Talk:Arleigh Burke-class destroyer

Article size

The article is now approx. 95kB in size. Perhaps, as per WP:TOOBIG, we should look at splitting?
The table listing of ships alone is almost 30kB, and would be both the easiest and most obvious content to spin out. I'm happy to do it if there are no objections, or if someone else would strongly prefer to do it themselves. Thoughts? - wolf 22:49, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

It's really not that long an article by screen length. I'd wait until it gets way above 100kB. BilCat (talk) 23:35, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

• Yes, it would need to get well above 100K to justify starting a new article for the split. Abbreviating in the table and trimming in places could probably remove 10 kB from the total size. But the Size guideline is for readable prose, not total article size with refs, templates and such. -Fnlayson (talk) 00:06, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

Fair enough. I was just reading Nick's GA review and based on that, this article needs, (and will hopefully get), more content. Regardless, it will grow, and at some point, something will need to be split off. But, I agree with both your points, and there is no hurry. Thanks for the replies. - wolf 01:56, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

• Thanks and fair point. For splitting content off, the Development section is the longest and seems like the best one to split in the future. -Fnlayson (talk) 02:07, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

Giving this thread a bump as almost 3 years later, the list is up to 92 entries and the article size is now 175kB+. Thoughts anyone? - wolf 08:42, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

Pinging BilCat & Fnlayson w/ regards to their previous replies to this thread just above, but would like to hear from others as well. Should we consider a split here? (perhaps a List of Arleigh Burke-class destroyers...?) Any other thoughts on this? - wolf 14:04, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

@Fnlayson and BilCat: - Guys? Anything? - wolf 17:32, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

The list can certainly be split out. I personally believe that WP:TOOBIG is received wisdom from ye olde darke ages, yet lists are a natural place to start (and perhaps in this case, end). If I have time today I can even do it myself, but it should be a simple task for anyone else. Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 18:30, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

I now have a draft in my sandbox open to review/revision by anyone. Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 02:03, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

Looks like a good start. The list article can and should have more content other than the table, but that will come. Meanwhile, we know that splitting just the table from this page will shave off 40kB, which is just what it needs. Cheers - wolf 02:56, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

Thanks! And yes, as for additional content, I'm happy to handle the mechanical process of getting the list into article space and making the appropriate changes to this article to point to it; anything after that is at the discretion of this community. BTW— I've discovered that Template:US Navy navbox doesn't currently have a clean way to point to class-specific lists of hulls; I personally don't think that it's a big issue, yet I wanted to mention here in case someone does care. Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 03:37, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

Go for it. - wolf 05:31, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

Going for it, aye. Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 05:48, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

I have no problem with this split. Can I just check we aren't proposing further splitting? Per WP:SIZERULE (word count) the article is fine. Mark83 (talk) 15:17, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

Nah, I think we're good for now. - wolf 15:23, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

EMP

@Findingmoney100:, I did not find "The class's electronics are hardened against electromagnetic pulses (EMPs)" in the citation which follows the sentence. Bruxton (talk) 20:27, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

I added a book source for the line. Bruxton (talk) 20:36, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

The Saunders 2009 ref at the end of the paragraph was the source for that info, but I guess I should've put it after that sentence as well. But thanks for addressing this with a different source. Findingmoney100 (talk) 21:55, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

Flight IA

Someone recently added Flight IA under the Variants and Ships in class sections, citing this. This would mean five variants (Flights I, IA, II, IIA, III). navy.mil itself does not mention a Flight IA, only supporting four variants (Flights I, II, IIA, III). I so far cannot find any source mentioning an Arleigh Burke class Flight IA outside of that destroyerhistory.org website and this CRS report.

I'm sure that, very technically, DDGs 52–71 are considered "Flight IA"—this same technical sense leaves DDG-51 as the sole Flight I ship, as you can see under the Variants section.

Flight IA not being mentioned anywhere in prose or in the class template doesn't help either.

Thoughts on this? Integrate Flight IA or keep DDGs 51–71 as Flight I? Findingmoney100 (talk) 16:26, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

@Findingmoney100: I saw that change myself and wondered about it, so thanks for starting this discussion. In the CRS report that you link the only appearance of the "Flight IA" term is in a quote from a Forbes article; the CRS report itself consistently uses just "Flight I" in its own discussion. I checked the declassified DoD Selective Acquisition Reports, and they say "DDGs 51-71 represent the original design and are designated as Flight I ships." A Janes article I checked also did not use the "Flight IA" designation. Just when I thought there was no good justification for using Flight IA I saw that an old copy of World Navy Review that I checked does refer to DDG-51 as Flight I and 52-71 as Flight IA. Nonetheless, because most reliable sources refer to DDG 51-71 as Flight I and all of the US Navy sources I checked do not use the Flight IA term, I favor removing the Flight IA terminology recently introduced into this article. —RP88 ^(talk) 19:51, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

Couple points; I believe it was 鮮奶茶 who changed the "Flight" column to "IA", so they should probably be pinged to explain their edit and support it. Also, had a look at the Forbes article, and the author is a "contributor" as opposed to a "staff writer", and per WP:RSP, that means the article isn't considered reliable, which might negate the CRS source. Since the support for this "Flight IA" seems tenuous at best, it hasn't come up in the 20 years we've had this article, nor has the Navy used it in the 30+ years the Burkes have been in service, so under these circumstances, it doesn't seem we should be adding this to the article right now. (JMHO) - wolf 08:14, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Given that this is a GA, we should remove the material until it has been justified. The edit history has gotten a little tangled by now but I can do that have done so.Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 17:56, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

I agree. - wolf 10:15, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

Barry DDG 52 first to be comissioned

I just visited the DDG52 at fleet week in Seattle and they claimed this one was launched or commissioned before DDG 51 because of some issue with DDG 51.

so that is consistent with there being a difference between 51 and later flight 1. I don't have an article to cite, so I am talking. 71.212.153.254 (talk) 03:05, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

While Burke (51) did have a long shakedown, we have plenty of sources that show that Burke was launched and commissioned well before Barry. It's possible that Barry was deployed first, but the few sources I checked show 1993 as the year of deployment for both, without mentioning exact dates. Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 17:46, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

ODIN and HELIOS

Regarding the infobox armament, ODIN and HELIOS aren't exactly guns. It would be more appropriate for them to be in their own heading named "Directed energy weapons:" or "Lasers:" or something like that. Starting a topic just bc this would be the first warship class article to have such a heading in its infobox armament. Findingmoney100 (talk) 05:14, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

Rampant capitalization

There are oceans of inappropriate capitalization throughout the article, and some of the most prominent are in the infobox, ex. "Tomahawk Cruise Missile" instead of "Tomahawk cruise missile". I checked some other USN ship class articles and many of those have the same problem, yet while I'm energetic enough to make a long pass through this article, I can't do them all. I wouldn't use a chainsaw; my general principle is to observe how the target article for the named item capitalizes it, and respect that. Any objections if I clean this up here? Regards, Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 00:14, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

I cleaned up all the ships, actually, since we use templates for these it wasn't too bad. I hope I got them all. Pennsy22 (talk) 00:33, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

Thanks! I cleaned up a few more in the body text as well. Regards, Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 04:49, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Unused acronyms

In a similar light to the previous topic, there's several acronyms that are defined but are never used (e.g., "AAW", "NGFS", "ISR"). Any opposition to removing them? Findingmoney100 (talk) 01:46, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

No opposition here. Someone who gets deeper into the topic will surely encounter those acronyms later, but it's not this article's job to jargonize everything; if a reader wants to know those details, they can read the target articles. Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 01:49, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

I believe I've caught all the unused acronyms Findingmoney100 (talk) 18:40, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

Cost

I think it's time we start thinking about updating the provided cost figure. The current figure of $1.843 billion for DDGs 114–116 and explanatory notes were written in 2011, and subsequently rely on an RL32109 report from 2011. Especially now that Flight IIA delivery is nearly complete and it's now entirely Flight III ships being procured from here on out, which I would expect cost substantially more than IIAs. RL32109 was just updated a week ago (link), so now may be a perfect time to address this. I haven't read it in-depth yet but it does plainly say "DDG-51s currently cost about $2.2 billion each to procure." Findingmoney100 (talk) 04:24, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Agreed, yet permit me to hijack this topic as a good example of something that vexes me— regarding the infobox, the cost values for previous flights are still valid for those flights, so should we take even more infobox space to delineate the cost for each new flight, like we do for so many other things in the infobox? Or will will we stick to the most recent figures, and let the article text handle the heavy lifting? And then if we do that, should we do that for everything else in the infobox, like crew complement? But otherwise, yes yes, we should be updating the article as needed. Regards, Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 04:37, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

I don't think adding the cost of each flight into the infobox will overwhelm it. (jmho) - wolf 08:23, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Okay, it seems we can either just use that explicitly-provided "about $2.2 billion" from the summary page (by the way, what would we provide as the page number for that?), or we could calculate for ourselves a more precise value given the $4,432.8 million figure for two ships: $4,432.8 million for two ships / 2 = $2.2164 billion (how many decimals do we need?)

So if we add this as a separate entry in the infobox cost, what shall it look like? Here's something I quickly threw together so we have something to work with:

• US$2.2164 billion per ship (FY2023/24)
• US$1.843 billion per ship (DDGs 114–116, FY2011/12)

Citations

Personally, I'm leaning towards outright replacing the existing figure as it's not representative of any Flight as a whole—it was derived from three units to provide a cost for the then-newest ships being procured (in 2011/12). So to me, it doesn't hold any significance now that we have a figure for 2023/24 procurement. Coming up with a figure for each Flight would likely require taking the average of every unit of the Flight, but given the long period of time between the first and last of something like Flight IIA, I don't think it would be a very meaningful representation.

As for the infobox as a whole, I've always considered the sheer content in it as a necessity considering that we're dealing with something as complicated as the Arleigh Burke class (though I do see some entries that could be trimmed). Findingmoney100 (talk) 12:51, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Just to provide an example of how DDG-51 procurement cost varies depending on year and how many units are procured in that year, you can compare 2021/22 procurement with 2023/24 procurement. Bottom line is costs vary substantially by year and depending on how many units are procured in that year. So I believe the best we can do for cost is simply provide the most recent figure—use the following year's estimated procurement costs (and update it every year when RL32109 updates). I think a simple note should suffice in explaining it.

Just my $0.02. But if there are no objections/concerns, I'll proceed with replacing the infobox cost with something like this:

US$2.2164 billion per ship (FY2023/24)

Citations

Notes

This is using a basic calculation dividing the given $4,432.8 million by the given 2 ships, so make sure you're fine this doesn't violate WP:NOR. As for the explanation in the $1.843 billion ref, I propose keeping it as it's still useful for figuring out how it was derived, but keep it embedded within the ref rather than moving it to its own dedicated note. Findingmoney100 (talk) 04:59, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Unfortunately, a basic calculation isn't appropriate here. Defense contracts are subject to pricing scales just like anything else. In fact, the 21/22 procurement memo directly addresses this:

The UPL states that procuring two DDG-51s rather than one DDG-51 in FY2022 would require an additional $1,659.2 million (i.e., about $1.7 billion) in shipbuilding funding. That figure is not the cost of the second DDG-51—the second DDG-51’s procurement cost would be roughly $2.0 billion. Adding the second DDG-51, however, would reduce the estimated procurement cost of the first DDG-51 due to the resulting increased production economies of scale.

While that applies to the earlier procurement, I'm certain that the fundamentals of defense procurement haven't changed and that it is indeed WP:OR to make these calculations ourselves. We should only make claims that are uncontroversially supported by sources, and a figure of $2.2164B cannot be directly supported. I am far more comfortable with claiming an approximate cost of $2B; this figure is directly supported, in text, by the 21/22 procurement memo and IMO meets a reasonable encyclopedic precision standard for a subject like this. Regards, Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 02:12, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

Happy with your reply. I was using the 21/22 memo just to show why I think it would be hard to settle on a single cost for each Flight. We can switch to the $2.0 billion of the 21/22 memo. (though I'm curious, why not the $2.2 billion of the current memo? because the FY24 ships have not yet been procured?)

I made the edit because I didn't suspect the $2.2164 billion calculation would violate WP:OR—the much more complicated $1.843 billion calculation has existed in this article for over a decade without contest. That will now need to be addressed too. Thanks for pointing out it is in fact original research. Findingmoney100 (talk) 08:55, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

The $2.2B FY24 value is even better; thanks for finding that. Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 01:14, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

Also wanted to add for the OP that WP is not a 24 hour news site, we are not required to make sure that each article has only the latest information regarding a subject. As an encyclopaedia, (and a paperless one at that) it's perfectly reasonable, and even useful, to maintain content from times past (be it weeks, months, years, millennia, etc., to provide a historical perspective of a subject.

tl;dr - it is not always needed, or even helpful, to remove older sourced content, when adding newer content. (jmho) - wolf 07:26, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for the insight. I'd be happy to have a cost for each Flight; if someone can find WP:RS that conveniently provides a cost for each Flight, we can add them. But I personally don't think having a cost for a specific set of ships (like DDGs 114–116) is very relevant to the layman reader glancing through the infobox (and as pointed out above, the calculation for DDGs 114–116 turns out to actually violate WP:OR). Findingmoney100 (talk) 09:17, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

I think I'm in the minority here, yet I still believe that for a subject of this scope, it's not appropriate to comprehensively address detailed unit cost in an infobox. An infobox is meant to be a summary of key points, not a giant table of data. What makes unit cost even more tricky is that it's the least tangible thing we have in the infobox. At least for things like VLS any reliable source can count the number of cells per flight, whereas unit costs change across fiscal years, defense budgets, and how builders like Ingalls happened to negotiate their contracts that year. Your point about serving the lay reader is interesting to consider; I'll argue that cost history per flight is perhaps the least interesting thing for the lay reader. Since nobody can just go down to the destroyer dealership and buy a Burke off the lot, I believe that most readers will be best served by a single sourced figure that summarizes the magnitude of cost, and then anyone who needs more historical and detailed data, perhaps consultants or researchers, will likely bypass the infobox anyway on their way to dig into the details in the article body. Regards, Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 01:11, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

Good points. There's no WP:RS (that I'm pretty sure) that conveniently plainly says "Flight I ships cost $X each, Flight II ships cost $X each, etc" exactly because of the reasons I think we've both been mentioning: it's more complicated than that. So I actually do agree it is in the best interest to maintain a singular value in the infobox cost. (Of course there will come a day decades from now where the Burkes will be a thing of a past and infobox cost will need better than a single value... but I guess we can cross that bridge when we get to it...?)

So I guess the question is what we keep this single value as for maintenance purposes. My opinion was to keep it as the most up-to-date figure, updating it every year. My concern is that this approach kind of goes against what wolf brought up, but truth is I genuinly can't think of anything better. Findingmoney100 (talk) 02:45, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

I agree with the general principle that we shouldn't rush to remove existing sourced content; my main position here is that we can be more thoughtful about which details are appropriate for the already-dense infobox. In the article body, it's different; go to town, add all the data! Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 03:12, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

Yep, agreed. I've corrected the infobox cost. Consensus seems to be the "most up-to-date" approach for infobox cost, or at the very least no consensus against it (forgive me if I'm mistaken). I hope other editors add any appropriate details on costs in the body because I'm not very acquainted with such details. Thanks for the help. Findingmoney100 (talk) 06:51, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

Minor quibble

"The designers were forced to make compromises, such as a wide flaring bow". Unclear to me. Earlier in the article it was implied the bow was a positive. So early ones lacked the flaring bow as a cost compromise? Or the flaring bow is a poor idea, the result of a compromise? (shorter hull meant flaring bow was mandatory?)— Preceding unsigned comment added by Feldercarb (talk • contribs) 21:01, 15 October 2024 (UTC)