User talk:Rif Winfield

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[edit] Welcome to Wikipedia!

Dear Rif Winfield: Welcome to Wikipedia, a free and open-content encyclopedia. I hope you enjoy contributing. To help get you settled in, I thought you might find the following pages useful:

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[edit] Charles Eugène Gabriel de la Croix, Marquis de Castries

Hello, and welcome to Wikipedia. We appreciate your contributions, but for legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or printed material, and as a consequence, your addition will most likely be deleted.

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You might want to look at Wikipedia's policies and guidelines for more details, or ask a question here. You can also leave a message on my talk page. JHMM13 08:31, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] French ships

Hey, thanks for the changes. Can you tell me what the source of the information was? Thanks SpookyMulder 08:46, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Dear SpookyMulder, I'm not certain about using the usertalk facility on Wikipedia, so would appreciate - and indeed welcome - any exchange to be via email (you can reach me through sailing.navy@btinternet.com). I'm a naval historian, specialist in naval vessels of the Age of Sail and the author of several books on British (and other) warships on the pre-1900 era - perhaps you're familiar with my books on "The 50-gun ship" or "British Warships in the Age of Sail" (the latter is being published as a series in several volumes). I've undertaken a large amount of research over the years, both in Britain (I'm a reader at the NMM,PRO, etc), France and elsewhere, from which most of my information is taken (I have also benefitted from the original research of others who have generously passed their findings on to me). I have what I believe is a complete record of French Naval vessels from 1700 onwards (I will tackle the 17th century later). I have made a start on the articles on French ships of the Line and French sail frigates, but have an awful lot more work to do (frankly, the MAJORITY of ships are missing from the Wikipedia lists) which will doubtless occur piecemeal over coming months. I'd certainly welcome any help you care to give. Regards, Rif Winfield

[edit] Action of August 1702

Greetings! I noticed the changes you recently made to this article. It's really nice for amateurs like me to see professionals making this sort of detailed contributions to Wikipedia. I have a few links you may find helpful, but please don't feel like you have to digest them all minutely before doing anything — I don't want you to feel like I'm putting roadblocks in the way of what is a very generous activity on your part. I noticed you put <br>s in your lists; you don't actually need to do this, that formatting is taken care of automatically on lists. There's a little cheatsheet you can consult with regards to formatting, that has links to more detailed discussions. You may also want to look at the Wikipedia guide to references. As Wikipedia has matured in recent years, there's been more of an effort to make sure that our articles are based on reliable literature, and adding published sources that support the content of an article is encouraged. (To be honest, sometimes people take it over the top, and obsess about footnoting to the exclusion of common sense and legibility, but don't worry about taking it to that level.) Wikipedia has several citation templates that allow you to automatically format your references, which you may find helpful (although they may be confusing right now.) Please feel free to leave a message on my talk page, or, if you prefer to use email, you can find my email address relatively easily by Googling my username. I'd be happy to help you with any questions you have about Wikipedia, but please don't feel that you need to hold off contributing because you haven't digested any of these things — your work so far looks excellent, and we're very grateful to have expert contributors. Yours, Choess 00:56, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Captain Richard Bickerton

Is he Sir Richard Bickerton, 1st Baronet or Richard Hussey Bickerton or neither? Might be good to get a link in if we can. Benea 18:04, 6 September 2007 (UTC). My, that was fast!! The Marlborough's first commander was Captain Richard Bickerton from 1771 to 1773 (he wasn't knighted until June 1773, and became a Baronet in May 1778, but yes, it was the later 1st Baronet). His son, Richard Hussey Bickerton, wasn't commissioned as a Lieutenant until December 1777, and made post in February 1781; he inherited the title to become the 2nd Baronet upon his father's death on 25 February 1792. Please do put in a link. Rif Winfield 18:20, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Have done with all due speediness. Kind regards, Benea 18:27, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. You will note that I have considerably expanded the biography of the 1st Baronet, so you may wish to add further links. There are errors in the link page for [Richard Bickerton], which implies that the 1st Baronet ended as Vice-Admiral and the 2nd Baronet ended at Rear-Admiral. In fact the first Richard Bickerton only reached the rank of Rear-Admiral, while his son ended his career as a full Admiral (of the Red). Can you correct this on the [Richard Bickerton] joint page, and alter the links acordingly? Incidentally, whoever wrote the original entry should note the difference between a barony and a baronetcy (I have corrected the error). Should you have any queries, you would be most welcome to email me direct on sailing.navy@btinternet.com. Rif Winfield 21:15, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I've corrected the disambiguation page for the names, and have added links where appropriate for the first baronet. You're right, he should. I still remember my table of ranks, knowing how high a duke was above a marquess and so on! Any more suggestions, always happy to help. Kind regards, Benea 22:16, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Many thanks! Rif Winfield 23:27, 6 September 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Magnanime Class 64s

Benea, I do have another item where your help would be appreciated, in connection with the Williams design 64s of the Intrepid Class. There were fifteen ships to this design, but three of them were incorrectly separated out on WP pages as a spurious Magnanime class. There was no separate Magnanime design - the Magnanime, Diadem and Sampson were all units of the Intrepid Class. I have added them to [Intrepid class ship of the line] but the existing references to [Magnanime class ship of the line] needs deletion. The original error appears to have come about through copying from Brian Lavery's The Ship of the Line; but careful studying of the original draughts for these vessels reveals no distinctive feature, and I have discussed this with Brian who can not recall any reason why he separated the three ships out in his book when written in the 1980s - he indicated it was probably a mistake that needs correction (his superb and oft-quoted book has been reprinted but never corrected). Can you kindly correct the disambiguation and links accordingly? Thanks. Rif Winfield 13:02, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Hi Rif, yep I've taken a look and had some discussions with User:TomTheHand and User:Martocticvs, the original author. Subsequently I've fixed the links, changed Magnanime class ship of the line to a redirect for the Intrepid class ship of the line and nominated the category for deletion. I've made a post on WP:Ships about that, so if you want to go along, you can support or oppose that (though I'm guessing support!). Otherwise I think we've cleared that matter up. Can you provide any references for this though? It might be helpful since the Intrepid class page now contradicts the original reference (Lavery) somewhat. Kind regards, Benea 18:07, 7 September 2007 (UTC).

As mentioned, I discussed this with Brian Lavery a few years ago, and he cannot now identify any reason to show a separate Magnanime class, so I guess that takes care of the "original reference". I've put in a reference to David Lyon's Sailing Navy List as a source which quotes the 15-member class as built to one design (I haven't put in a reference to my own books, for fear of being accused on breaking WP rules, but if you DO happen to take a look at my books, you'll see that it confirms the same material, taken of course from official Navy Board docs in NMM and Kew records). It does of course demonstrate the problem of relying on secondary sources - however well-written (we can all make a few errors in reference tables of this complexity) - and ignoring research based directly on official documents! Thanks for the work. Rif Winfield 20:15, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Spot on! My own background is in history, so I know the value of Primary over Secondary. Still it's often going to be the way. Whilst using Colledge a while back I came across a ship from the 1730s or so, listed until the 1950s! I assumed he meant the 1750s and altered the WP entry accordingly, but still, howlers can be made! Not a problem, again happy to help with anything else you come across. Benea 00:04, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Again, my thanks. Incidentally, I'm just re-ordered the list of V-class submarines into chronological (i.e. programme) order, and indicated which of them were never completed. Rif Winfield 15:50, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I've taken out the links to an 'Inconstant class' category, and I think that clears up any suggestion of a seperate class, unless you can see something I've missed? Kind regards, Benea 17:19, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

And again, thanks! I think we're making progress. Rif Winfield 22:51, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, slowly but steadily! Incidentally, I've posted something I had a few questions on the WP:Ships talkpage. Perhaps you'd like to give your opinion on it? It's to do with the terms line-of-battle ship and ship-of-the-line. Kind regards, Benea 22:56, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, I've just e-mailed "toddy" (off-WP) about this particular point as follows: "Maralia should remember that we are dealing with an era of transition, and that transition affected the terminology as much as the design and construction itself. I think it is a mistake to try and use the term 'battleship' for any of the wooden-hulled warships; the term was simply not used officially (yes, there are references to the term in some contemporary literature, but these were essentially shorthand ways of writing "line-of-battle ship" and had no official status). Just to add confusion, remember that the official classification of the 'Warrior' and her immediate descendents was "frigate", and this remained the case for a number of years after 1860; in fact, the screw-driven line-of-battle ship (or ship-of-the-line, which I think should remain the term for the wooden-hulled two-deckers and three-deckers) did not evolve into the iron or steel battleship; the battleship evolved instead out of the frigate, because it carried its main battery on one deck." I'll add this into the discussion on the WP:Ships talkpage. Rif Winfield 23:04, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Hi Rif, good work on the list of battleships. I've thought for a while that those sections needed a little explanation so it's good to see that coming together. Just a quick question, would you mind copying over this from the talkpage

Note that the term line-of-battle ship never had any formal significance. This is why it is correct to refer to all capital ships as ship-of-the-line up until the end of the wooden-hulled battle fleet in about 1860 (including the brief period of steam-assisted ships-of-the-line!). It is also misleading to refer - as is done at the start of the article - to the modern battleship as being derived from the ship-of-the-line.

to the ongoing debate over ships of the line and line of battle ships? It might help to encourage some consensus on that. Up to you of course. Kind regards, Benea 16:21, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Curiously enough, I was just about to do so. Please see the list of battleships page. Rif Winfield 16:27, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] List of early warships of the English Navy

Hi Rif, it's been a while in coming, but we've finally hived off some of the earlier sections to List of early warships of the English Navy. Want to give it a look and see what you think? Benea 22:53, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Ben, it's an excellent start. My only suggestion would be to delete references that cast doubt on the existence of most of the smaller vessels, as these certainly existed, albeit that they were not mentioned in works which concentrated on the larger warships; if provenance in published works in required, pending my next book, I suggest you could cite Michael Oppenheim's 1896 classic "History of the Administration of the Royal Navy ..." (the full title actually continues "... and of Merchant Shipping in Relation to the Navy from 1509 to 1660 with an introduction treating of the Preceding Period", but that's a bit long to put into Sources lists; it was republished in 1988 by Temple Smith, ISBN 0 566 05572 4). At the moment I'm writing the next volume to be published in my series on British sailing warships; this volume will range from 1603 to 1714, so when issued at the end of 2009 should provide considerable extra source material for this article. Rif Winfield (talk) 09:25, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Ah thank you for this. I think the original editors had a copy of Lavery to one side, and looked a bit askance at the ships they couldn't find listed there. I've added the Oppenheim reference, as well as Colledge, so I'd agree the article is certainly well sourced enough to remove the 'provenance uncertain' caveat. I look forward to the new book, it will be a great addition to bolster this rather sketchy outline of the early navy. Kind regards, Benea (talk) 09:42, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Ben, Many thanks. Incidentally I've just completed the lists of Cruizer and Cherokee brig-sloops; if you'd like to add links at some stage to pages for the individual vessels, I'm quite happy to expand the individual articles as and when time allows. I'll put launch dates into the Cherokee list in due course, or do you think this list should be tabulated first, in which case shoulkd there be any additional column(s) added (e.g. for builder, fate, etc)? Rif Winfield (talk) 13:22, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Gunboats and gunvessels of the Victorian Navy

Hi Rif, sounds like a good idea, it'd be good to work in an article/list somewhere as that's been an area largely overlooked in the past, the smaller naval vessels. As to the order, it'd probably be a good idea to do it the other way around, to set up a list and fix the links and then work up the articles from there. Since I don't have handy access to this sort of information, would you be happy to email me the list and I'll work up a wikipedia list/article from that? Something similar to List of cruiser classes of the Royal Navy, where with the red links in place it's easy to catagorise the vessels and then go through writing articles. Let me know what you think, kind regards, Benea 20:24, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Right, happy to email you data for this purpose. Please supply an email address. Rif Winfield 06:57, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dates in V and W destroyers

Just a friendly note on formatting. There is no need to reverse the day and month when they are already wikilinked, user preferences (see "my preferences") take care of the display of these dates. Conversely single months and single years or month year combinations should not be wikilinked. Hope this saves you some extra typing. GraemeLeggett 09:32, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the note, Graeme. I have not been wikilinking single months or month-year combinations, but I have been linking single years and day-month combinations as this linking now appears to be common practice in Wiki. The format for any dates for British (or other non-American) vessels should always by the British / European format of day-month-year, as I agree that when American readers want dates displayed in the strange (and illogical) non-standard format of month-day-year they can alter their user preference accordingly.

Can I make an extra point as regards the format of ship names? The standard way of titling articles on individual RN warships is [HMS name (date)], where the date is the year of launch (or the year of that vessel's acquisition if the vessel was not built for the RN but acquired later). This enables us to separate out the many cases where the same name can over the centuries by used a dozen times or more. A few articles on individual ships have inserted the pendant number into the title instead of the date. Since the pendant numbers are subject to change, and are allocated in a non-sequential way (unlike the USN hull numbers, for example), and particularly since their use in the article title prevents dating the vessel in the article on that particular vessel, please discourage contributors from using the pendant numbers within the title of an article (clearly, if wanted, it can be included in the text of that article). Rif Winfield 06:47, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Hi Rif, hope you are well? As to the use of pennant numbers, the reason they tend to be used is because they are part of our manual of style for naming ships, see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (ships). The specific bit is Use ships' hull numbers (hull classification symbols) for the United States Navy. For the modern Royal Navy and many European and Commonwealth navies use pennant numbers if available, sufficiently unique, and well known. To be honest, I agree with you that it's quite useful with US ships which use pennant numbers sequentially, but it can be a headache when different ones are used. And also what really counts as 'well known'? I certainly never knew HMS Belfast's pennant number was C35. For example, I'm working through WWII British cruisers at the moment, most of them didn't use flag superiors (i.e. the 'C' in 'C35'), but we have redirects sometimes from the year, from the name with flag superior, sometimes the name without. It can be quite confusing. For all this, it's a established convention and would need consensus from the general population to change it. You could raise it at Wikipedia:WikiProject Ships and see what people thought. As I recall a debate has been going on both there and at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Maritime warfare task force, so you might want to see what people think and add your tuppenny bit (that's usually my tactic!). Kind regards, Benea 14:07, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ordnance in infoboxes

Rif, yes you are quite right that the articles should cover their entire histories. It wasn't me that originally quoted those figures though, I just updated the infoboxes and corrected an earlier mistake over the number of guns the ships mounted after their refits. As to how to cover this in the infoboxes, that often comes down to a matter of personal preference on the part of the original editor. The most complete solution is to list them all, with original configuration, then after refit, then after second refit, etc. For example - HMS Argonaut (61). If you want to expand those infoboxes to cover them in that detail, then by all means feel free to do so. I suspect that the original editor used the World War Two configurations as that was when the ships of the Carlisle class were engaging in their most notable actions. Kind regards, Benea 12:11, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Adoption of Wikipedia style

I hope you have noticed this edit and this one. They are very basic, simple matters of Wikipedia style which you should be doing yourself almost automatically. -- RHaworth (Talk contribs) 03:01, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

As you say, a matter of style. I have accepted your amendments, but have since made some further additions to these articles. Rif Winfield (talk) 13:19, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

That was a bit short tempered of him, but keep up the good work anyway! Benea (talk) 13:31, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
Many thanks! I shall do so (note improvements to 20th century RN warship lists, as well as sailing ones). Meantime, Ben, have a Happy Christmas and Prosperous New Year. Rif Winfield (talk) 15:00, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
And the same to you and yours! Benea (talk) 20:04, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Paddle Sloops

I see that you have listed screw-sloops in List of corvette and sloop classes of the Royal Navy. Are paddle-sloops listed anywhere on wikipedia? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Toddy1 (talk • contribs) 22:55, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Happy New Year, Toddy. My intention (when I have time) is to insert the paddle-sloops into List of corvette and sloop classes of the Royal Navy, probably between the last sailing sloops and the early screw sloops. Rif Winfield (talk) 09:37, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

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[edit] Cruizer class brig-sloop

Thanks Rif for completing the list of Cruizer class brig-sloops. Much appreciated having people round that really know this stuff. Do you have a reference that can be cited (and that I can refer to) for the section you added on Design? --Geronimo20 (talk) 00:11, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Dear Geronimo, while I appreciate that it is not strictly appropriate for me to list my own published works among the Sources myself, I can advise you that in the paragraph I inserted on design I was quoting my own words from p.282 of "British Warships in the Age of Sail, 1793-1817" (2nd edition 2008, Seaforth Publishing, ISBN 978-1-84415-717-4). Should you wish to cite this reference, then I should be happy for you to do so. If you need any help or advice off-Wiki, then feel free to email me on sailing.navy@btinternet.com. Incidentally, I have also completed (albeit without launch dates) the list of Cherokee class brig-sloops. Rif Winfield (talk) 09:09, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Good work indeed Rif. I've popped a couple of generic categories on them. As time goes on they'll probably end up with their own specific ship categories where all the ships that made up that class can appear together. I've also tagged them for the project. It was only this morning that HMS Oberon appeared by the way, which I thought was quite a coincidence. Benea (talk) 20:59, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
Well caught Rif, I've tweaked the formatting and it should display correctly now. Any other problems, give me a bell. pip pip. Benea (talk) 09:55, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] HMS Prince George

Hi Rif, hope all is well with you and yours? I wonder if you can help me with a little discrepancy I've noticed. Lavery lists HMS Duke as being accidentally burnt at sea in 1768 under the name HMS Prince George. Colledge describes a similar series of events, but has her date of loss as 13 April 1758. Obviously a sub-editor on one of the two has slipped, but which one? Can your sources throw any light on the matter? Kind regards, Benea (talk) 15:44, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

In fact, Colledge has the date correct (Brian's book has mis-printed 1768 instead of 1758). The vessel launched in 1682 as the Duke was indeed renamed Prince George in 1701, shortly after being rebuilt at Chatham. This vessel was again rebuilt at Deptford between 1719 and 1723, and was accidentally burnt at sea on 13 April 1758 (about 485 men drowned in the Bay of Biscay). The Ship of the Line is a superb summary of the development of the capital ship, but inevitably there are a few factual inaccuracies in the Ship List at the back (for example, on page 177 he omits entirely the 74-gun Marlborough of 1767, and unfortunately ascribes her details to the similar Magnificent). Remember this book is now 25 years old, and has not been re-edited for later reprintings, while there has been later reseach as well as a few printing errors spotted. I shall email you later today a copy of the text (without the illustrations and their captions) of Chapter 2 of my 1714-1792 volume, which covers all the Second Rates of that period, including survivors from earlier years. I hope you will find this helpful, and that it will explain several issues which otherwise might be unclear. Regards Rif Winfield (talk) 14:37, 27 May 2008 (UTC)