Talk:HMS Warspite (03)

Dreadnought class?

I understood the Warspite to be a Dreadnought class battleship

She was a super-dreadnought, but she was part of a particular class of super-dreadnoughts, the Queen Elizabeth-class. The name Dreadnough inspired from the first such all big gun battleship, HMS Dreadnought. And thus, irrespective of a specific class, all ships after her were became known as dreadnoughts, and ships before her were known as pre-dreadnoughts. SoLando 22:05, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Med

Should there not be a section for her early action in the Mediterranean fighting the Italians, there are references about it later on and it is a little confusing?say1988 01:33, Apr 9, 2005 (UTC)

Yes indeed. It was lacking some rather critical information... I have added it, although I think more could be said. I have also added a picture and switched some of the others around so that the formatting of the page is neater. Wiki-Ed 18:06, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

My grandfather was on the Warspite during the second world war. He told me that after the German bombing by Fritz X (FX-1400)'s on 16 September 1943, the American tugs initially refused to help. The captain of the Warspite ordered the 15 inch guns to be aimed at the tugs, which seemed to change their minds.

He also told me that after D-day some Canadian soldiers on shore leave, learning that my grandfather had been on the warspite, were suddenly very friendly and bought him a drink. They told him that on D-day they had been making their way up from the beach, and crested a ridge to see a couple of German Tiger tanks bearing down on them. There was a sudden explosion, and the tanks disappeared, leaving a large crater - the 'shells as big as Volkswagons' that destroyed them had been fired by the Warspite. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.174.152.2 (talk • contribs)

This article is pretty good, but a lot more could be said. I'm sure there are still many tales to be told here, but we need to have written sources to cite. Wiki-Ed 13:42, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Peace Shattered

"Warspite's Fairey Swordfish, a bi-plane fragile in appearance, attacked and sunk the German U-boat U-64, to become the first aircraft to sink a U-boat in World War II." - should that not have been a Supermarine Walrus or such? IIRC, the Swordfish was never used as a catapult aircraft aboard battleships. Dysmorodrepanis 05:12, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

u-boat.com (usually reliable) has this for U-64: "Sunk 13 April, 1940 in the Herjangsfjord near Narvik, Norway, in approximate position 68.29N, 17.30E, by a bomb from a Swordfish aircraft L 9767 carried on the British battleship HMS Warspite. 8 dead and 38 survivors."

From [1]: "Two days later, on 13 April, a Swordfish launched by catapult off the HMS WARSPITE flew up Ofot Fjord, which led to Narvik, and spotted seven German destroyers for the WARSPITE's guns. All the destroyers were sunk or so badly damaged that they had to be scuttled. There were no casualties on the British side. The Swordfish in question also discovered a German submarine, the U-64, and sank it in a dive-bombing attack. It was the first U-boat sunk by an FAA aircraft in the war."

From [2] "One day later, on 13 April, a Swordfish launched by catapult from HMS Warspite flew up Ofot Fjord towards Narvik, and spotted seven German destroyers for the Warspite's guns; all the destroyers were sunk or so badly damaged that they were scuttled. The same aircraft, L9767, flown by PO FC Rice, Lt Cdr WLM Brown and L/A MG Pacey later that day again flying from HMS Warspite discovered a German submarine, U-64, and sank it in a dive-bombing attack at Herjangs Fjord."

and "At the outbreak of war, the Fleet Air Arm had 13 squadrons equipped with Swordfishes, most of them based on the six fleet carriers, and three flights of Swordfishes with floats, that operated from catapult-equipped warships."

However, I agree that it should be checked again. Folks at 137 08:28, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

WP:MILHIST Assessment

The introduction to this article needs work - it should summarize the main points of the entire article, in particular touching upon the significance of the ship and its ultimate fate. However, this article appears, upon cursory examination, to be surely long enough, detailed enough, and with enough pictures, infoboxes, etc to be far beyond the class of a good "Start". But before it gets nominated to go any further, the intro needs work, and where are the references!? There are no sources listed here, let alone in-line citations. LordAmeth 16:30, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

I have reassessed the article and it still needs some references, any references and then inline citations for it to be above even Start Class. Woodym555 20:10, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Infobox problems

The "general characteristics" are anything but general. Rather than trying to summarize it goes into excruciating detail. Please summarize this in the main article space rather than bloating the template.

Peter ^Isotalo 21:45, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Move to HMS Warspite (1913)

Back at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (ships) and Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (ships), I have suggested to move back to launch dates for older (e.g. pre-1945) British ships, as the pennant numbers are not necessarily unique, and certainly not well known. Since there was no opposition, I've modified the policy accordingly. It's now been up for 6 days with no comments. I would like to move the QE's back to a consistent disambig by launch date, in particular to comply with WP:COMMONNAME. Is there any strong opposition? --Stephan Schulz 02:58, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I suggested doing that some days ago on another page but I did get some objections. On reflection, I think pennant numbers may be the best way of listing ships so long as it's made clear in the text what the numbers actually refer to. I'm undecided about it though, and I don't think you should go making changes to policy without adequate discussion. Gatoclass 16:01, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Making it absolutely clear in the text that in this case the number is the pennant number of the ship does not help a bit someone who is looking for information about British battleship 'Warspite' that participated in WWI and WWII, and after writing 'HMS Warspite' in the search box gets a longish list of 'HMS Warspite's - most with launch year (of which none looks really appropriate) and two with something else. I really don't think that even every other of those who know that some 'HMS Warspite' participated with distinction in both World Wars remembers its pennant number .. Kala-Eemeli (talk) 15:17, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

I've expanded the description of the WWII Warspite to make clear it is the most well known one. Feel free to add to it or expand it to explain it any better. This article is named in accordance with the naming conventions so you would need to get the conventions changed or get a discussion going to have this as an exception. Woody (talk) 17:19, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Style

With all due respect to the authors, I feel that this article has a very dramatic style and is not in keeping with the Wikipedia encyclopaedic form [[3]]. For example, phrases such as "providing essential battleship support", "a bi-plane fragile in appearance", "when she poured heavy fire", "met her lamentable end", etc. are emotive and should be replaced by neutral prose that conveys only the facts. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.79.51.211 (talk) 10:49, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Strange Sentence

Under the sub-topic "Mediterranean (1943-1944):"

  On 10 September, Warspite, which had battled the Italian Fleet during her time in the Mediterranean in 1940-41, led them, now surrendered to the Allies, into internment at Malta.

This sentence makes it sound like the Warspite somehow led the Italian Fleet and surrendered to the allies (?) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.95.59.80 (talk) 21:27, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

As written the sentence does make sense but it is overly convoluted. I've rewritten it to remove all the separate clauses. Benea (talk) 21:48, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Warspite

I was told by a long deceased Jutland veteran (HMS New Zealand)that as the Warspite turned in circles attracting so much German firepower that that small area of the North Sea was nicknamed "shell fire corner".AT Kunene (talk) 10:22, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

'Excessive amount of intricate detail'?

Strange view. I think this a good article and for any Briton, the length and detail seems appropriare for one of our greatest ever fighting ships. But then I am just an ordinary user and not one of the Wiki bureaucrats so what do my views matter? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.105.228.250 (talk) 02:37, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

• On Wikipedia, any user has the same voice as any other user. WhisperToMe (talk) 19:14, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Small details

One persistant story attached to the Warspite is that as a result of action damage one of the rear turrets was permanantly disabled. As wartime experience was to show that maximum fire astern wasn't necessary, despite the expensive refits, no attempt was ever made to repair the turret. Several photographs do seem to show a defective rear turret late in the ships career. Ernle Bradford makes some reference to this.

The other point is regarding illustrations. The picture details of the ship early in its career are fine but by the time of WW2 and final scrapping its appearance was completely differant so how about a picture of the ship after the final refit.AT Kunene (talk) 10:03, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

IIRC, at the time the ship was soon to be needed for Normandy and the time out-of-service in the dockyard for proper repairs to the turret could not be accepted.

In addition, IIARC, the only two spare 15" turrets had been used to build the two Roberts-class monitors so there wasn't a turret available anyway - the turrets and guns are the most time-consuming items on a battleship to make and by the time a new turret had been built for Warspite the war, with hindsight, would have been over. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.145.115.110 (talk) 08:18, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

Fate

The infobox says that the Warspite was "[s]crapped 1950–57". The main text, particularly in under "Decommissioning", gives the distinct impression (which was my own recollection) that she sank in 1947 on the way to the breakers and that salvage attempts failed. Can someone more knowledgeable resolve the discrepancy? Mackensen (talk) 19:32, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Seems they couldn't salavage her intact, so broke her up there [4] , a image search for "HMS Warspite wreck" shows some shots of her. GraemeLeggett (talk) 19:43, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

This is explained clearly in the article. Wiki-Ed (talk) 21:34, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

I apologize, but it's not clear to me. Take this sentence: "Aided by her compressor and two jet engines from an experimental aircraft the hulk was finally moved 130 feet closer to shore and by the summer of 1955 she disappeared from view." Does that mean she was scrapped in place? It's unclear. It might have disappeared from view for any number of reasons. Also, what was going on between 1955–1957? Finally, the article lede says the Warpsite was wrecked on the way to the scrap yard and says nothing about being scrapped in place afterwards. Mackensen (talk) 21:44, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

The narrative is factual and correct, but I am reading it with the benefit of visual aids. She ran aground and was wrecked in 1947 in Prussia Cove [5]. It's not a suitable place to scrap a battleship so several attempts were made to move the wreck along the coast between 1947 and 1950; a bit of scrapping took place in situ to facilitate this [6]. In 1950 she was finally moved beached in a slightly more accessible area[7], but it wasn't a scrapyard, nor a particularly convenient location. It took until 1955 for the wreck to disappear as a landmark (former crew members in the RNAS at Culdrose were using her hulk as an aerial navigation aid) and another two years to complete the job (i.e. 1957). They couldn't remove the boilers and I read somewhere that they're still buried in the sand at Marazion - there's even a poem about it (by Lieutenant-Commander R.A.B.Mitchell):

You say you have no subject
And your brushes all have dried;
But come to Marazion
At the ebbing of the tide.
And look you out to seaward,
Where my Lady battle scarred
Hugs the rock that is more welcome,
Than the shameful breakers yard.
Paint her there upon the sunset
In her glory and despair,
With the diadem of victory
Still in flower upon her hair.
Let her whisper as she settles
Of her blooding long ago,
In the mist than mingles Jutland
With the might of Scapa Flow.
Let her tell you, too, of Narvick
With its snowy hills, and then
Of Matapan, Salerno
And the shoals of Walcheren;
And finally of Malta,
When along the purple street
Came in trail the Roman Navy
To surrender at her feet.
Of all these honours conscious,
How could she bear to be
Delivered to the spoiler
Or severed from the sea ?
So hasten then and paint her
In the last flush of her pride
On the rocks of Marazion,
At the ebbing of the tide.

Wiki-Ed (talk) 19:39, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

Recent amendments

I've removed the class-related design information to the QE article. If you want to tinker with it then do so there. Wikipedia is not a technical manual and this article is about the history of a warship, not how many boilers it had. Wiki-Ed (talk) 21:45, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

So sorry, I disagree. Despite what may may seem to you to be excessive detail on the technical side, it's critical to understand the ship's capabilities and limitations, IMO. Despite what you may believe this is actually less detailed than will go into the class article, although the alterations specific to Warspite herself will get less coverage as that's best covered here. The HMS Barham (04) article will show you how I think once of these articles ought to be done now that I've finished it. I don't think that you can justifiably accuse me of shorting the account of her actions and history in favor of technical specs, although we seem to have very different ideas on the appropriate level of detail for ship articles as when you complained about the Jutland section in that article.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 22:23, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

If you have concrete suggestions on what could be shortened from the description, feel free to bring them up here for discussion. Just keep in mind that every parameter in the infobox needs to be supported with text and a citation. BTW, all I intend to do for right now is expand the technical part of the ship articles in this class as working through the operational side takes a lot of time, so feel free to expand the operational history if you like as I'm not sure when I'll get to that bit.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 22:27, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Oh, and right now the article could not pass through a GAN for lack of citations for the info in the infobox. Personally, I think that that's a problem.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 22:48, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for taking the time to lay out the changes you want to make. While I'm wary of the 'ownership' issue, I did put quite a bit of effort into reshaping/sourcing this article so I have put thought into the structure and allocation of space / content. The article is already 60kb so, bearing that in mind...

Technical details: While I agree that some technical information is important, I think this should be focused on the role that the designers intended the ship to perform. I think we could expect the general Wikipedia reader to visit a ship-article to learn about the history - the "story" of the ship - and the ship-class article to learn about the technical detail. (In this case, admittedly, that article does require some work.) Where the ship doesn't really have much of a story then I guess we could take up space with technical information, but that is certainly not a problem in this case. Separately, in relation to modifications: where changes to the individual ships affect the narrative then I think they should be inserted at the appropriate chronological point in the article rather than at the start - they are part of the story and are often made as a result of events that the article ought to be covering.

Structure: You've mentioned your changes to HMS Barham and, yes, I had commented on the length of the section you've written on Jutland. I can see how you've given material (imho that is properly covered in the Battle of Jutland article) a ship-specific perspective, but I still think it's a bit long for an encyclopedia article, but I haven't fiddled with the work you've done. However, we don't have space to do that here - there would need to be 15 sections to cover the separate notable campaigns/battles, all of which have separate articles already.

In my view this article should cover the ship's long and varied career in a balanced fashion. It has to be an overview; It should not focus on any one element, be that the ship's design or a single operation or its fate. Wiki-Ed (talk) 23:11, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Infobox citations... the detail in an infobox should not be dictating the content of an article, especially for non-contentious details for a which a citation can be found. Moreover, it's QE-class template, so any references should be sought there, not here. Wiki-Ed (talk) 23:18, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Incidentally you're making changes while this discussion is ongoing and having just posted a notice asking for comments on a noticeboard - I would think it might be polite to wait for those comments before altering the article to suit your own wording. Wiki-Ed (talk) 23:18, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

I think I did those when I realized that you'd reverted every single change I'd made, including uncontroversial things like adding sources, before I posted the message on the Ships talkpage. I don't expect to cover Jutland in this article in the same amount of detail as I did in Barham because it wasn't the squadron flagship, although covering the 360° turn will need some room to cover the varying explanations as to why that occurred. And I doubt any of her other engagements will need anywhere near as much detail as they're far less complex. Forex the account of the Battle of Calabria in the Giulio Cesare article is only a single paragraph and I see no reason why it should be any longer for Warspite. And much the same for Matapan.

But the basic problem is that you and I fundamentally disagree about the appropriate level of technical detail necessary for a ship article, with a side issue of differing philosophies about citations. I wouldn't argue too hard if somebody complained that I put more technical stuff in my ship articles compared to Parsecboy's, forex, but I like what I like. (Believe it or not, I have been cutting back, so no boiler pressures, propeller diameters, ammunition capacities, or gun performance data.) So tell me exactly what you think is excessive and we can discuss it, although I stand to my principle that everything in the infobox needs supporting text and a cite based on the comments I see at FAC. While I haven't actually checked, I'd be astonished if any of the templates used in the infobox had any cites so that's no good. Amusingly enough, I'd prefer to shorten the infobox down to only two states, as built and after the interwar reconstruction, much like I did with Cesare, with all the other changes covered in the text. I'm fine with covering all the alterations chronologically rather than in the description; I've done it both ways although it's easier to do with everything in one place. I'll also say that the lede is astonishingly short and generic for a ship with such a long history and needs to be somewhat more detailed. It could be argued that Barham's is also too short, but at least it tells the reader what battles she was in.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 00:22, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Given that Warspite is probably the most famous (and well covered) of all the British battleships and had a lengthy and incredibly active career a long article seems unavoidable. As I understand it, the designs of the Queen Elizabeth class battleships deviated considerably as a result of their differing refits during the post-war period and wartime repairs and modifications, so that probably needs to be covered in some detail as well. Nick-D (talk) 09:18, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

I think it already is a relatively lengthy article so the question becomes 'how much longer'?. As for refits - yes I agree - Warspite had two refits and these are covered by several paragraphs in the Interbellum section.Wiki-Ed (talk) 10:47, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Hood is about 50K and HMAS Australia is 48K, so that's a function of the available information and how busy the ships were. Warspite is currently only 31K and she was busier than both and has about as much detail available with at least one biography, so I expect she'll end up around the same length as the others. Currently there are some significant lacunae, there's no worthwhile coverage of her radar suite, nor of her light AA suite, each of which need to be covered when changes were made and the WWI section is pretty scanty. If she didn't have so many accidents, it would be pretty minimal. The WWII section is significantly better, I think, and shouldn't require as much work/expansion as the earlier stuff.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 15:10, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

I got 61k - we must be looking at different sources. I was under the impression radar was only added in October '41, after all her major naval battles were over and done. It would be notable for the article on Valiant, but from what I have read it did not play a notable role on Warspite and therefore does not need to be covered in detail. Ditto AA, although it might be notable if you have a source indicating why it was upgraded. WWI: The section on Jutland is twice as long as the section on Matapan; the former is historically more important than the latter (though arguably less decisive), but she played a more significant role in the latter, much less so in the former. We should be balancing importance with the role of the individual ship. What the reader does not need is a lengthy but partial account of a battle which is properly covered in another article. Wiki-Ed (talk) 17:07, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

I don't want to have to go and read two articles in order to read about one ship, so I expect to find all the technical details in the individual ship articles as well as the class article. Moreover, you can't expect readers to know that there is going to be substantially more detail in the class article than the ship article. Ship articles without a comprehensive technical section are totally deficient in my view, as without a detailed description, you don't have a clear idea of the ship and its capabilities when coming to the service history. Gatoclass (talk) 04:03, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

I'm not saying don't include it, but it has to be proportionate; some of the detail is important, some of it is not. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a technical manual, and it should be written with readability (for an average reader) in mind. If we insert a huge chunk of text discussing the merits of particular makes of boiler then we'll lose those readers. It should be suffice to say (as it does currently) that oil fired boilers were an important innovation at the time and the service history can show (as it does currently) how speed and weight saving + more armour was important. Wiki-Ed (talk) 16:43, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

Just a bit much use of hyperbole here, n'est-ce pas? Nobody's proposing to do any such thing as you well know and the whole bit about oil-firing belongs in the class article not here. For individual ship articles I limit the background to the design to a single sentence or a short paragraph as can be seen at Russian battleship Peresvet as more detailed info is best served in the class article where there's room to cover the entire design history and the strategic rationale for the design parameters.

Perhaps I'm flattering myself, but I'd like to think that an inexperienced reader can follow my complicated account of Barham at Jutland, while still offering enough detail for knowledgeable readers. You seem to ignoring the fact that we also need to account for the latter, while keeping it accessible for the former. All I can say is that I get no complaints on this issue at FAC, even from my most-valuable reviewers, the non-Ships people. Any reader can skim details that he deems unimportant and I wouldn't be surprised that that's what people are doing with my articles, but if he does care, the detail is there with all the jargon linked to keep it accessible. So I agree with you about the necessity to keep it accessible, although we have differing ideas about what constitutes accessibility in this context and how to do that.

I'm checking the prose length with this script, not the overall length which includes wikicode invisible to the reader plus refs, cites, etc. A lot depends on how complex the battle is and the role of the ship within it; not so much the relative importance of the battle. Jutland is complicated, although Warspite's role in it is less complicated than Barham's, but the battleships' role in Matapan or Calabria is relatively simple, so I don't see why the coverage of the latter two battles should be anywhere near as long. Hell, I've covered Jutland in a single sentence for those left-flank British armored cruisers that never even fired a shot.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 17:48, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

Sorry yes - hyperbole. I still think the historical coverage of each period should broadly reflect the importance that RS allocate to them. However, I'd agree we don't need to be rigid about that and the size should be comparable to similarly notable ships. While we've been having this discussion I've flicked through the main secondary source I was using (Ballantyne). I can see that I allocated space to particular sections (generally) in line with his narrative approach and simply supported this with material from primary sources (and only a few alternative secondary sources). Obviously I've been careful to avoid plagiarising, but the article would certainly benefit from a wider range of sources and perhaps a slightly different layout.

I am, of course, aware of the sterling work you've been doing on a wide range of other warship articles and I'm conscious I'm demonstrating 'ownership' issues, so I'll step back. If I've got concerns I'll raise them here on a case-by-case basis (e.g. why remove the "sixth of her name" bit from the intro?). PS. I was actually serious about the boilers on Warspite - both the originals and the second set were important (cf the R-class in WWI and her unmodernised sisters in WWII). Wiki-Ed (talk) 18:50, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

Brilliant, I'm happy to discuss any particular issues that you might have with the text here; I find it a lot easier to work with specifics rather than blanket statements. As I said earlier, I only intend right now to work on the technical stuff and will probably cover her career in stages as there's a lot of research required (just synthesizing the Jutland section for Barham took me most of a week, IIRC). Since I don't intend to work on the service history for a while, I'll expand your current chronological coverage of the various upgrades so as not to confuse readers in the meantime. I agree with you about the evolution of the boilers, but I don't really see any reason to have more than about a sentence for each set. A bit for the latter about how much smaller and more powerful the new ones were than the old ones were plus a link to the article on the new ones should suffice, IMO. I know a lot of editors like to put the namesake or the x ship of the name into the lede, but I truly don't know why they do that as it doesn't strike me as having anything to do with the summary of the article that the lede is supposed to contain. It seems to me that a much more logical place to put is in the construction para, but I'd not fuss much if you strongly preferred to have it in the lede.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 19:33, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

Photographs of salvage??

A photograph from the salvage could potentially improve the article as well as the reader's knowledge of marine salvage -thanks to 80.79.80.235 for the link. Sphilbrick recommends use of the Interative Release Generator (IRG) -a prominent blue link on this page: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Email_templates and I'll email the salvage company website with a request to upload a photo. Regards JRPG (talk) 15:43, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

Lead sentence

The lead sentence of an article should feature a succinct declarative description of the most salient point on the subject.

What was the Warspite? A Queen Elizabeth Class battleship. What is it secondarily (at best, in order of precedence of its relevance)? One of five ships of that class. This principle - of what first; what else later - is fundamental to journalism, technical and academic writing, etc..

The sentence was originally edited to read "The Warspite was a Queen Elizabeth-class battleships built for the Royal Navy during the early 1910s, one of five of its class."

This sentence structure was challenged by another user as "bad grammar". It most certainly is not. It is perfectly sound, no different than a simple compound declarative sentence such as, "John was first in his class, and second in the school." Or "John finished first in his heat, and third overall in the race."

In order to avert an edit war launched by that user I have modified the lead to simply read, "The Warspite was a Queen Elizabeth-class battleship built for the Royal Navy during the early 1910s," with the matter of its standing in its class appended to the following sentence (as an introductory adverbial clause, supplanting the prior introductory adverbial clause, which was simply integrated into the balance of the compound sentence).

I hope this resolves the issues over the lead sentence of this article, both its focus and its grammar. Yours, Wikiuser100 (talk) 12:37, 10 July 2022 (UTC)