Talk:ARA General Belgrano

Removal of Cited Content

This edit [1], removed cited content, I'd carefully checked it was confirmed by the additional cite I added. Loginnigol's edit summary was Once again source doesn't back up what is being claimed here..

The content:

“ Its record as the largest ship sunk since the end of the Second World War was only eclipsed by the sinking of the Russian cruiser Moskva on 14 April 2022. ”

From the source:

“ The missile cruiser Moskva is the most significant naval vessel to be sunk since Argentina’s General Belgrano in 1982. Photograph: Russian Defence Ministry/EPA ”

“ It is the most significant naval vessel to be sunk since the Argentinian cruiser General Belgrano was torpedoed by a British submarine, HMS Conqueror, in 1982. ”

The source does back up the claim, verbatim, so I don't see this as a legitimate edit summary. WCM_email 17:38, 16 April 2022 (UTC)

References

Agreed. Edit: Fell into OR trap (Hohum ^@) 17:52, 16 April 2022 (UTC)

Content and source are not the same. And WCM, you just presented two different quotes and said one is, quote, "verbatim" of the other. Do you know what verbatim means? —Loginnigol 00:04, 17 April 2022 (UTC)

I cannot see a direct connection between either source and what was written. Am I missing something? Roger 8 Roger (talk) 01:00, 17 April 2022 (UTC)

The BBC source dated 15 April says "The 12,490-tonne vessel is the biggest Russian warship to be sunk in action since World War Two." The earlier archived version of 14 April is without the word 'Russian'. Significant and largest are not the same. The sources seem to be adjusting themselves. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 11:22, 17 April 2022 (UTC)

I was quoting the Guardian, both quotes are in the same source - 1 is a caption to a photo, the other is in the text. I even included a reference that it was from a photo. This quibbling merely demonstrates the superficial nature of your examination of the source, which backs up my edit. Your edit summary and removal of content is not for a legitimate reason. WCM_email 07:04, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

Stop lying. Stop spreading false information. The source does NOT back up your edit. Your edit is your personal opinion at this point. —Loginnigol 07:34, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

Loginnigol, Calm down, escalating does not help. Chill out and discuss civilly. Curbon7 (talk) 07:44, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

WCM is not discussing (providing support for his point of view) but editing despite there being no acceptance of his wp:original claim that (I'm literally quoting) it's "the largest ship sunk since the end of the Second World War". That is a bold claim that needs to be backed up 100%. No ifs and buts. —Loginnigol 07:52, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

I have a personal rule not to refer to the essay WP:DICK but I feel it's use is warranted on this occasion as feedback on your behaviour. I would suggest you consider this a learning experience. WCM_email 17:11, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

• Just to re-state what I said at the RSN thread ([2]) here, I could not find a source that directly ties together the General Belgrano and the Moskva regarding the size of loss. As I stated: However, from what I can tell, the BBC source does not mention the General Belgrano, while the Guardian source says it is the most significant loss since the GB, not necessarily the largest. In short, this is WP:SYNTH, tying the sources together to make them say something that neither do. Additionally, it seems largely irrelevant to include such a factoid. Curbon7 (talk) 08:03, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

  To further add, the basis is not necessarily wrong. The Moskva is slightly larger than the General Belgrano, per one of the sources, so yeah you can piece together that it is the largest loss. However, to include this in the article, it must be explicitly mentioned in the source. Curbon7 (talk) 08:06, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

By way of observation, that I hope does not add fuel to the fire, IMO the Belgrano loss was of distinctly greater significance than the Moskva loss. Meaning, the first, and more important, notable point is the relative significance of each sinking, followed by the relative sizes. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 08:56, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

And, there seems to be a belief that the Moskva in some way now supersedes the Belgrano in importance. In size perhaps, but that is all. The term "It is the most significant naval vessel to be sunk since the Argentinian cruiser General Belgrano" could mean that the Moskva's significance is important but still second to that of the Belgrano. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 09:16, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for your input, I was influenced by a number of newspaper reports which have compared the two. I perhaps didn't look into it in the detail you have and it seemed a reasonable factoid to include. Having listened to your arguments I'm no longer sure about that so will think about it a little further before taking any further action. I do appreciate you taking the time to comment and add your input. WCM_email 17:11, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

• Comment - Late to this discussion obviously, but the weight of a warship is always to an extent unclear, and there are a number of different weights that can be used. The BBC claim, in a breaking-news story, was that "The 12,490-tonne vessel is the biggest Russian warship to be sunk in action since World War Two". Obviously they are only claiming that this was the largest Russian warship, but 12,490 tonnes is 13,768 US tons and 12,293 Imperial tons, this would put the Moskva above the unloaded displacement-weight of USS Brooklyn (9,575 tons) and loaded weight (12,242 tons) regardless of the units that were used (which I'm not sure about - is it US or Imperial?).

However, the Brooklyn was modified under Argentine service so the weight of the General Belgrano may well have been different to that of the Brooklyn - very likely heavier. The displacement of Belgrano in her 1982 configuration would need to be known. Finally I have no idea where the 12,490 tonnes figure used by the BBC actually comes from since it's substantially heavier than the figure in our article on the Moskva which is sourced to Jane's.

So it's all very unclear. This claim seems potentially true but I'd really like to see a naval expert source on this claim, not just an ordinary journalist source since they often make mistakes about nautical displacement, if it's ever going to be included. As WCM says, the sources don't support it. FOARP (talk) 10:07, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Times

[3] just checked, the IP is correct that the attack was launched at 18:57 ZT, might it not be better to use UTC throughout the article to make it consistent? The reference to various time zones could be confusing. WCM_email 15:57, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

FTR, according to the tz database, all of Argentina was on UTC-3 in 1982, while the Falklands were on UTC-4. The UK was on UTC+1 from 28 March 1982.

That said, the data in the database is not authoritative. My guess would be that Argentine military authorities did not put their clocks back during the occupation, but that a lot of islanders didn't put their clocks forward either. Camp Time is still a thing today.

I see two clock times in this article, the time of the attack at 14:57 (UTC-4) and the time of the order to abandon ship, "twenty minutes after the attack" at 16:24 (presumably UTC-3). We need to be consistent. UTC is fine, but UTC-3 (i.e. Argentine time, the time most likely used on board ship) might be better because the article goes on to comment on how it was already dark by the time the escort ships became aware that Belgrano was in trouble. Kahastok talk 17:06, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

Crew of 1138 compared to U.S. original 868

Can anyone explain the larger crew size in Argentine service? Buckshot06 (talk) 23:57, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

I believe it also functioned as a training ship and carried a complement of trainees. I just did a quick google search to back up my memory but failed to find a cite. WCM_email 06:55, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Had another look and failed, @FarSouthNavy: Darius are you able to shed any light? I have confirmed the crew size in other online publication, which may simply reflect wikipedia? I did note 750+ survivors and 323 officially KIA, so it appears accurate. WCM_email 19:12, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Hi J, thanks for thinking of me for this kind of issues ;).@Wee Curry Monster: I can cite the 1992 book wrote by Belgrano´s last commander, Héctor E. Bonzo. From the very title, you can infer the crew size at the time of the sinking: 1093 tripulantes del Crucero ARA General Belgrano (ISBN 950-07-0739-X). Furthermore, inside Bonzo's work I found a 1954 reference from former US crewmembers in pp. 434-35, where they recalled that "the peacetime complement of 600 (sic) increased to 1200 by 1941" (...) "including naval reservists". We should conclude then that the 868 cited as the original crew size is just the peacetime complement while in US service. In the case of the 1982 conflict, Bonzo also stresses, as you correctly have noted, that the cruiser carried a detachment of 120 cadets (p. 26), plus a complement of marines and naval air servicemen (pp. 22-23); in all these decades, however, I've never heard of any navy's cadet either lost or rescued after the sinking, so as a side note I guess they were landed at Ushuaia just before Belgrano´ last mission. Therefore we should assume that 868 was the number of seamen carried by the ship in peacetime, while the 1200 (minus) crew belongs to the cruiser at full combat readiness.--Darius (talk) 21:08, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

No worries, thanks for the help answering the question. WCM_email 08:41, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

Many thanks thankyou WCM and FarSouthNavy. If I am asking this question, others may too: is it possible to add a quick summary of your answer above FarSouthNavy to the article, with the refs you cite? Buckshot06 (talk) 09:42, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

Merge Proposal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Should USS Phoenix (CL-46) be merged into ARA General Belgrano? I find it confusing that the same ship has 2 articles and I don't see a reason for them to be seperate. I'm not sure if there are other pages like this, but I was able to find examples of ships that served multiple nations and have a single article such as USS Brooklyn (CL-40), sister of the General Belgrano. I don't think that the merger would cause the article to become unreasonably long, however if it did then perhaps the "Sinking", "Controversy over the sinking", and "Aftermath" sections could be split into "Sinking of the ARA General Belgrano" or similar as they make up the majority of the article. Stuart2202 (talk) 13:23, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Strongly oppose. These are two substantial articles allowing the two more-or-less unrelated stories to be told comprehensively (and I congratulate the editors in minimising the necessary overlap very well). In my judgement, a merged version would definitely be too unwieldy - and it makes not the slightest sense to then split one of the two stories into two articles. Generally, I am in favour of single ship articles which have modest careers with multiple owners/navies but this is virtually a textbook example of when not to do it. (And I dread to think of the inevitable RFC on the title for a combined article.) - Davidships (talk) 15:22, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Oppose For this ship I think having two articles is justified. The notability for each life was distinctly separate and combining them would not give the notability, especially of Belgrano, its due weight. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 20:42, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

• Comment - Late to the above discussion, but I think the WP:TOOLONG issue here would be acute and don't see any reason why re-organising in the proposed way would necessarily be better. The reason why things are structured as they are is the sinking of the Belgrano was by far the most notable thing that happened to the ship in Argentine service, with other aspects not being very notable really. In contrast the service of the ship in the Pacific war is a lot more notable that everything that happened afterwards until the Falklands War. Combining the pre-Falklands War Argentine-service material in to the USS Phoenix (CL-46) article and spinning out the Falklands War material in to a separate Sinking of the Belgrano article would result in pretty much the same two articles but with different names, so why bother? FOARP (talk) 11:18, 9 December 2024 (UTC)