Talk:USS Squando/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk · contribs) 11:13, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

Will take a look at this shortly. Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 11:13, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

Prelim

• No duplicated links
• File:Uss Squando 1865.jpg source link is broken
  • Fixed, although the NHHC link I can find is of a black and white image, not one in color
• No edit wars
• Earwig reports copyvio unlikely

Lede and infobox

• "Casco class light draft monitor" > "Casco-class light draft monitor" (practice seems to be to use a hyphen when discussing the ships of the class, and no hyphen when abstractly writing about the "Casco class"). Generally there's a lot of switching back and forth between using the hyphen and not throughout the text.
  • I think I've gotten this corrected
• "poor performance"?! I think that's understating the matter a tad too much!
  • Have more clearly stated that it was seaworthiness issues
• " required her deck to be raised" suggest adding what problem in particular this was fixing, and perhaps reword to make it more obvious that this was before completion
  • Clarified
• "Completed too late to see military action" better to right out say that the war was over
  • Technically the last CSA naval vessel didn't surrender until November 1865, but yes, it was over for all effective purposes
• Very minor, but McKay & Aldus are labelled as "Boston, Massachusetts" in the infobox but "East Boston" in the main text
  • Specified East Boston in infobox
• Add completion date to infobox
  • Done
• She was sold for breaking up in July 1874, but do sources say that this was actually completed within the year?
  • Yes, the DANFS web source says this. Clarified in main text
• Displacement is in tons in main text but long tons in infobox (if latter is correct, link in main text too). Why provide both possibilities for date of launch in infobox but only one for displacement?
  • Given both figures in infobox; source don't specify long tons directly
• Propulsion should name the engines and number of shafts rather than vague "screw steamer"
  • Done
• Main text doesn't mention smoothbore
  • Added to main text

Construction and characteristics

• Suggest rephrasing first sentence to something like "In mid-1862 the Union Navy leadership, having determined...began discussing designs"
  • Done
• Was the need for just "inland rivers" in general or was there a more specific use/reason for the construction?
  • I've clarified that a shallow-water ironclad was needed
• A word or two saying who Ericsson was would be useful, he seems to have been a busy man!
  • Noted his work on Monitor. Although I'm not making the claim about first Union ironclad for Monitor, because Carondelet has a claim, too.
• Perhaps replace "matured" with "finalised"
  • "mature" is the phrasing used by Roberts - it's not entirely clear from Roberts if there weren't other (more minor) changes going on afterwards
• Assume there isn't an exact date for when the contract was given
  • Not that I've seen
    • I've found a 1895 news source stating this
• "or a complete set of tools." if this means it didn't have the tools for constructing a monitor, suggest clarifying
  • Robert doesn't specify if this was tools for a monitor or shipbuilding tools in general
• "was USS Chimo, launched in May 1864."
  • Done
• "found to be unseaworthy" why? just freeboard?
  • Mainly freeboard, so I've specified that. (Roberts notes that part of her stern was underwater
• "The modifications to Squando" this makes it sound like the modifications to each ship were unique, while I assume in actuality the decks of all the monitors in construction had to be raised, if the problem was the same throughout?
  • Not 100% for sure. Silverstone says it was for all the class, but DANFS 1968 (which is different than the DANFS web source) says something about some of Squando's characteristics being different from the others because of the raising, so I can't tell. I'll read through the relevant material in Roberts again.
    • Per Roberts, most of the ships had their decks raised almost two feet; but Roberts doesn't give an exact inches figure so I've kept that in from DANFS
• "but almost sunk immediately" clarify whether this was because of the bad design? it might have rammed into an iceberg for all I know! Could say which ship too
  • Named ship (USS Tunxis (1864) and noted that per DANFS this was due to taking on lots of water. Roberts doesn't seem to discuss this launch in detail, and McPherson doesn't explicitly say it was because of bad design
• Might it be said that despite the modifications to the monitors, this next Casco-class ship sank?
  • Done
• "none saw combat." seems more appropriate in Service history
  • I somewhat disagree with this one - it's more about the class than Squando specifically, so to me it feels better placed to keep it with the class material
• "was either 225 feet"
  • Looks like another user has beat me too this
• If there were no changes to design after completion then the "as completed"s are unnecessary
  • Removed
• Might Squando be notable? Could red link
  • I really don't know. The Lee & North source that mentions the Union Navy naming the ironclad after Squando has some information about him. I know essentially nothing about King Philip's War, so I can't really say
• Considering how much Squando is namedropped before introducing her namesake, suggest moving that part to earlier on
  • Moved to much earlier

Service history

• In reviewing your articles I seem to have come across a lot of acting-rank commanding officers. Did the American navies have an allergy to confirming ranks?!
  • Not quite sure on this one. The Americans did at one point create the rank of Flag Officer because they thought that "Admiral" was anti-democratic. It's also possible they just simply didn't want to create a bunch of wartime higher ranks when they knew that the Navy was going to need to be scaled down soon.
• Our article says the North Atlantic Squadron only came into existence on 1 November 1865?
  • Silverstone just notes that she joined the squadron in 1865, so I've made the date vaguer for this
• Is there absolutely no information on what she actually might have done during her brief service? We know where she was but not really what her role was
  • I'm not finding much at all - the Mariners' Museum and Park's website even says There is no further information on this vessel.. The Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies notes an order given to another vessel to tow it out of New York when ready, but I'm not sure that's worth including since Squando didn't leave New York until July 1865 and the order was from early June. Otherwise, the vessel is too late for that highly-detailed source. I can find one old statement about it's seaworthiness after arriving in Charleston, but it's unfortunately too poor of a scan for me to read. Aside from a self-published book mentioning one of the ship's officers raising hell in a brothel in Charleston, I'm not finding anything at all. I did turn up an interesting piece about the construction
• "Heading north" a bit vague?
  • Was able to address this
• Squando isn't bolded out in the Casco-class monitor template
  • Fixed (a result of removing the useless dabbing of USS Squando (1865)

References

• Spot checks on web source check out. AGF with print sources.
• Being very nit picky and minor, the style of the ISBNs could be standardised
  • Done

@Hog Farm: That's all I've got for now. Will await your replies. Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 19:38, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

• @Pickersgill-Cunliffe: - Thanks for the review! I've tried to address everything as well as possible. It took a lot more digging in old newspapers than I found desirable, but I think I've pieced its service history together about as well as possible. Hog Farm _Talk 19:41, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

  @Hog Farm: Apologies for the slow reply here. A couple of outstanding points:

  • "she arrived at Charleston on April 2" I assume this is referring to April 2 1865, which doesn't make sense

  • Should have been August 2, my bad

  • Link mothballed

  • Done

  • "An 1869 newspaper"

  • Done. I've never been entirely sure if it's a or an before a number

  • "she could brought up to be ready for duty in "a few days"" something missing here

  • How about "brought up to good enough condition for active duty in "a few days""? The former is one of those things that makes sense to my redneck brain that are probably incomprehensible to most

  • "the vessel was then broken up, while at League Island and was broken up that year." broken up, broken up!

  • Should be better now

  That should be it. Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 12:00, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

  @Pickersgill-Cunliffe: - I hope I've been able to satisfactorily address all of these. Hog Farm _Talk 13:21, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

  @Hog Farm: Happy to pass this article as satisfying the GA criteria. Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 14:08, 27 June 2022 (UTC)