Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Alaska class cruiser

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The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Alaska class battlecruiser[edit]

Passed --Eurocopter (talk) 18:37, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm nominating this because I think that it is ready to undergo this, even without a GA review yet (it's pending). The only real big question I have right now is the name of the article..."Alaska class battlecruiser", "Alaska class large cruiser" or "Alaska class cruiser"? If consensus says one of the last two, an admin will have to move it, 'cos I moved it from "cruiser" to its present location without really thinking about it before... =/ Anyway, thanks for any and all feedback you give me! Cheers, —Ed 17 for President Vote for Ed 17:37, 23 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comments
    • As far as the name is concerned it looks like DANFS refers to them as "large cruisers" and further defines the hull classification symbol "CB" as meaning "large cruiser". Do other sources call them "battlecruisers'?
      • See the '"Large cruisers" or "battlecruisers"?' section....
        • The name as it is doesn't bother me. You were just asking for opinions on what name it should be under… — Bellhalla (talk) 22:13, 23 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
          • I meant that there are sources that call them battlecruisers, and just see that section. Sorry! :)
    • "See also" and "External links" sections are usually located after "Notes", "References", and "Bibliography" sections.
    • In referring to ships of the various classes, the awkward italic/Roman clash, as in "Alaskas", can be avoided by using other constructions like "the Alaska class", "the Alaska-class ships", or other variations. Also, in several places where ships of a particular class are referred to, a grocer's apostrophe is used when I don't believe the intention is for a possessive.
      • Trekphiler went through and removed a lot + I got some, but apparently there are more. :) I'll hunt for them.  Doing...
    • This is a really long sentence: The design process of the Alaska class was "torturous"[7] because of the numerous changes and modifications made to the ships' layouts by many different departments and individuals;[7] indeed, the ship had at least nine different planned layouts,[19] ranging from 6,000 ton Atlanta class antiaircraft cruisers,[18] to "overgrown" heavy cruisers,[7] to a 38,000 ton mini-battleship that would have been armed with twelve 12-in guns and sixteen 5-in guns.
      •  Done
    • Unclear antecedent: what does she refer to in this sentence: "Outside of the USS Saratoga (CV-3), she was the least maneuverable ship in the U.S. Navy,[7] which was due to the decision to use a cruiser-like single rudder instead of a battleship-like dual."
      •  Done
    • What's a "raining mission"? A typo, perhaps?
      • ...posssssibly.... =/
    • By using an A prefix for the discursive notes, they end up looking too much like the citations. Perhaps using the word Note would make them more readily distinguishable?
      • Having [Note n] all over bothers me...I want to have the notes look somewhat like references, if only they are short like refs.....I don't want an overabundance of nice blue superscripted text.
        • No problem, then. (Too bad they can't be sequential letters.) — Bellhalla (talk) 22:13, 23 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • When you have a sentence beginning "Arguably the best light anti-aircraft gun of World War II…", it just begs for a citation. I know that the entire paragraph is sourced to Navweaps.com, but an additional citation to make clear where the opinion comes from is in order.
      •  Done
    • For compound adjectives, WP:HYPHEN recommends no hyphen for abbreviated units, so it should be "12 in gun" rather than "12-in gun". I'd also suggest using {{convert}} for SI unit conversions; "…12 in (300 mm)…" is potentially less ambiguous than "…12 in guns…"
    • The range of speeds in the lead looks funny with differing levels of precision. If the range comes from the same source, I would expect something more like "31.4–33.0 knots (58.2–61.1 km/h; 36.1–38.0 mph)". If they are figures from differing sources, I'd just make it 31–34 knots (57–63 km/h; 36–39 mph)
    • Given that this is an article about U.S. Navy ships, the "USS" prefix is superfluous in just about every case in this article (except for the list of class ships in the "Ships" section). If you add the optional parameter "|3" at the end of {{USS}}, it will hide "USS". While adding that, you might evaluate each ship link to determine if the hull classification number is necessary in all cases. One example: in the "Design process" section, USS Hornet (CV-12) could easily be just Hornet without any loss of clarity (and would avoid the ugly double parentheses, too).

— Bellhalla (talk) 19:27, 23 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support w/Comments In addition to Bellhalla's comments, I have a few of my own:
    • Just an FYI, but its usually a bad idea to have two ranking review processes open at the same time. In the future it would be better to clear the GAN before moving on to the ACR becuase they have on occasion conflicted with each other on certain matters.
      • Can do. :)
    • Can we maybe lose some of the citations in the lead? If the info appears further down in the article it does not nessicarly have to be cited in the lead per se, although you are certainly welcome to do so if you like.
      • The info does not appear further down. :)
        • Per WP:LEAD, the lead section should be a summary of what appears below and generally shouldn't have material not in the rest of the article. — Bellhalla (talk) 06:00, 24 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • See about integrating the links in the see also section into the article body itself and removing that section altogater, the FAC people have ion the past frowned on the presence of see also sections, so if you can get remove it now would be the time to do so.
      •  Done...I'll just remove it; it doesn't add too much to the article anyway.
    • Can we do something about the redlinks for the big guns in the article about where the Armement section is? They are kind of distracting, and could be useful to other articles if created.
    • Do we really need the external link to Wikitionary? It looks out of place in the article.
      •  Done...changed to WP link.
    • "The anti-aircraft batteries on the Alaska "large cruisers" consisted of 56 x 40mm guns and 34 x 20mm guns. These numbers can be compared to 48 x 40mm and 24 x 20mm on the smaller Baltimores and 80 x 40mm and 49 x 20mm on the larger Iowas." As a rule, anything making a camparison using numbers should have a cite since the information is open to being challenged otherwise. This paragraph doesn't have a cite, although it should be too hard to find one or two cites for the info presented.
      • Will do tommorow..as you said (I think you said, Mr. Typo King), it shouldn't be too hard. :)
        •  Done
  • Otherwise it look good. Well done. TomStar81 (Talk) 22:31, 23 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support as the article has now been tightened. Comments I think that this is pretty close to A-class, but it needs a bit more tightening up. Some suggestions are:
    • "The original idea for a U.S. class of battlecruiser began in the late 1930s, when the U.S. Navy wanted to counter both the German Scharnhorst class and a new battlecruiser class Japan supposedly had under construction.[7][A 7] The Alaska class were intended to serve as "cruiser-killers", in order to seek out and destroy this type of post-Treaty heavy cruiser. " - these two sentences are confusing - were the Alaskas designed to counter battlecruisers or cruisers?
      •  Doing...
    • "This was the point in the war where the Navy, and the President, realized that the next fleet carriers, the Essex-class aircraft carriers, had not even been laid down yet and only one (Hornet) would enter service before 1944" - the Essex class aircraft carrier article contradicts this sentence - three Essexs had been laid down during 1941 and they started to enter service in December 1942
      •  Doing...
    • "Even though their raison d'être served with the U.S. Navy in the last years of World War II." - I don't understand what this sentence means
      •  Done...that's what I get for trying to merge in a deleted section too fast.
    • The service history section is a bit too brief, even considering that neither of the ships served for long. It would be good if this section covered the dates the ships entered service, what the Navy's commanders thought about the ships (were they regarded as being worthwhile reinforcements, or a waste of supplies?) and why they were taken out of service in 1947 given their high construction cost and success as carrier escorts (presumably because they were less cost-effective escorts than heavy cruisers and destroyers)
    • how many kills did the cruiser group achieve?
      •  Done...whoops, zero, not few. =/
    • The sections on the Bofors 40mm anti-aircraft guns and Oerlikon 20mm anti-aircraft guns don't really need to be in the article - these generic descriptions of the guns should be in the articles on the guns. Was there anything unusual about the way these guns were mounted or used on the Alaskas?
      • They are just short blurbs on them so that readers can see what this "400mm gun" is without have a problem with WP:TLDR.
      • Not that any source said...
    • It would be interesting if the discussion of the ships' armament included a description of their radars and other sensors - were these the reason they made excellent carrier escorts?

Nick Dowling (talk) 00:23, 27 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support; under the condition that everything above was dealt with. JonCatalán(Talk) 04:58, 7 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The concerns are being dealt with, albeit slowly... I had two 5-7 page papers due this week, so my time on here has been cut for the last 3 days. =/ —Ed 17 (Il Viquipedista)— 06:40, 7 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support.

    • ""pocket battleships"," In the Genesis section; shouldn't the comma be inside the quotes?
    • "Indeed, the ship had at least nine different planned layouts,[19] ranging from 6,000 ton Atlanta class antiaircraft cruisers," This might be better rephrased as "ranging from a design similar to the 6,000 ton Atlanta..." unless one design morphed into Atlanta class? This is a rather confusing sentence.
    • "a realization that these "cruiser killers" had no more cruisers to hunt—the fleets of Japanese cruisers had already been defeated by aircraft and submarines—made the Alaska class "white elephants"." Again, I think the period should go inside the quotes (might want to check to see if there other cases that I missed). Also, it kinds of reads a bit awkwardly, you might want to consider rephrasing it - not necessary though, just a personal thing.
    • "She served in the Pacific with Alaska almost all of the same operations." This is awkward, please rephrase it.

      Besides those, however, it looks good. Fix those and the other changes made above, and it'll have earned my support. Joe (Talk) 00:16, 8 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support: Improvements do need to be made to the article, although I can't pick out anything that hasn't already been listed above. Having said that, significant improvements have already been made since the listing here began, and the_ed17's commitment to implementing these changes means I have no qualms about thowing my support in now, as I think that the current incarnation is sufficient for A-class. -- saberwyn 10:24, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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