Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/USS Marcus Island/archive1

RoySmith

I know this is going to be unpopular (because similar comments I've made before have been), but I still feel obligated to raise the issue of this sort of series article. Comparing USS Marcus Island to articles about other ships in this class: USS Casablanca, USS Liscome Bay, and USS Anzio (CVE-57) (the first three entries in {{Casablanca class escort carrier}}) I'm struck by how similar the Design and description sections are. For example:

She was powered by four Babcock & Wilcox Express D boilers that raised 285 psi (1,970 kPa) of steam at 577 °F (303 °C). The steam generated by these boilers fed two Skinner Unaflow reciprocating steam engines, delivering 9,000 shp (6,700 kW) to two propeller shafts. This allowed her to reach speeds of 19 kn (35 km/h; 22 mph), with a cruising range of 10,200 nmi (18,900 km; 11,700 mi) at 15 kn (28 km/h; 17 mph). For armament, one 5 in (127 mm)/38 caliber dual-purpose gun was mounted on the stern. Additional anti-aircraft defense was provided by eight Bofors 40 mm (1.57 in) anti-aircraft guns in four twin mounts and twelve Oerlikon 20 mm (0.79 in) cannons mounted around the perimeter of the deck. By 1945, the standard armament for the Casablanca-class carriers had grown to twenty Oerlikon cannons and sixteen Bofors guns. The sensors onboard consisted of an SG surface-search radar and an SK air-search radar.[9] In action, the Casablanca-class carriers were intended to function with a crew of 860. A typical embarked squadron consisted of sixteen Grumman F4F Wildcat fighters and twelve Grumman TBF Avenger torpedo bombers, stowed in the hangar deck between the two elevators.[10]

She was powered by four Babcock & Wilcox Express D boilers that raised 285 psi (1,970 kPa) of steam at 577 °F (303 °C). The steam generated by these boilers fed two Skinner Unaflow reciprocating steam engines, delivering 9,000 hp (6,700 kW) to two propeller shafts. This allowed her to reach speeds of 19 kn (35 km/h; 22 mph), with a cruising range of 10,240 nmi (18,960 km; 11,780 mi) at 15 kn (28 km/h; 17 mph).[12] For armament, one 5 in (127 mm)/38 caliber dual-purpose gun was mounted on the stern. Additional anti-aircraft defense was provided by eight Bofors 40 mm (1.57 in) anti-aircraft guns in single mounts and twelve Oerlikon 20 mm (0.79 in) cannons mounted around the perimeter of the deck. By 1945, Casablanca-class carriers had been modified to carry twenty Oerlikon cannons and sixteen Bofors guns; the doubling of the latter was accomplished by putting them into twin mounts. Sensors onboard consisted of a SG surface-search radar and a SK air-search radar.[4][13]

She was powered by four Babcock & Wilcox Express D boilers that raised 285 psi (1,970 kPa) of steam at 577 °F (303 °C). The steam generated by these boilers fed two Skinner Unaflow reciprocating steam engines, delivering 9,000 shp (6,700 kW) to two propeller shafts. This allowed her to reach speeds of 19 kn (35 km/h; 22 mph), with a cruising range of 10,200 nmi (18,900 km; 11,700 mi) at 15 kn (28 km/h; 17 mph). For armament, one 5 in (127 mm)/38 caliber dual-purpose gun was mounted on the stern. Additional anti-aircraft defense was provided by eight Bofors 40 mm (1.57 in) anti-aircraft guns in four twin mounts and twelve Oerlikon 20 mm (0.79 in) cannons mounted around the perimeter of the deck. By 1945, the standard armament for the Casablanca-class carriers had grown to twenty Oerlikon cannons and sixteen Bofors guns. The sensors onboard consisted of an SG surface-search radar and an SK air-search radar.[9] In action, the Casablanca-class carriers were intended to function with a crew of 860. A typical embarked squadron consisted of sixteen Grumman F4F Wildcat fighters and twelve Grumman TBF Avenger torpedo bombers, stowed in the hangar deck between the two elevators.[10]

She was powered by four Babcock & Wilcox Express D boilers that raised 285 psi (1,970 kPa) of steam at 577 °F (303 °C). The steam generated by these boilers fed two Skinner Unaflow reciprocating steam engines, delivering 9,000 hp (6,700 kW) to two propeller shafts. This allowed her to reach speeds of 19 kn (35 km/h; 22 mph), with a cruising range of 10,240 nmi (18,960 km; 11,780 mi) at 15 kn (28 km/h; 17 mph).[12] For armament, one 5 in (127 mm)/38 caliber dual-purpose gun was mounted on the stern. Additional anti-aircraft defense was provided by eight Bofors 40 mm (1.57 in) anti-aircraft guns in single mounts and twelve Oerlikon 20 mm (0.79 in) cannons mounted around the perimeter of the deck. Sensors onboard consisted of a SG surface-search radar and a SK air-search radar.[9][13]

Without peeking at the identifying HTML comments, can you tell which one came from which article? The rest of the sections have similar overlaps between articles. Why could most of this not just be in Casablanca-class escort carrier with a (much) shorter summary for each ship? There's plenty to write about that's unique to each hull's individual history without having to repeat this boilerplate design material in each article. RoySmith (talk) 18:36, 11 July 2026 (UTC)

You're not wrong, it's pretty much a copy-paste job across the class, since Kaiser tried to standardize them to the utmost. Right now, I have two paragraphs describing the 'why' and 'how' fifty of these things got produced, what they were intended to do, and what they actually ended up doing, as well as two paragraphs describing the ship characteristics. Do you think that they should be trimmed down? Stikkyy (talk) 19:30, 11 July 2026 (UTC)

Well, looking at what you have now for Design and description, I would say that everything from "The escort carrier programs were driven by the U.S. Navy's unpreparedness" all the way to "the Navy ordered fifty" could be eliminated and consigned to the main article, although you could certainly say that she was one of 50 in the class (actually, coming back here, I see you already have that under Construction).

For the copy-pasted paragraphs I quoted above, the first few sentences could easily be reduced to (something like) "She had two reciprocating steam engines delivering 9000 shp to two propellers for a top speed of 19 kts". Some people will certainly want to dig into the details of the boilers, pressures, temperatures, etc, but that's what the "Main article" is for. Likewise with the guns and aircraft. The details of the squadrons is cited to a source which only talks about the class. It's almost WP:SYNTH to combine "Marcus Island was a Casablanca class ship" with "Casablanca class ships normally embarked 12 Avengers and 16 Wildcats" and come up with "Marus Island had 12 Avengers and 16 Wildcats". It's not technically synth because you qualified it with "a typical embarked squadron ...", but that's getting into MOS:WEASEL territory.

BTW, do we actually know that the propulsion plant you described is indeed what got installed in Marcus Island? I could certainly envision that in the construction scramble, that exact model of boiler or engine might not be available to hit the installation schedule on some hulls so a similar replacement might have been used. My understanding, for example, is that some of the Iowa-class battleships had slightly different machinery, despite being a single design class. I'm sure stuff like that happened all the time.

If you really wanted to go into what was typical for the class as far as planes, I think the place to do it would be under Squadron history. It might make sense to say something like "At the Battle of Mindoro, Marcus Island embarked 24 FM-2's and 9 TBM-1C's, in contrast to the more typical embarkation schedule for the Casablanca class" (and likewise for the other operations). Rather than just repeating the boilerplate class data, you would be putting it in the context of a specific operation of this specific ship.

The bottom line is, make this article about this ship. If somebody is interested in learning more about the class, they know where to go for that. RoySmith (talk) 21:33, 11 July 2026 (UTC)

@Roysmith: OK, I compressed it down to two paragraphs. Stikkyy (talk) 00:01, 14 July 2026 (UTC)

@RoySmith: Stikkyy (talk) 00:02, 14 July 2026 (UTC)

With regards to BTW, do we actually know that the propulsion plant you described is indeed what got installed in Marcus Island? I could certainly envision that in the construction scramble, that exact model of boiler or engine might not be available to hit the installation schedule on some hulls so a similar replacement might have been used. – from : The Casablanca class, both because of its numbers and its last starting position in the race for contracts, had to settle for less desirable machinery, but ma­chinery which might be available when needed. This turned out to be the Skin­ner Uniflow reciprocating steam engine, powerful enough, but seldom consid­ered for marine use because it could not compete economically with diesel and turbine equipment.

The Casablanca-class were getting their engines from basically the same production line as the civilian ships. Per fluid dynamics, a fast battleship doing 30 knts necessarily requires a LOT more power than an escort carrier or destroyer escort doing 20 knts. Stikkyy (talk) 00:14, 14 July 2026 (UTC)

OK, the new version is certainly less verbose than what was there originally. I probably would have been more ruthless, but it's a significant improvement, so thank you and let's call it done.

I'm still a little concerned that you are using sources that talk about (I don't have the sources here, so just guessing from the titles) the class or a sister ship (Gambier Bay) and inferring from that what this ship has. I know you've said they were all the same, churned out of the same commercial production line, but there's still a bit of WP:SYNTH poking its nose out from behind the curtain. I'll just state my concern here and leave it to other reviewers to make up their own minds on that. RoySmith (talk) 00:37, 14 July 2026 (UTC)

Coordinator comment

Three weeks in and just the single general support. Unless this nomination makes significant further progress towards a consensus to promote over the next three or four days I am afraid that it is liable to be archived. Gog the Mild (talk) 15:58, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

Absent further progress I am going to archive this. The usual two-week hiatus will apply. Gog the Mild (talk) 15:03, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

• Closing note: This candidate has been archived, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Gog the Mild (talk) 15:03, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.