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Archive 1 | Archive 2 |
The Iowa is still in reserve, isn't it? 71.244.157.67 22:44, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
Haven't read this article in detail, but don't think it's clear that Iowa (BB-61) is still around as it doesn't qualify (rightfully so, at least yet) to be in the list of battleships preserved as museum ships near the end of the article - perhaps it should be included as a parenthetical to that listing? jmdeur 18:57, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Considering that no battleships of the conventional sense are in existence anymore, can it be argued that the modern cruisers of today are essentially battleships? They fill practically the same role as the fast battleships of WWII: anti-air protection and surface engagement....and they're the biggest such ships left around. The only difference is that they're armed with missiles instead of guns and as a result have been "downsized". The definition of a battleship underwent a lot of changes throughout history, from ironclads to pre-dreadnoughts, dreadnoughts, modern battleships, and now....cruisers perhaps? Masterblooregard 22:35, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
You're leaving out the most important differnce of all: psychology. A cruiser is design to scare planes and ships with its missiles, whereas a battleship was built for the sole purpose of putting the fear of god in any plane or ship with its guns. Compared to the fear of god, everything else pales in comparison. TomStar81 ( Talk) 10:41, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
I would suggest that the aircraft carrier and ballistic missile submarine are today's capital ships, the successors to the battleship as the projector of a nation's power. They have more than enough capability to put the "fear of God" into anyone. jmdeur 18:50, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Should'nt we make an article about new battleship designs or ifs and buts? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.68.202.177 ( talk) 00:36, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
"The course of the war also illustrated the vulnerability of battleships to cheaper weapons. In September 1914, the potential threat posed to capital ships by German U-boats was confirmed by successful attacks on British cruisers, including the sinking of three British armored cruisers by the German submarine U-9 in less than an hour. Sea mines proved a threat the next month, when the recently commissioned British super-dreadnought Audacious struck a mine. By the end of October, the British had changed their strategy and tactics in the North Sea to reduce the risk of U-boat attack.[27] While Jutland was the second and last major battleship engagement in history(the first being Tsushima), the German plan for the battle relied on U-boat attacks on the British fleet; and the escape of the German fleet from the superior British firepower was effected by the German cruisers and destroyers closing on British battleships, causing them to turn away to avoid the threat of torpedo attack. Further near-misses from submarine attacks on battleships and casualties amongst cruisers led to growing paranoia in the Royal Navy about the vulnerability of battleships. By October 1916, the Royal Navy had essentially abandoned the North Sea, instructing the Grand Fleet not to go south of the Farne Islands unless adequately protected by destroyers."
This section innacurately reported that Jutland was the only major battleship engagement in history, I have made an edit to correct this, but I have serious problems with the rest of this paragraph. Particularly this sentence:
"While Jutland was the second and last major battleship engagement in history(the first being Tsushima), the German plan for the battle relied on U-boat attacks on the British fleet; and the escape of the German fleet from the superior British firepower was effected by the German cruisers and destroyers closing on British battleships, causing them to turn away to avoid the threat of torpedo attack. Further near-misses from submarine attacks on battleships and casualties amongst cruisers led to growing paranoia in the Royal Navy about the vulnerability of battleships."
This is one long, rambling, run-on, uncited, and highly dubious piece of swill. If anyone has suggestions for improving it I will be much obliged.-- Ironzealot ( talk) 15:43, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
There are 48 citation needed tags as of now and the article only has 91 in-line references. If this doesn't warrant attention being called to, then I don't know what would. Have these "unsourced" claims always been in the article or have they just recently accumulated? The lack of citations I see here doesn't seem to be characteristic of a FA. Dwr12 ( talk) 03:26, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
Might I ask why O'Connell's Sacred Vessels even warrants a mention in this article? I'm sure that there are far better and reputable examples of "some historians and naval theorists [who] question the value of the dreadnought" that could be used in the lead. I've read the book and found its arguments to be flawed and many of the details to be inaccurate. Then see the negative reviews on amazon and place some of the names of the reviewers. O'Connell's work was apparently based on a master's thesis, then a doctorate and then somehow he found a publisher. How these things happen, I have no idea. -- Harlsbottom ( talk| library) 11:50, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
The status of Japanese battleship Satsuma is not entirely clear. The three best sources I have on Japanese battleship construction (Dentchura, Jung and Mickel; Breyer; Evans & Peattie) stop well short of saying "Satsuma was laid down as an all-big-gun battleship and the armament was changed (solely) because of financial/logistical pressures". All that is certain in these sources is that a design for the 1903-4 battleship had all-big-gun armament. This in itself is unexceptional as Britain and the USA had similar designs drawn up. Exactly what the designs used when the ship was laid down stated, I do not know, but I do not see a lot in the sources to say that it was definitely a viable all-big-gun design. The Land ( talk) 15:15, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
Here are a few more sources on the Satsuma's early development (and laying down) as an all-big-gun battleship:
The current (Dec 2008) WP article states: ""The Japanese had neutralized the U.S. battleship force in the Pacific region through an air attack, and thereby proven Mitchell's theory, showing the vulnerability of major warships lying at anchor....."" But it earlier quotes Mitchell: ""No surface vessels can exist wherever air forces acting from land bases are able to attack them.""
I think this shows the vulnerability of all ships to the aircraft carrier, not to land based bombers. The ideal derived from Mitchell's theory: no navy, no army, just fortress America isolated and protected by land based air forces, is not practical. Naaman Brown ( talk) 16:15, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
The final para of the article seemed to be both OR and incorrect/meaningless. Most obviously, the suggestion that a sea denial strategy is impossible "outside the range of airplanes and missiles, and assuming no use of submarines" is about as valuable as saying that cavalry charges are irresistible assuming no use of any weapon invented after 1800. The claims that the alliances between the US, UK and France were driven by relative naval power seem to be pure speculation, and, as noted in comments, the underlying assumption that the US was a stronger naval power than UK in 1921 was wrong. I've deleted it. JQ ( talk) 00:11, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
The paragraph he deleted was:
-- Toddy1 ( talk) 04:56, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
This article has changed - a lot - since it was initially featured. Also, the general quality of work on battleships on Wikipedia has increased quite a bit. I wonder whether going through a peer review or FA review would help here? The Land ( talk) 10:14, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
Urgent cleanup is needed here, (see Wikipedia:Featured articles/Cleanup listing), or this article should be submitted to WP:FAR. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 16:21, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
My team will be working to bring this article up to the current FA status, but doing that will require some weeks of hard work. During this time we ask that you remain patient as we sort through what needs to fixed and move to address the issues brought up. When all is said and done we will have this article back up to par. TomStar81 ( Talk) 22:57, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
The article says:
But it only quotes one source. I think for such a statement is should quote at least three sources. If there is only one source we should perhaps edit it to say:
I am going to add a dubious tag, to stay there until there are adequate citations to support the assertion.-- Toddy1 ( talk) 09:22, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
This is all rather esoteric and a bit like discussing the value of the spear. Brilliant in its day, but no match for the machine gun. The only real issue over the battleship seems to have been whether it was possible for anyone to build more of them than Britain, which started the battleship era already holding world naval supremacy and maintained it through to the point where battleships became obsolete in the face of new weapons. Thus a question whether the German or French or anyone else was simply wasting money, because Britain would never let them get ahead. (until the US finally did it). But then, No one ever knew for certain when British supremacy would finally break until it did, so there was always the chance. Sandpiper ( talk) 00:06, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
It is easy to show that other nations were often not wasting their money buying battleships by quoting a few examples:
-- Toddy1 ( talk) 05:25, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
The intro currently says 'Historian Robert o'connel claims.... Is this man really the pre-eminent all-time world authority on battleships such that we should be promoting him in a FA article summary? I think not. This is considerably worse than saying some historians... etc. It certainly should not be put like this in an intro. Sandpiper ( talk) 07:15, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
Warrior to Dreadnought: Warship Development 1860-1905 [3]
U.S. Battleships: An Illustrated History [4] Tom B ( talk) 12:14, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
Yes - so when people make citations, a full quotation the first time including ISBN is helpful, because different editions have different pagination. Wikipedia would do well to get rid of References Sections and have the complete references in the citations for this reason. Remember Wikipedia is collaborative, unlike paper books that have one author or one editor. Wikipedia authors in different countries at different dates are likely to use different editions of the same books, so the page numbers of citations that you added in 2007 will not necessarily lead someone to the right part of the text if they do not know what edition you quoted from.-- Toddy1 ( talk) 05:32, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
I keep hearing about how HMS Dreadnought was revolutionary for its "all big-gun" design, and yet by the time World War II came around, all battleships had secondary batteries of lower caliber. If focusing on large guns was supposed to be a decisive factor in battleship design, why was it done away with? Masterblooregard ( talk) 03:25, 23 August 2008 (UTC)
It is an advantage carrying more heavy guns. But you also need other things too. Dreadnought carried more heavy guns than previous British designs for a modest increase in size - but there were sacrifices.
But battleship sizes continued to increase - and a satisfactory secondary armament was gradually restored.
By the way, in US battleship design the pre-dreadnoughts had many very unsatisfactory design features that occurred in part as a result of trying to put more fighting power into a hull of given size than European nations. US dreadnoughts (starting with Delaware) tried to avoid this.-- Toddy1 ( talk) 05:47, 23 August 2008 (UTC)
Article says France and the United Kingdom were the only countries to develop fleets of wooden steam screw battleships, although several other navies made use of a mixture of screw battleships and paddle-steamer frigates. These included Russia, Turkey, Sweden, Naples, Prussia, Denmark and Austria.
I don't follow: britain and france were the only countries with wooden steam screw battleships. But then it says several others had screw battleships. Is that screw metal battleships, which seems redundant because lots of people had this? Or screw wood but also paddle and wood, which is worth making as a distinction because some of their ships had paddles? This is a complicated way of saying it seems to say only britain had screw wood ships, but some others had screw wood ships. Britain never had a fleet exclusively screw wood. Sandpiper ( talk) 07:33, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
Sandpiper - Britain and France built large enough numbers of wooden screw battleships to form fleets of them. Many other nations built a few of them. For example Russia built nine, Turkey built three, Sweden two, Austria one, Denmark one, and Naples one. Prussia did not build any - though the Navy of the North Germany Confederacy (which included Prussia) bought one from Britain in 1870 for use as a gunnery training ship (HMS Renown). See Professor Andrew Lambert's first book:Battleships in Transition.-- Toddy1 ( talk) 04:46, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
There is a line in the intro The global arms race in battleship construction in the early 20th century was one of the causes of World War I,. Hmm. The global arms race in battleships was not a cause of WWI. The specific arms race between germany and britain may have have been, but I would take a lot of convincing that the other navies mattered much. Even restricting it to Germany/Britain I think this statement too sweeping. The naval arms race turned britain from being broadly friendly to Germany into being broadly antagonistic. However, the main aim of Germany was the conquest of France. The consequence of the naval arms race was not so much that there was a war, but that we decided to join in as an ally of france (so maybe the line ought to read that the naval arms race led to Britain deciding to take part in WWI, though had we not joined and France had fallen maybe there would have been no WWs to discuss, just a 'german annexation of France'). If anything, surely the result of the arms race in that it turned Britain into a potential enemy rather than a neutral, was to make German aggression less likely. Suggestions? Sandpiper) 08:59, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
The questioned statement is still here 9 Mar 2010. While the statement The global arms race....was one of the causes... might fit a "chick or egg first" model, my read of history sees it as a "cart before horse" model: The political rivalries that led to the first World War (and to an extent the self-defense responses to those rivalries) caused the global arms race in battleship construction in the early 20th century. Naaman Brown ( talk) 13:32, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
To quote the article
I am a little confused as to what point the comparison between the American and German submarine operations is trying to illustrate and how it relates to the idea of a fleet in being. I can see that "Germany, without a strong navy, failed to achieve victory at sea by commerce-raiding alone" seems consistent with Mahan's ideas as presented. "The failure of commerce-raiding German submarine forces between 1939 and 1945" seems at odds with my understanding of events, which is that until 1943 the U-boats represented a substantial threat to North Atlantic trade and could well have ended the war in Europe in favour of the Axis powers. The final paragraph "Meanwhile in the Pacific, American submarine groups devastated Japanese commercial traffic, sinking millions of tons of shipping" is true - but what is the comparison intending to show? A someone inexpert in maritime strategy I am reluctant to edit or remove these paragraphs - perhaps someone more expert could give them their attention. WhaleyTim ( talk) 20:51, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
I would expect an article on the development of the battleship, particularly one elevated to the status of FA, to at least mention the introduction of breech loading guns!-- Ykraps ( talk) 08:59, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
I would expect a featured article to have a consistent reference system, but in this article, some sources are listed in the References section while others are only mentioned in the Notes section. Jc3s5h ( talk) 15:31, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
There have been a number of recent edits relating to the status of USS Arizona. According to this source [6] she was stricken in 1942, and so, even technically, cannot be described as being in commission. The source seems authoritative, claiming to be the "Official Inventory of US Naval Ships & Service Craft" and its .mil address would indicate an official US Dept. of Defense website.
If these problems are not fixed, I will send the article to FAR. Ten Pound Hammer • ( What did I screw up now?) 00:38, 1 April 2012 (UTC)
There were two Naval Arms races. The first began in 1897 (Herwig p. 35, 41, 42) and ended with the Battle of Tsushima in 1905.(Mahan (1890) p. 2, 3 & Preston p. 24). The launching of HMS Dreadnought in 1906 started the second (new) naval arms race which ultimately led to WWI.
The first modern battleship race began in 1897 when German Admiral Tirpitz pushed for naval supremacy; using A. T. Mahan's 1890 publication "The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783" as a guide (Herwig p. 35, 41, 42). Mahan's 1890 book is primarily strategic in content, but does touch frequently on tactical matters when used to support his main topic. Stategy, being the big picture, contrasted with the often smaller military portions, deemed as tactics, entailed the elimination of some of Europes naval competitors; in Germany's case it would be Russia. (Pleshakov p. 73, 74, 319). Great Britain would be Germany's chief adversary. Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany was related to Russia's Tsar Nicholas II, they were cousins! And with the promise of support, such as providing coaling stations, often at sea, for the Russian battleships enroute to the front(Pleshakov p. 181-183)...cousin "Willy" (the Kaiser) goaded his cousin "Nicky" (the Tsar) into war with Japan in 1904. (Pleshakov p. 319).
When Russia was defeated in 1905, Europe gained the knowledge of modern battleship warfare (Mahan p. 2, 3) (Preston p. 24) (Breyer p. 115) (Massie p. 471) and in addition to eliminating a European naval competitor, the Imperial Russian Navy, they were able to proceed with the construction of HMS Dreadnought only 3 months and 1 week after the Tsushima fight. As Mahan stated in 1890, there existed no lessons in modern battleship warfare...until 15 years later at Tsushima. (Mahan (1890) p. 2, 3). As for Germany, they were free to concentrate on England alone, Russia was out of the race.(Ireland/Grove p. 66 & Pleshakov p. 66). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.62.147.142 ( talk) 22:35, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
since the Iowa and Wisconsin were last to be stricken in 2006, wouldn't they be the "last US battleships"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.29.212.124 ( talk) 02:04, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
While I agree with Toddy1's in general, Mikasa was launched in 1900, and is hence, strictly speaking, a 19th century battle ship. What seems to be the intention is "turreted, sea-going, self-powered battleship" (otherwise HMS Victory and HMS Warrior would refute the claim). The whole section is unsourced, too. Can we find a source for this statement? -- Stephan Schulz ( talk) 07:26, 28 April 2011 (UTC)
Could someone please define what qualifies as a battleship? The article mentions 'heavy-calibre' armament, so how heavy is that? Original battleships of the 20th century seem to have been armed with 12-inch guns. In WW2 certain German warships were described as 'battleships' by the German Navy, although their armament was far inferior to that of allied battlehips, and the same vessels were described as 'battlecruisers' by their contemporary opponents. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Historikeren ( talk • contribs) 16:08, 10 March 2014 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 |
The Iowa is still in reserve, isn't it? 71.244.157.67 22:44, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
Haven't read this article in detail, but don't think it's clear that Iowa (BB-61) is still around as it doesn't qualify (rightfully so, at least yet) to be in the list of battleships preserved as museum ships near the end of the article - perhaps it should be included as a parenthetical to that listing? jmdeur 18:57, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Considering that no battleships of the conventional sense are in existence anymore, can it be argued that the modern cruisers of today are essentially battleships? They fill practically the same role as the fast battleships of WWII: anti-air protection and surface engagement....and they're the biggest such ships left around. The only difference is that they're armed with missiles instead of guns and as a result have been "downsized". The definition of a battleship underwent a lot of changes throughout history, from ironclads to pre-dreadnoughts, dreadnoughts, modern battleships, and now....cruisers perhaps? Masterblooregard 22:35, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
You're leaving out the most important differnce of all: psychology. A cruiser is design to scare planes and ships with its missiles, whereas a battleship was built for the sole purpose of putting the fear of god in any plane or ship with its guns. Compared to the fear of god, everything else pales in comparison. TomStar81 ( Talk) 10:41, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
I would suggest that the aircraft carrier and ballistic missile submarine are today's capital ships, the successors to the battleship as the projector of a nation's power. They have more than enough capability to put the "fear of God" into anyone. jmdeur 18:50, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Should'nt we make an article about new battleship designs or ifs and buts? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.68.202.177 ( talk) 00:36, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
"The course of the war also illustrated the vulnerability of battleships to cheaper weapons. In September 1914, the potential threat posed to capital ships by German U-boats was confirmed by successful attacks on British cruisers, including the sinking of three British armored cruisers by the German submarine U-9 in less than an hour. Sea mines proved a threat the next month, when the recently commissioned British super-dreadnought Audacious struck a mine. By the end of October, the British had changed their strategy and tactics in the North Sea to reduce the risk of U-boat attack.[27] While Jutland was the second and last major battleship engagement in history(the first being Tsushima), the German plan for the battle relied on U-boat attacks on the British fleet; and the escape of the German fleet from the superior British firepower was effected by the German cruisers and destroyers closing on British battleships, causing them to turn away to avoid the threat of torpedo attack. Further near-misses from submarine attacks on battleships and casualties amongst cruisers led to growing paranoia in the Royal Navy about the vulnerability of battleships. By October 1916, the Royal Navy had essentially abandoned the North Sea, instructing the Grand Fleet not to go south of the Farne Islands unless adequately protected by destroyers."
This section innacurately reported that Jutland was the only major battleship engagement in history, I have made an edit to correct this, but I have serious problems with the rest of this paragraph. Particularly this sentence:
"While Jutland was the second and last major battleship engagement in history(the first being Tsushima), the German plan for the battle relied on U-boat attacks on the British fleet; and the escape of the German fleet from the superior British firepower was effected by the German cruisers and destroyers closing on British battleships, causing them to turn away to avoid the threat of torpedo attack. Further near-misses from submarine attacks on battleships and casualties amongst cruisers led to growing paranoia in the Royal Navy about the vulnerability of battleships."
This is one long, rambling, run-on, uncited, and highly dubious piece of swill. If anyone has suggestions for improving it I will be much obliged.-- Ironzealot ( talk) 15:43, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
There are 48 citation needed tags as of now and the article only has 91 in-line references. If this doesn't warrant attention being called to, then I don't know what would. Have these "unsourced" claims always been in the article or have they just recently accumulated? The lack of citations I see here doesn't seem to be characteristic of a FA. Dwr12 ( talk) 03:26, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
Might I ask why O'Connell's Sacred Vessels even warrants a mention in this article? I'm sure that there are far better and reputable examples of "some historians and naval theorists [who] question the value of the dreadnought" that could be used in the lead. I've read the book and found its arguments to be flawed and many of the details to be inaccurate. Then see the negative reviews on amazon and place some of the names of the reviewers. O'Connell's work was apparently based on a master's thesis, then a doctorate and then somehow he found a publisher. How these things happen, I have no idea. -- Harlsbottom ( talk| library) 11:50, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
The status of Japanese battleship Satsuma is not entirely clear. The three best sources I have on Japanese battleship construction (Dentchura, Jung and Mickel; Breyer; Evans & Peattie) stop well short of saying "Satsuma was laid down as an all-big-gun battleship and the armament was changed (solely) because of financial/logistical pressures". All that is certain in these sources is that a design for the 1903-4 battleship had all-big-gun armament. This in itself is unexceptional as Britain and the USA had similar designs drawn up. Exactly what the designs used when the ship was laid down stated, I do not know, but I do not see a lot in the sources to say that it was definitely a viable all-big-gun design. The Land ( talk) 15:15, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
Here are a few more sources on the Satsuma's early development (and laying down) as an all-big-gun battleship:
The current (Dec 2008) WP article states: ""The Japanese had neutralized the U.S. battleship force in the Pacific region through an air attack, and thereby proven Mitchell's theory, showing the vulnerability of major warships lying at anchor....."" But it earlier quotes Mitchell: ""No surface vessels can exist wherever air forces acting from land bases are able to attack them.""
I think this shows the vulnerability of all ships to the aircraft carrier, not to land based bombers. The ideal derived from Mitchell's theory: no navy, no army, just fortress America isolated and protected by land based air forces, is not practical. Naaman Brown ( talk) 16:15, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
The final para of the article seemed to be both OR and incorrect/meaningless. Most obviously, the suggestion that a sea denial strategy is impossible "outside the range of airplanes and missiles, and assuming no use of submarines" is about as valuable as saying that cavalry charges are irresistible assuming no use of any weapon invented after 1800. The claims that the alliances between the US, UK and France were driven by relative naval power seem to be pure speculation, and, as noted in comments, the underlying assumption that the US was a stronger naval power than UK in 1921 was wrong. I've deleted it. JQ ( talk) 00:11, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
The paragraph he deleted was:
-- Toddy1 ( talk) 04:56, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
This article has changed - a lot - since it was initially featured. Also, the general quality of work on battleships on Wikipedia has increased quite a bit. I wonder whether going through a peer review or FA review would help here? The Land ( talk) 10:14, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
Urgent cleanup is needed here, (see Wikipedia:Featured articles/Cleanup listing), or this article should be submitted to WP:FAR. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 16:21, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
My team will be working to bring this article up to the current FA status, but doing that will require some weeks of hard work. During this time we ask that you remain patient as we sort through what needs to fixed and move to address the issues brought up. When all is said and done we will have this article back up to par. TomStar81 ( Talk) 22:57, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
The article says:
But it only quotes one source. I think for such a statement is should quote at least three sources. If there is only one source we should perhaps edit it to say:
I am going to add a dubious tag, to stay there until there are adequate citations to support the assertion.-- Toddy1 ( talk) 09:22, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
This is all rather esoteric and a bit like discussing the value of the spear. Brilliant in its day, but no match for the machine gun. The only real issue over the battleship seems to have been whether it was possible for anyone to build more of them than Britain, which started the battleship era already holding world naval supremacy and maintained it through to the point where battleships became obsolete in the face of new weapons. Thus a question whether the German or French or anyone else was simply wasting money, because Britain would never let them get ahead. (until the US finally did it). But then, No one ever knew for certain when British supremacy would finally break until it did, so there was always the chance. Sandpiper ( talk) 00:06, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
It is easy to show that other nations were often not wasting their money buying battleships by quoting a few examples:
-- Toddy1 ( talk) 05:25, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
The intro currently says 'Historian Robert o'connel claims.... Is this man really the pre-eminent all-time world authority on battleships such that we should be promoting him in a FA article summary? I think not. This is considerably worse than saying some historians... etc. It certainly should not be put like this in an intro. Sandpiper ( talk) 07:15, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
Warrior to Dreadnought: Warship Development 1860-1905 [3]
U.S. Battleships: An Illustrated History [4] Tom B ( talk) 12:14, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
Yes - so when people make citations, a full quotation the first time including ISBN is helpful, because different editions have different pagination. Wikipedia would do well to get rid of References Sections and have the complete references in the citations for this reason. Remember Wikipedia is collaborative, unlike paper books that have one author or one editor. Wikipedia authors in different countries at different dates are likely to use different editions of the same books, so the page numbers of citations that you added in 2007 will not necessarily lead someone to the right part of the text if they do not know what edition you quoted from.-- Toddy1 ( talk) 05:32, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
I keep hearing about how HMS Dreadnought was revolutionary for its "all big-gun" design, and yet by the time World War II came around, all battleships had secondary batteries of lower caliber. If focusing on large guns was supposed to be a decisive factor in battleship design, why was it done away with? Masterblooregard ( talk) 03:25, 23 August 2008 (UTC)
It is an advantage carrying more heavy guns. But you also need other things too. Dreadnought carried more heavy guns than previous British designs for a modest increase in size - but there were sacrifices.
But battleship sizes continued to increase - and a satisfactory secondary armament was gradually restored.
By the way, in US battleship design the pre-dreadnoughts had many very unsatisfactory design features that occurred in part as a result of trying to put more fighting power into a hull of given size than European nations. US dreadnoughts (starting with Delaware) tried to avoid this.-- Toddy1 ( talk) 05:47, 23 August 2008 (UTC)
Article says France and the United Kingdom were the only countries to develop fleets of wooden steam screw battleships, although several other navies made use of a mixture of screw battleships and paddle-steamer frigates. These included Russia, Turkey, Sweden, Naples, Prussia, Denmark and Austria.
I don't follow: britain and france were the only countries with wooden steam screw battleships. But then it says several others had screw battleships. Is that screw metal battleships, which seems redundant because lots of people had this? Or screw wood but also paddle and wood, which is worth making as a distinction because some of their ships had paddles? This is a complicated way of saying it seems to say only britain had screw wood ships, but some others had screw wood ships. Britain never had a fleet exclusively screw wood. Sandpiper ( talk) 07:33, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
Sandpiper - Britain and France built large enough numbers of wooden screw battleships to form fleets of them. Many other nations built a few of them. For example Russia built nine, Turkey built three, Sweden two, Austria one, Denmark one, and Naples one. Prussia did not build any - though the Navy of the North Germany Confederacy (which included Prussia) bought one from Britain in 1870 for use as a gunnery training ship (HMS Renown). See Professor Andrew Lambert's first book:Battleships in Transition.-- Toddy1 ( talk) 04:46, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
There is a line in the intro The global arms race in battleship construction in the early 20th century was one of the causes of World War I,. Hmm. The global arms race in battleships was not a cause of WWI. The specific arms race between germany and britain may have have been, but I would take a lot of convincing that the other navies mattered much. Even restricting it to Germany/Britain I think this statement too sweeping. The naval arms race turned britain from being broadly friendly to Germany into being broadly antagonistic. However, the main aim of Germany was the conquest of France. The consequence of the naval arms race was not so much that there was a war, but that we decided to join in as an ally of france (so maybe the line ought to read that the naval arms race led to Britain deciding to take part in WWI, though had we not joined and France had fallen maybe there would have been no WWs to discuss, just a 'german annexation of France'). If anything, surely the result of the arms race in that it turned Britain into a potential enemy rather than a neutral, was to make German aggression less likely. Suggestions? Sandpiper) 08:59, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
The questioned statement is still here 9 Mar 2010. While the statement The global arms race....was one of the causes... might fit a "chick or egg first" model, my read of history sees it as a "cart before horse" model: The political rivalries that led to the first World War (and to an extent the self-defense responses to those rivalries) caused the global arms race in battleship construction in the early 20th century. Naaman Brown ( talk) 13:32, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
To quote the article
I am a little confused as to what point the comparison between the American and German submarine operations is trying to illustrate and how it relates to the idea of a fleet in being. I can see that "Germany, without a strong navy, failed to achieve victory at sea by commerce-raiding alone" seems consistent with Mahan's ideas as presented. "The failure of commerce-raiding German submarine forces between 1939 and 1945" seems at odds with my understanding of events, which is that until 1943 the U-boats represented a substantial threat to North Atlantic trade and could well have ended the war in Europe in favour of the Axis powers. The final paragraph "Meanwhile in the Pacific, American submarine groups devastated Japanese commercial traffic, sinking millions of tons of shipping" is true - but what is the comparison intending to show? A someone inexpert in maritime strategy I am reluctant to edit or remove these paragraphs - perhaps someone more expert could give them their attention. WhaleyTim ( talk) 20:51, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
I would expect an article on the development of the battleship, particularly one elevated to the status of FA, to at least mention the introduction of breech loading guns!-- Ykraps ( talk) 08:59, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
I would expect a featured article to have a consistent reference system, but in this article, some sources are listed in the References section while others are only mentioned in the Notes section. Jc3s5h ( talk) 15:31, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
There have been a number of recent edits relating to the status of USS Arizona. According to this source [6] she was stricken in 1942, and so, even technically, cannot be described as being in commission. The source seems authoritative, claiming to be the "Official Inventory of US Naval Ships & Service Craft" and its .mil address would indicate an official US Dept. of Defense website.
If these problems are not fixed, I will send the article to FAR. Ten Pound Hammer • ( What did I screw up now?) 00:38, 1 April 2012 (UTC)
There were two Naval Arms races. The first began in 1897 (Herwig p. 35, 41, 42) and ended with the Battle of Tsushima in 1905.(Mahan (1890) p. 2, 3 & Preston p. 24). The launching of HMS Dreadnought in 1906 started the second (new) naval arms race which ultimately led to WWI.
The first modern battleship race began in 1897 when German Admiral Tirpitz pushed for naval supremacy; using A. T. Mahan's 1890 publication "The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783" as a guide (Herwig p. 35, 41, 42). Mahan's 1890 book is primarily strategic in content, but does touch frequently on tactical matters when used to support his main topic. Stategy, being the big picture, contrasted with the often smaller military portions, deemed as tactics, entailed the elimination of some of Europes naval competitors; in Germany's case it would be Russia. (Pleshakov p. 73, 74, 319). Great Britain would be Germany's chief adversary. Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany was related to Russia's Tsar Nicholas II, they were cousins! And with the promise of support, such as providing coaling stations, often at sea, for the Russian battleships enroute to the front(Pleshakov p. 181-183)...cousin "Willy" (the Kaiser) goaded his cousin "Nicky" (the Tsar) into war with Japan in 1904. (Pleshakov p. 319).
When Russia was defeated in 1905, Europe gained the knowledge of modern battleship warfare (Mahan p. 2, 3) (Preston p. 24) (Breyer p. 115) (Massie p. 471) and in addition to eliminating a European naval competitor, the Imperial Russian Navy, they were able to proceed with the construction of HMS Dreadnought only 3 months and 1 week after the Tsushima fight. As Mahan stated in 1890, there existed no lessons in modern battleship warfare...until 15 years later at Tsushima. (Mahan (1890) p. 2, 3). As for Germany, they were free to concentrate on England alone, Russia was out of the race.(Ireland/Grove p. 66 & Pleshakov p. 66). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.62.147.142 ( talk) 22:35, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
since the Iowa and Wisconsin were last to be stricken in 2006, wouldn't they be the "last US battleships"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.29.212.124 ( talk) 02:04, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
While I agree with Toddy1's in general, Mikasa was launched in 1900, and is hence, strictly speaking, a 19th century battle ship. What seems to be the intention is "turreted, sea-going, self-powered battleship" (otherwise HMS Victory and HMS Warrior would refute the claim). The whole section is unsourced, too. Can we find a source for this statement? -- Stephan Schulz ( talk) 07:26, 28 April 2011 (UTC)
Could someone please define what qualifies as a battleship? The article mentions 'heavy-calibre' armament, so how heavy is that? Original battleships of the 20th century seem to have been armed with 12-inch guns. In WW2 certain German warships were described as 'battleships' by the German Navy, although their armament was far inferior to that of allied battlehips, and the same vessels were described as 'battlecruisers' by their contemporary opponents. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Historikeren ( talk • contribs) 16:08, 10 March 2014 (UTC)