Talk:Battleship

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Contents

[edit] Picture of Admiral Jackie Fisher

Actually I think the guy on the picture is not the british Admiral Jackie Fisher, but the japanese Admiral Tojo. Perhaps someone has a second picture to compare. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 134.155.99.41 (talk • contribs).

This is definitely Fisher. Compare the images here and here. Tojo looked like this:
Regards, John Moore 309 11:29, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Separate steam and sail battleships

For the sake of uniformity, I believe it would be better if for any country, 'list of <country> steam battleships' and 'list of <country> sail battleships' would be merged into a single list. Radiant! 09:44, Feb 18, 2005 (UTC)

It depends on how many there are. that's the main criteria. the design of battleships changed markedly around 1860. Some countries have the lists combined, cos it's dumb to have a whole page for just one ship. Some countries have 4 pages because otherwise each page would be long. SpookyMulder 14:53, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Weren't there four carriers that escaped the bombing of Pearl Harbor?

  • If memory severs, there were actually four aircraft carriers that escaped the bombing of Pearl Habor on 7 December 1941. Only three participated in the battle of Midway because the Lexington was lost at the battle of Coral Sea. Someone needs to check this out.

Enterprise and lexington were in the pacific, saratoga was in san diego. ranger wasp and hornet were in the atlantic i think and langley was a seaplane carrier by then, possibly in the pacific also. Long Island, escort carrier, in san francisco? Charger, aircraft ferry, probably atlantic. Wright, seaplane tender, was in the pacific. curtiss, seaplane tender, was damaged at pearl harbor.

SpookyMulder 11:40, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Bunch of questions

  • Can one say that anything pre-Dreadnought is not a BB?
  • What is a BB, what is a battlecruiser? 12-inch definition? Armor?
  • Was the German/English pre-WWI arms race a BB race?
  • What is KM, IJN? (Should be explained on the Bismarck/Scharnhorst/Yamato pages probably.)
  • Six months later, it was the carriers that were to turn the tide of the Pacific War at the Battle of Midway. -- Inconclusive: Midway had more Japanese than US carriers.
Yes, but if the U.S. had lost their carriers at Pearl, they wouldn't have done very well at Midway, would they? --Belltower
This is about battleships, so the statement implies somehow that Midway shows the superiority of carriers. If however the second-best fields more carriers this requires more explanation. The USA had won /with/ carriers, but not necessarily /through/ them.--Yooden
  • AFAIK at least one US BB is still on 'active' duty, if never ever used.
No, there are no battleships on active duty. USS Missouri was the last active battleship. -B-
It is noteworthy to point out that while thier are no battleships on active duty Iowa and Wisconsin are maintained in the mothball fleet. TomStar81 03:18, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Is the Kirov a BB?

-- Yooden

No The Kirov is usually classafied as a battlecruiser. By definition a battlecruiser sacrafices some of its amour in exchange for greater speed. Historically the lack of amour on battlecruisers has led to problems with a battlecruisers endurance, for example the brittish battlecruiser Hood fell to the Bismark due to insufficient amour. TomStar81 04:51, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • The US Navy counts its first battleships as launched in 1895 -the Maine, Texas and Indiana.
  • How can Japanese battleships have been sunk in kamikaze attacks? Only the Japanese used kamikazes.
  • Didn't a German ship survive the WWII in Uruguay? Maybe it was only a cruiser, though.
  • Why mention the Scharnhorst/Glorious and not the Hood versus Bismarck?
  • [Kamikaze] They used the ships to atack overwhelming enemy forces.
  • The heavy cruiser 'Admiral Graf Spee' was forced by british forces to call at Montevideo but not allowed to stay more than 72 hours. It was sunk by its crew.
  • See Power at Sea if you can.

--Yooden

The US navy website says that the Arizona was stricken from the Naval Register Dec 1942. I guess this means it is not "active".

Correct, USS Arizona (BB-39) is not active. -B-
  • Graf Spee was often labelled a "pocket battleship" due its large caliber (11") armament. The cruisers Ajax, Achilles, and Exeter took a beating damaging Graf Spee.
  • KM is short for Kriegsmarine, IJN for Imperial Japanese Navy. Those could be links.
  • I mentioned Scharnhorst as the last (lone?) success of a battleship (although some sites label it a battlecruiser) against a carrier. The U.S. Gambier Bay was sunk by cruisers.
  • Yamato loaded up with enough fuel for only a one way mission; she was a Kamikaze *ship*. I don't believe Kamikaze is defined as only being aircraft.
  • Battlecruisers have lighter armor, and are generally faster. Hood was a battlecruiser, and her armor proved a fatal weakness.

--Belltower

Certainly there were also suicidal submarine mission that are sometimes refered to as Kamikaze. The problem was I couldn't tell who was doing the "kamikaze-ing" when I read the sentnce. I always thought the Hood was a battleship. -rmhermen

No the HMS Hood was the last battlecruiser the british built, but it was larger than any british battleship except Vanguard.
  • Why 'KM Bismarck' but not 'USN Missouri'? I've never heard this before. "KM" stands for KriegsMarine and "USS" (not USN) stands for United States Ship. Equivalent to HMS = Her Majestys Ship.
Well, it is not KM Bismarck, during WWI it was SMS = Seiner Majestät's Schiff, same as HMS, but in german. KM is just the abbreviation for Kriegsmarine = War Navy. During the period of the Third Reich it was just the name of the ship.
  • The Scharnhorst was not alone and heavily damaged. The Bismarck's story are IMHO better parting words to the battleship era: First it blew away one of the largest battlewhatever in the region, then it was sunk essentially by carrier based torpedos.
Bismarck was damaged by a battleship (PoW), then hit by planes, then disabled by two battleships (KGV and Rodney), then hit by torpedoes from a cruiser, and then (apparently) scuttled. Don't think that proves anything tbh.
  • Could you write down what makes a battleship, a battlecruiser etc.? Not here, but it's related.
Usually battlecruiser sacrafice amour to increase their speed. The drawback to battlecruiser is they they lose endurence by sacraficing amour. Battleships, on the other hand, sacrafice speed for amour, which make them slower but also signifigantly increases thier endurence.

--Yooden

Endurance is a bad word to use in this context - I think you mean endurance in terms of how long the ship could last in a battle, but the term is usually applied to the the length of time a ship can spend at sea before needing to refuel (perhaps also the types of ocean it is suited to). Wiki-Ed 12:25, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Back to Midway: The Japanese bombing of [Pearl Harbor]? sank or damaged most of the U.S. Pacific Fleet's battleships, but the aircraft carriers were not in port and so escaped damage. Six months later, it was those carriers that were to turn the tide of the Pacific War at the [Battle of Midway]?. -- So a surprise attack by six first-line aircraft carriers could not even damage the crafts use to strike back half a year later.

There were no carriers to hit. By sheer luck all four of the pacific carrier -Yorktown, enterprise, Hornet, and Lexington -were out at sea. For this reason the japanese raid against pearl habour could be greatest example of a succsessfull failure in world history: Succsessfull because they destoyed so many of the battleships, and a failure because US aircraft carriers ultimatly destroyed the japanese flattops at midway. TomStar81 05:05, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Again: Midway is in no way related to battleships. Peral may be, since it would have been impossible to do witth battleships --Yooden

I disagree, midway was in every way related to battleships. Up until midway the US was still building battleships and the aircraft carrier was a second rate ship. It was not until the battleships were absent that the USN learned to fight off the carriers, and when they did the battleships that were incompleted were cancelled and/or scrapped in favor of the aircraft carrier. MIdway was the deathnail in the battleships life; as such it proved that airpower was indeed superior to naval power. TomStar81 05:05, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • The various "official" sites for US vessels label them as USS, so I *did* use USS Missouri to refer to the Missouri. I didn't use the titles in front of battleship class names, however.
  • the battleship/battlecruiser line is a bit fuzzy, so I used whatever labelling that nationality used for its vessels. hmshood.com refers to the Hood as a battlecruiser, and says it was the last battlecruiser the Royal Navy ever built.
  • I figured out to put Bismarck/Hood into the "flow" of the write-up, so now there's a link to battlecruiser too.
  • I'll see if I can figure out how to rewrite the Midway bit. It's not technically accurate, anyway, the Lexington escaped Pearl but was sunk in the Coral Sea before Midway. I think Midway is worth mentioning as such a pivotal battle where battleships were irrelevant, and was a sign of their rapidly diminishing utility.

--[Belltower]]

Can someone create a high level page to include the classification of seafaring vehicles, both military and civilian.

There is already one called Sea Transport. Only more links are missing there ( i think)

  • Name of ships: USS means 'United States Steamer/Ship', HMS means 'Her/His Majesty's Ship'. 'Kriegsmarine' is totally different and the precise equivalent of 'United States Navy' or 'Royal Navy'. I never saw it before as a designation of a ship and it is certainly not used in Germany as part of a ship's name. There is simply no equivalent of USS/HMS in German. The ships just bear their name, maybe their designation ('Panzerkreuzer Graf Spee').
  • Battleship/battlecruiser: I wouldn't know, I just think it's important, with all ambiguities it carries.
  • Midway might be important, it's just not clear why.
  • Again, is the Kirov a battleship? --Yooden
  • I would call the Kirov a heavy missile cruiser, although I've seen it labelled battle cruiser. Its armament is so different from the "traditional" battle cruiser (or battleship) that I don't think it should be considered part of the same class.
  • I've seem KM used as a prefix in multiple places, but I've found one website that says that the Germans never used it. (SMS was used for their WWI ships.) So I concur with the KM removal, and will simply mention them as being German if such clarification seems needed. --Belltower
  • SMS was used for their WWI ships. -- That's 'Seiner Majestät Schiff', 'His Majesty's Ship'.

This article ignores all history of battleships before ironclads and even claims before iron they werent battleships, that is definitley not true. The history of wooden battleships needs to be added Iammaxus

You can edit that page right now: http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Battleship&action=edit
lol, i dont know enough about wooden battleships, im just saying it needs to be done
Prior to ironclads the largest vessels in a navy were called "Ships of the line", not battleships. Wiki-Ed 12:25, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Kirov: The Russian Navy classifies it as a missile cruiser (raketnyy kreyser, which I'm not going to try to write in Cyrillic). It's often referred to as a battlecruiser, but that's a misnomer according to the sci.military.naval FAQ.

Battleship/Battlecruiser: Generally speaking, battlecruisers had similar (or maybe slightly lighter) armament to battleships, and had lighter armor, which allowed greater speed. (per s.m.n FAQ) I've always heard Hood referred to as a battlecruiser.

Kamikaze: The Wikipedia entry for Yamato gives a much better desciption of what this is probably referring to: Yamato's last mission was to beach itself at Okinawa to defend the island until destroyed. I think the reference to Musashi in this context is incorrect; Musashi was sunk at Leyte Gulf.

Ortonmc 18:36, 9 Sep 2003 (EDT)


The difference between the two is slightly more significant than an issue of armor. The BB is designed for hitting power and protection. The American philosophy was to design a ship that was adequately protected against guns of it own size. The same did not hold true for the British designs. Generally speaking a battleship was designed to engage other battleships.

The BC was designed to act as the scouts of the battle group. To this end it was heavily armed and designed specifically for speed. This design requirement necessitated much thinner armor and in most cases, extremely long hulls to accommodate the extra boilers. This caused the extant armor to be “stretched” even thinner. They were drawn up under the assumption that “speed is armor,” championed by First Sea Lord Fisher. The BC was designed to engage cruisers, destroyers and torpedo boats; able to outfight anything it could not outrun. When they were sued to engage BB they faired extremely poorly.

Perhaps a new article should be written on the revision of tactics made possible by steam power and the new ship classes that came about.

As for the KM/IJN, these are purely anachronistic, neither the German nor Japanese navies used prefixes during World War II. --Johnrox 05:06, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] DKM and pocket Battleships

First, I would like to state that many of the books I have read on the German Navy (and not sites) use the designation DKM (Deutschen KriegsMarine-the caps on the M would NOT be there if written out normally), and no, to my knowledge there is not an equivalent to HMS or USS in German.

Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were classified as cruisers for the purposes of the Washington Treaty, and their displacements were altered. Even Bismarck was listed (again for treaty purposes) at 35,000 tons--a figure we all know today isn't true. Using Royal Naval terms and definitions of the time, The brits continued to class them as Battle Cruisers. One RAF scout pilot was actually reprimanded for calling the two as "Battleships" on his initial report of them being in the English Channel (actually right in the Straights of Dover!). This report can be found in a book called "Fiasco," but as of this writing, I don't have the author's name handy or the ISBN.

The real problem is that by some standards, they are battleships and by other standards they are not. Clearly if the proposed refits had been done--upgrading their 28cm rifles to 38cm--both would be classed as Battleships without any doubt.

Most of the German records class both of these as Schlachtschiff, or Battleships. The excellent book "The German Navy at War, 1935-1945, Volume 1: The Battleships," Siegfried Breyer and Gerhard Koop (Schiffer Publishing ISBN 0-88740-220-8) lists them as battleships. It also states both Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were terrible sea boats. Given some of the underway photo's I've seen, I can certainly see why! This same book lists Bismarck and Tirpitz as excellent sea boats--a claim more than backed up by the survivors of both.

I think the true confusion comes from the prewar hype to make the ships look smaller and Brittish stubborness. And before anyone says anything, I'm half Welsh!

Out of a kind of desperation caused not only by the treaty of Washington, but other pressures as well, the concept of a "Pocket Battleship" was born. The concept was, simply put, to be able to out gun anything she could not out run and out run anything she could not out gun. None of the three (Deutschland (later Lutzow), Graf Spee, and Scherer) could legally (under treaty) be called a battleship. Face it, at that point, the German economy could not afford to build anything heavier even if they had been allowed. Nor were their shipyards ready to build such. Another point is (if memory serves me correctly) the term "Pocket Battleship" was one coined by the press, and not an actual naval designation. The actual German designation was "Panzerschiff."

The only two German ships to survive WWII were the cruiser Prinz Eugen and destroyer Nurnburg. The former went for a short while as the USS Prinz Eugen before landing upside down on Enubuj reef at Kwajalein Atoll. I have a photo sent to me by a few airforce people who were stationed near there of her stern sticking out of the water. Memory serves me correctly, the latter went to the Soviet Union.

As for Kirov? Pyotr Velikiy (Peter the Great) is the last real operational Kirov and at 826 feet in length is certainly long enough. Yet I would tend to question her 24,000 ton displacement, not to mention the right hit on her bow would light her up like an overgrown roman candle! The Kirov class ships are classed by their builders as cruisers and were designed for one job: Sinking American Carriers! From an engineering stand point, her nuclear with oil fired boiler super heaters make her one of the most difficult ships ever built to maintain! There is some bets even being placed that within the next two to four years Pyotr Velikiy will follow the battleship into extinction. A pity, since she is such a great looking ship.

Robyn

That image hurts my eyes. I keep waiting for the ship to fall off. Can we rotate it 90 degrees so the ship is vertical? DJ Clayworth 14:51, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Heh-heh - if you look closely at the water, you see that it's already the angle closest to upright. But we have at least hundred other pictures to choose from, the overhead seems better as a middle-of-the-article image. Stan 17:41, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Last capital ship engagement?

The article says:

The last capital ship engagement was the Battle of North Cape, on 26 December 1943, in which the battleship Duke of York and destroyers sank the light battleship Scharnhorst off Norway

Why doesn't the Battle of Surigao Strait on October 25, 1944 count as an engagement of capital ships? If I understand the battle correctly, the Japanese battleship Fuso was engaged with the battleships West Virginia, Tennessee and California of the US 7th fleet. Gdr 18:29, 2004 Aug 5 (UTC)

I was wondering, wouldn't it be better to list classes of ships together, rather than do each ship individually? you'd have class specifications and a listing of ships with launch dates, then short text sections for the career of individual ships. Most classes aren't that large, and most ships wouldn't have particularly noteworthy careers anyway. This would reduce a lot of repetition. Gneisenau and Scharnhorst for instance, spent virtually their whole careers together, yet they have the information repeated on each of their pages. A lot of ships in the same class often were used together. This would allow readers to compare similar ships more easily and reduce the number of pages. reference books on ships do it this way, because it makes it much easier to know where a particular ship fits in amongst the other ships in a navy.

Battles mentioned in the text sections would go to separate pages.

Admirals, designers etc would go to separate pages.

I notice that there is a lot of linking to words which really aren't that relevant to an entry. Do we really need a link to every noun in every sentence? if Hipper is mentioned as a heavy cruiser which operated in the North Atlantic Ocean, link to "heavy cruiser" but not "North Atlantic" or "Ocean" because a) they're so well-known and/or generic and b) these links won't have any mention of Hippers actions.

also, what is the accepted format for dates here? 21 May 2000 or May 21, 2000? I prefer the former because it's DDMMYYYY and also is slightly shorter.

SpookyMulder 09:40, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The agreement at Wikipedia:WikiProject Ships worked out last year was to have articles for individual ships, irrespective of obscurity. This is to make linking work right - for instance Gneisenau and Scharnhorst have different namesakes, and it's bizarre to link to the same article from two different biographies. Also, individual articles have room for additional info that you or I might not know to add, but that somebody else has a great deal of. Printed reference works have a more mundane reason to be brief; if they're too long, they get expensive and people don't buy enough of them to make a profit. Fortunately we don't have that kind of artificial money-driven limitation. The brief summary you're looking is neatly handled by the class articles as seen in Category:Ship classes (which are of varying quality, ahem).
When thinking about what to link, consider a high school student in Botswana who clicks on "random page". She will know English (by definition), but likely not many of the terms we throw around. So "ocean" probably doesn't need to be linked in naval articles, but Atlantic Ocean includes the definition of the bounds, which is frequently relevant to operations. BTW, this issue is frequently debated; in practice if you start delinking, somebody else will add them back, so the wiki process tends to stabilize around a rough consensus that is more link-y than you might prefer.
Dates are also a subject of frequent debate. The tip of the iceberg is at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers). My practice has been to use 21 May 2000 for US military and all non-US topics; US civilian is about the only general area where there is a decided preference for May 21, 2000. Stan 16:08, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Make only links relevant to the context for guidelines about links. The Atlantic Ocean is certainly relevant to the context of the Hipper's operatons. Having separate articles on wars, battles, ships, ship types, and people provide diffent ways to slice the same information. All are valuable. Not all ships will be worthy of an article, but many will: see for example HMS Victory, HMS Bellerophon (1786), HMS Revenge (1577), HMS Royal Charles (1655). Gdr 17:11, 2004 Aug 8 (UTC)

Thanks... two more things, some ships are linked to under different formats, for instance a link might be "German battleship Bismarck" or "Bismarck battleship". Which is preferred? It should be consistent and I've noticed it's not. By the time it's noticed, though, there's likely a page linked to by it, so...I'm not sure how to rename pages. I'll have to look that up. the link itself neednt be very descriptive... it just needs to point to the correct page. all you have to do is get them consistent and also deal with multiple ships called the same thing. How about something like "German Bismarck class" or, if there are 2 classes by that name, "German Bismarck1 class" etc.? for individual ships you'd have "Country shipname (date launched)". If 2 ships of the same name happen to be launched the same year, add "a" "b" etc. after the date. Type of ship is irrelevent because no one sees the link text anyway, just the alt text which can fit in with the article. SpookyMulder 11:05, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:WikiProject Ships and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (ships) for naming conventions. The basic advice is to name the article with an appropriate prefix and suffix. The exact prefix and suffix depends on what type of ship and which country it belongs to. Examples include:
USS Enterprise (CVN-65)
HMS Royal Charles (1655)
French ship Ville de Paris
But when referring to ship from another article, generally you just give the name in italics, for example
The [[HMS Royal Charles (1655)|''Royal Charles'']] was captured by the Dutch in the [[Raid on the Medway]]...
The Royal Charles was captured by the Dutch in the Raid on the Medway...
The article about the Bismarck, apparently the only ship of that name, is thus at DKM Bismarck. I agree that the ship type in the article title is generally not seen, but it doesn't hurt to be correct, so French frigate Justice would be a better article name than "French ship Justice", should an article on that vessel prove worthwhile. Gdr 22:28, 2004 Aug 9 (UTC)
BTW, the "DKM" is almost certainly wrong. User:GeneralPatton made the move IIRC, and seems not to have responded to my skeptical query about it, so will have to move back at some point. Stan 22:45, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

OK. Countries didn't always use the same DKM/HMS prefix to their ship names. In some of the ship type lists, the prefixes are used even when historically they weren't. Can we avoid doing this? :)

SpookyMulder 11:20, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

A navy will use prefixes retroactively, and in the case of USS and HMS, it prevents what would be absolute chaos in article nomenclature, because you'd have to rename some and not others, most likely with very slim evidence. But in any case, you're proposing a major policy change, so Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ships is the right place to continue the discussion, where others will see and can weigh in. Stan 14:07, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

the pages http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tirpitz http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_battleship_Tirpitz http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DKM_Tirpitz all seem to exist.? SpookyMulder 13:28, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

All redirecting to the one article tho, from the looks of it. Stan 13:57, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)
should they be deleted?SpookyMulder 10:41, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)
No, because they're handy for catching links from elsewhere, including future articles. Every day I find new articles that are duplicates, because some other article had a red link to an alternate form of a name, and it could have been prevented with a redirect. We don't go so far as to make redirs for every possible misspelling, but it's worthwhile for perennial mistakes like Ronald Regan. Stan 16:58, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] "Ship of the line" vs "battleship"

I succumbed to curiosity, and looked up "battleship" in the OED, and its first reference is from a poem of 1794, ship of the line being the prevailing term that it eventually displaced. Given that this article is getting lengthy, I would suggest pushing all the sailing-era stuff to the other place, giving just a brief summary here. It also has the advantage that this article can stay focused on the content that most people will expect to see when they link here from random places. Stan 18:20, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Out of interest, what would someone reading up naval history expect from a page on battleships? Can we say? Dreadnought-battleships? Or (pre-dreadnought) battleships? Or ships of the line? The common characteristic is the fact that each wielded the biggest calibre guns of their respective time period and formed the principle elements of the fleet. I think that's probably what most people would expect to find and that is what this article should cover. Wiki-Ed 16:48, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I'm fairly well-read on naval history, both in German and English. My impression is the following: For sailing ships from 1700 or so on (once the ship types had stabilized, e.g. with British 6-rate system), the term "Ship of the Line" is used nearly exclusively. For dreadnoughts and beyond, the term "Battle Ship" is used nearly exclusively. Big-gun ships between ca. the Warrior and the Dreadnought are called "battle ships" if they are are contrasted with older ships, and "ships of the line" if they are contrasted with dreadnoughts. I have occasionally seen the term "Battle Ship" used on a trireme, but rarely by a serious, informed author.
I would expect information on powered, turreted, sea-going big-gun ships under "Battle Ship", with maybe a short paragraph on older development. Hence I would move the information on other ship types (especially sailing ships of the line) elsewhere.--Stephan Schulz 13:06, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I think the article is about finished, really. It shouldn't be too detailed. It's OK for articles to be more than a screen or 2 long! I know they were called ships of the line, or liners, at the time, but they're "battleships" according to how we now use the term.

SpookyMulder 13:06, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Who put the "cleanup" tag on this article? I might agree with you to some extent, but please explain why and what you think needs doing. Wiki-Ed 16:17, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Could someone ID that "sail battleship of around 1845"?

The name is written on her stern, but it's too fuzzy to make out (Mmartins 12:19, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC))

Of course, it's Victory in Portsmouth harbor...
Victory in 1884
Victory in 1900
I'll change the main text as appropriate (Mmartins 06:55, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC))

[edit] Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian, Danish and other Coast Defense ships often refered to incorrectly as battleships?

The article states: "Sweden had several coastal battleships which survived until the 1970s." As far as I am aware, Sweden's largest iron ships were destroyers (sv: jagare). --Ahruman 23:51, May 26, 2005 (UTC)

This is probably another case of someone equating "battleship" with "warship." I highly doubt that Sweden ever had true battleships in the latter half of the 20th century, and unless this can be verified, I recommend that this reference be removed immediately. --Cavgunner 11:36, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

well, they were "coastal battleships" like many nations in that part of the world built. im not sure what else you'd call them. they're too slow to be cruisers, too big to be monitors (sverige class), and they were intended for big-gun defence, rather than cruiser operations. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by SpookyMulder (talk • contribs) 22:00, 11 September, 2005 (UTC).

They are coastal defence ships. Even "coastal battleship" is wrong and propably someone has equated "battleship" with "warship" like Cavgunner suggested. Creating lists like List of Swedish dreadnought battleships and List of Swedish steam battleships is wrong. List of Royal Norwegian Navy ships#Battleships is also wrong. Because of Wikipedia:Naming conventions (ships) articles like Sverige class battleship exist and are listed at Category:Battleship classes. I can't change this without being called a Swede-hater (I'm Finnish so no one would believe I could maintain npov on this). Please note that Ilmarinen (ship) makes no mention of this fictional "coastal battleship"-class. --Laisak 15:53, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
I'll toss my oar into the water - the proper term for the Swedish ships is Pansarskepp, and there is a page for this. The proper term for the Finnish ships is Panssarilaiva, and this is mentioned on the Ilmarinen page (I added it 10 minutes ago). These ships (and the equivalent Danish and Norwegian ships) were not Battleships, Battlecruisers, Cruisers, Monitors, Destroyers, or anything else, they were a specific ship type designed for a specific role (close in defense of a shore line in areas where shallow draft was a necessity). The ships outgunned anything which had a shallower draft than they did, and also had better armour. Anything with bigger guns they would avoid (or ambush from behind an island), anything with smaller guns they would tear apart. Speed was not an issue - they weren't designed to chase a departing enemy. This type of ship was extremely effective - the Germans didn't try to invade Sweden, and only managed to successfully invade Norway with the help of a fifth column. Denmark was a special case - they shared a land border with Germany. The Finnish ships forced the Soviet navy to operate cautiously, and secured Finland's post war independence. Coast Defense Battleship is the accepted English term for these ships, even if they are not Battleships, just as Pocket Battleship is the accepted term for the German Panzerschiffe. In both cases the term is inaccurate - according to Google Translate Panzerschiffe means "Tank Ship", and Babel Fish says the same thing. The Swedish and German languages are closely related, and considering the simularity of the words I suspect that the Swedish means the same (but neither translater handles Swedish). And I couldn't find anything that would handle Finnish either. UrbanTerrorist 05:18, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
Unfortunately a direct translation is not suitable (armoured ship), and it would be somewhat less useful to have an article per ship type name for all the languages (de:Küstenpanzerschiff/panzerschiff etc.). As such it would not be possible to have an article such as for the military rank Rittmeister. I'd say that one article (be it somewhat awkwardly named) dealing with the concept in general would be more useful. Scoo 09:50, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
I've got that on my list - an article on the Coast Defense Ship. However I am not sure that the Pansarskepp and Panssarilaiva pages should be combined with it, though I think it should link to them. There were enough differences in the ship requirements from one country to another that I'd prefer to have seperate articles covering the details. UrbanTerrorist 14:46, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
The overwhelming effectiveness of Cosat Defence Battleships was clearly demonstrated by the sinking of "Eidsvold" and "Norge" (Panserskiper in norwegian) of Narvik 9. April 1940. In other words: This type of ship was mostly obsolete in WW II. As for the Google translation, it is bilge. The german word "Panzer" translates, apart from "armoured", into "tank" in the sense of "armoured fighting vehicle". By the way, the Dutch called their coast defence battelships also "Pantserschepen", which literally means "armour-ship", just as the scandinavian and german terms. Argentinia called them "Acorazados-guardacostas" during WWII, which would mean "coast defence battleship" or "coast guard battleships" (since their battleships proper were called "Acorazados"). Conclusion: Verbatim translations won't help on the subject. --172.176.84.26 10:27, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] re Michigan & South Carolina

I know that the assertion that they were "first' goes way back, but I think that Norman Friedman in US Battleships An Illustrated Design History is pretty definitive that they were not

[edit] Kobukson

Shoudn't the table of countries also contain Korea with their Turtle ships? These had quite a significant role in Korea's history. Pavel Vozenilek 17:55, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

It's pretty obvious from the turtle ship-article that they're technically galleys and belong in that article particulary article.
Peter Isotalo 15:43, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Should John Ericsson get sole credit for inventing the revolving gun turret?

I believe there are two other people who are sometimes credited.

Theodore Ruggles Timby claimed to have received royalties from Ericsson and was involved in some sort of legal action:

http://www.tecsoc.org/pubs/history/2002/jul8.htm

More to the point, a Captain Cowper Phipps Coles is often credited with pioneering revolving turrets.

See here:

http://www.hmscaptain.co.uk/Characters/captaincoles.htm

http://www.civilwarhome.com/unionconfednavies.htm

A good picture of a model of a Coles turret can be seen here:

http://www.milhist.dk/weapons/rolf_krake/rolf_krake.htm


I am not happy about the suggestion that turrets were adopted because of the development of paddle-wheels. I can find no record of a paddle wheel powered line-of-battle ship. Surely turrets were developed, seperately by Ericsson in "Monitor" and Coles in "Captain", because of the tactical advantage these innovators perceived? Anthony.bradbury 12:21, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Removed table

I took out the following timeline-table-recap of the text. It might be of some use in a text, but I not for this article. Any thoughts?

I've put it on a separate page.

Do we really need paragraph 2 on this page though? It just summarised part of the next sections. SpookyMulder 14:25, 31 October 2005 (UTC)


Peter Isotalo 11:14, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] "This negated the advantage of small-calibre guns; heavier weapons were effectively as fast and packed a much greater punch."

I read that the Dreadnought formula requires at least six guns to provide two salvos of at least three guns each. (Three for statistical purposes, because taking the closest two rejects most miss-aimed shots.) That means that smaller guns could usefully fire at twice the rate, with all guns firing in each salvo. So range, accuracy and armor penetration must be the main reasons for very large guns. David R. Ingham 02:23, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

This is the very first time I hear that. Do you have a source? To my knowledge, Dreadnoughts typically fire full salvos with all (main) guns that can bear on the target. As for smaller guns: Even in you scenario, they have a different trajectory (i.e. they need to be aimed individually), and their splashes confuse the range finders. --Stephan Schulz 07:25, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
It was common practice to alternate the firing of guns in double turrets, so that all left-hand guns would fire and then all right-hand guns, and so on. This provided a quicker way of determining range to target. Once the range was established, full savoes would be fired. (British Battleships, Dr Oscar Parkes) Anthony.bradbury 13:14, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bismark

The statement that Bismark finally sank after being torpedoed from King George V is wrong, and I have corrected it; torpedoes were fired from the cruiser Dorsetshire. Whether they were ultimately the xause of the sinking, or whether the ship was scuttled, is disputed by the survivors. Anthony.bradbury 13:10, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

I changed the Bismarck to reflect that it was sunk...no references to torpedoes, scuttling, etc. The important thing that I concentrated on was to show a history of the decline of the battleship as a class, and how airpower was a deciding factor. In the Bismarck's case for this article, it had to be mentioned that a few obsolete British biplanes did the very crucial disabling of the ship during the ship's last few days of life, and that factor has to be the lead-in for the next section in which incidents of battleship losses by aircraft are described. Carajou 00:43, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] sixth rate

The third paragraph of this article mentions that sloops-of-war were sixth rates. This is incorrect and, moreover disagrees with the main article on the "Rating system of the Royal Navy"; thisd article has a table which *is* correct.

[edit] Super Dreadnought

"Their design placed emphasis on vertical protection which was needed in short range battles."

Reading this, isn't it the point that the Super Dreadnoughts /lacked/ vertical protection?--Kbk 14:43, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Financial strain

"This created a huge financial strain—by 1870, the British government was spending a staggering 37% of its annual national budget on the construction of new battleships."

It really would be staggering if this were true; but it isn't. According to DK Brown’s Warrior to Dreadnought: Warship Development 1860-1905 (Caxton Editions 2003. ISBN 1-84067-5292), page 10, UK expenditure on all new naval construction (not just capital ships) between 1870 and 1885 averaged £1.75 million per year; this compares to a GNP of £917 million in 1871, and works out, not as 37%, but as 0.19%. I have inserted the correct figure into the text.

John Moore 309 23:13, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Question: If the expenditure was only about 0.2% of the british budget, it was no strain at all - its hard to understand the finnacial problems the battleship arms race was supposed to have created. Could you clear up this point? thank you, Zkip 18:44, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
The article has recently been changed to reflect the point you make. Serious financial strain did not arise until the early 1900s, when there was a huge increase in naval expenditures, driven primarily by UK-German naval rivalry. According to Philip Pugh (The Cost of Seapower, Conway Maritime Press 1986; ISBN 0-85177-419-9), UK Naval expenditures, corrected for inflation, increased roughly fourfold between 1880 and 1914. John Moore 309 17:04, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
Thanks! Zkip 09:29, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
Erm. The GNP of a nation is different from the government budget. I have no figures to hand about what the British Government spent during that period but certainly far far less than £917M. The Land 20:32, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ship-of-the-line

I intend to merge the Age of Sail material into 'Ship of the Line', which is the more accurate term for the 'sail battleship'. If you have any objections please let me know. The Land 20:35, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

No-one's responded, and there is a bit of discussion halfway up the talk page from a while back which is broadly in agreement, so I've gone ahead. Also, I've got the first precursors fo the battleship as now being the Great ship - specifically military carracks, rather than the civilian or mixed-use cog. The Land 19:28, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Explosive-shell naval guns

..."could only be fired at high angles in elliptical trajectories". As far as I know, shells follow parabolic trajectories (if you ignore drag), and this ist regardlesse of high or flat trajectories.--172.176.84.26 10:27, 3 December 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Design experiments

"A series of German warships was built with dozens of small guns to repel smaller crafts, ...". If this refers to the "Kaiser Friedrich III"- and "Wittelbach"-class of the 1890, I think it is incorrect. The battery of 18 15 cm guns was intended to be effective against the unarmoured parts ("upperworks") of opposing battleships. --172.176.84.26 10:27, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A more global view please

This article is a little too much focused on British and American battleships. I agree that they need a big section of the article, but what about German, French, Italian, Japanese, Russian/Soviet battleships...not to forget the battlships of more peaceful states, like Brazil or Chile...they are hardly even mentioned there, but they too have made their contributions. --MoRsE 11:26, 3 December 2006 (UTC) Also, I would say that it is incorrect to talk about battleships until the mid 19th century, they were more ships of the line, not battleships. --MoRsE 11:29, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

What about them? If you know more about these ships and the contributions you say they made then you can add that information yourself. Wiki-Ed 10:18, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes, add the information yourself, or find users who can. I've been thinking the same thing and looking elsewhere on Wikipedia, and there are plenty of editors from all over the world, especially Mediterranean Basin countries, who routinely update military shipping articles on Wikipedia. You could try contacting them to get them to add information in this general article, also. I had wanted to, but didn't realize how large it could make this article, and how little I know about foreign battleships. Good comment, MoRsE. KP Botany 20:16, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
I think I could write something about Russian and German battleships, but I would need help with the others. MoRsE 23:05, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
I did ask another editor who has agreed to look at the article and add information about Turkish battleships and probably other nations. I guess I could look at Polish Wikipedia and see what's there, as they have the big shipyards, there might be lots of info on former Soviet block battleships. KP Botany 17:58, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Just a minor remark on the date 1830s in

Ships generally had two or three decks and fifty to eighty guns. Over time, designs for the line of battle became relatively standardised around a 74-gun design originated by the French in the 1830s.

where the page on 74-gun says: The Royal Navy captured a number of the early French 74-gun ships during the War of the Austrian Succession (for example, Invincible, captured at the first battle of Cape Finisterre in 1747) Zadkin 21:43, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Big Changes Needed

This article is supposed to be a history on battleships, and as such some changes are needed:

  • There is a difference between the terms line of battle ship and battleship. Both were created about 1794, with battleship a shortened version of the former, but I want to know, and the reader wants to know as well, just when the word battleship was applied to a vessel. Was it a sailing vessel, or a heavily-armoured warship with the largest caliber of guns? HMS Warrior was never called a battleship by the Royal Navy (it's a frigate); likewise HMS Victory was never called a battleship either (RN still calls it a ship-of-the-line). I believe that this article should not use the word battleship to describe those vessels made before the 1880's.
  • Vitorio Cuniberti's contribution to the creation of the all-big gun battleship was not mentioned in the article.
  • The article says Jackie Fisher "took the lead" in creating Dreadnought; it does not say who he was or why he did it, which are very important in the history of the ship.
  • There's too much history related to these ships being in battle, making the article needlessly long. It should be reduced to only those events that had an impact on the ship itself, and I recommend the following:
Battle of Tsushima (influenced design, armor, gun size, and ability to choose range of battle)
Jutland (first and last real engagement between battleships)
Taranto (proof in battle that battleships are vulnerable to air attack)
Pearl Harbor, and sinking of HMS Prince of Wales (demonstration that the carrier replaced the battleship as the leading warship)
  • The decline of the battleship in relation to the carrier is hardly touched on.
  • Billy Mitchell's bombing experiments and the reasons behind them need better inclusion.
  • The complaint that this article seems to be "all-American/British" as far as ships go can be corrected. US, British, Italian, German, etc can have separate articles dealing with the histories of battleships within their countries.

Carajou 13:52, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi there. Feel free to add more material, either in this article or by adding wikilinks to other articles (This one is already very long: for instance, anything you want to add about Jackie Fisher should probably go in the article about him rather than here). I think it's a good idea to trace the development of the battleship through the 1800s even though they're not 'really' battleships: alternatively one could ct the relevent material and merge it to ironclad. Yours, The Land 19:40, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
On Jackie Fisher, it would not be appropriate for something resembling his life story here, but only that material which is relevant to the history of the battleship and what Fisher's actions were to that end. For example, Fisher badgered, cajoled, screamed, ridiculed everyone in the Royal Navy as well as members of Parliment for keeping obsolete ships on active duty when the potential for a modern battleship could be in the hands of an enemy; he got his way and transformed the Royal Navy, and part of that transformation was Dreadnought. The other material, such as ship-of-the-line, and ironclads and others that are mentioned in the article should remain there, polished up of course, for the reason that they establish an ancestry as well as technical innovations that led to the modern battleship. But because of the name battleship evokes in the reader the picture at the top of the article, he or she is not going to really understand the term battleship as applied to a sailing vessel, which is why I would opt for a separation of names, and use those terms that were used by naval personnel who lived back then.
As to individual battles that these ships were in, the article just shouldn't list every single one; that belongs in separate articles. The key ones mentioned above had an impact on the ship itself, as in how it could be used, what its weaknesses were, and what was the cause for its decline. It's possible for a tag of links at the bottom of the article listing each battle. Carajou 01:28, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
Okay, to take it to the next level, we would need to include more sources. MoRsE 07:50, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Page is redone

Ok, the page is finished; minor tweaking can be done, and other pertinent info added as needed. What the page really needed was a restructuring, which was done without removing much of the material already present, and hopefully I kept it in line with what I said in the above "Big Changes Needed" section. I didn't touch "WWII", simply for the fact that maybe it was good enough as it was. Hopefully it passes muster! Carajou 22:45, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Ok, so I did touch the WWII section; admitedly, it was too ponderous! A brief battleship history was all that was needed. So, now it's done, and the occasional tweaking can commence. Carajou 06:44, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
Good work all, the page has improved significantly the last few days! MoRsE 07:46, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
Thank you! In addition to battleship the same thing regarding the structure and layout of the page could be done on various other articles dealing with both classes and indivdual ships. Perhaps a standardized layout of lead paragraph-planning-construction-history-fate-conclusion could be followed. I also suggested, at least for the battleship page, a tag (or tags) at the bottom listing individual battles these vessels were in. It could be expanded to included separate tags for individual ships by type, i.e. great ships;ships-of-the-line;ironclads, etc., which would help the reader know which was with what class easily, and go to that particular page. I just don't have the knowledge to create such a tag...yet! Carajou 21:29, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] PEER REVIEW

Ok, what is needed now is to get this article out of the B-category and accepted as a Featured Article. Go over it with a fine-tooth keyboard and ensure the quality and accuracy is up. It can be done! Carajou 23:02, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Okay, here is my go:

  • The language is good, I just made a few small corrections.
  • Inline quotations would be needed in order to obtain GA-status.

The work that I did made me curious. I did an unscientific and quick research where I tried to figure out what exactly the dangers were to battleships during WWI and WWII? I came to the following conclusions (and I am probably missing some ships here too...and yes, I also included battle cruisers here):

Submarines: HMS Barham, HMS Royal Oak, Kongō, HMS Formidable, HMS Triumph, HMS Majestic, Barbaros Hayreddin, Mesudiye, Suffren, Gaulois, HMS Cornwallis, Danton, HMS Britannia

Torpedo boats: HMS Goliath, Wien, Szent Istvan, Petropavlovsk

Frogmen: Viribus Unitis, HMS Valiant, HMS Queen Elizabeth

Aircraft: Littorio, Tirpitz, Marat, Admiral Scheer, Schleswig-Holstein, USS California, USS Oklahoma, USS Utah, USS Arizona, Yamato, Musashi, Hyūga, Ise, Hiei, Bretagne, HMS Repulse, HMS Prince of Wales

Mines: HMS Audacious, HMS Ocean, HMS Irresistable, Bouvet, HMS King Edward VII, HMS Russell, Regine Margherita, Peresviet

Ship vs. ship: HMS Indefatigable, HMS Queen Mary, HMS Invincible, Pommern, Lützow, Slava, Bismarck, Scharnhorst, HMS Hood, Yamashiro, Kirishima, Haruna
--MoRsE 01:46, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

The stand-off weapons and kamikazes could be included as examples of what was tried against battleships, possibly highlighting its strengths. There is a picture of USS Missouri being hit by a kamikaze, which didn't do much damage. There was also a quotation by a battleship C.O. in the 1980's in which he stated that if a cruise missile hit, it would "take out some paint" or leave a little dent (I forgot which C.O. it was and which ship). Perhaps a separate section within this article on anti-battleship weapons?

It's also possible for a separate section on the difference between battleships and battlecruisers. Jackie Fisher had envisioned the first battlecruisers, which were essentially scaled-down battleships (lacking needed armour), but not one of his battleships was sunk at Jutland; the sinkings were pretty much all battlecruisers. And HMS Hood was a battlecruiser, but a shell from the Bismarck went right through its deck (where armour was needed) and blew her up.

I have also did a little research on the Turbinia, the little ship that embarrassed the British Navy during the Naval Review of 1897. It was the boat that demonstrated the practicality of steam turbine engines, and Fisher took notice of it; Dreadnought had the first ones installed in a warship.

What do you think? Carajou 02:11, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I have tried to address some of these issues now in the article, I would be glad if you took time to check my additions. It is a little late here now and I think my language might suffer from that. :) MoRsE 03:16, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
I did have a look, and instead of a separate section as I suggested, it seems to fit right in as it is. I just did a minor edit by placing that paragraph up one (the one containing the Yamato at the end of it was written as a final paragraph)...and doing a couple of word corrections, which was probably the result of being up a little late as you said! Anyway, the whole of the article looks good, and the little things and corrections that could be added into it later will only make it better. Carajou 04:45, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm going to get round to adding some material about the threat from submarines and TBS in WWI. It's worth making the point that, no sooner were Dreadnoughts around, than they couldn't be let out unescorted for fear of torpedos... The Land 22:20, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
Oh, and, the first steam-turbine warship was the destroyer HMS Viper (1899). Small ships win again ;) The Land 20:33, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
Most of the questions have now been assessed and I believe that this article now would pass easily GA and A reviews. The only thing keeping it from doing that would be the "stable" critiria. But perhaps in one months time? --MoRsE 10:37, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Structure and Ironclads

Hi all. The page is still very long, even after I've ruthlessly removed all sail-related content.

What do people feel about moving the 1840s - 1870s material to Ironclad warship? I've tried to restructure a bit based on an idea of separating out the technological/shipbuilding side from the operations side. Anyway, what d'you reckon? The Land 22:23, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

My conception is that the "Battleship" era - in the form that we think of it today - began around the 1870s-1880s. As long as we would keep a short section about the ironclads - merely a reference would do -I'm fine with it. MoRsE 22:50, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
I'd suggest the meat of this article should be about long-range unmasted turret-ships, e.g. broadly HMS Devastation onwards. And pre-dreadnought might as well redirect to here as well ;). The Land 22:58, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
Pre-Dreadnought is such an established term, at least it would need to be included and explained in length if we take it in here as a separate paragraph. MoRsE 23:22, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
As I've said above, ironclads should apply only as far as ancestry goes regarding battleships, so if editing is warranted, go for it. Carajou 00:44, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I've gone ahead - in consequence the top of the article is a bit rough, will return to polish later. I'll need to return to ironclad warship as well. The Land 19:29, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I am afraid putting early steam battleships such as Le Napoléon (1850) in the Ironclad article doesn't make any sense. This should be returned to the Battleship article. PHG 19:46, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

It would only work if Le Napoleon was plated in iron. Carajou 21:13, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
And it was clearly not plated in iron. It was "only" the first steam battleship. PHG 21:16, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
I'd describe it as an intermediate type between a ship-of-the-line and an ironclad, it could be covered in either of those two articles. I'm not seeking to insist on a particular definition of 'battleship', but I am keen to a) reduce this article size and b) present information in a logical order based on technological development and tactical usage, rather than relying on semantics. The Land 10:06, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
In this case it is very clear that Le Napoleon is the first ship-of-the-line powered by an engine using a screw propeller. That qualifies it as a direct ancestor of the battleship and justifies its presence in this article. The mode of propulsion would also justify its presence in ironclad. As to the iron, I'd think it'd be better to head to a library and get hold of a more-substantial history of the ship. I personally don't know, but if the French experimented by placing several or more iron plates on it, then it would qualify as an ancestor of the ironclad as well. Carajou 18:04, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
If 'ironclad' meant 'ship with bits of iron on' I would agree with you. The best definition of ironclad I can find is "metal-armoured, steam-powered, shell-firing warship from before Dreadnought". Some ironclads were referred to as 'battleships', others as 'armoured frigates', armoured corvettes, etc. Napoleon was a battleship, yes, but equally much a precursor of an ironclad. I think there is a consensus that this article should mainly be about Pre-Dreadnoughts and after, and that the ship-of-the-line and ironclad types should mainly be dealt with in other articles. The Land 18:42, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
I do not know of any Ironclad that had the Battleships status actually (iron was too heavy for the battleship specifications in size and armament). Napoleon was no precursor of ironclads, just of modern battleships, as it was the first implementation of steam power. In Battleship, you need a segment on origins (as for Aircraft carrier), and it is necessary to show how the caracteristics of modern battleships were gradually introduced (steam, amour (but not iron armour), and explosive gun shell). I am afraid this article was much better organized and informative before all the cutting and deletion of content, as in here. PHG 19:50, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
I don't think it's possible to say that ironclads are a separate subject from the development of battleships.
Taking your point about steel: One the one hand, some battleships used iron. HMS Devastation (1871) is often regarded as the first battleship and is prior to the use of steel. HMS Inflexible (1876) is equally a battleship and is of mixed wood/iron construction. On the other the definition of ironclad by R.D. Hill, as I've used in ironclad warship because no better definition has been supplied, makes it clear that steel construction does not on its own preclude a ship from being an ironclad.
Equally, I don't see how one can argue that La Gloire or Solferino or Monitor - all indisputably ironclads - are not germane to the history of the battleship. All the key elements of the battleship that you describe were introduced in the evolution of the ironclad. Why not discuss them there?
When an article becomes long it is Wikipedia policy to split sections of it off to more specific articles. This is what I am attempting to do. Battleships have much longer origins than do aircraft carriers - you can trace BBs' ancestry to the 1400s and CVs' only to 1906. We do not need this article to have a detailed history of every development in the ship-of-the-line or the ironclad, only a summary. REgards, The Land 20:40, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
Since I am seeing a "remove-add-remove-add-remove" thing regarding ironclads and those sub-sections near it, here's my take on the subject...
The ironclad is not a battleship.
the armored cruiser USS Pittsburgh is not an aircraft carrier.
The ironclad USS Monitor had the the first gun turret of any kind, and was the first to use one in battle. The Pittsburgh had a flight deck installed to test the feasability of aircraft operating off a ship. What happened on the Monitor was adopted by battleships, qualifying it for inclusion in this article, just as what happened with Pittsburgh qualifies it as an ancestor of the aircraft carrier. Carajou 22:45, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
And yes, I agree to the brief-summary thing on the subject; the Monitor may have had a turret, but that's all that's needed for this article. Who needs to know that it had the first flush toilet, or a patented fluke anchor, or it could have sank the Virginia if only the damn captain fully charged his cann...er, guns, or if Ericsson could have made the thing better able to handle rough seas...the list goes on! Carajou 22:52, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm happy with the structure as it currently is after Carajou's revisions - I think it gives enough scope to include the relevant material. The Land 09:52, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Guns vs Cannons

Going to have to insist on a correction to reflect naval terminology...

On a warship, there is no such thing as cannons. Never was, never will be. Sailing ships back then up until today always have guns; take them off the ship, mount them on a carriage, and sell them to the army, and THEN you can call them cannons! So, in the corrected ships-of-the-line entry, there has to be a change of terminology. And since I am a professional sailor with 20 years worth of Navy under my crackerjacks, you're going to have to trust me on this! Carajou 00:52, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, especially for the time in question. --Stephan Schulz 10:56, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pre-dreadnoughts

I have just changed the section on pre-dreadnoughts to make it more accurate (main source used: Jane's Fighting Ships, 1905-06). It seems to me we're going into a lot of detail on the pre-dreadnoughts, while the actual pre-dreadnought article is rather dry. Perhaps we should move more of the descriptive material there. Dht 22:12, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Had to change it back. The reasons are two: 1) you can't confuse the reader with paragraphs that state secondary batteries were typically 6-inches in one paragraph, followed by "typically 7-inch (178 mm) to 5-inch" in the next. You also cannot change the use of the smaller guns from "reserved for smaller threats, such as cruisers and the new destroyers" to "the secondaries were intended to do widespread damage on the unarmored parts of enemy battleships." I've seen 5-inch guns fire at targets before, I've seen the damage they can do to unarmored targets, and no captain in his right mind would ever take such a gun and use it on an armored target, much less a battleship that can fire a bigger gun back at him. It just doesn't work, and it makes no sense to state in this article that it does.
And 2), even if such was fact, it has to be arranged in this article with respect to sentence structure, grammar, flow of thought, etc. We need, and by WE I mean ALL OF US, need to ensure that this article, and any other article on this site, is done to the best of our ability. It does not mean you were bad, or your material is just plain rejected outright; it means I want this to be a featured article. Carajou 01:33, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

If possible, use the actual written words from Jane's...I think it would make the article more interesting and authoritative. Carajou 02:06, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Changed it again, by providing sample armaments, correcting the rather odd names given to second-class ships to those of contemporary English usage, and making some changes to gun usage (as well as correcting a couple of grammatical errors).

As far as the use of smaller guns against battleships goes, in my reading it seems that all guns were fired at battleships as the opportunity came up. Certainly US destroyers fired five-inch guns at Japanese battleships when they met in World War II. Moreover, the six-inch guns were on the battleships, and would be fired at enemy battleships. I'll look for more concise references on that. What I've found so far is convincing but indirect. (Jane's is a reference work, and rarely discusses the basics of naval warfare.)

Any reference to destroyers as a threat needs to include torpedo boats, for this time period. Torpedo boats were the primary threat, destroyers evolving through much of this period. Dht 00:51, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that looks good to me. The Land 09:14, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Lead Paragraph Problem

We all need to get something straight: the lead paragraph introduces the article to the reader, and as such it cannot be written redundant; it cannot be written with information that is further down the page; it cannot have info written into it two or more times; and it cannot be written in such a way that the writer is trying to get dramatic.

Modern battleships developed from the 19th-century ironclad warship, and the common image of the battleship derives from the design of the revolutionary HMS Dreadnought.
Battleships were the most powerful vessels afloat from their inception until the development of effective aircraft carriers during World War II. In spite of their great firepower and protection, battleships were always vulnerable to much smaller, cheaper craft: firstly the torpedo and the mine, and later the aircraft and the guided missile. actually modern battleships after around 1910 weren't very vulnerable to torpedoes. Mines maybe. No modern BS was sunk in WW1 from enemy torpedoes

What is the point of changing the lead paragraph to what is written above? The words "most powerful vessels" are there twice now; "battleships were always vulnerable..." to those weapons systems which are listed far below in the article, and "always vulnerable" just smacks of the writing style of World Book; just what exactly is "firstly"?; Battleships were replaced by aircraft carriers, but there just had to be a line following that battleships were vulnerable to aircraft when it was already implied; battleships were never victims of cruise missiles; and just what was implied with the hidden line (in boldface) that I found at the end of the paragraph? Mines maybe?

We also need to get something else straight. You want articles for Wikipedia not just to be well-written, but to get the featured article status. THERE IS NO ROOM FOR STUPID. We get a lot of stupid garbage from the vandals who insist in clowning around with what we write; there is no excuse at all for any of us to write the same way.

This also includes people's insistance on leaving huge white areas when they just got to have colorful Dreadnought pics when they know better. Fix it. Carajou 14:02, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I am mad. I could not care less about getting the credit for whatever article there is; I couldn't care less about a page full of barnstars; BUT I INSIST AND DEMAND THAT THE ARTICLE IN QUESTION HAVE THE BEST WRITE-UP POSSIBLE! Carajou 14:06, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
Cool down! I don't know what browser you are useing, but I tried both Explorer and Firefox and for me there was no unnecessary "white areas" in the text. What I did was rearranging the pictures so that the reader rhythm won't break. The previous picture alignment was unsuitable from that purpose when the text jumped from left to right to left with pictures totally filling the screen (of a normal size monitor). --MoRsE 14:12, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
Further, the colorful Dreadnought picture illustrates some of the revolutionary design features better than the B/W. As for the rest of the article, is there really a need for that many pictures? --MoRsE 14:23, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
Calm down! The point about vulnerability - not just to CVs - is a fairly important one. Ships of the line never had to be escorted into battle by fleets of destroyers, after all. I have a reference for it, will add it and expand later in the article over the next few days. And 'firstly' is perfectly normal English where I come from ;) The Land 16:11, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
AARRGGHH! Ok, both cool and calm...and I'm sorry if my rant made you mad.
Here's my point: this article can and must be written to get the featured article status, no if's, and's or but's. We may be mostly amateurs here, but we can all do a solidly professional job. And no, my little dumb rant was not to pick on one individual, but a reminder that we all have got to be professional about it...and firstly should be followed by secondly and thirdly to infiniti...
But what bothers me the most, really...is all the vandals we got on here who just have to add their four-letter words, their stupid bit of trivial nonsense (one clown rang up battleship losses like a sports game statistic!). I've re-written the Bermuda Triangle to near totality, and there are those who cannot stand the fact that I put in that article something totally dreaded (documented facts), and every day thay do their best to alter it. All of us here, myself, the Land, Morse, and a few others are working just too hard on these articles, and I hate to see us slip to the vandals's level.
The pics are easily fixed. I use Internet Explorer, and on my laptop it shows a resolution of 1280 by 800. The way I fix the pics to get rid of the white area is to group them together, one after the other; you will notice that at the top of several subsections. And no, I don't have a complaint about the colorful Dreadnought pic. Maybe it could use some sea green around the porthole frames... Carajou 21:00, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
You've done a good job here Carajou, and together we can keep this article up to its expected quality. I have it on my watchlist already.--MoRsE 21:06, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
I don't want to take sole credit here...I think we've all done a good job. Carajou 21:43, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Psychological aspects

I'm not sure about the 'psychological aspects' section - does it say anything that isn't better covered by talking about operations or the diplomatic and strategic role of battleships? And can anyone refer it to a source? The Land 10:46, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

How about the "Fleet in being" issue, i.e. Tirpiz vs. the Arctic Sea convoys - that is mentioned in so many books. That is a highly psychological aspect. --MoRsE 11:35, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
I'd see that as more strategic than psychological... The Land 11:38, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
I'd agree to the sources part; the sub-section could use them to be valid (it was my creation). But I've seen the after-effects of the presence of a battleship before. I've read what the north Vietnamese did when they saw New Jersey appear in 1968; I've seen what the Druze did in Lebanon when New Jersey appeared in 1981; and I've seen what the Iraqis did in Kuwait when they woke up one morning and saw Wisconsin off their beach in 1991. In each case it was total evacuation by personnel who left so fast they never bothered with the equipment. I would think that some of these sources would come from battle reports and logbooks from the Naval Historical Center. Carajou 02:33, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
Although not a battleship I know what a morale boost it was for the Finns everytime Prinz Eugen appeared in Finnish waters. She was the largest axis warship in the Baltics and could outfight almost anything the Soviets had. --MoRsE 06:41, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

OK, here's a plan... Rename the 'psychological aspects' section to 'Strategic Impact'. Talk about how battleships embodied Mahanian sea-power doctrine. Refer to the 1890s pre-dreadnought arms race and the dreadnought arms race and in particular the psychological impact of battleships (as vs cruisers). Refer to the context in which battleship-building was limited after World War I (the limitations introduced proving the strategic value of battleships); and to the psychological impact of shore bombardment in the Cold War and subsequently. Note the fact that battleships were basically never decisive in anything and the controversy about whether they were worth the money or not, touching on commerce raiding and jeune ecole doctrine. What d'you think? The Land 19:06, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Deep breath, everyone

Ok, as I've said above, I want this article on the main Wiki-page, at the top, with a barnstar in the upper-right corner. It has some good information, but I've seen some entries in which the editor did not take the time out to really meld into the article what he/she added. What I want to happen now is for everyone to sit back in the chairs and really read the whole thing over, and compare the style of writing with current works on the subject (like To Shining Sea by Stephan Howarth). The object is to make each paragraph and each subheading really flow from one to the other, nice and smooth. And yes, I don't like the writing style of World Book, because it reads like it was written by Dick and Jane before they reached puberty.

If the complaint is too many editors trying to do the whole thing, then we divide the article between us so we each do a particular section. Maybe TheLand could do that part of the article of the early history; MoRse could work on pre-Dreadnoughts, etc. Someone else could dig up source material and provide the others basic facts and citations. What do you say? Carajou 17:56, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

I will try to go through the entire article several times as soon as I have a possibility. As for the moment, I am at a airport paying per minute to use the internet, so it is not the ideal place to edit Wikipedia from. :) It will be a couple of days before I'll get home to my reference library. But let us make this a F/A! --MoRsE 20:55, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
Maybe what you just said could be an article unto itself: Pay by the minute! Carajou 20:57, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
Don't forget - the most important thing we need to make it a featured article is sources to back up the statements in it... we really need 60-80 references to sources for an article of this length! The Land 17:26, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] have to do a plan

The article has to be divided as to who's doing what. This article is clearly divided into several historical periods. Some of it is still haphazard in how it's meshed together. Personaly I want to make this article as informed and detailed as possible; something that a kid doing his homework can get an 'A' off of. I think all of us put in a fine effort, but again all of us could be just as guilty of tossing stuff into the mix at various places without really checking to see what results it had on the readability of the whole thing.

So, and this is a suggestion, we get an official encyclopedic source of some kind, like the latest edition of Encyclopedia Britannica, or Ships and Aircraft of the U.S. Fleet, and see what they have for a layout of the subject, and use it as a guide for our layout. If it's structured from "header" through "great ships" through "ship-of-the-line" through "pre-Dreadnought" etc, we follow it the same way. But it should be divided in that each of us concentrat on a specific subheading alone, and nothing else; it's possible that we could provide a better example of an article with more reliable source material and greater readability. At the same time we would be avoiding POV stuff (I'm a little guilty of that myself!). Carajou 03:31, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

The (rather old) Britannica entry I just looked up covered the period from roughly 1860 on, and went on roughly chronological lines. I think the current structure is pretty good. We might want to think about shortening it by splitting off some of the content. For example, we have a pre-dreadnought article that things like the US double turrets (8" guns on top of 12" guns) might go, and we have an ironclad article we can put things like the round warships in. There is no corresponding place to put dreadnought information, and so everything from dreadnought on will go right here, so we aren't going to shorten that up. Dht 21:49, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Incendiary shells

The part about "Martin's shells" that was removed actually played a significant part in the development from wooden battleships to ironclads. I consider that it should be restored somehow. There is a brief mentioning about the shells here.--MoRsE 16:37, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi Morse, I removed/rewrote that part. I have no trouble with red-hot shot, but I have never heard of shells filled with molten iron and then fired. The sources are extremely tentative and speculative. Google finds two relevant references, one of which is the Wikipedia article you mention, the other one being one sentence in [1]. Looking at what equipment you need to melt serious amounts of iron, I can't imagine this ever being used beyond (maybe) limited trials.--Stephan Schulz 17:24, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
The fact is that several ships were equipped with furnaces for this purpose. Lambard writes for instance in his "Battleships in Transition" p. 95:
"The Russian War gave an immeasurable impetus to the development of naval science. This was most noticeable in the areas of offence and defence, which was a direct consequence of the ships-against-forts nature of naval war. One of the most unusual ideas was the refinement of the red-hot shot. A Mr. Martin developed a hollow shell lined with hair that could be filled with molten iron, Despite the dangers inherent in the preparation of such projectiles notably the need for a furnace, this weapon was taken up by the Board of Ordinance and issued for service. Trials at Shoeburyness on 4 April 1857 illustrated the great improvement that the molten iron shell offered over the red-hot shot. The hot shot left a regular wound channel in a target representing the upper works of a ship of a line, the shell a jagged hole of considerable size. A year later the Secretary at War, General Peel, suggested that means be set in hand to place a furnace on board a warship. Walker and Anderson, the Inspector of Machinery at the Royal Arsenal, were directed to confer on this issue. Within the Navy news of the power of the molten iron shell spread rapidly. Alexander Milne, Third Naval Lord declared,
the new mode of firing molten iron, so vastly more destructive than either red-hot shot or shells, will prevent our present ships from attacking any fort which had the means of firing this terrific and fearful missile, which at once sets fire to wood or any inflamable material.
Captain Hewlett, of the gunnery training ship Excellent, had been involved with the molten iron shell from an early stage. He wrote the Commander-in-Chief at Portsmouth calling for the adoption of the shells for shipboard service:
I cannot finish this letter without again expressing my opinion as to the immense importance of these shells when engaged in tolerable close action, for if they are so efficient in their incendiary qualities against empty ships, what must the effect be when the molten iron is scattered among stores and other combustable material in ships prepared for sea
Hewlett realised that there would be problems using the shells at sea, but he considered that their advantages outweighed any difficulty. He recommended that they be used aboard line of battle ships, especially those prepared for coast defence, and the new 'iron-cased frigates'. The War Office was impressed by Hewlett's advocacy, but decided to restrict the application of furnaces to iron frigates and coast defence ships; the Warrior still carries her furnace." *phew*--MoRsE 17:54, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
I'm impressed, thanks! It still sounds as if it was mostly restricted to testing, but with your hint I found an online article about HMS Warrior (1860) being prepared to use "molten metal" (not specifically iron)[2]. I'd still be a bit more tentative about the wording - I found nothing about these shells actually being used in anger. --Stephan Schulz 18:03, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
I will continue the quote from the same excellent book:
"With the failure of the heaviest shells to destroy the Kaiser it must be concluded that the molten iron shell played an important role in the rapid decline of the wooden warship. It offered iron warships a telling advance over their wooden predecessors, since iron armour could defeat such shells, but a wooden hull was open to attack at any point.
For all its advantages the molten iron shell was never used in action. Indeed many regarded it as underhand and felt a moral revulsion at the idea of covering men with molten metal, but these fine feelings did not extend so far as to preclude blowing them to atoms with explosive shells. The nonappearance of the molten iron shell in combat led Henry Corry, the First Lord of the Admiralty in 1867, to suggest that the wooden battleship could still play a vital part in any future naval battle. However the Royal Navy had no need of wooden ships to maintain their superiority over the French after 1865 and so they were neither repaired nor rearmed. It was these two factors that denied them an effective career after 1865." (p. 96)
So it seems like they came into existence in the transition period from wooden hull ships to ironclads, and as they didn't see any combat they slowly sank into oblivion. Great invention though! --MoRsE 19:07, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
I would assume advantages in destructiveness over full shot, but not necessarily over explosive shells. Imagine the handling of molten iron on a moving platform in the heat of battle. Its a whole series of accidents waiting to happen. And I suspect it would have a very bad effect on rate of fire, and possibly on accuracy (as the shells are unlikely to be completely full) too. --Stephan Schulz 19:19, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
Given they were relatively tangential (though extremely cool) I'd suggest they get a mention in ironclad warship rather than here, given that the ironclad article is the main article for that section? The Land 19:17, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
I've acquired a copy of Lambert and updated Ironclad warship with something about the red-hot and molten metal shot. Not much now but it's a start! The Land 21:21, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Some statistics

I found some interesting hard statistics in the book "Schlachtschiffe der Welt" (Battleships of the World), which has a chapter dealing with battleship construction programs and costs in 1900 and 1901. It says that Britain spent 622 million German gold marks, France 286, Russia 196, USA 272, and Germany 176 million Marks. Compared with 1880, the UK numbers was 2.9 times higher in 1900/1901, France 1.8, Russia 2.1, USA 4.3, and Germany 4.1 times higher. I tried to convert it into today's currency value and into US dollars (please correct me if I calculate wrong), and I came to 4.58 US$ per Mark. In today's currency the ship construction programmes would be: UK: 2,849.6 million US$, France: 1,310.2 million US$, Russia: 897.9 million US$, USA: 1,246.1 million US$ and Germany: 806.3 million US$.

It also features a list with the numbers of European battleships up to 1890:

Year UK France Italy Russia Austria Germany
1865 12 12 9 2 - -
1870 35 29 12 10 - -
1875 43 35 14 11 9 6
1880 52 46  ? 13  ? 9
1890 43 30  ? 12  ? 13
(below those who were younger than 15 years)
1890 21 15  ? 4  ? 5

--MoRsE 20:22, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

...and here is some more numbers on how many ships were built up to 1910:

Country 1890-94 1895-99 1900-04 1905-06 1907 1908-10 Total
Britain 11 20 16 4 0 0 51
France 5 8 4 1 1 6 25
Germany 4 4 12 4 0 0 24
Russia 6 4 9 3 1 0 23
USA 3 6 10 6 0 0 25
Japan 0 5 1 3 1 0 10
Italy 2 2 4 1 1 0 10
Austria-Hungary 0 0 5 1 0 3 9

--MoRsE 20:35, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Interesting stuff - I've also found some figures for battleship costs (the amounts authorized by the US Congress for battleship-building in different years). Not sure how useful an extensive set of tables would be, however. Also - Britain and Germany building no battleships between 1907 and 1910 - are you sure? ARe they excluding Dreadnoughts and BCs? The Land 20:42, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

The figures are referring to the total naval budgets of each country. Oh gosh, there is so much statistics in this book, but it's German! The previous one was pre-Dreadnoughts :) Below the Super-D's:
Country 1910 1911 1912 1913 1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 Total
Britain 2 6 5 5 3 4 6 - 1 32
France - - - 3 3 1 - - - 7
Germany - - - - - 2 1 3 - 6
Russia - - - - - 3 1 - - 4
USA - - 2 - 2 2 - 3 - 9
Japan - - - 2 1 - - - - 3
Other states - - - 2 1 - - - - 3
Total 2 6 9 12 10 13 9 7 1 69

--MoRsE 20:50, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

There was a major arms race involving battleships after Dreadnought was built. Do you think the tables you provided can be put to good use here, or in a separate article? I think it's damn good information! Carajou 02:02, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

One problem with the tables as given is that they seem to miss the first generation of dreadnoughts. I'm looking at the US lines here. The predreadnought one appears to cover only predreadnoughts, since US battleship construction didn't suddenly stop after 1906, only to pick up in 1912. It seems to miss all the US dreadnought classes with 12" guns. Would assembling such a table directly from a secondary source like Conway's be considered original research? Dht 03:33, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Are we Good yet?

Do you think it's worth a Good Article Nomination? The Land 10:37, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

There are a few sections that could use some sources still e.g. the Post WWII paragraphs. This should be fairly easy to correct. Over the past days I've also tried to add some short notes about other navies but the US and RN to give the article a little more broadened view. I would still like to add a little more on Japanese battleships and some short notes on the South American ones, although their careers were not as exciting as many others. Otherwise it is a very strong article. I believe it could pass a G/A review today. --MoRsE 10:50, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
I've nominated it... perhaps impatient of me but I think it meets the GA criteria too, if not the FA criteria quite yet! The Land 12:46, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
This spring break I'm going to get a few dozen books from MTSU's library and pulling out some needed info. Should be in a couple weeks. Carajou 15:20, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Britannica, 2005 edition

This is what Britannica has written for their 2005 edition, both CD and print:

capital ship of the world's navies from about 1860, when it began to supplant the wooden-hulled, sail-driven ship of the line, to World War II, when its preeminent position was taken over by the aircraft carrier. Battleships combined large size, powerful guns, heavy armour, and underwater protection with fairly high speed, great cruising radius, and general seaworthiness. In their ultimate development theywere able to hit targets with great precision at a range of more than 20 miles (30 km)and to absorb heavy damage while remaining afloat and continuing to fight.

The battleship type had its genesis in the Gloire, a French oceangoing ironclad displacing 5,600 tons that was launched in 1859. (The Gloire and similar ships of combined sail and steam propulsion were given various names such as armoured frigate or steam frigate; the term battleship did not become current until some years later.) In 1869 HMS Monarch became the first oceangoing iron-hulled battleship. In place of broadside guns fired through portholes in the hull, this vessel mounted four 12-inch guns in two revolving turrets on the main deck. Over the following decades,battleships dispensed with auxiliary sail power. They adopted a mixed armament of large-calibre turret guns of 10 to 12 inches for long-range battle with other capital ships, medium guns of 6 to 8 inches for close range, and small guns of 2 to 4 inches for beating back torpedo boats.

In 1906 HMS Dreadnought revolutionized battleship design by introducing steam-turbine propulsion and an “all-big-gun” armamentof 10 12-inch guns. Thereafter, capital ships were built without medium guns. Speeds of more than 20 knots were attained, and, as guns grew to 16 and 18 inches, fleets of “superdreadnoughts,” displacing 20,000 to 40,000 tons, took to the seas.

The Washington Treaty of 1922 limited new battleships to 35,000 tons. Ships built to this standard were of a new “fast battleship” generation, which combined the heavy armament and armour of dreadnought battleships with the speeds (exceeding 30 knots) of lightly armoured cruisers.

Shortly before World War II the Washington Treaty was abandoned. Displacement rose once more, with Germany building two ships of the Bismarck class of 52,600 tons, the United States four of the Iowa class of 45,000 tons, and Japan two of the Yamato class, which setthe all-time record at 72,000 tons. Battleships now bristled with antiaircraft armament, consisting of rapid-fire guns of about 5 inchescalibre and dozens of automatic weapons of 20 to 40 mm.

In World War II the extended striking range and power of naval aircraft effectively ended the dominance of the battleship. Battleships served mainly to bombard enemy coastal defenses in preparation for amphibious assault and as part of the air-defense screen protecting carrier task forces.

Construction of battleships stopped with those begun during World War II. In the following decades most of the battleships of the major powers were scrapped, “mothballed” (stripped down and placed in storage), or sold to lesser navies. During the Korean War the United States used its Iowa-class ships for shore bombardment.

By the 1980s only the United States had battleships. These were recommissioned and equipped with cruise missiles. Following service in 1991 during the Persian Gulf War, the last two active ships, the Wisconsin and the Missouri, were decommissioned. Copyright 2005, Encyclopedia Britannica, Chicago, IL

As a copyrighted work, I am going to erase this heading after a week, but I wanted all of us to read this carefully, paying attention to the structure and layout. And imagine what sort of heading label goes between each paragraph. We can use this as a guide (and only a guide) for our own article here. As an online encylopedia, we want Wikipedia to be authoritative; Britannica has that distinction with the general public as well as acadamia. Carajou 14:42, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm.
1. As the Britannica article notes, 'battleship' when used on the ironclads of 1860 to 1880ish is a retrospective usage. Britannica seem to draw the line of what is a battleship with the masted turret-ship Monarch of 1869; none of my other sources do so, is this point original to Britannica?
2. as guns grew to 16 and 18 inches, fleets of “superdreadnoughts,” displacing 20,000 to 40,000 tons, took to the seas: I think this is incorrect. The term 'Superdreadnought' applies fairly specifically to ships with 13.5in to 15in guns built between 1910 and 1920. 16in and 18in guns are largely 1930s and 1940s.
3. Washington Treaty of 1922 limited new battleships to 35,000 tons. Ships built to this standard were of a new “fast battleship” generation:AFAIK the only 'fast battleships' so called were the Queen Elizabeth class.
So basically I think our article is more accurate (as well as more detailed) than Britannica's and I'm not sure we should be basing our article on a fairly inaccurate tertiary source. The Land 16:59, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
I agree entirely with The Land's comments. There are in fact more errors:
  • The Washington Treaty - by which the author means the first and second London treaties which succeeded it - was observed strictly by the UK, US and France until the outbreak of war (the Iowas and Lions were not an abandonment of the Treaty regime, since they were laid down under an escalator clause of the second London treaty);
  • Very few, if any, of the designs actually built to the 35,000 limit exceeded 30 knots (only the Gneisenaus - not treaty battleships, but under 35,000 tons - and Richelieus, according to Conway's). The Littorios, of course, were a calculated violation of the treaty, as the Bismarcks were of the Anglo-German Treaty.
  • To the best of my knowledge, no battleships were transferred to anybody after the Second World War. The UK lent Royal Sovereign to the USSR in 1944, but got her back before the war ended.
Sadly, the Britannica is not going to be much use to us; indeed, on this evidence, it is hardly worth citing. This is a pity, since older editions, including the 14th, which still has a bookcase to itself in my parental home, had excellent articles on the subject. Regards to all, John Moore 309 17:52, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
P.S. Capitalising only my lack of contributions to this article to date, I am working up some comments for the Good Article review. Watch this space.
Just remember: the Britannica article is only a guide. It's not the last word on the subject. It is here only to serve as something of a layout for ours. Besides, the Britannica article itself is brief; there's not much meat in it! Carajou 21:44, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Good Article nomination - Review

Thanks to The Land for nominating this article. This is my first attempt at a Good article review, so please put me right if I haven't grasped the procedure. I will do what others appear to done, and put my comments here, placing an OnHold tag in the Wikipedia:Good article candidates to give other users a chance to respond.

In brief, the first half of the article, up to and including Dreadnoughts in the rest of the World, is very good, well written (with a few lapses), pithy, accurate and well-referenced. From The “Super-Dreadnoughts” onwards there is an appreciable decline in quality; some sections are tendentious and subjective, while others are just stubs. Overall, I could not rate this a “Pass” until the second half of the article is brought up to the standard of the first.

Specific comments are as follows:

  • Intro: It is stated that vulnerability led to battleships being superseded by carriers. However, carriers are no less vulnerable than battleships (nor are they cheaper, when the cost of the aircraft is taken into account). We need to offer a more convincing explanation (see below).
  • Under Russo-Japanese War, the Battle of the Yellow Sea should be referenced.
  • The pre-eminence of 12-inch guns at Tsushima was, and still is, a subject of debate. Amongst modern historians, Eric Grove is a notable exponent of the pre-eminence of the 8-inch and 6-inch quick-firers. Also, the Dreadnought’s specification predated Tsushima.
    Do you have a reference for this? If so we can happily add the controversy.
Good question. Grove's version of events at Tsushima is in his book Fleet to Fleet Encounters: Tsushima, Jutland and the Philippine Sea (Weidenfeld Military 1991 ISBN 1-85409-012-7). John Moore 309 14:34, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
I've played with this though it doesn't capture the differences between Yellow Sea and Tsushima. The Land 20:33, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Cuniberti’s contribution should not be exaggerated; while he was the first to describe an all-big-gun battleship concept in print, there is little evidence of his article having a significant influence on Fisher’s Committee on Designs. It should be added that Cuniberti’s specification could not have been met on a displacement anything like as small as 17,000 tons.
  • ”The Imperial Russian Navy had no idea what to do with its dreadnoughts”. Evidence?
     ;) - that's what Sondhaus thinks ,will either add a ref or re-word it. The Land 09:18, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
    • Comment: Although battleships often are a source of pride for a country, I doubt that they were built only for that reason. I would consider rewriting it altogether. The Imperatritsa Maria and Imperator Nikolai I classes was clearly created to uphold Russian seapower in the Black Sea against the Turks, and the Gangut class to challange German and Swedish sea power in the Baltic Sea and to be part of the Peter the Great's Naval Fortress system in the Gulf of Finland.--MoRsE 11:27, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
  • The Super-Dreadnoughts section is muddled. If Nevada and her successors embodied all-or-nothing protection, does this mean that they were not super-dreadnoughts? If not, what were they? Moreover, it is clear from the work of NJM Campbell (Jutland: An Analysis of the Fighting) that the losses at Jutland were not related to plunging fire, did not occur at ranges over 16.000 yards and, of course, did not involve battleships. Most super-dreadnoughts did not have geared turbines; the first RN capital ships to receive them were Hood and Nelson. Part of the problem is that, while it is generally agreed that the Orions were the first super-dreadnoughts, it is far from clear which were the last. Can we stretch the term to include the Nagatos and Colorados?
    I'm sure we can find a wording to reflect this. The Land 09:18, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
  • The First World War section alludes to the sinking of the obsolete and recklessly-exposed Aboukir, Cressy and Hogue, but not to the far more alarming sinking of Audacious by a single mine. The Royal Navy did not “abandon the North Sea”; although the Grand Fleet did not advance south of the Farne Islands, operations continued from Harwich, Sheerness, Dover and elsewhere.
    My source for the 'abandon' statement is Kennedy - am srue we can work in the Audacious - and since we're talking about battleships we shoudl be mainly concenred with the Grand Fleet and not the destoryers and cruisers - again am sure we can find an appropriate form of words. The Land 09:18, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
  • The Second World War is mostly stubs. There is no mention of Matapan. The section on Response to the air threat is good, but could benefit with expansion, e.g. reference to the Proximity fuse.
    • Comment: I have tried to rework the "Response to Air Threat" section slightly, and also included the proximity fuse there.--MoRsE 01:22, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
    I'm not sure we can go into much more detail on WWII without having a 100k+ article. Perhaps having fewere subheads might help? The Land 09:18, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
    • Suggestion: Could we perhaps rewrite it into four different sections, the three first ones dealing with the battleship actions against the three major Axis powers, and the last one with the other nations that were involved in battleship warfare, e.g. France, Soviet Union, Greece etc.? --MoRsE 11:49, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
    That makes a lot of sense - have fiddled accordingly. The Land 20:33, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
  • The Post-World War II section gives a much clearer explanation of the demise of the line of battle that the introduction (see above). Defensively, the advantage of the carrier was its ability to dominate over a far greater radius of action, giving not only much greater offensive potential, but also greater survivability, through denying the enemy detection and weapon launch opportunities. It is also significant that it was not until the last years of the war that carriers became fully capable at night and in bad weather.
  • The Strategy and Doctrine section is superficial. Of theorists, only Mahan is mentioned. There is no discussion of the relationship of battleships to other elements of the fleet, of the imperatives that fostered such developments as Battlecruisers and Fast Battleships, of the different requirement of sea control and sea denial, the conflicting requirements of home waters and the defence or acquisition of overseas possessions, or the role of battleships in power projection.
    I don't necessarily see that as a bar to GA status (thought it might be to FA) - I'm sure we can work on it though! The Land 09:18, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
  • The Anime image is a clear copyvio, since it is not being used for the purpose claimed for it in the licensing tag. The fair use rationale is specious in any case, since there are perfectly satisfactory images of Iowa-class battleships in the public domain.
Poster for the movie "The Battleship Potemkin".
Poster for the movie "The Battleship Potemkin".
  • Commenting: It has to go then, especially since enwiki is planning to implement tougher rules on the (mis)use of images. Would it be possible to use some still image from one of the 1940s, 1950s movies? Or perhaps from the movie The Battleship Potemkin? (BTW, Why is she called a battleship in the Wikipedia article, she was an armoured cruiser?) --MoRsE 11:49, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
  • No battleships took part in the events portrayed in the film The Battle of the River Plate. Battleships do feature in, inter alia, Sink the Bismarck! and Above Us the Waves.
    I've ditched the entire 'fiction' section - it's basically trivial, one could have a huge list of fictional battleships none of which have any bearing on anything else. The Land 20:33, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
  • I am surprised that only the 1906-1921 volume of Conway’s All The World’s Fighting Ships is referenced. Despite its many irritating features, Conway’s is far more comprehensive, consistent and reliable than Parkes or Jane’s. The 1945 Jane’s in particular is virtually a work of fiction.

Obviously these comments focus largely on areas of weakness; as already stated, there is much in this article that is very good indeed. In view of the scope and complexity of the topic, the current state of the article reflects great credit to all concerned. Thanks to all for your hard work.

Comments on the above, or contributions from additional reviewers, will be more than welcome. Regards to all, John Moore 309 00:37, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for such a detailed review! I've put in a few comments above, will make some changes this evening (GMT). The Land 09:18, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
Yes great work indeed! --MoRsE 11:49, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

This article has been on hold beyond the week limit as far as I can tell, but this discussion is a bit hard for me to follow, have all the concerns of reviewers been addressed? It sounds like things have been fixed... Homestarmy 17:30, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

A lot of good work has been done since I made my original post, but some issues, e.g. the problems with the "Super-dreadnought" section, have yet to be addressed. For this reason I am not sure how best to proceed. My understanding is that a review is not mandatory for GA status, as it is for A-class: any editor can award GA status on the basis of his or her own judgement. If this is right, then I or Homestarmy could pull the plug on the current nomination, and upgrade the article in the (hopefully) near future when the remaining issues have been resolved. On the other hand, it could be that I'm being too fussy and that more experienced editors would be happy to pass the article in its current state. If Homestarmy is not a specialist in this area, perhaps he could advise us in this respect, being better able to judge how the article would read to someone unfamiliar with the subject.
In the meantime, my preference would be to leave the article on hold. I must admit that I have not heard before of a one-week time limit for holding GA nominations; the only source I am familiar with, Wikipedia:Good article candidates, states that an article may be placed on hold for "a period of time". In this case I think allowance should be made for the magnitude of the subject.
As always, further comments are welcome. Regards to all, John Moore 309 22:26, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
I've just removed the disputed section about super-Dreadnoughts, which should address the concern about that section. To be promoted to Good Article, an article doesn't need to be perfect, only to meet the Good Article criteria. In my view it meets those criteria but, for obvious reasons, it's not for me to say... The Land 09:17, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Having taken on board the above comments. I've decided to award the article a pass. Thanks to all for your hard work. Regards, John Moore 309 14:37, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Featured article? Shiver me timbers!

About time! I cannot wait for the results...all the hard work done, and FA is about to happen! Carajou 20:16, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

I am very pleased with the standard of the current article, and my critizism from two months back have all been met! Let's see if it will go all the way through!--MoRsE 13:14, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
make it go through...full speed ahead and get those guns loaded! Carajou 00:15, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism

"In 1909, the gay British Parliament authorised an additional four capital ships for which male strippers would dance on, holding out hope that Germany would be willing to negotiate a treaty about battleship numbers. If no such solution could be found male prostutes could be caled in, an additional four ships would be laid down in 1910. Even this compromise solution meant (when taken together with some social reforms) raising taxes enough to prompt a constitutional crisis in Britain in 1909-10 with monkeys fucking coconuts."

--I am guessing that male strippers, prostitutes, and monkeys had nothing to do with the Anglo-German Arms Race. Could a mod perhaps ban the vandal/protect this article? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Haephestus (talk • contribs) 22:17, 26 March 2007 (UTC).

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