Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Japanese aircraft carrier Shinano

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The following discussion is closed. 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/promoted -- Ian Rose (talk) 22:48, 25 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Japanese aircraft carrier Shinano[edit]

Nominator(s): Sturmvogel 66 (talk)


Shinano remains the largest warship ever sunk, even after nearly 70 years. She also had one of the briefest careers, being sunk as she was transferring to another shipyard for fitting out. I've already had help from several OMT members about the technical side of things, so I'm not too worried about that. I'd like for reviewers, especially non-ships guys, to see if there's anything "jargony" that further needs to be explained and to focus on improving the the prose.Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 21:38, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Support on prose per standard disclaimer. One question about "run at a depth of 10 feet (3.0 m) ... to capsize the carrier": I don't know why running at 10 feet would capsize the carrier. - Dank (push to talk) 03:22, 17 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Explanation added.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 03:50, 19 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

  • Is heavily-armed support carrier an actual carrier type/role in the IJN or an opinion by the source to distinguish it from earlier fleet carriers with larger hangers? It reads like the former but I think it's the latter.
    • I can't tell if it was a formal designation or not, but I suspect not.
      • Reading a few other sources, Shinano was a fleet carrier, but because of the ship's slower speed and smallish hangar space they imagined some kind of role in support of other fleet carriers. Some sources say that it was supposed to have only one squadron and the rest of the space was for spares/repair, others go with the 47 number and others say the official capacity was 60. I'd probably steer away from 'heavily-armed' unless that what the source says.
        • Heavily armored, not armed.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 02:45, 21 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
          • I was wondering why I wrote that the other day! :)
  • Why exactly did it displace 70k tons but only have room for 47 aircraft vs the essex about 30k with 100 aircraft? They aren't really that different in size, but I assume it was the battleship armor below the waterline so maybe it would be better to specify that if you can cite it.
    • The forward section of the hangar was dedicated to storage and maintenance facilities. Added.
      • I tweaked this a little bit to indicate this more explicitly.
  • Was it supposed to have 2 Aichi B7A in storage (to get to 47...)?
    • Good catch.
  • Armor is missing from the infobox, otherwise looks good. Kirk (talk) 20:45, 18 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Support - In closing, another CV where every source I checked had a different 'aircraft carried' number, I think this is so weird historians can't agree on this stuff. Thanks for another good addition to the project. Kirk (talk) 16:39, 23 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments It's good to see this important article developed to such high quality. I have the following comments:

  • "As of 2013, Shinano remains the largest warship ever sunk by a submarine" - as it's very unlikely that anything bigger is about to be sunk, I'd suggest changing this to "Shinano is the largest warship ever sunk by a submarine"
    • Just CYA in case the Chinese manage to sink a US carrier during the forthcoming Sino-American War of 2017.
  • "Serious punishment—up to and including death—awaited anyone who breathed a word about the new ship" - this seems an over-statement given that officials would have been able to discuss the ship
    • The quote from my source is: "Her thousands of builders were confined to the yard compound and lived under the threat of imprisonment or summary execution if they uttered so much as a word of her existence." So I've clarified that this applied to the workers, not management.
  • "The navy also wanted to make the large drydock in which the ship was being built available and they could do that either by scrapping the portion already completed or by finishing it enough to be launched." - this is a bit awkward. I'd suggest changing it to "The navy also wanted to make the large drydock in which the ship was being built available, which required either crapping the portion already completed or by finishing it enough to be launched."
    • Good idea.
  • "She was to carry reserve aircraft, fuel and ordnance in support of other carriers" - I might be mistaken, but wasn't the role of the ship to act as a forward base for aircraft from other carriers? I think that the intention was the the unarmoured carriers would remain well away from the enemy fleet while the armoured carriers refueled their aircraft during battles.
    • Problem with that is that no carrier of the time could simultaneously land aircraft aboard and fly them off in large numbers. So she was best suited to land aircraft aboard after a strike, repair/refuel/rearm them for either a second strike or return to their own carriers.
  • "Large ventilation fans were installed on the hangar deck to expel gasoline fumes in case of damage to the gasoline system; Taiho had been sunk by an explosion of gasoline fumes" - were these installed at the last minute as a result of the loss of Taiho in June 1944?
    • Quite possibly, but no source specifies as much.
  • Should the submarine be called USS Archerfish (the name of our article) rather than Archer-Fish?
    • [[1]] says Archer-Fish, the article should probably be changed.
  • "Post-war analysis by the U.S. Naval Technical Mission to Japan claimed that Shinano had serious design flaws" - is "claimed" the right word here? These investigations were generally conducted by well qualified teams and were serious works of analysis intended to inform ship design and the development of tactics. Nick-D (talk) 00:19, 19 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Support My above comments are now addressed Nick-D (talk) 02:54, 21 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments What a fascinating read -- thank you for helping to compose such an article. I've got several minor issues and questions:

  • "could not meet the new deadline of October." Any reason given?
    • Lack of workers
  • "and her escorts on her radar and" I thought submarines carry sonars instead of radars?
    • Subs began to field radar as well as sonar during WW2
  • Perhaps you could add File:Yamato1945.png to illustrate what the ship might have looked like had it not been converted to a carrier.
    • That diagram isn't quite right as Shinano's main AA guns were the 12.7 cm guns of her half-sisters, but 10 cm guns.
  • Just out of curiosity, which warship was actually the largest to have been sunk?
    • It's still Shinano, but my source didn't specify that she was the largest sunk, period.
  • This is just an irrelevant thought, but would the Shinano be considered the first supercarrier in its post-war definition? I find it interesting that, although the Midway class of WWII was considered to be a super class of carriers, it was blown out of the water by the Shinano.--Sp33dyphil ©hatontributions 07:47, 19 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • Possibly, at least based on size, although I'd argue that air wing size is a better benchmark. Glad you liked the article; thanks for reviewing it.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 02:39, 21 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • CommentsSupport
    • No dab links [2] (no action req'd).
    • External links all check out [3] (no action req'd).
    • All images lack Alt Text so you might consider adding it [4] (suggestion only - not an ACR req).
    • The Citation Check Tool reveals no issues with reference consolidation (no action req'd).
    • Images are all either PD / appropriately licenced as far as I can see.
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    • A duplicate link to be removed per WP:REPEATLINK:
      • drydock
      • Removed.
    • "At 20:48, the American submarine Archer-Fish...", wouldn't this normally be presented as "At 20:48, the American submarine USS Archer-Fish..."?
      • Already gave the full designation in the lede. I'm contemplating removing American submarine from the main body as also redundant, but I'm happy to take opinions on the matter.
    • The commons category box is incorrectly placed. Per Template: Commons category: "In articles, this template should be placed at the top of the ==External links== section, or at the top of the last section on the page, if no external links section exists." As such there is no requirement for an empty external links section. Anotherclown (talk) 00:53, 22 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • Moved. Thanks for looking this over, especially for the niggly stuff.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 17:45, 23 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • Otherwise fine. Anotherclown (talk) 00:53, 22 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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