Talk:Worcester-class cruiser

Proposed merge of "USS Gary"

Agree IMHO, the stub article about Gary can't be further expanded as the ship never entered service. In addition, there's nothing in that article that cannot be said in this article dedicated to the ship's class. Regards, DPdH (talk) 16:09, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Merge Nothing notable about a ship that was never built. Merge into the class article and then delete the page... JonEastham (talk) 16:12, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Agree Not only was this ship never built, it never was started. Some uncompleted ships have quite interesting stories, like the battleship Kentucky and the large cruiser Hawaii, and are worth a page, but certainly not this one. Busaccsb (talk) 03:54, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

 Done  Ed (talk • majestic titan) 04:17, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Dubious: Juneau class design ancestry

This article asserts that the Juneau class was a primary design influence on the Worcester class. This is not true.

• The gun caliber of the Worcester class is not only the same as the Brooklyn, Cleveland and Fargo classes (and not that of the Juneau class), but the mounts had the same range of elevation due to the very similar mount machinery. The main difference was the Worcester class' shell ammunition autoloading mechanisms; had these mechanisms existed for the Brooklyn, Cleveland and Fargo classes they would have had their turrets modified to allow their guns to fully elevate for true DP use.
• Most of the assertion for a Juneau class ancestry appears to lie in the number of turrets and their use of twin rather than the triple mounts seen in the Brooklyn, Cleveland and Fargo classes. However, Friedman in his U.S. Cruisers, An Illustrated Design History (1984) on page 352 documents that a superior triple mount was considered for the Worcesters; it was dropped only because of time constraints, not because of any technical superiority.
• A quick review of the Wiki pages for all of these classes will show that the hull and machinery of the Juneau class look nothing like the Cleveland, Fargo, and Worcester classes. For example, the Juneau class had only half of the turbines, shafts, and propellers of the other three classes. Design ancestry is as much seen in hull and machinery as in weaponry, if not more so.

All references to the Juneau class in this article need to be appropriately revised. Any objections?Tfdavisatsnetnet (talk) 23:46, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay in responding, but as I'm the one who inserted that assertion, I feel it's up to me to defend it. The source which is cited in the article, "American Battleships, Carriers, and Cruisers," explicitly states that the Worcester class was a derivative of the Juneau and Atlanta/Oakland classes.

If you want to insert something showing Friedman's position on the Worcesters as well, I'd be fine with that. Wandavianempire (talk) 16:50, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

No need to apologize, I've been busy too.

May I ask, is the Lenton book simply a popular overview of the subject? If so then Friedman - being a scholarly work - should take priority. Also, how do we know that the Juneau assertion is not just Lenton's personal opinion, based on simple appearance?

Another point: Friedman makes it very clear that the development of the abortive CL-154-class cruiser - the true successor to the Juneau-class - was protracted precisely because the designers found it difficult to avoid it becoming another Worcester but with 5-inch guns. Again, everything about the engineering plant in the Worcester-class screamed Cleveland/Fargo derivation and not Atlanta/Juneau derivation.

I think the only reason to leave Lenton as a source is to point out how wrong it is. Tfdavisatsnetnet (talk) 17:27, 9 July 2022 (UTC)