Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/USS Texas (BB-35)

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.

---

closed as promoted by Woody (talk) 13:45, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

USS Texas (BB-35)

This article has been a GA for long enough, its due for a peer review, but after conferring with MBK004 it was decided to use this opportunity to push Texas to FA-class in advance of the upcoming centennial anniversary of World War I. The article is structurally sound, but I expect that there will be issues brought up that will need addressing. I'll do the best the can. TomStar81 (Talk) 02:46, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

• References comments - I was going to leave this on the talk page, but...
  • What makes ref 13 a reliable source?
    • I think you mean ref 12?
      • Argh, this is why I normally have a link to the version I reviewed. Yes, that's what I mean; it was #13 when I typed this though. —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 23:11, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
        • I've done some work with the references and an updated assessment of which numbers are questionable would be helpful.
  • You/we can probably de-link the redlinks in the refs too....? (unless you want them there. This isn't a big deal. =])
    • I've done some delinking in the references, leaving one because there really should be an article for that one.
  • "Media" section needs more refs.
  • I'll keep trying to help :) Cheers! —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 14:36, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
    • Ed, for ref 2 and 4, can you use {{cite book}} please, since that one is not flowing with the other references? -MBK₀₀₄ 22:05, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
      • Done! —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 23:11, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Comments by The Land

• It's very nice to see people caring about the WWI centennial. Even if Texas played a very marginal role in that War... but that's by the by. Here are some comments which represent either extreme battleship-geekery or on occasion total naivety about things I assume are common US military vocabulary. Most of them probably aren't strictly necessary for A-class but hope they are helpful.
  • How was she fuelled and what was the power of her engines? How many screw shafts? Any auxiliary turbines?
    • In the interwar section: "her coal-fired boilers were converted to oil-fired"
      • Can we have it in the infobox? ;)
  • A couple of juicy technological tidbits are in the lead, e.g. AA guns and director firing. Could these be expanded upon in the construction section please - what, why, and how?
  • Fn A1: this is true for some definition of battleship. Don't forget Huascar and Victory. ;-)
  • McDonnell and his Sopwith Camel: Again, some detail on why this happened and what people were trying to achieve by it would be useful.
  • Ditto first commercial radar. Is 'commercial' significant? What ws the role of the radar, what were its capabilities?
  • How can a Marine division be founded on board a battleship - wouldn't it take up a lot of space? Presumably a founding ceremony of some description is what's meant.
  • Reduction of secondary armament - why? Presumably there was a balancing increase in the size of the AA armament, but this isn't mentioned. Indeed, I think more could be said about wartime design modifications.
    • Your right, this needs to be expanded upon. The original 21 5" guns were placed in casemates in the hull (You can kind-of see them in the infobox picture just below the main deck plated over). They were ineffective and let seawater into the hull when the ship was in motion, so the forward and aft ones were pulled out within a year or two. Eventually, all but the six guns which were moved to the aircastle on the main deck amidships during the modernization were removed due to their positioning. The places the guns occupied were used for berthing by the Marines aboard ship. I've got some books at home and I can take care of this by the weekend.
  • Figures for ammunition consumption in Torch are mentioned but couldn't see them for other operations. Are these available? We need at least some kind of context for the Torch figure.
  • Amphibious warfare doctrine being primitive at this stage: is there a reference for this specific point?
  • Fn A4: "Luftwaffe" rather than "Nazi Luftwaffe" please! (conflating the Nazi party with other German institutions is extremely common in English sources but imv it's a form of anglocentric POV)
    • Fixed
  • "On 31 May the ship was sealed" - not sure what this means; a lot of seamen with gaffer tape? Were they expecting a gas attack? ;)
    • Sealed meaning that no one was allowed on or off the ship. That was my take on reading, anyway. Perhaps this needs to be clarified?
  • There are a few references to 'Plymouth, England' and 'Portsmouth, England' - can the 'England' be removed, there are no other dockyards with those names near Normandy.
    • Done
  • Media section - this material should probably go into the 'Museum ship' section, doesn't justify a section of its own IMV.
• Good stuff! When are you going to do an article about a non-U.S. battleship? ;-) The Land (talk) 21:04, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Some replies interspersed. -MBK₀₀₄ 21:38, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

• Support.

• In the list of all the ships with it at Omaha, there should be an and at the end of each list.
• "When Texas ceased firing at the Pointe at 06:24, 255 14-inch (360 mm) shells had been fired in 34 minutes—a rate of fire of 7.5 shells per minute—and was the longest sustained period of firing for Texas in World War II." The final bit after the second dash needs to be rephrased, which was instead of and was, perhaps?
  • Have implemented as suggested, take a look now and see if it works or not.

• Much better and easier to read now. – Joe Nutter 19:08, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Looks great and was a very interesting article to read. However, I would recommending fixing those two minor problems and the other ones mentioned above - I agree with the Media section idea, that information can be added to the history of it as a museum ship. – Joe Nutter 15:26, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

• Support with comments (full disclosure: I copy-edited this article in April 2008):
  • This sentence in the lead When the United States formally entered World War II in 1941, Texas resumed her role of escorting war convoys across the Atlantic, and she later shelled Axis-held beaches for the North African campaign and the Normandy Landings before being transferred to the Pacific Theater late in 1944 to provide naval gunfire support during the Battle of Iwo Jima and Battle of Okinawa. needs to be split.
  • There is inconsistency of U.S. vs. US. Most seem to be in the former style.
  • When you have an office and an officeholder—like President Woodrow Wilson and Texas Governor Oscar Colquitt—it helps keep the links high value to not link to both. (In each case a reader wanting more information on the office—information tangential, at best, to this article—can click through from the officeholders' article.)
    • Fixed as suggested
• The article is comprehensive and well-documented and worthy of A-Class. — Bellhalla (talk) 01:19, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
• Support. Great work. Cla68 (talk) 02:39, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

---

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.