Talk:Graf Zeppelin-class aircraft carrier

(First comment)

Hello, I think the design for this page is well done. I added the Axis & Allies game mention. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.101.89.65 (talk) 01:34, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Merger proprosal

The article for German aircraft carrier Graf Zeppelin should be redirected here (there's no point to calling it a merge, it's essentially a copy of this article) for several reasons. First, as I just noted, it's a copy of this article. Second, there is a long-standing practice of redirecting articles on unfinished ships to the article for the class (see for instance, SMS Mackensen and Mackensen class battlecruiser and USS Montana (BB-67) and Montana class battleship) unless the hull in otherwise notable (see for instance Japanese battleship Tosa, which was the subject of extensive armor tests that provided the basis for the Yamato class battleships). Thirdly, if it were simply Graf Zeppelin, it would be fine to leave the article at only the ship page, but since there's Flugzeugträger B, that would be untenable. The obvious solution is to merge the articles on the unfinished ships into the class article and have one good article, rather than two duplicates and a permanent stub. Parsecboy (talk) 02:26, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose merge of German aircraft carrier Graf Zeppelin
• Weak Oppose merge of Flugzeugträger B

Graf Zeppelin is certainly notable on its own, and should keep its own article. The material from the German aircraft carrier Graf Zeppelin should never have been copied here in the first place, as it seems to have been done for no obvious reason. (I didn't notice it when the fork was done, or I would have protested it then.) I don't see the problem keeping Flugzeugträger B separate either, but as it's certainly less notable, I'm not going to make too much of a fuss over merging it here. - BilCat (talk) 03:12, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Here's the thing: the kind of technical information that dominates the class and ship articles should only be present in the former. Look at any ship FA (I've written a quarter of them) and you'll see this is how they're formatted. Merging articles on ships that were not completed has a long-standing consensus at WP:SHIPS. If both articles are kept, then the article on Graf Zeppelin will be heavily cut down to a more standard format. As for Flugzeugträger B, there's no reason to keep this as an independent article. The article will never be expanded past a stub. Parsecboy (talk) 12:16, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose merge of German aircraft carrier Graf Zeppelin
• Weak Oppose merge of Flugzeugträger B

The proposal as worded is actually a request for deletion of the German aircraft carrier Graf Zeppelin article, to propose it as a merge is actually misleading. I would argue that the ship article is the primary one and the class article the copy. Editing history shows that the great majority of the work on the two article is indeed in the ship article. I suggest that instead of redirecting the ship article to the class article the class article should be re-written so that it only covers those things which relate to the class, leaving the Graf Zeppilin ship article essentially alone. As per BilCat I would not be too fussed if the Flugzeugträger B article was merged into a section of this article, but IMHO it would be marginally better to leave it separate. - Nick Thorne ^talk 03:21, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

It's not a request to delete the article, it's a request to redirect an exact duplicate to the better-placed article. It doesn't matter what was written first, it matters how things should be best organized. As I said above, if both articles are retained, then the ship article will need to be heavily cut down. Parsecboy (talk) 12:16, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

• Merge (delete/redirect) Flugzeugtrager B definitely, not enough for a standalone article. Short of duplicating much of the class article. GraemeLeggett (talk) 12:35, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
  • Remove duplicate content from Graf Zeppelin that is not better placed in the class article, and ask me again if merger is necessary or desirable. GraemeLeggett (talk) 12:35, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
• Strong support I see absolutely no reason to have separate class and ship articles when the ship was never even completed. Literally all of the Graf Zeppelin article should be incorporated into the class article as there's nothing there that isn't properly part of the technically-oriented class article. Look at the FA-class Sovetsky Soyuz class battleship article for another example where the class article covers all four ships in as much detail as is available, none of which were ever launched. Well, part of one was launched for use as a target, but that's given extensive coverage.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 12:51, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

• Support - merging Flugzeugträger B - there's nothing to justify an own article
  • Strong Oppose - merging Graf Zeppelin. As per the others, there's more than enough stuff to justify an own article. We just need to separate class content from ship content. The fork was obviously done in September 2010, material from the ship article was added to the class article without removing it from the ship article. --Denniss (talk) 13:33, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

• I would support this; two 50kb articles saying much the same thing is pretty ridiculous. My only qualm was that most of the stuff that’s here originated at the GZ ship article and was copied here in September last year (this edit) so there’s an attribution/page history issue; but in fact closing GZ down and redirecting it here might actually resolve that. A couple of paragraphs here with the individual ship histories (such as they are) in the manner of the Montana and Sovietsky Soyuz pages should cover all that needs saying about the two hulls. Xyl 54 (talk) 20:27, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

An afterthought: I was looking for similar instances, and found the Unryu class page, which has articles on three units which were launched, but not completed (here, for example). Interestingly, a fourth, which wasn't even launched, doesn't have a page. I don't know if this is an argument to keep the GZ article, or to merge the Japanese ones. Maybe it's worth doing as Graeme said; delete the stuff from the GZ aticle and then make a decision on what's left. Xyl 54 (talk) 14:03, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

• There doesn't seem to be much enthusiasm for a merger, so can I suggest we close it as a no consensus? On the other hand, we can't leave these pages as they are, so I've opened a new proposal, below. Xyl 54 (talk) 16:41, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

New proposal

We ought to resolve the situation here, where the class article and ship article are essentially the same (following this edit). The duplicated stuff needs deleting from somewhere, the complications being .a) most of the stuff was written at the ship article, leaving an attribution problem, and .b) the usual arrangement is to have technical details at the class article, with just the service history etc at the ship article. Neither is insurmountable ( I have a cunning plan…!) so,
Can we have a show of hands which article to trim? Xyl 54 (talk) 16:37, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

• For my part, I'd say trim the ship page (and if there are no objections I'll go ahead and do that next week).Xyl 54 (talk) 16:44, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
• I'd agree with that. Longstanding practice is to place highly detailed design and development information in the class article with only a minimal summary in the individual ship articles. Parsecboy (talk) 17:18, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
• Trim the ship article. GraemeLeggett (talk) 18:00, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
• I would have thought that we would need to trim both articles in complemetary fashion. However I would keep the majority of the current information in the ship article for the GZ since there really is very little published on FB and we really have no idea how much of a "class" these ships may have been had they been completed. In reality GZ was modified so much during construction, I am not sure that the class article makes sense at all. I think it would make more sense to put a small section in the GZ article anout FB and turn both its article and the class article into redirects. However, I will of course bow to consensus which seems to support the class and FB articles' existance. As I have said before, keep the GZ specific info in the ship article and put the class stuff in the class aticle but each will require a general overview if the info in the other. - Nick Thorne ^talk 22:12, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

• OK, I've gone ahead and deleted the sections in the ship article that were copied here (ie Planning&Construction, Design, Testing and Aircraft). I've also repeated to here any changes to those sections made since Sept 2010 (though in practice most of the changes had been duplicated to both articles; an illustration of the problem!). I don't disagree with Nick that both articles need attention, but I was simply wanting to clarify the copy/attribution issues this time round. Xyl 54 (talk) 15:35, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

• • That seems fine to me. Am I correct in the assumption that there's general consensus to redirect Flugzeugtrager B to the class article? Parsecboy (talk) 17:03, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
    • Since it seems consensus was to merge Flugzeugtrager B, and this discussion stalled several months ago, I have made the merge. Parsecboy (talk) 11:50, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Have a look in the German Wikipedia: Flugzeugträger B There is a lot more stuff about this carrier which should be integrated in this article. -- Rakell (talk) 12:25, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Overhauling article

Just to note, I'm in the process of overhauling the article. I'll be moving text here I don't currently have sources for, in the hopes that I or someone else can track down citations. Parsecboy (talk) 13:04, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Design section

A review of Hitler's conferences on the German Navy, the minutes of which were captured after the fall of the Third Reich, reveals his decreasing interest in the carriers. Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, Commander of the Luftwaffe, was resentful of any incursion on his authority as head of the country's air power, and he frustrated Raeder at every opportunity. Within his own service, Raeder found opposition in Admiral Karl Dönitz, a submariner.

Having no experience building such ships, the Kriegsmarine had difficulty implementing advanced technologies such as aircraft catapults into the Graf Zeppelin class, even with the Heinkel firm's previous creation of compressed air catapults for use with ships like the SS Westfalen, used as a mid-Atlantic seaplane tender for Dornier Wal flying boats for trans-Atlantic mail service to South America during the early 1930s. German designers were able to study Japanese designs, but were constrained by the realities of creating a North Sea carrier vs. a "Blue Water" design. Several cruiser-type guns were envisioned to allow commerce raiding and defense against British cruisers, for example. This is in contrast to American and Japanese designs, which were more oriented toward a task-force defense, using supporting cruisers for surface firepower.

• Parsecboy, can you give me an example of how to differentiate two sources by the same author? Then I will go back into the article and make the necessary changes to the material I added based on Siegfried Breyer's two books. Thanks. --Sturmdivision (talk) 04:35, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

• • There are two methods that are fairly common on Wikipedia, you can either use the year of publication (like Breyer (1989), p. X) or by short title (like Breyer Encyclopedia of Warships 42, p. X). I don't have a strong preference for either (and I've used both variations in other articles), so whatever you like better is fine with me. Parsecboy (talk) 11:59, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Deck guns

The article states, "This lack of clarity led to features such as cruiser-type guns for commerce raiding and defense against British cruisers, that were either eliminated from or not included in American and Japanese carrier designs" and further, "Potential blast damage to planes sited on the flight deck when these guns fired to port was an unavoidable risk and would have limited any flight activity during an engagement." Presumably the "cruiser-type guns" refer to the 150 mm (5.9") guns. The Lexington-class carriers of the US Navy had eight 8" guns (i.e., the equivalent of a heavy cruiser's armament) in twin mounts on the flight deck while the Essex class had eight 5" guns also on the flight deck, with the same blast problem. The Japanese Akagi and Kaga had ten 200 mm (7.9") guns (of the same type used on Japanese heavy cruisers) below flight deck level. Admittedly all the carriers with heavy-cruiser weaponry were built in the 1920s and ships from the 1930s onwards only had 5" main armament, but the statement that cruiser-type guns were "eliminated from or not included in" American and Japanese designs" is false as far as it concerns ships extant during the designing of the Graf Zeppelin class. Adding the word "contemporary" would ameliorate the problem to some extent, but the "cruiser-type" gus were not eliminated from the Lexingtons before 1942 and the Akagi and Kaga retained six 200 mm guns even after their reconstruction in the mid-1930s.--Death Bredon (talk) 16:49, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

alleged Peter Strasser naming for Träger B

I would actually remove that sentence unless the specified source claims it was to be named Peter Strasser. "Could have been named" is nothing more than speculation/guesswork/wishful thinking. --Denniss (talk) 12:03, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

It's fairly common for unfinished ships to include proposed names, and some references (like this, this, and this) treat it seriously. If the IP has sources that argue that the Peter Strasser name was wrong, they are free to present them here after their block expires, and we can discuss them. But deleting validly sourced material because one thinks its wrong won't be tolerated. Parsecboy (talk) 13:37, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

German navy was rather reluctant to name them until they reached some advanced state of hull completion. Just having some authors use a name for Träger B what do they claim as source for the name? If there's no fact for the naming based on historic sources we should leave out this guesswork. And I don't think "could have been named" is considered a valid source/fact. --Denniss (talk) 14:03, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

That's not how we write articles; we're a tertiary source quarried primarily from secondary sources, and if a preponderance of secondary sources report something, we should as well. If there are other sources that disagree, then we can include them, but so far no one has presented any. I don't have Groener at hand at the moment to see if he includes the name, but I do recall that he lists the proposed names for the H-class ships, so it's likely that he does for this one as well. Parsecboy (talk) 14:50, 10 October 2020 (UTC)