near the yachtsman's home with little to note beyond a DANFS paragraph. An example can be seen in DANFS Georgiana III (S. P. 83) and Rosinco. The DANFS paragraphs are misleading on ownership and "commanding officer" — the commanding officer was the owner's stepson and the boat had been built to a "patrol" design and was acquired from the original owner by the commanding officer's stepfather for him to command. I strongly suspect, though have not yet found proof, that the only reason those small motorboats and yachts ever got commissioned and entitled to the U.S.S. honorific was influence on the Navy by the same important people that got a Navy office created to help them build "patrol" boats. Some of those stories are quite interesting and also offer insight into the social structure of the time. The lapse in histories of some of the commercial ships taken as wartime auxiliaries is sometimes as great. Palmeira (talk) 15:20, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

AfD of article within scope of this project
See Articles for deletion/Interlake Maritime Services.

Kablammo (talk) 20:11, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Spanish ship Intrepido
I've started a draft for Draft:Spanish ship Intrépido, feel free to do with it as you wish. -- 65.92.246.43 (talk) 22:40, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't know that that index is needed; the second entry should be at SPANISH DESTROYER Intrépido, leaving SPANISH SHIP Intrépido free for the third rate. Parsecboy (talk) 23:22, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Except that it wouldn't since it would be ambiguous, as modern people would call modern warships ships, not just fully-rigged ones from the age of iron men, so the "freeing up" would still leave a disambiguation page. -- 65.92.246.43 (talk) 02:11, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Well, no, it wouldn't be ambiguous, since there wouldn't be two articles each trying to use the same base name. SPANISH DESTROYER Intrépido is the correct title per WP:NCSHIPS; under no circumstances would it ever be at SPANISH SHIP Intrépido, so only the third rate would have a reasonable claim to that title. It doesn't matter what people call it in common usage (for example, lay people frequently call GREEK CRUISER Georgios Averof a battleship, it would not compete with a hypothetical GREEK BATTLESHIP Georgios Averof for that title). Parsecboy (talk) 18:53, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
 * As above, not the same name for titles here. Both vessels are covered in the perhaps over broad Intrepid (I'm not entirely sure all language variants should be in one disambiguation). If there is no "ships named 'Intrepido'" that would be the place to cover the two and perhaps more in the Spanish language version of the word. Note that linked list mentions a Columbian ARC Intrépido. The Spanish destroyer is also probably the same as the Intrépido (D38) in that linked listing so that any title for it should probably be SPANISH DESTROYER Intrépido. Palmeira (talk) 12:02, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

SS General von Steuben
Hey there! I started a discussion at SS General von Steuben, about the problem of diving to ship wrecks, and whether the article advocates it. Any input would be appreciated! Renerpho (talk) 13:10, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

are these legitimate images?
SS Rob Roy is on my watch list because I don't know why. Today an to the infobox that didn't 'look right'. I can't say why the image 'doesn't look right', only that, to me, it doesn't. The image was added to the article by Editor 90.español and, according to the image metadata is that editor's own work. But, if that's true, why is the date set to '31 December 1863'? 1863? That got me to wondering what else this editor has done. In trolling through Special:Contributions/90.español I discovered a few other 'own work' images. These are listed here:

'own work' images uploaded by 90.español:
 * SS Rob Roy → File:CSS Rob Roy2.jpg (31 December 1863)
 * CSS Sea Bird → File:USS Commodore Perry destroyings CSS Sea Bird.jpg (28 September 2011, 10:14:13)
 * CSS Morgan → File:CSS Morgan.jpg (2 January 2002)
 * PS Lelia → File:CSS Lelia.jpg (31 December 1999)

I also stumbled upon an other user with interestingly similar contributions to the Confederate Navy ship articles, one of which is also described as 'own work'

'own work' image uploaded by Dammpp4: Opinions? Are these images appropriate for use in these articles?
 * CSS Peedee → File:Peedee.jpg (1 January 2000)

—Trappist the monk (talk) 00:36, 11 December 2021 (UTC)
 * For the images, I would say they should be removed until the image data is completed properly, to guard against copyright or other issues (OR, self-prormo, etc). As for the other account... open an SPI I suppose. (jmho) -  wolf  02:12, 11 December 2021 (UTC)
 * This user also added 3 images to Agnes E. Fry, another Civil War ship article. They uploaded those images as well, but instead of "own work" they listed https://sites.google.com/site/290foundation/history/agnes-e-fry as both the "source" and "author". Two of the images are still on that webpage, and one is credited as: "Image courtesy: "NC Department of Natural and Cultural Resources/Office of State Archaeology", which is an agency of the state of North Carolina), but I didn't notice a credit for the second image. Anyway, it all seems kinda sketchy. Good catch by Ttm. -  wolf  02:42, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

The Rob Roy image originates from Adventures of a Blockade Runner (1893) so just needs to be updated. The other images look contemporaneous too and may well be findable - the one for Sea Bird, for example, looks like a Harper's illustration to me, but I haven't had time to try and track it or the other images down yet. Gatoclass (talk) 05:53, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

The second image may be tough to track down, because that is not an image of Commodore Perry, which was a converted ferry, so it may not be an image of Sea Bird either. Gatoclass (talk) 06:23, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

I have updated the Rob Roy image and licence. Haven't done anything with the others as I haven't found time to research their sources yet, but anybody is welcome to take a shot at it. Gatoclass (talk) 16:07, 11 December 2021 (UTC)
 * As I suspected, the second image is from Harper's The version uploaded onto Commons has been reversed from the original but it's the same image.
 * The problem is that neither ship in the image is named in the Harper's illustration, the caption is just "Destruction of Commodore Lynch's Fleet by the Union gunboats". The Union ship is definitely not Commodore Perry, but the sinking Confederate ship may well be a depiction of Sea Bird. That may or may not be determinable by a process of elimination, but I haven't had time to look thoroughly into it yet. Gatoclass (talk) 15:41, 12 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Good find. However, that Harpers image may not depict any particular ship. While it is possible that the engraving used for the paper was based on a photograph, or the artist was actually present for the battle, it is more likely that it was a rendition of the described scene by someone hundreds of miles away. We can probably use the image as an artist's impression of the battle (as the scene is described on the previous page) but not as depictions of specific ships. From Hill To Shore (talk) 18:15, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 18:17, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 18:17, 13 December 2021 (UTC)


 * Thank you, Trappist. With regard to the Harper's image, I already determined that neither ship in the image is identifiable - the Union ship is obviously not Commodore Perry, and it turns out that the sinking Confederate ship does not fit the description of any of the Confederate ships in the battle - there were basically only two ships it could have been, either Sea Bird - but that was a sidewheeler according to NH&HC and the sinking ship does not have sidewheels - or CSS Ellis, and there is another existing image of that ship that looks nothing like the sinking ship. I guess there's a possibility that the sinking ship is one of the screw tugs, but if so, there is no way to tell which one and the scene is not consistent with the destruction of those other ships (they were all beached and burned). So it seems the image is indeed some sort of imaginative composite of the action rather than an actual scene. Accordingly, I have had the image moved to simply "Destruction of Commodore Lynch's fleet" in accordance with the original image caption.
 * With regard to the other three images, I found online sources for two of them, which I have added to the pages in question, while for Leila I couldn't find anything. The two online sources, however, do not supply an origin for the images either, so I'm not sure what to do about them. We could just assume they are PD-US-1923 I guess, or maybe contact the websites in question to ask where they got them from. Gatoclass (talk) 05:06, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
 * See my comment at Talk:SS General von Steuben about "own work" claims. Any image or other such file claimed as "own work" should require much further explanation. Finding, copying and uploading files is not in any way "own work" for the purpose of attribution and copyright here. There are probably thousands of those false claims because I've seen no few where it is blatantly obvious "own work" is patently false. Palmeira (talk) 13:49, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

HNLMS Buffel
HNLMS Buffel does not clearly state the construction material for the hull of this vessel. Using google translate on does not seem to give an answer that one can be sure of. The footnote to HMS Caroline (1914) uses the word "steel" for Buffel's hull material (to which I have added a citation needed template), but I am thinking there is someone with a better set of references than me to sort this out. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 19:10, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Steel of any sort was not in use when the ship was built, so her hull had to have used wrought iron.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 16:28, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Indeed - the first steel-hulled warship was FRENCH IRONCLAD Redoutable, laid down a good five years after Buffel. Parsecboy (talk) 16:36, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Based on the above I went and altered the footnote on HMS Caroline (1914) - that being the original problem that caught my eye.ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 19:01, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
 * This General overview of Dutch warships stationed in European waters from July 1987 states that the composition (row 3 samenstelling) of the ship was Iron (ijzer) same as (id.) her near sisters Stier, Schorpion and Guinea

Ship Class issue
For those not watching Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history there is a discussion at Talk:Brooklyn-class cruiser that may be of interest. As I note there, this issue is a subset of what I've long thought of as a problem here with ship "classes" where some are literally just made up (particularly when merchant types come into a navy). That is a wider discussion but the one linked may be of interest as to how we should handle, particularly the U.S. Navy's ship class binning when outside "experts" disagree on the Navy's logic — a logic too seldom recognized among those not managing ship construction and life cycle support (and not of much interest to readers of ship articles though it certainly deserves space in an article on ship classes as such). Palmeira (talk) 17:01, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

China and Japan conference
There seems to be no Wikipedia coverage of the China and Japan Conference that was set up by John Swire as a cartel to deal with the overcapacity of steamships in Far Eastern trade after the opening of the Suez Canal (and the associated surge in building of steamships). Am I missing something, or is there really no content here on an important part of the history of maritime trade?

I have looked in articles on Swire, Alfred Holt, Blue Funnel Line, Glen Line, P&O (company), Messageries Maritimes, Ben Line Agencies, Cartel – then I am all out of ideas.

If there really is no such article, is anyone aware of sources that might cover the subject directly - I have a couple that mention the Conference, but neither give a complete story. I understand that the Conference's demise came about due to EU law - there were a few earlier attempts to have its anti-competitive nature ruled illegal, none of which were successful. I don't have a start date for the Conference, but it would be in the early years following the opening of the Suez Canal - early to mid-1870s I would guess. It was certainly well and truly established by 1887, when it decisively won a legal challenge by some of its competitors. It seems to have gained an expanded name at some later point: the Straits, China and Japan Conference.

Is there anywhere else I should be asking this question in Wikipedia? ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 19:38, 11 December 2021 (UTC)


 * Seems the entity I am asking about ended up with the name Far Eastern Freight Conference and this appears as a redlink at FEFC.ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 12:49, 12 December 2021 (UTC)


 * Contemporary newspaper sources might be worth checking. Mjroots (talk) 19:57, 13 December 2021 (UTC)


 * I've had quite a trawl through the British Newspaper Archive - only got a small number of articles, none of which gave any summary or background. I strongly suspect that those who read the shipping pages of newspapers at the time were expected to know how the conference worked. That opinion is based on some vague recollection of the subject from listening, many years ago, to the reminiscences of an older staff member of a shipping company and also people in marine insurance in the early/mid part of the last century- but even if I had total recall of that, it would not be an RS.
 * I've also been looking on JSTOR - getting a number of hits with just "far eastern freight" but am worried that the level of interpretation I need will amount to OR. Hopefully I will hit on a good summarising article - or even better someone will see this and recommend a nice concise book or article. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 19:33, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
 * There's a short and mostly useless 2019 deleted article at Draft:Far Eastern Freight Conference, but that led me to the German Wikipedia article at de:Far Eastern Freight Conference. There's a book in the bibliography there that seems to be what you're looking for? (See its WorldCat entry.) Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 20:34, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
 * That's a good spot on the book - the Far Eastern conference was shut by the EU in 2008, so that post-dates publication a while, but I have a newspaper article to cover that. I'll see if I can track down a copy. The German Wikipedia article is a bit sparse on information - I understand a key point about these conferences (there were many of them) is that they gave the shippers a deferred rebate. This locked the shippers in, because they did not get their rebate if they used a non-conference ship.ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 20:55, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

Far Eastern Freight Conference is now put together. Needs a bit more work - particularly trawling through other sources for anything that should be in the article.

It is surprising that so few of the articles on ship owners mention any of the shipping conferences that they were in. It was my understanding – which is confirmed by current reading for the article – that if you were a member of a conference, it was integral to your operations. For instance Blue Funnel Line and Ocean Group plc (Ocean Steamship Company) make no mention whatsoever of any conference, but it was a major part of their history, as is mentioned by a source for the former. Of the initial members of the Far Eastern Freight Conference which have a Wikipedia article, not one of those articles mentions any involvement with this or any other conference. I appreciate I may be over-focussed on the importance of this aspect, but I think this is still a deficiency. For comparison, you don't get Wikipedia articles on airlines that are silent on their codeshare agreements. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 23:17, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

Barletta auxiliary cruiser
I (with the contribution of the user ) started a draft about the Italian auxiliary cruiser Barletta Draft:Barletta (auxiliary cruiser) She already has a page in the Italian Wikipedia https://it.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barletta_(incrociatore_ausiliario) I wondered if someone could help us adding information, sources or templates :) Aloysius0711 (talk) 20:58, 24 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Non-mobile link - Draft:Barletta (auxiliary cruiser). Mjroots (talk) 08:00, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

Jadran at FAC
G'day all, Featured article candidates/Jadran (training ship)/archive1 is currently open. Given this is my first FAC of a (primarily) wind-powered ship, close attention from some nautical types would be appreciated. Thanks in anticipation. Cheers, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 06:59, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

Cape of Good Hope vs. Nemesis collision
The source:



refers to an event when:

"...the steamer Cape of Good Hope was cut in half by the P & O steamer Nemesis, and sank in the Hooghly River."

which would have been in the 1850s. We don't seem to have anything about this, or about either vessel. Should we? Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:20, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
 * This website dates the collision and sinking to March 1859. From Hill To Shore (talk) 22:31, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
 * We have an existing entry at 23 March 1859 in List of shipwrecks in March 1859. From Hill To Shore (talk) 22:39, 26 December 2021 (UTC)


 * From Sussex Advertiser - Tuesday 17 May 1859: "Loss of Cape of Good Hope Steamer.—The particulars of a fearful collision near the mouth of the Hooghly, which terminated in the wreck of the Cape Good Hope steamer, formerly one of the fleet of the General Screw Steam Shipping Company, were received on Saturday Lloyd's. The Cape of Good Hope was from Bangoon, Akyab, and Moulmein, with the mails and treasure, and about 145 passengers, natives. The [She] was pursuing, as it is reported, the usual course, when she came contact with the Nemesis. The shock is described to have been of a very severe character. The Cape was caught by the mainhatch ; and was almost cut in two. The scene that ensued amongst the Indians was of the most painful description. Some were killed by the splinters of the ship, and others much wounded. Many in their fright jumped overboard and were drowned. The boats from the Nemesis were launched in a very prompt manner, and succeeded in picking up a number of the poor creatures. The mails and treasure of the Cape were also saved. When the mail left it was impossible to ascertain the number who had perished. Very shortly after the collision the unfortunate steamer went down." I took a quick look for a court of enquiry being reported, but did not find one - but the search was no exhaustive. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 23:08, 26 December 2021 (UTC)


 * If Nemesis was the P&O vessel, it would be SS Nemesis (1857). Mjroots (talk) 13:21, 27 December 2021 (UTC)


 * London Evening Standard - Monday 09 November 1857, pg 6 has a lot of information about the new Nemesis. Also a useful summary of all P&O vessels in service or being built. Many newspapers briefly cover the trial of this ship on the 7th November.ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 17:29, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

List of your articles that are in Category:Harv and Sfn no-target errors
Several (about 900) articles in this project are in need of some reference cleanup. Basically, some short references create via sfn and harvnb and similar templates have missing full citations or have some other problems. This is usually caused by templates misuse or by copy-pasting a short reference from another article without adding the full reference, or because a full reference is not making use of citation templates like cite book (see Help:CS1) or citation (see Help:CS2). To easily see which citation is in need of cleanup, you can check these instructions to enable error messages (Svick's script is the simplest to use, but Trappist the monk's script is a bit more refined if you're interested in doing deeper cleanup). See also how to resolve issues.

Since there are so many, I've focused the following list on FA/FL/GA/List-class articles. These could use some of your attention • #Axis naval activity in Australian waters
 * To do

• #History of the United States Navy

• #List of equipment of the Royal Thai Army

• #List of ships of the Yugoslav Navy

• #Timeline of World War II (1939)

• #Battle of Trapani
 * Done

• #Bombardment of Salé

• #Byzantine navy

• #Chinese ironclad Dingyuan

• #Commodore Submarine Service

• #Droungarios of the Fleet

• #French ship Naïade

• #French ship Résolue

• #George Gosse

• #HMS Bulldog (H91)

• #HMS Euphrates

• #HMS Hebe

• #HMS Jackal

• #HMS Mohawk

• #HMS Nimble

• #HMS Proselyte

• #HMS Spider

• #HMS Strombolo

• #Imperial Japanese Navy in World War II

• #List of Australian hospital ships

• #List of Captain-class frigates

• #List of commanding officers of USS Oklahoma (BB-37)

• #List of Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty

• #List of battleships of Russia and the Soviet Union

• #List of carrier-based aircraft

• #List of decommissioned ships of the South African Navy

• #List of maritime disasters in World War I

• #List of shipwrecks in January 1918

• #Muslim conquest of Sicily

• #Special Boat Service

• #Stede Bonnet

• #Sunda Strait campaign of January 1794

• #Treaty battleship

• #USS Philippine Sea (CV-47)

• #USS Vengeance

• #Utah Beach

• #Vettore Cappello

If you could add the full references to those article/fix the problem references, that would be great. Again, the easiest way to deal with those is to install Svick's script per these instructions. If after installing the script, you do not see an error, that means it was either taken care of, or was a false positive, and you don't need to do anything else. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:09, 1 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Believe I have fixed the Royal Navy SIAs. Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 19:23, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Feel free to move them to the done section so others know they need not review them. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:25, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Have done so...am obviously a little blind! Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 19:26, 1 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Droungarios of the Fleet - had a look at it, nothing obvious wrong with it. Used one of the scripts that highlights errors and only thing that stands out is a reference highlighted in blue - a templated one template:PMBZ. Expert attention required possibly. GraemeLeggett (talk) 20:27, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
 * That one was a false positive. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:51, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Also Battle of Trapani, Byzantine navy, Muslim conquest of Sicily (all using templated attribution) then? Is the mechanism for these false positives known? GraemeLeggett (talk) 20:56, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes all false positives. They can be bypassed at Module:Footnotes/whitelist, but it's a bit complicated. I'll be looking into it. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 21:07, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

Does Beaulieu deserve a SIA?
Hi, I'm currently working on an article for HMS Beaulieu (1791) and noticed that the ship has no SIA. Per Colledge the only other ship named Beaulieu was a Bangor-class minesweeper that was renamed while on the stocks at Hong Kong as Lantau and then captured by the Japanese before she was finished. Would it even be correct to write "Two ships of the Royal Navy have been named HMS Beaulieu..."? Thanks, Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 16:13, 6 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I'd just use HMS Beaulieu as the title. The other vessel can be dealt with by way of a hatnote if an article gets written. Mjroots (talk) 16:23, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

Single-issue editor
An alert that there is a single-issue editor making large numbers of edits to gender neutral language. Whilst some are appropriate, others are not, especially in historical situations. You can see this activity at. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 11:30, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Range of 203 mm guns
Hi all. My question: What was the practical range of the 8" guns of Norfolk? According to the article of this gun it was 26520 m at an elevation of 41° 28′. NavWeaps says 28030 m at 45°. Norfolk was 24000 m from the German ships in the Denmark Strait at 05:56 on 24 May 1941, but still out of range. Even at around 06:04 the distance was only about 20500 m, but could not reach the Germans. Why? --Andreas (talk) 15:13, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
 * There’s a difference between the maximum theoretical distance a gun could hurl a shell and the maximum range at which aimed fire is possible. Also consider the longest-range hits were made at around 25000m by battleships. Parsecboy (talk) 17:41, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
 * In the Battle of North Cape, Norfolk stopped firing at Scharnhorst at 24,000 yards (about 22,000 m) as she went out of range.  Alansplodge (talk) 18:00, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Interesting. Was the elevation altered in the meantime or another kind of projectile used? --Andreas (talk) 22:17, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
 * The theoretical elevation of any ship-based gun was altered by the motion of the sea. If you fired on the up roll you could fire your guns with a practical elevation much higher than the gun design. However, there were many practical limits on range, including the quality of the ship's range finders, the sea conditions and the atmospheric conditions the projectile would pass through. This video on YouTube gives a detailed explanation about range finding (it is about an hour long). From Hill To Shore (talk) 03:16, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Prinz Eugen in the same battle with guns of the same caliber fired her first salvo at Hood at a range of 20200 m and it went over. --Andreas (talk) 09:29, 15 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Quite likely, yes. There is a lot of complex science involved in firing guns at sea and the maximum range that a gun can hurl a projectile is usually far larger than the range that it can hit anything (except through sheer luck). The practical limit on range in the battleship era was usually far lower than the distance a gun could shoot. All I can suggest is that you watch the video above; the narrator spends almost an hour talking through the various issues involved and watching it will give you greater understanding than a discussion on this talk page. From Hill To Shore (talk) 09:44, 15 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank You for this video, I have already watched it. My Englisch is not the best, but I think to get the major informations from it. I still can't imagine what could have the problem for a gun, that was originally fitted with a range of more than 28000 meters, to shoot at objects at distances between 20-24.000 meters. Compared with Prinz Eugen, the only thing that was hampering for Norfolk was the wind, that came from the NorthWest. But it could not have taken away kilometers from the range, maybe some hundreds, I think. --Andreas (talk) 10:29, 15 January 2022 (UTC)
 * The second page of the linked source given says that with Scharnhorst increasing speed (Norfolk couldn't as it would have made her less stable for gunnery), laying smoke and being in the "extreme range band" had reduced the chances of a hit in such poor weather conditions until they were almost negligible". While the shells could get out to that range, there was no chance of a hit and it would have been waste of ammunition. The source says effective radar gunnery conditions was halved. GraemeLeggett (talk) 13:35, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Italic title
I can't figure out why the infobox at William C Daldy does not produce an italic title. Help, please!  Schwede 66  04:27, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Fixed. GreatLakesShips (talk) 05:50, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Template:Navy
Since when become  rather than  ?

Can somebody change it back to Royal Navy ? I never heard of United Kingdom Navy in any books, websites and find it so disturbing when checking articles.-- Comrade John (talk) 11:41, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

Same thing happen to some British Commonwealth country navies such as,  ,  etc... rather than,  ,   etc...-- Comrade John (talk) 12:07, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

But Thailand, Netherlands  didn't happen this situation. What exactly happen here ?-- Comrade John (talk) 12:12, 23 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I posed the same question on the template talk page. The Italian, Japanese, German, Russian Empire, South African....they were all changed too. Llammakey (talk) 13:53, 23 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Getting serious .....-- Comrade John (talk) 14:38, 23 January 2022 (UTC)
 * - anything to do with your recent changes? Mjroots (talk) 17:54, 23 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Solved the little problem, big problem comes in .....-- Comrade John (talk) 18:11, 23 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Please be aware that Template:Navy doesn't display navy flag as the documentation says it's supposed to is where the real discussion this is not the correct venue for the discussion. Llammakey (talk) 18:54, 23 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Did you mean: ?
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 19:02, 23 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Well, I notified him in that discussion so A or B , he'll notice.-- Comrade John (talk) 20:10, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

Please see the centralized discussion at WT:WikiProject Flag Template to find out why these had to be broken and how they were easily fixed.  P.I. Ellsworth &numsp;- ed.  put'r there 21:27, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

Articles proposed for deletion
The following articles have been nominated for Proposed deletion (not by me).
 * USS LSM-422
 * USS LSM-478
 * USS LSM-479

This may be of interest to the project.Nigel Ish (talk) 17:27, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Another prodded article - USS LSM-355Nigel Ish (talk) 15:47, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

Now at AfD
USS LSM-110, USS LSM-316, USS LSM-355, USS LSM-422, and USS LSM-479 are all currently listed at Articles for deletion. Mjroots (talk) 16:26, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

After AfD (redirected to Landing Ship Medium)
Now that LSM-110, LSM-316, LSM-355, LSM-422, and LSM-479 have been redirected to Landing Ship Medium, I took the initiative to reduce the list of LSM-1–class ships to only ships that have WP articles (i.e., removed redlinked ships in the list). I also removed the redlinked LSM ships in LSM-1-class landing ship medium to reduce it to only the ships with article links.

Based on the rationale for RfD/merge at Articles for deletion/USS LSM-422, I suggest we go through the LSM-xxx ship articles listed in Landing Ship Medium, and identify the LSMs that should remain as dedicated articles (i.e., USS LSM-60, for one), and identify the others that will be likely RfD'd. &emsp;—&#8239;sbb&#8239;(talk) 03:41, 15 January 2022 (UTC)


 * um shouldn't those ships which are unlikely to ever have articles and those which have been deleted still feature in the template but as black unclickable links to preserve the completeness of the class information given in the template? Lyndaship (talk) 07:47, 15 January 2022 (UTC)
 * yes... this↑ -  wolf  14:22, 15 January 2022 (UTC)
 * basically, user sbb appears to argue that these ships do not deserve any coverage at all on Wikipedia, and cannot be restored at any time, even if sources are later found - this isn't what redirection means. Please reinstate this information.Nigel Ish (talk) 14:49, 15 January 2022 (UTC)
 * @Nigel Ish: Please kindly don't put words in my mouth or speak for me. I do not believe they don't deserve any coverage at all. If the ships are notable or mentionable (whether in their own articles, or with some sort of listing in LSM), they should definitely be covered. Perhaps I was too hasty to eliminate the redlinks in the LSM-1–class article. But it seems to me the listing of ~500 ships (that don't and in all likelihood won't ever have an article) in a navbox template (whose purpose is... navigation) is wasteful of space. &emsp;—&#8239;sbb&#8239;(talk) 19:42, 15 January 2022 (UTC)
 * You systematically stripped all mention of the ships from the list articles - As this apparently is acceptable, it is clear that there is no point trying to produce or improve any list type article.Nigel Ish (talk) 20:08, 15 January 2022 (UTC)
 * There is also List of United States Navy Landing Ship Medium (LSMs). And if that list had the sole burden of listing all the LSMs, then Landing Ship Medium wouldn't be mostly redlinks and white space.GraemeLeggett (talk) 20:58, 15 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Let me clear: I was too hasty and too WP:BOLD in editing 1 list article and 1 navbox template. Please don't assume I'm not trying to make WP better. Here was my thought process: a long list of ~500 redlinks that will probably never get articles is wasteful of space to the reader. The LSM-1 naming scheme was such that the LSM-1–class article could be shortened to say something like, "The LSM-1–class ships were numbered LSM-1 through LSM-535 (whatever the last number was). The following LSM-1–class ships were notable: ...", and then list LSMs with articles.
 * My thought process for LSM-1–class is to make the article similar to PT boat, where notable examples are mentioned and/or listed to point to existing articles. &emsp;—&#8239;sbb&#8239;(talk) 21:01, 15 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I disagree, the list of LSM-1-class ships should give the histories of all the ships, not just the notable ones that would garner their own page. That's why it is a list article, much like a list of shipwrecks. If it has independent sources, but not capable of its own article, each ship's history should be listed on the List of LSM-1-class ships article. The main LSM-1-class ship article could give brief summaries of the notable ones, but link to the list. Each USS LSM-# redlink would then link to the List of LSM-1-class ships article as redirects. Llammakey (talk) 21:06, 15 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Agreed - ideally, the list would be developed along the lines of S138-class torpedo boat, where a table lays out the major dates and fates of each vessel, and then major events in their service histories can be given in prose. Given the sheer number of LSMs, we'd probably have to break the lists into chunks to keep them from becoming unreasonably long. Parsecboy (talk) 12:05, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
 * (note: I mispoke, I didn't edit the List of LSM-1–class ships article, I edited the main LSM article to remove the listed redlinks). It sounds like you're in agreement with what I was trying to do, or if not, I definitely agree with what you said). &emsp;—&#8239;sbb&#8239;(talk) 21:59, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

List of light cruisers of the United States Navy
This article (List of light cruisers of the United States Navy) is either redundant or misnamed.

Perusal of the article shows it should be named 'List of light cruiser classes of the United States Navy'. If not deleted it should be copied to a renamed article and (I assume, don't know all the details) have a redirect installed.

If deleted then it should redirect to List of cruisers of the United States Navy.

ThanksTfdavisatsnetnet (talk) 17:30, 1 February 2022 (UTC)


 * No, it's a worthwhile list - eventually it'll be expanded along the lines of List of light cruisers of Germany. Parsecboy (talk) 18:07, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Category:State-related ships of the United States Navy
 Crossposted from WT:MILHIST 

Is this useful? The subcategories seem to be a whole hodge-podge of various connections, and I suspect that this is WP:NOTDEFINING anyway. For instance, looking through Category:United States Navy Missouri-related ships, we've got ships named after Missouri, ships named after places in Missouri, and ships named after people from Missouri. I really don't think that this would be defining at all for say USS Meyerkord, and I doubt that these are helpful or defining categories at all. I'm considering a bulk CFD, but thought I'd post here for thoughts beforehand. Hog Farm Talk 05:18, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Link to CFD here. BusterD (talk) 11:24, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

Year/place of construction categories when sources disagree
I've been working on expanding CSS Baltic, and the sources I have turned up disagree as to if she was built in 1856 at New Albany, Indiana, or in 1860 at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. For the purpose of categories such Category:Ships built in New Albany, Indiana or Category:1860 ships, what is the standard practice for categorization? Should she be in categories for both the 1856 and 1860 construction, only one (if so, how to determine), or into both? Hog Farm Talk 05:26, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Both pairs. The readers will appreciate the uncertainty when they get to the article. Davidships (talk) 10:47, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

CSS Baltic
There have been several vessels named Baltic, including one holder of the Blue Riband. A near-contemporary, CSS Baltic, appears to been a merchant steamer built in the interior United States for sheltered waters. Sources differ on whether the figure for its size is tonnage or displacement. The relevant discussion is at Talk:CSS Baltic immediately following the GA review. If anyone has access to a contemporaneous source for a tonnage survey or other relevant information, please contribute there. Thank you. Kablammo (talk) 02:15, 9 February 2022 (UTC)
 * - WP:SHIPS/R may be of use. Mjroots (talk) 20:03, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

Template:Pallas class frigate characteristics
The template Template:Pallas class frigate characteristics apparently creates huge whitespace gaps in the 11 ship articles where it is used. 93 (talk) 22:27, 7 February 2022 (UTC)


 * I didn't see a white space issue with Meduse but I subst-ed the template in that article to see if it woild make a difference. Ideally there shouldn't need to be template calls to get the parameters for the infobox as it is (or should be) stable information. GraemeLeggett (talk) 06:25, 8 February 2022 (UTC)


 * There seem to be single line breaks at the start and end of this template. At French frigate Méduse (1810), before you it was placed immediately after the closing brackets of the previous template, causing the first line break to be hidden, but after it, the double line break creates a smaller whitespace gap than on the other 10 pages. On the rest it looks like:
 * }}
 * {{code| |} }}
 * so there are effectively four line breaks in those ten articles, causing two merged whitespace gaps. I'm unfamiliar with template editing but it seems this looks to be a simple fix, at least relative to the trainwreck that is Italic title. 93 (talk) 10:18, 8 February 2022 (UTC)
 * so there are effectively four line breaks in those ten articles, causing two merged whitespace gaps. I'm unfamiliar with template editing but it seems this looks to be a simple fix, at least relative to the trainwreck that is Italic title. 93 (talk) 10:18, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

I removed two line breaks from the template. This seems to be fixed now. 93 (talk) 01:01, 12 February 2022 (UTC)

How to know if as ship is notable?
I sometimes go through random articles to add maintenance tags and found Piri (1994). I see no indication of notability but this is not my area of expertise, so I was wondering what y'all thought of the article or if there are any main databases or sources that make for good quick checks on notability for ships. A. C. Santacruz &#8258; Please ping me! 17:29, 17 February 2022 (UTC)
 * as the IMO number is known, a search for the ship's name and IMO number shoud be a good start. Mjroots (talk) 18:42, 19 February 2022 (UTC)
 * A good example of an article on a non-notable ship. A bog-standard tanker, from a shipyard that produced dozens of them, that carried oil around for 18 years and got scrapped. A bit like the average person: born-worked-died.  Of course, such a tanker could be notable for a number of reasons, if multiple reliable independent sources had written in depth about this ship, but there is not the slightest hint of anything encyclopaedic in the present content, nor in the references give. Two of them are online derivative databases (one of which is dead and unarchived, but could be replaced if it was worth it), and the other two are one-line reports that the ship was scrapped. A Gcheck also produced nothing at all. If all that can be produced is basic ship description data for an infobox, I cannot see how that could possibly meet WP:GNG.
 * Furthermore, in this case the creation of the article seems to have been some sort of personal project, with an undeclared interest by a 6-day creator-editor who was a seaman on the ship and took the two photos he placed in the article (see the Commons pages) - no hint of any assertion of notability.
 * Standard ship databases and the like are invaluable for providing important and verifiable data for expanding articles on ship which are notable, but rarely do much to establish that notability. Davidships (talk) 19:42, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

A. C. Santacruz &#8258; Please ping me! 16:43, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

copyright status of a photo
I am trying to find out if a photo in the National Maritime Museum (Greenwich) is free to use on Wikipedia. I have already posted it here, but without any answers. The original question is: I am trying to understand the copyright status of this photo which is held at the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich. Their description suggests that it was taken by Francis Curzon, 5th Earl Howe, though study of his article leaves some slight question in my mind as to whether it was taken by someone in the cinematograph service for the Navy. (The RMG information on their exhibits is often somewhat inaccurate.) If it was taken by Curzon, this seems to be as a result of his duties as a naval officer. Therefore I understand that it is OK to use (though I could not point anyone to where that rule is written down). Thanks

Can anyone help? I am sure I ought to have a better understanding of these copyright issues, but...

Additionally, if anyone can point me to any photos of naval cutters (the ship's boat type of cutter) that would be great. There are photos available of them being worked under oar, raced under sail, etc., but finding one that is OK to use here seems to be a bit of a challenge. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 23:22, 23 February 2022 (UTC)


 * I am not sure about the copyright, but I found a few images: 1, A ships boat from HMS Royal Oak. 2, A cutter being launched. 3, a cutter on land at a training establishment. 4, the 42 ft launch Cyclops preserved at Portsmouth. I hope this was helpful. Implacable18 (talk) 00:34, 24 February 2022 (UTC)
 * According to this, Crown Copyright would have expired at the latest in 1967. Davidships (talk) 10:44, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

Stanley (boat)
I recently came across this stub article and I do not think it passes WP:GNG. In my opinion the "first fishing boat in Iceland to be equipped with an engine" seems rather specific and not notable. It is also not sourced and I have found very little information about it on the internet. This seems like it may be a candidate for proposed deletion but I am unsure. Implacable18 (talk) 22:29, 22 February 2022 (UTC)
 * It is now sourced. There is more content in is:Stanley (bátur), sourced to a speech/article by the late journalist Ólafur Hannibalsson (redlinked, husband of medical academic is:Guðrún Pétursdóttir) on the centenary of the event. Unfortunately, GoogleTranslate doesn't seem to cope with Icelandic very idiomatically. Curious though it may seem, this may be a significant development in the maritime and fishing history of Iceland. I have advised WP:FISHING and WP:ICELAND, and asked the latter about translation. Davidships (talk) 10:33, 24 February 2022 (UTC)


 * There are several articles found about this boat in Icelandic publications which show its historical significance in Iceland. It's mechanization is considered the start of the industrial revolution of the fishing industry, the most important industry in the country . I'm going to see if I can't find more and add to the article. Alvaldi (talk) 11:46, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

Prize Papers
Just noting that The National Archives have recently uploaded their portion of the Prize Papers relating to 1,500 ships captured during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 19:24, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

Image licensing help
Any chance that this would be usable? `I'm hoping to bluelink Squib-class torpedo boat, but the only image I'm aware of that we have already uploaded for the class is File:21-18-179-squib.jpg, which I'm almost certain isn't properly licensed (can't find a good source for when the underlying mural was created, but I would be surprised if it wasn't still in copyright). Hog Farm Talk 04:04, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

Yes, all NHHC images are useable unless otherwise stated. When uploading them to commons use this template: https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:NHHC Implacable18 (talk) 04:09, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

SS Edward L. Ryerson peer review
Does anyone have any suggestions on how to improve this article? I was advised to post the peer review at a WikiProject talk page, as it has been inactive for well over a month. GreatLakesShips (talk) 10:30, 1 March 2022 (UTC)
 * You have sfn error messages for cites 19 and 20. Displacement should be converted from imperial to metric (LT to t). "730-class" does not need to be hyphenated as that is the noun format, not the adjectival. Gross tonnage and net tonnage are not the same thing as gross register tonnage and net register tonnage. Those need to be sorted out. The second conversion of her top speed is unnecessary. Link ship sponsor. Two of your references have the same sfn anchor. That might be the source of your sfn errors. That is all I have. Llammakey (talk) 12:53, 1 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Sorted. GreatLakesShips (talk) 07:32, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

Notice
WP:SHE4SHIPS is under discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style. (fyi) -  wolf  00:07, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

Time-sensitive help needed fixing up Endurance (1912 ship)
Some time-sensitive help is needed for Endurance (1912 ship) to get it ready for ITN given the discovery of the wreck. Best, &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 08:12, 9 March 2022 (UTC)


 * Any takers? I'll throw in an offer of the WikiProject Ships Barnstar for anyone who cleans up the article enough to get it to ITN (cp ). &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 02:49, 12 March 2022 (UTC)


 * I have been looking for something to do lately, so I can help with this. Implacable18 (talk) 03:44, 12 March 2022 (UTC)
 * @Implacable18, that would be excellent! The sooner the better, as the timeliness window is closing. &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 07:54, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

Category:Pages using Ship with unknown parameters
I've been trying to force Squib-class torpedo boat out of this category, but can't figure out what's flagging it. Can anyone smarter than me figure out what's wrong? It may be an indication of something that this category is solely populated by Confederate torpedo boats. Hog Farm Talk 22:52, 3 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Woops. I fixed it but forgot to actually say anything. It was a problem with Template:CSN torpedo boats rather than with any of the articles themselves. Not sure that my way of fixing the error was the cleanest, but it seems to have worked. Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 14:13, 8 March 2022 (UTC)
 * The one template that was giving the error was this one:
 * → CSS David
 * If you preview this page, the template adds
 * If 'large' is really a disambiguator and not something else, then the fix for the above is:
 * → CSS David
 * or, perhaps better:
 * → CSS David
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 14:45, 8 March 2022 (UTC)
 * In this case, I think as weird as it sounds that (large) may actually be the best disambiguator. As to if it should be an article, I'm not sure - the Confederate torpedo boats were largely nondescript craft that didn't do much and were often poorly recorded (the standard-sized David just kinda disappears from the records. Hog Farm Talk 14:51, 8 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Based on the (now-deleted for copyvio) page history of the large David, this looks rather NN. Was created by  who is probably a sock of ; both have a history of copyright violations and CSS Macon probably needs checked for copyvio, as well. Hog Farm Talk 14:56, 8 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Restored CSS David as redirect to new section of CSS David, now reffed. CSS Macon was OK, now expanded a bit. Davidships (talk) 11:37, 12 March 2022 (UTC)