Talk:Battleship

FAR

This article is in terrible condition for an FA. Page needed tags, non-primary/tertiary source needed and especially citation needed tags everywhere, amounting up to 23. There is also an orange banner at the end of the article. Unless these can be resolved this article is getting submitted to WP:FAR. 750h+ 10:03, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

I think we might just about be ship shape (I couldn't help myself) - citation needed/page needed tags are gone, as is the orange banner. References have been significantly improved in terms of quality, and some fairly significant omissions have been corrected. Parsecboy (talk) 23:02, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

Wow, the article does look much better. Without a doubt I don't think we need to send this to FAR anymore, but we'd probably need an expert to check. 750h+ 23:19, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

@Sturmvogel 66: is the other major editor in this topic area - he could give the article a look-over. Parsecboy (talk) 23:59, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

I've gone through the article, but only needed to do a minor amount of clean up. I don't believe that it needs an FAR any more thanks to Parsecboy's work. Breaking out the individual chapters in the various volumes of Conway's would be nice to have done, but it's not a requirement for FA, IMO.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 13:48, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for going over the article Sturm (and for doing a bit of cleanup). I left the Conway's refs general so I wouldn't have to deal with 30 or so refs just for those - basically half of the References sections would have been chapters in the 3 relevant volumes, which I felt would have been overkill. Parsecboy (talk) 16:29, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

Hi @Parsecboy. Unrelated but is Cannon also on your bucket list? 🍕BP!🍕 (🔔) 17:47, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

That's a bit broader of a topic, and I'd really only be able to help with parts of it, since my expertise (and more importantly, library) only goes so far. But if it does go to FAR, feel free to ping me and I'll try to chip in where I can. Always good to save a FA if we can! Parsecboy (talk) 19:01, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

12" gun

Have noticed the following passage in the article, which is clearly making a valid point, but it's not entirely factual: "Early on in the pre-dreadnought era, most navies standardized on the 12-inch gun; only Germany remained the significant outlier, relying on 11-inch and even 9.4-inch guns for its pre-dreadnoughts."

Obviously, Germany doesn't become a major naval power overnight and is not one at the start of the period of pre-dreadnought construction; meanwhile Austria-Hungary is designing and commissioning battleships with similar batteries of 9.4-inch guns.

Russia & Britain absolutely do settle upon 12-inch from the early-mid 1890s (excepting second-class ships with 10-inch batteries), along with the British-influenced and supplied Japanese from the late 1890s.

While this is happening, France is building the last of her mixed-battery pre-dreadnoughts (absolutely settling on 12"), the USA returns to and is still constructing 13-inch armed ships up to the Illinois class (entering service 1900) and Italy has no concept of a standardised battleship or battleship armament throughout the period, being 4 x 13.5, 4 x 10, 4 x 12 & 4 x 8, then 2 x 12 & 12 x 8.

There was much more dynamism and flux in battleship design, armament and battery calibre during the period, which begins sometime around the start of the 1890s and ends abruptly in 1906. Can we reflect this whilst still acknowledging that 12-inch was certainly a benchmark calibre for the major navies to design against? ~2025-38816-34 (talk) 06:07, 23 December 2025 (UTC)

Did you read the rest of that section? Most of these points are already addressed in the article. This is also a high-level article on battleships in general, so we can only go into so much detail here. Parsecboy (talk) 16:53, 25 December 2025 (UTC)

Displacement

In order to compare sizes of ships of various eras (or the same era) we need displacements. The separate article Pre-dreadnought battleship gives one sample displacement but this article has no such information so it's impossible to judge how sizes of battleships evolved. This seems a serious weakness. I thank anyone who can add such information.

I'm curious today because of Trump's "golden battleships" (no doubt with golden chandeliers) which are suggested to displace 35,000 tons or more. I think the biggest battleships were double that, but where is the data? Zaslav (talk) 08:40, 23 December 2025 (UTC)

References

This is a good idea - I'll see what I can do about adding some context here. Parsecboy (talk) 16:54, 25 December 2025 (UTC)

Verb tense

The lead section of article is written in the present tense, despite the fact that no battleship has been in active service in any navy in decades. It's been written in the present on and off since the first page revision. Should it be rewritten in the past tense? Sambabest (talk) 21:50, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

I would imagine it's because battleships do still exist in the world, even if they're just in museums. Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 00:40, 1 August 2026 (UTC)

The article for ship of the line uses the past tense, despite the fact that the HMS Victory is still commissioned. The USS Constitution, a sailing frigate, is still commissioned too, and can even sail.

I think that the surviving battleships that are still preserved should be referred to in the present tense, but that the broader idea of the battleship as a major surface combatant in the world's navies should be referred to in the past tense. Sambabest (talk) 00:58, 1 August 2026 (UTC)