Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Maritime warfare task force/Archive 2

I'm finishing up Rear Admiral Uriel Sebree's article, but I'm a bit confused with some of my sources. He is variously described late in his life as having led the "Second Division", the "Pacific Fleet", and the "Second Division, Pacific Fleet" -- a squadron of eight newly built cruisers led by the USS Tennessee. What I can't tell from my sources is whether he initially commanded only the "second division" of the Pacific Fleet, then commanded all of it? Whether he is referred to as having commanded the Pacific Fleet only as shorthand for his commanding the Second Division? Or whether the "second division" is itself a name for the Pacific Fleet of this period. I simply don't have enough background into the Naval structure of that era to know how it was organized. (And, according to United States Pacific Fleet, the US only had a "Pacific Fleet" prior to WWII between 1907 and 1910, which is fine because that matches the years that he commanded it and some newspaper sources I found discuss that the structure would change when he stepped down.) Help? JRP (talk) 12:29, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

He apparently commanded the 2nd Division, 1st Squadron as a Rear Admiral (Lower Half) from 1908, then was promoted to Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Fleet. At the time the Pacific Fleet consisted of the First Squadron with the 1st and 2nd Divisions of armored cruisers, and the Second Squadron in reserve which consted of a 3rd Division. The Third Squadron covered East Asia, and there was a Torpedo Flotilla as well.

P.S. FYI Sebree became a Rear Admiral on

library

)

Looking at

• Answered my own question and made a stub out of it: master (naval). JRP (talk) 02:54, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

The peer review for USS Wisconsin (BB-64) is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! TomStar81 (Talk) 23:59, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

I came across the following articles as part of the Tag Assessment drive:

• USS Curlew (AMS-8)
• USS Curlew (AM-69)

Both articles state that the ships were minesweepers during WWII. I find it hard to believe that the US Navy had two ships with the same names, roles and war. Can someone more familiar with the topic please take a look? Thanks. --dashiellx (talk) 14:31, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

DANFS says it's so, so it must be so. One was built as a minesweeper and the other was taken up from civilian service as one. As to two ships, same role, one war - USS Hornet? --

talk

) 14:44, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

The text apparently comes from DANFS. The commission/decommission dates are different for both ships, and were operating in separate theaters (AMS-8 in the Pacific, and AM-69 on the US eastern coast). They do appear to be different ships. It is odd that they have the same name during the same general time. However, the Hornets Harlsbottom pointed out didn't have overlapping dates of existence; the 2nd was named after the first, which is a different scenario than this case. Parsecboy (talk) 14:46, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

I was merely responding directly to the comment "I find it hard to believe that the US Navy had two ships with the same names, roles and war." Of course it is rather unusual for two ships in the same navy at the same time to have the same name. Anything is possible in wartime I guess - my Warships of the World-Victory Edition from just after the war mentions both. --

talk

) 20:49, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for looking into this. I guess my saying "two ships with the same names, roles and war" was a little misleading, I meant at the same time as it just seemed odd to me. I appreciate you taking the time to check this out. --dashiellx (talk) 11:03, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

As a side-note, when a U.S.N. warship is mentioned officially isn't the name and the classification number always read out together, i.e. U.S.S. Curlew A M Six Nine? So it wouldn't really matter how many ships you had with the same name so long as the classification was different. --

talk

) 14:51, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

I just located this article and tagged it for WPMILHIST and Maritime task force, as a Stub class article. Sv1xv (talk) 19:41, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

As you

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Please

For example, for ships named HMS Royal Oak, the pages dealing with the individual ships are numbered, so that, for example, the eighth such ship to be so named is called HMS Royal Oak (08).

On the other hand, you have the WWII HMS Hood, whose page title is

Other ship articles though, denote different ships of the same name by their date of launch, which I submit is the obvious method by which they should be listed. Gatoclass 17:53, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Actually, the Royal Oak is disambiguated by pennant number; the fact that this happens to be the same as the sequence of the ship name is merely a coincidence.

As far as I understand it, the general rule is to use the pennant number where one is available, and the date of launch otherwise. Kirill 18:48, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, as per Wikipedia:Naming conventions (ships), pennant numbers should be used first, the years of launch if none is available. Similarly, hull number takes precedence in naming US ships. As Kirill rightly points out, that Royal Oak has pennant 08 is pure co-incidence to her being the 8th Royal Oak. Capital ships did not carry flag superiors, hence the "naked" pennant number. Pennant number is a unique and official number for each ship, therefore is the ideal solution (with a few exceptions, such as HMS Endurance, where the 2 most recent ships were A171, or RFA Sir Galahad, where the replacement for the original took the same pennant. Here, date serves a useful purpose.

For me, launch date as the first choice is far from an ideal solution. For a start, why launch date? The ship isnt HMS so-and-so until it is commissioned, surely it would really make more sense to go with that? Secondly, ships aren't always launched into the navy that they serve; they may be bought, borrowed, captured and sold. There is a convention out there and it works. I see no need to tinker with it. Emoscopes ^Talk 19:06, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

There is a convention out there and it works

I disagree, I don't think it does work. I'm pretty interested in military history myself, and I was utterly confounded by the naming convention until you just explained it to me. What chance will the average reader have of ascertaining this convention?

Wikipedia is a general purpose encyclopedia, not a handbook for grognards, pennant number is a characteristic that very few lay people are likely to be familiar with, and the fact that it was only adopted from WWI means that you end up with one convention for all ships before that era and another for ships after. People are naturally going to assume they are looking at dates because of all the other ships disambiguated by date, as I did. Furthermore, using pennant numbers means that every article using the convention will have to have in its opening paragraph a reference to the pennant number for clarification, which is redundant.

Also I don't find your arguments against using dates to be very persuasive. Launch date is a unique characteristic of ships that is both obvious and informative, and also consistent with other entries before WWI. The fact that a ship isn't "HMS so-and-so" until it is commissioned is neither here nor there, nor the fact that it may be sold to another navy, because according to the more general naming convention, articles get the most commonly used name for a thing. In any case, use of pennant numbers would not resolve those issues either.

And as you yourself admit, pennant numbers themselves change from time to time or are given to other ships, meaning they are not necessarily unique identfiers at all. But launch date is always a unique identifier, because the likelihood of two ships with the same name being launched in the same year must be remote to nonexistent. Gatoclass 00:48, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

I'll just weigh in with my two cents: While

The articles are totally chaotic anyhow. Take a look at the ships in Category:World War II battleships of the United Kingdom for example. Half of them are listed by launch date, half are listed by pennant number, and of those that are listed by pennant number, very few of them refer to the pennant number in the text, leaving the reader totally in the dark as to what the number represents.

I don't really care what system is adopted, but it needs to be a consistent one, we can't have ship articles listed inconsistently like this. Gatoclass 11:32, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I'm adding wikilinks to pennant numbers in the intro of the articles, so that people aren't left utterly confused as to their meaning. I've done it for all the British WWII battleships, but I can see this is going to be a big job because almost none of the ship articles have an explanatory link. Gatoclass 11:57, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I've recently asked for opinions on this topic at

WP:COMMONNAME. When I fist saw it, I was very confused (and I am rather interested in military and maritime history). Even if I know what it is, I still can gain little information about the ship unless have a mental map from pennant numbers to years. I know the QEs were prominent in WW1, so HMS Queen Elizabeth (1913) gives me a good hint that this is the ship I'm interested in. Since I found no opposition on either the naming conventions page or on the QE talk page, I have already moved it back to the launch date scheme. I would suggest to do this for other pre-WW2 British ships as well, but was pointed to this discussion when I suggested this at Talk:HMS Warspite (03) --Stephan Schulz

22:43, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

While I like the current use of pennant numbers, it probably stems from my knowledge of the subject in that they seem obvious to me. I appreciate they probably seem rather random for those without my unhealthy obsession. However, I stick by what I said earlier. I don't think launch date is particularly useful - it doesn't tell us much, it can be many years after launch before a ship enters service. Also, depending on the construction methods, launch date can be relatively soon after laying down, or a relatively long time. Then there are ships that aren't launched; those built in dry docks are floated out - a minor nitpick I know, but if we are going to do this I'd rather it was done right.

Personally, therefore, I think laying down date or commissioning date are preferential. My preference is for the latter, as that is when the ship really became "HMS" whatever, and there are many ships that were transferred from other services etc. Emoscopes Talk 23:32, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Commissioning date is problematic, as the same ship may be commisioned more than once. Launch date (even ships built in a dry dock have a launch date, AFAIK, even if they are not strictly "launched") and laying down date both seem reasonable to me. I would prefer launch date for three reasons. The practical one is that this convention seems to be the one that has been used most so far. The second one is that that is usually when ships receive their names in the formal christening. The final reason is that many ships are not completed as laid down (see e.g.

HMS Furious (1916)). BTW, I went over to de:, and they are not consistent either - it's HMS Queen Elizabeth (1913), but HMS Warspite (1915).--Stephan Schulz

00:15, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, if there's to be a change, I would definitely support launch date, since that is a common convention both on Wiki and in other contexts, and also for the reasons outlined by Steven above. For example, what would you do for all the US ships sold to the UK under lend-lease? They have two commission dates, one for the US Navy and another for the Royal Navy. IMO it has to be launch date because it is both ubiquitous and unambiguous. Gatoclass 04:05, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

There are seeds for a different confusion with Gato's proposal. Lend-lease ships were renamed - do we use the USN launch date or the RN commissioning date? Neither seems totally satisfactory. Some had long USN services, while others were transferred on launch or soon after commissioning into the USN. All the above refers to "pennant numbers", which I take to mean the RN ones - is there to be a change to the inclusion of USN hull numbers? Personally, I'm contaent with the current convention. Before any change, I think there needs to be a wide consensus - there's a hell of a lot of work for someone (not me!). Folks at 137 18:32, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

No confusion there at all! I said I think launch date should be used, not commissioning dates, because there is only one launch date for a ship. On the other hand, there can be more than one commissioning date, which is why launch date offers an unambiguous identifier whereas commissioning dates do not.

Furthermore as Steven has pointed out, launch date is already used for ships which don't have pennant numbers, so it's only conforming with current practice. Gatoclass 02:34, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

I think with the lend-lease example, the launch dates mean nothing to the reader interested in their Royal Navy service only. The ships such as the

Town class destroyers were launched from 1918 through the early 20s. However they were not transferred until 1940, which in my opinion is ambiguous when one is looking for a World War II ship, but is given a list of dates that suggest a previous era. That, in my opinion, is the weakness of dates. While they do disambiguate, because they suggest a period in time, they do create ambiguity - I'm perhaps looking for a ship of World War II, but the dates suggest World War I (this will be the case for a lot of RN ships). It might look on the face of it a neater, more methodical solution than pennant numbers. However, is the purpose to disambiguate between 2 different ships, or to identify the ship as belong to an era? My problem with dates is that they have the latter side effect. Emoscopes ^Talk

19:27, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

In my most humble of opinions, it is the role of this disambiguation page to help the reader identify which ship they are looking for, not the role of the disambiguation parenthesis in the namespace. Otherwise we might as well have HMS Queen Elizabeth (World War I and II battleship). Emoscopes ^Talk 19:32, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

As far as I am concerned, the overarching standard is

HMS Queen Elizabeth (00)is very confusing. HMS Queen Elizabeth (1913) is very clear, and if I know Wikipedia conventions, I might even type that directly into the search box. --Stephan Schulz

02:07, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

And will we have USS Arkansas (1911) and USS Arkansas (1978) or is this only for RN ships? Emoscopes has clarified my point with dates - if dates were a real 100% solution I would support the change, but I am unconvinced and believe that it's loads of work for limited benefit. I do understand that there is lack of knowledge over pennant/ hull numbers, but we do use redirects and disambig pages. Don't we? Folks at 137 06:07, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Folks at 137 raises a valid point: if we adopt a by lanch date rather hull number we will end up screwing over nearly every USN ship; all of which are currently ID as USS (name) (XX[X]-YY[Y]), where the X's and Y's are the ship hull clasification symbol and number respectively. Unless the new system is reserved strictly for RN ships and those ships that follow the RN example its going to create a butload of work by forcing mass redirections for USN articles by moving them from established pages to new pages. Just something to keep in mind. TomStar81 (Talk) 08:29, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, that's the other side of the debate, and the reason why I was having second thoughts about my initial proposal until Steven raised it again.

What I have said however is that if pennant numbers are to be used, they must be referred to in the intro because otherwise they are totally confusing. I already did that a couple of days ago for all the British battleships, but if pennant numbers are to remain the identifier it will need to be done for all the ships with an unqualified pennant number so that people aren't confused into thinking they are looking at a launch date. Gatoclass 09:09, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

As I tried to say above, I don't think that the US hull numbers and the RN pennant numbers are equivalent for this use. The US Hull numbers are used much more consistently, even in the popular press, and are much better known. And the US navy had a lot less history to mess things up (no offense intended to either side ;-). My dissatisfaction is only with the use of pennant numbers for the RN - I'm fine with the US hull numbers. And indeed, the pennant numbers have been very slow to catch on. My impression is that much less than half the ships in question use them, and even for those that do, typically less than half the links point directly to the pennant number article name. So I don't think there will be "loads of work", at least not compared to achieve consistency the other way round. --Stephan Schulz 13:27, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

From my overviewing of the articles it seems that most all 1930s RN ships onwards have article names that disambig by the Flag and Pennant number. That the number is not often used in the popular press is that the Pennant is not needed, but it is there painted on the side of the ships in question and if visible on a photo tells you whihc ship you are looking at. GraemeLeggett 14:16, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Two points: I'm unhappy with differing conventions for USN and RN ships - that is likely to confuse and suggests differing standards based on national perspective. I searched on HMS Kent and HMS Agamemnon, as an non-expert reader might do. Have a look - they both give enough detail to locate the appropriate article. Seems ok to me - launch date is a solution looking for a problem, IMO. An explanation of pennant number would be useful, however. BTW, pennant numbers are a NATO convention; the USN chooses not to adhere to it. Presumably other navies that use the NATO standard would also be subject to review and change for launch date, if accepted. Folks at 137 17:10, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but not all searches go to disambig pages. Some go directly to a particular ship, like HMS Hood for example. Some disambig pages probably fail to mention pennant numbers too. For these reasons, the pennant numbers really need to be mentioned in the intro where they can't be missed, or it leaves users potentially in the dark as to what the number represents. Gatoclass 03:34, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

The category of Royal Navy ship names has about a thousand entries (5 pages at 200 a time) and only two have titles of the form "xxxxx (disambiguation)"; Hood and Beagle. So that is a rare case. For what its worth, the Beagle one lists pennants for the two ships that had them. GraemeLeggett 12:21, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Am I the only one with an uneasy feeling that we might get two naming conventions out of this? One for the RN (or maybe just pre-1930s RN), and a different convention for everyone else. This seems to be contrary to the principle of least astonishment. --Kralizec! (talk) 15:05, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Unless we completely do away with Hull/pennant numbers (which would be very much work), there is no way around this inconsistency. Hull numbers are rather young. Ships have existed for a much longer time. The question is where we draw the line. The RN battleships stick out in particular, because their unadorned pennant numbers can be easily mistaked for dates. But even for less problematic cases, I think they are not as useful as (launch) dates. --Stephan Schulz 15:19, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

The more I think about it, the less I like dates in ship titles (where pennant or hull numbers are available). It's no more helpful or consistent than pennant numbers, IMO, and deviates from standard naval usage (apart from the USN) in much of the 20th century (when navies were at their largest). I wouldn't expect non-experts to know pennants or hull numbers or launch dates (these details need only be used to distinguish articles), but disambigs and redirects can and should guide non-experts to where they want to be. Folks at 137 16:51, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, while I initially started this thread as a challenge to the current format, on reflection I think pennant numbers are probably the sensible option. The problem with Steven's suggestion is that it makes an arbitrary distinction between WWII and post-WWII ships. If we are going to use pennant numbers at all, might as well use them from their inception IMO. My only real concern now, as I've said before, is that the unqualified pennant numbers of capital ships get mentioned in the intro, because otherwise as Steven points out, they can easily be confused with dates. Gatoclass 08:38, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Whichever route we choose, I think I shall try to make more disambigs more useful, with enough info to allow a casual reader to select correctly (even if it contravenes WP guidelines). There's also a point that, if a ship's name was used only once (eg,

HMS Kelly), why bother with including pennant number (or date, etc) in the article title? We're only using this as a way of creating unique titles. Folks at 137

18:09, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

With regard to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (ships), I think that the issue is to some extent one of interpretation. It surprises me that experienced editors, such as Kirill and Emoscopes, should be interpreting the convention to mean that "the general rule is to use the pennant number where one is available,", or "pennant numbers should be used first, the year of launch if none is available". The following excerpts are verbatim (except for emphasis and an interpolation):

• "Use ships' hull numbers (hull classification symbols) for the United States Navy. For the modern Royal Navy and many European and Commonwealth navies, use pennant numbers if available, sufficiently unique, and well known. (My emphasis);
• "If no hull number is available (for a USN ship) or if it is not well-known, use the ship's year of launching if known — like human birthdays, every ship has one" (My emphasis. For an example, see USS Chesapeake (1799)).

The convention also acknowledges the primacy of

Wikipedia:Naming conventions

, which requires that "article naming should prefer what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity".

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (ships) is flawed in that it does not define modern (I would suggest ships which served after the formation of NATO in 1949), and gives no guidance for those non-US ships which are not covered by the first of the two guidelines quoted above (i.e. all "non-modern" ships and all modern ones outside of NATO and the Commonwealth). However, if launch year is appropriate in for USN ships with no hull humber, it is difficult to see why it is not appropriate for these cases as well.

To my mind, the clear inference is that pennant numbers (as opposed to USN hull numbers) should not be used to disambiguate historical (i.e. pre-NATO) warships unless the pennant numbers are "well-known" to the majority of English speaking users - which, for practical purposes, is almost equivalent to "never". In the absence of any guidance to the contrary, it seems eminently logical to use launch date for these ships instead.

It is clear that the editors who created article with names such as HMS Royal Oak (08) did so in the belief that they were observing convention. Unfortunately, they were actually following an interpretation which goes far beyond, and arguably conflicts with, what the convention actually says. This suggests to me that the convention needs clarifying; at the very least, the omissions cited above should be made good.

Regards to all, John Moore 309 21:24, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Mea culpa - I was unaware of the convention quoted above (perhaps I don't qualify as "experienced"). My argument, which I repeat, is that neither pennant/ hull numbers nor launch date are likely to be known to casual readers (or even, accurately, to most informed ones). I couldn't say when HMS Campbelltown was launched nor HMS Fiji, certainly not to the correct year, any more than the pennant nos of these ships - so, for me, the real issue is how to get to the correct ship? I argue that, without the precise name, most go via redirects or disambigs. Conventions/ rules should be open to review and clarification, perhaps this is appropriate here. Folks at 137 06:11, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Recently I have been writing some naval history and in the process wanted to find particular ships. For identifying which one I want pennant number etc is not much help since I don't know what it is. On the other hand, a date tells me I am looking at a ship with the correct name at the correct period and is immediately usefull in finding the correct article. Sandpiper (talk) 08:14, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I further notice someeone quoted a rule on naming conventions "article naming should prefer what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity", which I quote again. It seems to me self-evident that the majority of people would not recognise a pennant number at all, whereas they immediately recognise the date of launch and thus the general historical period for identification purposes. It seems self-evident that the date is always going to be a better general identifier. Do articles about sailors or people get disambiguated by their service or national insurance numbers? Sandpiper (talk) 09:12, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

A proposal to alter

Several editors (including myself) are currently discussing whether Japan's new

I have proposed a merge of USS Imperator (ID-4080) into SS Imperator. All interested editors are welcome to discuss the proposal here. — Bellhalla (talk) 16:41, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Would anyone be upset if I got Mizabot to archive this page? I figure since its slower here we could allow a 30 - 60 day period before archiving. --Brad (talk) 17:38, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Done:

1. 42 day period before archiving. (6 weeks)
2. Archive pages at 100k before being full.
3. No less than 3 topics on page at anytime.
4. Minimum number of topics to archive is 2.

--Brad (talk) 19:39, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

I have started a discussion regarding the necessity and naming style of a series of newly created categories of the form Category:United States Navy ships built in STATE for 26 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. The discussion may be found here. All interested editors are welcome. — Bellhalla (talk) 00:08, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

The "United States Navy ships built in STATE" categories have been nominated for up-merging into the "Ships built in STATE" categories. All editors are welcome to participate in the discussion. — Bellhalla (talk) 11:27, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

I've nominated the above article for deletion, as it's an unsalvageable trainwreck of OR and unsourced conjecture. Any and all interested editors are welcome to comment, the discussion can be found here. Parsecboy (talk) 17:06, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Peer Review of Protection of Military Remains Act 1986 opened at MilHist, please comment. Also please not my thanks to Benea, without whom there woud be a lot of red links in the list of designated ships! Viv Hamilton (talk) 17:55, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Notice

The peer review for Protection of Military Remains Act 1986 is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Woody (talk) 19:03, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

We've been having a discussion at

In this article there is a current list of Hellenic Navy ships. Next to each ship there is a small flag icon of the country where the ship was constructed. I have not seen these flags icons in articles about other Navies, although I have seen it in articles about aircraft fleets. What is the WP policy on the subject? Sv1xv (talk) 10:15, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

There is

WP:MILMOS#FLAGS. We have to ask ourselves: "Do the icons convey useful information to the reader, or are they merely decorative?" Woody (talk

) 10:18, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I have already checked these guidelines but found no definitive answer there. I believe that in the context of the Hellenic Navy fleet list the flags do not convey important information, but others may not share this view. Unfortunately I'm afraid that if I remove them I might start a war with other editors. Sv1xv (talk) 11:53, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I looked over the article, and actually do think there's some useful information the flags convey in the ship list. It denotes the country of origin, and would be more bulky to type out instead. I think they're fine as is. Parsecboy (talk) 11:56, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Agree Makes sense to me to leave them, as they're conveying additional information without extra cluttering. Regards, DPdH (talk) 23:29, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Bluenorway#Vessel_Full_Form_Naming_Convention Bluenorway (talk) 17:48, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

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An article I would like to start has to do with the "Apprentice Boys" program the US Navy had from about 1880-1905. Trouble I'm having is figuring out a proper title for the article.