User talk:RobDuch/Archive 2

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In 1903 Battery Potter was named for Joseph H. Potter, a Civil War general

In retrospect, you have to wonder who he'd annoyed. "It's slow, expensive and cumbersome, so we decided to name it..." Anmccaff (talk) 01:29, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

Haha, yes. I think I've noticed that the batteries weren't named until starting in 1900, maybe even later. Probably some discussion took place as to whether to name them, along with what. If you're looking for something to do, Fort Banks Mortar Battery and Fort Banks (Massachusetts) are crying out for a merger. Of course the Fort Banks article also needs in-line citations. Or I might get around to it. There is also the (to me) difficult question of how to get around directly referring to an image in the same article, a problem with several of that user's articles. See Submarine mines in United States harbor defense for a bigger example. RobDuch (talk) 01:55, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

Merge the whole "Mortar battery" straight into the battery section, and clean it from there? That could work. Dunno how popular it's gonna be with the previous editors. Anmccaff (talk) 08:03, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

And I've finally remembered I was going to put more info into Fort Independence (Massachusetts). Should be my project for tomorrow. RobDuch (talk) 06:24, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

The Fort Banks articles' creator has not been active since 2012. He was a pioneer of fort articles on Wikipedia, though. RobDuch (talk) 20:50, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

I redirected it; doesn't look like there is much worth moving, since the same areas are already covered, and the history remains in case. Noticed it was confusing projo weight with explosive payload. Anmccaff (talk) 23:57, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. Now I'll put what's in Roberts into Fort Independence. I didn't see anything in there to delete, but Roberts documents several Colonial rebuilds of the fort that are worth mentioning. Plus the delay in starting the Third System fort. RobDuch (talk) 00:44, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Ahh, good. It was easy enough to document the false starts, but a secondary source covering them is better. Anmccaff (talk) 01:00, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Fort Independence is done. Only real difference was the other source (or Wiki author) said the Castle William name dated from the 1701 rebuild. Roberts dates it from a 1690s rebuild, which wasn't in there. So I put it in there, along with I think two others I added. RobDuch (talk) 01:31, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Found their source and skimmed it: Shurtleff Only major difference is no mention of the 1690s rebuild. It does mention most of the other items in Roberts. RobDuch (talk) 02:47, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Not bad...not bad at all, man. I don't think I've seen Shurtleff in 40 years. Anmccaff (talk) 04:09, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

You got more paydirt here! Shurtleff explicitly states that (brick) parts of Castle William remain, buried behind granite, in Fort Independence. Knew I'd seen that someplace... Anmccaff (talk) 15:21, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

Got another one, while looking for something else: King's Handbook claims that the initial work was supervised by Tousard, but finished by Foncin. It doesn't explicitly address design, though, and the article as is may be entirely correct, since Tousard mighta been executing Foncin's plan, &cet. It also mentions that John Parker Boyd was one of the commanders; he was an interesting case if ever there was one. Dunno if he belongs in the article or not. It also says that John Montresor worked on the fort just before the Revolution; I suspect that belongs in. Anmccaff (talk) 03:54, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

PS: ran into this. Anmccaff (talk) 04:10, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

Mwahahaha.

Hathitrust is starting to break loose more of the public domain stuff. check this one out. Fully downloadable as a pdf. (scroll up, not down, that's the end of the article.) Anmccaff (talk) 21:25, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

Cool! I saw Sheridan's horse at the American History Museum a while back. They had two other items my gggrandpa most likely saw: one of Sheridan's swords (my gggrandpa was personally cussed out by Sheridan at Third Winchester) and the flag of the 84th USCT aka 12th Corps d'Afrique, which was attached to the 19th Corps in Louisiana on the Red River Campaign (another adventure of my gggrandpa). RobDuch (talk) 22:12, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

I finally figured out how to use the upload wizard for official US Gov't photos. I've started with the 16-inch disappearing gun at Fort Michie. I may get serious with this soon. RobDuch (talk) 00:28, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

That, as a friend of mine would say, possesses excellent excellence. It's hard to get across to some readers that this thing wasn't twice as big as an eight incher, it was about 8 times the size. That captures the scale perfectly. To the informed reader, it also gives a sense of how difficult it was to get high elevation with this sort of mount. Nice. Anmccaff (talk) 01:22, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

On another note, I'm thinking of moving most of the pix at Disappearing gun to a gallery. I finally got a pic of the 3-inch gun M1898 on masking parapet mount and put it at 3-inch gun M1903. I'd like to put it in the article, but there are so darn many photos already, mostly of Kiwistan as you pointed out. Sorry for inadvertently starting a firestorm with my remarks about why the list of US emplacements was so short about 18 months ago. My intent was to describe (apologize?) why the list was short, not to establish a rule for further entries. RobDuch (talk) 20:21, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

Damned if I can remember any firestorms; I just thought that the article had to leave some stuff out until it got bigger, otherwise it was highlighting minor points above major ones. Even now, the thing ignores a lot of French, German, Japanese, Chinese, &cet; before it used to read kinda like "brilliant Kiwis learn of DC problems, wrong-headed Yanks blindly continue;" now it's more like "All roads lead to Buffington-Crozier".

Some other stuff deserves a bigger place in a longer article. The King mounting, for instance, would probably have been successful if the US didn't have literally thousands of muzzle-loaders and hundreds of installations fitted for them. Some of the gun-counterbalanced designs -the counterweight was another cannon- also might have seen limited service in other circumstances.

Take a look at this, btw: both Sill and DTIC are getting a lot more of the CA Journal readily findable online. I dunno whether to feel grateful that it's here now, or angry about time wasted well spent looking for it in the recent past. When I was younger, dumber, and a' servin o' the Raygun {"but I repeat myself", I worked for about a year in walking distance of a post library that had almost all of them, and a lot of engineer stuff, some of which I have never seen since. An awful lot of what I've done on these subjects went back to 35 year-old memory. I've been looking, for example, for an article on shipping cradles, or lifting trusses for them, on some of Higgin's boats that were re-purposed to make aircraft hanger trusses. Haven't seen it for 35 years. Anmccaff (talk) 19:06, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

The account of the Army-Navy exercise in Long Island Sound is cool, and is just as I'm contemplating the article on that HD. I published Harbor Defenses of Narragansett Bay yesterday, my longest article yet, as it's my "old stomping grounds" and my brother has lived there since 1976. So I put in lots of lore. I realize it's not much on your scale of verbal conflagrations, but that guy who was PO'd at my note about the US emplacements sure lit up the talk page in my view. BTW, I dislike the idea of putting a whole giant list of emplacements in the article; if somebody wants to they should make a separate list article. I also don't believe in dumping entire tech manuals or textbooks into an article; see 3-inch gun M1903 and GPS for examples of these. A couple of FA Journals and two pics on Commons gave me info on the self-propelled "Crime of 1916"; not surprising it was used to test how deeply a fording vehicle could operate. I thought most Higgins boats were wood, making re-use difficult, but it certainly conserves strategic materials. RobDuch (talk) 19:42, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

The Higgins doohickey was a either a shipping cradle, or a truss used for lifting one, looked something like what you see in the third photo down here, although I recall it being a little less robust. The WWII Higgins stuff, Eurekas and PT boats both, were generally wood,or developed ply, not the unimolded stuff of some of the postwar "pt juniors" and so forth, or the airdrop rescue boats.

Yeah, I agree: you add too much detail to overview articles, and you wind up not being able to see the forest for the trees. I've long thought that some articles ought to have rotating example pictures, but there is no way to enforce that in a volunteer project. The streetcar article gets invaded fairly regularly by people who feel their town/city/nation, or from the looka some of them, planet is getting a raw deal, so they add or replace a bunch of pics in excessive numbers, which then get reverted, added again, reverted again &cet. Anmccaff (talk) 20:27, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

Third photo down is an LCM or "Mike-boat"; although built by Higgins, not part of the Higgins boat design lineage (which is LCP, LCPR, LCVP, and Higgins PT boat). LCMs were originated by the Brits and were (and still are) steel-hull. They were produced in an enlarged version postwar as the LCM-8. Oh wait, I see you mean the cradle. I guess it could be formed from LCVP sides. Higgins' other designs had pretty curvy hulls, though. I would guess with the streetcars that you've found out San Fran has imported them from all over the US and Europe and they run regularly. RobDuch (talk) 22:25, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, I know the beasts, another battalion in my old brigade was an S&T outfit that included a stevedore platoon (or detachment), and I was one of the people who managed to get Ft Cowbell its very own bargeport, which my old battalion later used on a couple occasions to remotely rattle sabres (well, D-7s) at Mr. Ortega..well, come to think of it, no, the first time was out of JAX. Lot of commercial use of LCMs in some places I've lived, too. I'm also a Higgins fan; been tracking a couple of T-boats, and made a semi-serious run at what turns out maybe to have been Higgins' own PT Junior, give or take. (Someone else bought it, sank it. Same thing happened with Donald Roebling's boat. I must use this power only for good.) Higgins is an interesting example of how something can go from almost universal to almost unknown; there's only a few hundred left of their pleasure boats, and less of their campers. I've known a couple cases where people treated them a little too casually, 'cause "Higgins" means Sears, right? No big deal." They cranked out some of the best production boats of their day, in considerable numbers, and now they are a rarity, and one a surprising number of people don't really remember. Anmccaff (talk) 02:38, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

I found a site on French forts 1870-1914 with decent profiles of every type of French artillery of the period. Sere de Rivieres Forts In French, but each page has a multilingual auto-translate function. Having visited Fort Douaumont and Fort Vaux, and made a web page about them that's still on some Geocities archive sites, I'm a fan of the forts of General Sere de Rivieres. I found this while pursuing my hobby of attempting to identify stuff in Media related to Unidentified artillery at Wikimedia Commons. Couldn't find the disappearing 120 mounts, though. RobDuch (talk) 21:32, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

Oh, that's evil. Hundreds of pictures that look just like...oh, wait, it isn't. A lot of that goes back to both the Basil Zaharovs of the world, and to the stupider form of nationalist. One made sure each of his customers stuff was a little different, so he could get them both convinced they needed to upgrade; the other was convinced that he hadda put the stamp of Ruratania on it, couldn't leave well enough alone. That was one thing Crozier was quite good at; we adopted furrin stuff with little change, if it worked well. IMO, of course, and worth every penny paid.

Yeah, there's another French site on another "systeme" that I found and lost again; had a bunch of stuff on decauville mobile cannon. On another note check this 'un. Anmccaff (talk) 01:09, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

I've re-oriented my life from Skyrim to World of Warcraft this week, may get back to Wiki next week. I think the biggest obstacles for photo ID are as follows: very little info on the Net about non-British and non-ACW weapons 1850-1900, correspondingly few identified reference photos on the Net of same, and (as you pointed out) small-but-wealthy countries that practice mercantilism (I'm looking at YOU, Sweden, Switzerland, and Holland). There's also a general lack of reference photos of the 1-pdr/3-pdr/6-pdr families circa 1900, except select Hotchkiss designs. RobDuch (talk) 03:36, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

HD NYC

I've got back into Wiki and have published Harbor Defenses of Long Island Sound. I'm starting to delve into the defenses of New York City (NEW YORK CITY?!). I'm going to combine Eastern/Southern/Sandy Hook commands into one article, as they were merged at some point in WW2 (references are elusive as to the timing of this). Despite my work on the Third System forts, I have a lot to learn. Info seems scarce prior to the First System, at least in Roberts. Fortunately, American Forts Network has a robust list of forts and locations. I may spend the time to merge Fort Jay/Fort Columbus, which somebody already remarked on. RobDuch (talk) 04:18, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

(NEW YORK CITY?!)

Be careful to Pace yourself. Anmccaff (talk) 06:46, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

Has this one surfaced on Wiki yet?

https://books.google.com/books/download/Occasional_Papers_Engineer_School_United.pdf?id=LZoYAQAAIAAJ&hl

Anmccaff (talk) 05:20, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

Haven't heard of this before, posting a link on FB for my other fort friends. RobDuch (talk) 19:50, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

How do I archive stuff on my talk page? Where do I put it, a text file on my hard drive? RobDuch (talk) 20:52, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

The official wikisolution is to make a subpage called User-talk:UserName/archive_1, serial numbered, or by date, and just move it over.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Archiving_a_talk_page#Automated_archival shows how to set up the two common automatic archiving bots, dunno if I'm gonna bother. Anmccaff (talk) 21:18, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks! RobDuch (talk) 21:19, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

Completed merger of Fort Columbus into Fort Jay. I'll be heading out on a week's vacation soon, so I wanted to get it done. I know I won't have time for much with HD New York before then. RobDuch (talk) 03:19, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

Mega WWI US Army OB online

The US Army's four-volume official OB for WWI is online here. Look for "Zone of the Interior" for units that stayed in the US. RobDuch (talk) 23:49, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

16" disappearing carriage pic.

Man, I hope you are wrong on that one, I think that was a real improvement to the article. Anmccaff (talk) 20:02, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

Well, unfortunately I'm not wrong. I copied it off of a Facebook post, and the poster noticed. It was from a print that he'd paid money for, so it's his. RobDuch (talk) 21:05, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, I figured that; you aren't too big on "wrong." Pity Wiki doesn't have a slush fund for minor hush-money in cases like this. Anmccaff (talk)

Tambor-class submarine

The article does not explain why the second 6 boats are 'often' called the Gar-Class. Where there any major differences? Can you explain this or clarify? Nyth63 15:33, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

Found it in Friedman, putting it in the article. RobDuch (talk) 00:59, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

Would this make the Gars a subclass to the Tambors? Just wondering if infobox should be updated to reflect it or not.Pennsy22 (talk) 03:31, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

I have four references that list the whole group as Tambors, and none that break out the Gars separately, though some note them as "sometimes" referred to as a separate class. I would say the collapse depth difference isn't significant enough to warrant a subclass; collapse depth is rarely included in tables of capabilities, test depth being the more frequently referenced parameter. Both groups had a test depth of 250 feet. RobDuch (talk) 03:37, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

16"/50 caliber M1919 as railway gun

IMS, and this is, as usual old memory, subject to the usual caveats, wasn't a railway mount seriously contemplated for the 16 incher? this, and the document it's extracted from, is the only thing I could come up with in a quick search, though.

I was noticing that there was a lot less new stuff lately on US forts Endicott forward, and then I realized that you'd pretty much cleared the board completely. Not bad at all. Anmccaff (talk) 16:42, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

I'm on vacation and don't have my references. This article seems to be the usual wishful thinking of a senior officer that is often found in professional journals. Maybe a sketch design could be dug up. I think I've read that at some time in the middle 30's the 10-inch and 12-inch railway guns, unsuitable for coast defense due to their mounts, were removed from service, and their absence from this article is notable. Of course, the 8-inch guns and 12-inch mortars were retained in service at least through mid-WW2, and new 8-inch mounts for 35-year-old guns were deployed in early WW2. I'm in touch with a number of coast defense fans on Facebook, and I am about the only one of them that's currently active on Wikipedia. A few weeks ago I shifted my efforts to World of Warcraft, but should return to Wikipedia when WoW again becomes too much of a chore. The next set of coast defenses geographically is HD of the Delaware, fortunately not as big a project as HD NY. RobDuch (talk) 01:50, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, there's a lot of professional journal stuff that needs a big grain of salt, but sometimes a foreign reader might mistake a "wouldn't it be nice..." article for a signal that something is going to happen, or already has.

On an unrelated note, there's gotta be some use for this someplace. Anmccaff (talk) 05:39, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

A fun concept, but basically once you're in action you'd keep the guns raised to improve rate of fire IMO, depending on the overall system of course. The statement that arcs of fire are "practically 360°" appears to be ridiculous, certainly not borne out by the drawings. The Brits tried this on one ship as noted in the disappearing guns article. Disappearing secondary armament seems to me to be a waste of weight and money. I've run across the Russian triangular citadel before, and it seems to be an economical alternative where heavy forward firepower is desired. RobDuch (talk) 22:14, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Oh, this was an amazingly stupid idea this late in the game, but, like you said, a fun concept. Once they got hydraulic recuperators down, one of the biggest reasons fot DGs was gone, and on ocean-going capital ships there's really no way to substitute cheap concrete, dirt, or water for steel protection, which took care of the other. This looks like an idea with little practical merit beyond separating fools and congressmen ("..but I repeat myself") from their money...and damned if the fellow doesn't appear to be a lawyer.

There were a lot of other interesting articles in there to boot. Anmccaff (talk) 00:12, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

RE: Removal of periscope photo from Gato-class article

Thank you for the question , brother.

In my opinion , that photo I removed in Gato-class submarine article is not appropriate to put there.

For one thing , what's that photo about in the first place ? Just like what it describes in that photo: Periscope photo of Japanese Patrol Boat No. 39 sinking after being torpedoed by USS Seawolf. , That USS Seawolf is a Sargo-class submarine and this is the reason why i removed it.

Sorry if I offend anything to you , but I suggest you need to put up a appropriate photo in Gato-class article , maybe the one that doesn't said whom sink the Japanese ship like you put in Tambor-class submarine and Balao-class submarine article. --Comrade John (talk) 20:01, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

Periscope photos are rare on Wikipedia. I used what was available. I could rework the caption. Regardless of which submarine was involved, it represents what the Gato-class did during the war. RobDuch (talk) 01:32, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Commencement Bay class

Rob , need your help via your reference books again.

In current Commencement Bay class article's version , The total number of this class in infobox said:

• Planned: 33
• Completed: 21
• Cancelled: 12

But when I go through the "ships in the class" in the article provide , it didn't fulfill this kind of numbers , so I look through the google and this URL:http://www.alternatewars.com/BBOW/Stats/WW2_US_Cancellations.htm that helped me built many template and found something interesting.

In Norman Polmar's "Aircraft Carriers: A History of Carrier Aviation and Its Influence on World Events, Volume 1: 1909-1945" , Commencement Bay class's number in Spring 1945 is:

• In Commission: 3
• Under Construction: 9
• Ordered: 23

In that URL , Commencement Bay class's cancellations:

• CVE-124 Bastogne (Commencement Bay) Laid down 2 April 1945
• CVE-125 Eniwetok (Commencement Bay) Laid down 20 April 1945
• CVE-126 Lingayen (Commencement Bay) Laid down 1 May 1945
• CVE-127 Okinawa (Commencement Bay) Laid down 22 May 1945
• CVE-128 Unnamed (Commencement Bay) Laid down 17 July 1945
• CVE-129 Unnamed (Commencement Bay) Laid down 9 August 1945
• CVE-130 Unnamed (Commencement Bay)
• CVE-131 Unnamed (Commencement Bay)
• CVE-132 Unnamed (Commencement Bay)
• CVE-133 Unnamed (Commencement Bay)
• CVE-134 Unnamed (Commencement Bay)
• CVE-135 Unnamed (Commencement Bay)
• CVE-136 Unnamed (Commencement Bay)
• CVE-137 Unnamed (Commencement Bay)
• CVE-138 Unnamed (Commencement Bay)
• CVE-139 Unnamed (Commencement Bay)

There are total 16 Commencement Bay-class got canceled on 12 August 1945.

So my question is:

1. Is current Commencement Bay class article's version , The total number of this class in infobox is not correct ? The correct total number should be like this: ?

• Planned: 35
• Completed: 19
• Cancelled: 16

2. If first question's number prediction is right. I need to confirm these cancelled ship with information:

• CVE-128 through CVE-139 , are these really unnamed ?
• CVE-124 through CVE-139 , are these have their shipbuilder , laid down date ?
• CVE-124 through CVE-139 , are these all "Cancelled before launching, 12 August 1945" ?

So , please respond. Should have needed to make some edit in Commencement Bay-class escort carrier's article and "List of United States Navy escort aircraft carriers" -- Comrade John (talk) 11:40, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

One more addition request. Can you provide all CVE-105 through CVE-139's shipbuilder name via your books because I suspect there may have some issues to those complete ships as well , thank you. -- Comrade John (talk) 11:51, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Looking in both Friedman's aircraft carrier book and the Register, CVE-128 thru 139 are all unnamed, and CVE-124 thru 139 are all cancelled 12 August 1945. Builder for all completed and cancelled CVE-105 thru 131 is Todd, Tacoma. Builder scheduled for CVE-132 thru 139 is "Vancouver", which built the entire Casablanca class (CVE-55 thru 104). See above for laid down dates from the Register; CVE-124 thru 129 were laid down but never got to launching. RobDuch (talk) 23:13, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Thank you brother. Two things to confirm:

• Vancouver , is it Kaiser Shipyards ?
• Just like the Fletcher-class destroyer we discussed before , There are two kinds of Todd, Tacoma in "Ships in the class" list of the Commencement-Bay class's article :First is the Todd Pacific Shipyards ; second is the Seattle-Tacoma Shipbuilding Corporation , which are lead to different article page. Since CVE-105 thru CVE-131 are all built by Todd, Tacoma , there must have one page of Todd is wrong so which article page of Todd is correct ? -- Comrade John (talk) 09:58, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Vancouver is Kaiser. I see the class article is confused as to what to call Todd/Tacoma as well. I also see that the two shipyard articles are not really informative, especially as to whether more than one physical site is involved. Some info is at ShipbuildingHistory.com . In fact, it's all in this list. Maybe some day I'll put a sentence in each article to straighten out the location question. RobDuch (talk) 18:37, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

I added Sea-Tac to the Vigor Shipyards article; I suspect one or two more shipyards were part of Todd Pacific but I only have the ShipbuildingHistory.com reference. I also put that link in the Sea-Tac article.RobDuch (talk) 21:47, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Fort Mills

Beautiful stuff, as usual. One minor quibble- you seem to be marking as "minor" by default, so the stuff doesn't show on some watchlist settings. Re Bunker, an area in Boston over near the Fort Point Channel was named as Paul Bunker Square; dunno if that's worth mentioning in the article, though. Anmccaff (talk) 21:17, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

It's harder to reply to you now that you're retired LOL. I put the square in the Paul Bunker article. I should be putting the recapture stuff into HD Manila Bay soon, I'll try to condense it but you know how it goes with me. I do mark most of my edits as minor, esp since last year I finally found Wiki's definition of "minor". I've been checking WP:AFD for amusement (yes, it's that bad). Not only am I not inclined to participate, I really think I don't know enough WP acronyms to do so. RobDuch (talk) 21:24, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Nahh, just add a ping, and it'll get through. Talking about amusement, did you see the Not Ready for Main Space Feature article today? Jaysus. 18:00, 27 March 2018 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Anmccaff (talk • contribs)

Coalhouse Fort, right? Of course, yesterday's Fulvous whistling duck sounds like something from Monty Python. Do all FA's get attacked by vandals that much on their featured day? I did notice that it's long enough, but didn't read it in detail. My instinct is to use an article's length to judge the need for improvement, although on reading some the length isn't the problem. "Henrician"? That's a Britishism I haven't seen before. Found out, BTW, that my gggrandpa's unit lineage from the Civil War lives! I was googling "240th Coast Artillery" and came up with this. See 1st Maine Volunteer Infantry Regiment for more; all the 240's in the MEARNG are descended from them. Sadly, the web page with the full lineage is one of the many Rootsweb pages that have been down for months due to response to a hacker attack, including my primary source for WWI arty. Yesterday, I pumped up my edit count by changing numerous stub articles on cancelled WWII subs to redirects. Destroyers are next. RobDuch (talk) 22:09, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Gave up on the cancelled destroyers. Even DANFS ignores these. Also, most of the names were recycled for completed ships, unlike the subs. Probably going ahead with Nat'l Gd CA regiments. Also, wonder who has the time to post all those Somali place name stubs using every name in NGA's geonames database? Let alone who has the time to put them all up for AfD. RobDuch (talk) 02:09, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

@Anmccaff: : This article about an alleged playwright of the 1500s with no shred of credible sourcing should link its subject to Henry Sinclair, Francis Bacon, and/or Oak Island for more credibility. COI disclosure: I watch too much "Curse of Oak Island". RobDuch (talk) 05:47, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

What's interesting, in a sad kind of way, is that there are people who will reflexively defend stuff like that, usually based on a source that circles right back to wiki itself.

Re "Henrician", the use of Latin for monarchs survived pretty damn late; look at the the One-hoss Shay: Georgius Secundus was still alive, Snuffy old drone from the German hive. Compared to "Jacobite", it isn't much of a stretch from English.

The Device Forts are odd in that they run from very late examples of rounded medieval fortification to up-to date borrowings from continental practice; it's probably the widest spread in type of any single organized program. (Other seemingly similar examples are usually based on re-use of older work.) Anmccaff (talk) 18:29, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

8th Coast Artillery (United States)

Hi, Rob, I think 8th Coast Artillery (United States) would read better if you spelled out "HD" in the article. Just a thought.<shrug>--Georgia Army Vet Contribs Talk 12:41, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

It's spelled out in the "History" section. RobDuch (talk) 15:33, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

240th Coast Artillery

@Anmccaff: : I've published my first National Guard CA regiment article, 240th Coast Artillery (United States). I plan to move on to the 241st soon, and so on. For the 240th I had help from the pictorial history published in 1941. I don't have anything like that for the 241st. For some reason the CDSG history sketches are a lot less detailed for the National Guard units. RobDuch (talk) 21:24, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

And the 241st is live: 241st Coast Artillery (United States). RobDuch (talk) 02:25, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

I suspect that the early work mining the National Archives the CDSG did gave a lot of the early research a federal slant, and the complete lack of real continuity post CAC in the Guard did the rest. The requirement for continuous manning of AAA facilities post-war meant a shift to more active units, less guard in those jobs, I'd bet. I'm going to see if I can find any other semi-commercial stuff like the 240th's yearbook by searching printers and publishers. Most of these things were only quasi-official; at best they were unit documents, not service documents.

Have you run across this piece on the politics of the Endicott/Taft appropriations? Nothing there you don't know yourself, I'd bet, but it looks handy if some dweeb adds a {{cn}} to something. Anmccaff (talk) 15:36, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

PS:Buried in here is piece called From an Early Radar Diary by Harold A. Zahl. I suspect it's got some uses, and not just on the CA articles. Anmccaff (talk) 16:05, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

It seems most of the CA regiments' numbers re-appeared as AAA battalions circa 1950, which morphed rapidly through several designations including AAA Groups. However, the only details I've seen are for the 240th, and that web page is buried in what I call the "Rootsweb fiasco", which has also removed the bulk of my info on WWI CAC heavy arty regiments. Reading Stanton's foreword, apparently battalion commanders and up returning from overseas were required to fill out a unit history card before they could go home. For some reason, when deactivating the active CAC regiments in early 1944 either a detailed unit history was compiled or was maintained while active. For the Guard, somehow, there is next to nothing. I've also come to the conclusion that most of our info on the CAC is from the Army Corps' records of facilities built for them; for example there is virtually nothing on deployment of railway mortars. Due to extensive historical efforts by fans of HD Columbia I'm aware that a battery was at Fort Stevens, but it's not in the CDSG's lists. RobDuch (talk) 00:11, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

I suspect a lot of that was because they fell between two stools:they were on active so long the state's AG lost touch, and the federals saw them as a Guard matter. If they had remained in the same form and with the same personnel that wouldn't have been so big a deal, but the shift was pretty dramatic. CA had a strong appeal for the stay-at-home soldier that a field AA unit lacks. Anmccaff (talk) 17:23, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

I've never looked into the history of radar development, but I have heard the British statement that our radar was rubbish until they gave us the cavity magnetron tube. Rapid improvements in radar were a major factor in the USN's increasing performance in the Guadalcanal Campaign. This book Rowland, Buford; Boyd, William (1954). US Navy Bureau of Ordnance in World War II. Washington, DC: US Navy Bureau of Ordnance, Department of the Navy. , which I had growing up, is free online and should have some info. I've found the lack of radar involvement in the bombardment of Fort Stevens disturbing. Was it not installed, not manned or turned on, or what? And the one thing radar is best at is determining range; the OIC used an optical DPF (I think it's the most cockamamie rangefinder I've ever heard of unless you're in one of the taller towers) and determined the sub was out of range of the 6-inchers, thus he didn't fire. RobDuch (talk) 00:11, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Development of microwave radar was pretty wide-spread, Magnetrons were a massive improvement, but if Britain hadn't brought the US, Canada, and Oceania in early on, they would not have gotten so far with it fast. The US Army already had working (indirect) fire control radar by what, 1936? Wouldn't reliably see something smaller than a destroyer, and still required optical final laying, but it wasn't that shabby. Real as the advantages of microwave are, it mattered least to fixed land facilities and very big ships, and most to aircraft.

Re Stevens, I suspect that a depression range finder was good enough to confirm that the thing was well out of range, and that was the end of that. No point in carefully precisely locating something you can't hit. Anmccaff (talk) 17:23, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

It will not surprise you that I put in the Military Policy sections in the Grover Cleveland article. In his first term he initiated the Endicott Program and ordered enough ships to eventually enable the Spanish–American War (I think I used the proper hyphen). In his second term he again ordered a (relatively modest) naval expansion, but dragged his feet on funding the forts. I'm sure that development issues with the multitude of new technologies also played a role in the slow pre-1898 progress of the forts, such as 12-inch disappearing carriages. And remember we started by building the gun-lift battery that got basically nowhere. Once the war hit, McKinley of course crash-funded both the Navy and the forts. RobDuch (talk) 00:11, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

When I die, and go to Hell, I'll find the fellow who began making a big deal about hyphens and dashes and so forth here, and beat him raw with his mother's leash.

Yupp, sometimes it's a damned good thing, the foot-dragging; the B-C DG and their installations were as good as anything until WWI, and were still useful on the Atlantic coast, and much of the Pacific, through WWII. If you couldn't get an aircraft over them, they still worked as well as ever against a sea threat. Battery Potter was little more that a target...worse yet, an aiming point, by 1900. Our home-grown steel came quite a while in those eight years, too, and Congress (rightly) prefers spending money inside our borders, all else equal. Anmccaff (talk) 17:23, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

I'm contemplating translating Obusier de 400 mm from French Wikipedia. I plan to run it through Google Translate first, as my French is not too good. This was the gun that inspired the CAC to provide 65 deg of elevation on 16-inch gun carriages. There are some other French railway guns on their wiki as well. RobDuch (talk) 03:25, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Are you writing this stuff up anywhere else? Frankly, I've had enough of so much of Wikipedia that I'd like one less reason to log on. Anmccaff (talk) 17:23, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

@Anmccaff: : For better or worse, I'm not contributing more than Facebook comments and shares of stuff I like anywhere except Wiki. I post links to some of my articles at the "Coast Artillery" group on Facebook. I pay Yahoo so I can have the domain tenthmaine.org, but I've never got around to doing anything with it. If you search "Battle of Verdun" or "The Forts of Verdun" on archive sites, you should find my old Geocities website from the 90s, whose files I have on my other computer. Also on archive sites you might find the "Center for Fort Preservation and Tourism", which I contributed to back then. A relative wrote up my gggrandpa's bio at http://www.johnmeadgould.com/jmgould.html ; you should find it interesting. Don't worry that some links are red; they still work and all four parts of the site are there. RobDuch (talk) 20:11, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, camping, army style. Huh. That'd make you some kinda cousin to the Maine Lingo fellow, also, no? A great writer, read him in the Monitor and so forth as a kid, but lost sight of his columns when I went on active, and was surprised to find him still goin' about 25 years ago, and lasting another 10. Wrote some of the best stuff about the Quebecker entrepeneur de bois and other back-country wildlife ever put on paper. Anmccaff (talk) 21:29, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

PS: Have you seen this 'un? Good pictures of the overcrowded early pit design, which appear to be public domain. Anmccaff (talk) 16:15, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

USS Capodanno (FF-1093)

Just a small asking , need your register though.

There are two versions of this ship's laid down date:

1. 12 October 1971 , Found in the Wikipedia article itself , http://www.nvr.navy.mil/SHIPDETAILS/SHIPSDETAIL_FF_1093_1286.HTML and https://www.navysite.de/ff/ff1093.htm .

2. 25 February 1972 , Found in http://www.navypedia.org/ships/usa/us_de_knox.htm and http://www.navsource.org/archives/06/06021093.htm .

Which one is the correct date ? --Comrade John (talk) 18:47, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

The Register has 25 February 1972. The other date is close to the date of 8 October 1971 for USS Thomas C. Hart (FF-1092), so I think somebody read the wrong line and it spread. RobDuch (talk) 20:13, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

Should I choose 25 February 1972 with listing reference or list two dates ? Also , which page of this date listed in register ? -- Comrade John (talk) 20:36, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

25 February 1972 is on p. 244 of Bauer & Roberts. However, further research shows 12 October 1971 is on p. 537 of Friedman's destroyer book and p. 599 of Conway's 1947-1995. Ugh. I would put both dates in there somehow, with a footnote that references vary.

• Friedman, Norman (2004). US Destroyers: An Illustrated Design History (Revised Edition). Annapolis: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 1-55750-442-3.
• Gardiner, Robert; Chumbley, Stephen (1995). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1947-1995. London: Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 1-55750-132-7.

RobDuch (talk) 20:57, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

Here we go again , I always thought this kind of twins situation should not be happen if those official documents are still here and still can access. Once again , thank you brother. -- Comrade John (talk) 21:09, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

Artillery

If you're interested, I've started putting together a page on the early artillery organization of the Army. The "result," so far is in a sandbox: User:Gaarmyvet/sandbox 3. Comments would be appreciated. Among the challenges are naming conventions; the 1st Regiment of Artillery is completely unrelated to the 1st Field Artillery Regiment and so on. And there are similar situations with the infantry.--Georgia Army Vet Contribs Talk 22:18, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

I have "Artillerists and Engineers" by Wade; it's mainly about early forts and their garrisons but there's a lot of overlap with the light/field artillery I believe. He starts in 1794. I haven't read much about early artillery organization but I'll take a look. RobDuch (talk) 22:25, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

I also have the ADA volume of Army Lineage Series from 1985; it appears to have all the active Regular Army units at that time. When looking at the Army Lineage Series, my recollection is that Field Artillery isn't in it yet. I know about the first seven artillery regiments lapsing, then becoming coast artillery (no relation to field artillery), then lapsing (well, becoming battalions circa 1950), then becoming "combined" FA/ADA regiments in 1962, finally becoming ADA. RobDuch (talk) 23:26, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, after I dropped my note here I came across the Artillery units becoming coast artillery in Heitman; could get interesting.--Georgia Army Vet Contribs Talk 00:02, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Wade's book is available for $25 (includes US shipping) at http://cdsg.org/the-beginings-of-american-seacoast-fortifications-1794-1815/ . Its only limitation is that it ends in 1815. RobDuch (talk) 21:07, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

It looks like you're off to a good start. I've heard there was a lot of redesignation at the end of the War of 1812, and most of the first four artillery regiments date from 1821 for some reason. Wade also gets into the politics behind the early artillery history, such as the hiring and firing of French officers due to our not wanting to be dependent on them. Sorry I don't have too much input; lineage articles are a bit strange to me. An extreme case is the 59th Air Defense Artillery Regiment; in the Army Lineage Series of 1985 there are eight separate articles on various units descended from that regiment, famous for the defense of Corregidor. So putting all that into the Wiki article would be quite a job. I put some info on Corregidor in the article; it was mostly lacking. When you get to the 20th century there's a lot of Coast Artillery unit info at http://cdsg.org/coast-artillery-corps/ ; this is also in the CDSG's "American Seacoast Defenses: A Reference Guide", which includes most of what's on the CDSG website and much else. Between 1901 and 1924 the repeated redesignation of all the coast artillery companies is nightmarish (up to 6 redesignations for a company); you'll want to gloss over it I think. Bolling W. Smith is a primary researcher of the CDSG; he tracked down all those redesignations. I believe the early regimentation of the Field Artillery in 1906 makes that branch's lineage a lot easier to work with. RobDuch (talk) 22:47, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

Rather indirectly, I found the Army Lineage Series: Field Artillery online at https://history.army.mil/catalog/pubs/60/60-11.html . You've probably already been using it. RobDuch (talk) 03:52, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

"Convoluted" is probably a good description for Army lineage. I published Early U.S. Artillery formations and added a line to Template:Artillery Regiments (United States) to account for the 19th century regiments. I started working on the 1st Artillery Regiment (1821) (see my sandbox 3, above, if you wish) when I realized that the 1st ADA traces its lineage to the old 1st Artillery. Now I'm thinking of just linking to the 1st ADA. "We" will have to add some stuff there, like the 1st being commanded by Robert Anderson at Fort Sumter (only two companies present) on that fateful day in April of 1861. User:82redleg has been talking and this is more-or-less a duplicate of the note on his talk page. I haven't even looked at the 2nd through 5th Regiments yet. Comments welcome.--Georgia Army Vet Contribs Talk 01:58, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

The article looks good as written, and could be a springboard to an Artillery Corps article. I've put links to it in Seacoast defense in the United States and related articles (about 20, mostly forts and officers' bios). It is difficult to determine how to subdivide articles on a long-lived unit that served in several wars. I think maybe a broad-brush lineage article, along with separate articles for wars the unit served extensively in, is a good approach. That said, for the 1st Maine Volunteer Infantry Regiment and successors the 10th and 29th I put brief lineage info in each article, with links to a detailed Rootsweb page that is temporarily down. It is also difficult to determine how much history to put in a lineage article. I think major events such as Fort Sumter should be in there, and I put in the sentence in the 3rd Artillery article that 12 companies served in the Civil War. RobDuch (talk) 03:03, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

I've just found an article that relates to what you're doing: Active regular United States Army units with campaign credit for the War of 1812 . What a title! Anyway, it may be helpful. RobDuch (talk) 19:16, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

Knox-class frigate canceled ships

Found a interesting fact in this site again:

http://www.alternatewars.com/BBOW/Warships/USN_DE_Lineage_CW_Modern.htm

A fact that Knox-class frigate has 9 canceled ships.

The site state "Register of ships of the U.S. Navy, 1775-1990: Major Combatants by Karl Jack Bauer and Stephen S. Roberts" as reference , that register again.

Can you tell me which page of this statement in that register ?

Thank you -- Comrade John (talk) 17:43, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

It's on p. 244. DE (later FF)-1098-1100 and 1102-1107 were cancelled Knox-class, never laid down. DE-1101 was proposed as an experimental gas turbine ship but never laid down; listed in the Register as a one-ship class. RobDuch (talk) 19:37, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

Thank you , brother. -- Comrade John (talk) 20:35, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

Brother , I'm done on putting those information onto the Knox-class frigate. Changes are in infobox , "Units" section and "Citations" section point 1 and 21. Of course , all provided with reference , the name of that register is put in "References" section , see if you want to proof read , to add some more on Knox-class canceled ships.-- Comrade John (talk) 21:32, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

Also off topic question , according to that register , does "Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate" have any canceled ships ? --Comrade John (talk) 21:40, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

No cancellations for OHP class. FFG-17, 18, 35, and 44 were built for Australia and were commissioned in that navy. RobDuch (talk) 02:11, 4 June 2018 (UTC)