Talk:Smith-class destroyer

Smith Class Stacks Correction

The Smith-class destroyer Wikipedia page statement forming the second paragraph under the Engineering header "All had two widely spaced pairs of funnels except for Smith, which had the first and fourth funnels separated from the middle pair." is incorrect. The five Smith Class ships were constructed with three different stack arrangements that were building yard specific. The Cramp-built Smiths, DD 17 and DD 18, had a center pair of stacks flanked by two widely separated from the center pair stacks, one forward of the center pair and one aft. The New York Shipbuilding (Camden NJ) built DD 19 had four stacks equally separated. The final pair of Smiths, the Bath Iron Work-built DD20 Flusser and DD 21 Reid, had a stack arrangement consisting of a closely spaced forward pair and a closely spaced after pair separated by a wide center gap. These builder-specific stack arrangements provided a more refined ship recognition for this class. This more refined ship recognition was of value (and thus notable for this page's content) in an era where simple optical binoculars and telescopes coupled with the human eye were the only sensors that aided ship recognition. Norman Friedman, a respected authority, in his "US Destroyers -A Design History points this out the stack arrangement differences in Chapter 2 "A Decade of Design Developments" page 26 and in the caption to the photo of Smith at the bottom of page 26. The arrangement differences are also evident in the illustrations on each of the individual Smith Class ship Wikipedia pages. SpurnWater71 (talk) 17:06, 28 August 2025 (UTC)

Naval Architecture Terminology Practice: Stack vs. Funnel

The Smith-class destroyer wikipedia page uses the term "funnel" throughout. The correct terminology used by the US Navy is "stack." An authoritative reference for this terminology practice is the Naval History magazine Volume 34, Number 5 October 2020 article "Speaking the Language: Ship Structural Terms", next to last paragraph. The article is an authoritative source since the Naval History magazine is published by the United States Naval Institute (USNI), an independent, non-partisan organization dedicated to advancing naval profession knowledge. The author, Lieutenant Commander Thomas J. Cutler, U.S. Navy (Retired), is an expert on this subject; his credentials include: nine years at the U.S. Naval Academy, where he served as Executive Assistant to the Chairman of the Seamanship & Navigation Department and Associate Chairman of the History Department. Winner of the Alfred Thayer Mahan Award for Naval Literature, the U.S. Naval Institute Press Author of the Year, and the Commodore Dudley W. Knox Naval History Lifetime Achievement Award. Thus, in terms of an authoritative published source and authoritative author with notable credentials, this change would be compliant with the A Class article criteria A1 in terms of being verifiable against a reputable source. Thanks for your consideration of this change SpurnWater71 (talk) 17:27, 28 August 2025 (UTC)

@SpurnWater71 Funnel (ship) is the most widely understood term for the structure. As a global encyclopedia, hyper-specific nation-based terminology should be avoided when there is a non-jargon term available. Citing one article not even relevant to the Smith-class is also pointless, as the use of both 'funnel' and 'stack' are used interchangeably. As an American naval architect, I can tell you that both terms are widely used.

In cases like this, what matters is keeping every article internally consistent regarding terminology. There is no need to change the article per MOS:RETAIN unless there is an agreement to change it. GGOTCC 19:28, 30 August 2025 (UTC)

Agree that terminology must be carefully controlled for consistency. But when terminology consistency is emphasized to the extent that accuracy suffers, that emphasis becomes a problem.

Disagree that the one article is not relevant and is pointless. After all it is an overview of USN ship architecture terminology authored by an expert with outstanding practical and academic credentials and as such would be applicable to from all USN ships from Smith's era to the present and USS Smith was after all a US Naval vessel. Given your profession, you must surely appreciate that the largest blue water navy in the world's need to standardize terminology and that such terminology standardization must be expressed in a manner that is not single ship specific for that standardization to be successful across such a large organization.

Disagree with your statement that "stack" is hyper-specific nation-based terminology and a jargon term. This statement is not supported by its widespread usage - just a simple Google "Naval Architecture Stack" search returns many pages of commercial, educational, and navy hits on the term, including the current Wikipedia Mack article I read before proposing this change. Further, as is being discussed in my comments on the Prinz Adalbert assessment talk, the German Navy used stack rather than funnel. Also, the 1906 Jane's Fighting Ships Glossary of technical terms reveals that of 11 languages included in the table, only two - English and Italian - use the term Funnel. These examples not only refute your hyper-specific and jargon comments but indicate that stack is likely the more prevalent of the two synonyms. Which then is the more widely understood appropriate term for a global encyclopedia?

However, I'm not here to argue. Let me propose a solution: why not just use stack because it is correct and accurate for the USS Smith page and link it to Wikipedia's funnel preview which succinctly states that funnel and stack are synonymous? It is an easy fix making use of a well-established Wikipedia mechanism. There is value in making the Project's rigid consistency mandate flexible when and where synonyms and this Wikipedia preview technology facilitate it.

Lastly, what is your response to my first item? The article is currently incorrect about funnel/stack arrangement regardless of whether one uses the term stacks or the term funnels. Thanks in advance for considering this feedback. SpurnWater71 (talk) 21:58, 30 August 2025 (UTC)

Yet even you admit that funnel is commonly used by the English language. The issue here, as explained in MOS:RETAIN and MOS:VAR, is that there is no need to make superficial edits to replace one term with an identical word (ie. color v colour) if one style is established. While it may seem small in relation to this page, this logic also applies to changing every article about every US Navy ship with little benefit and a lot of work. Regardless, I won't stop you if you make the changes.

While the USN is free to dictate its own diction, Wikipedia allows all versions of English to be used on the website. Even the Norman Friedman book you mentioned earlier freely uses both 'stack' and 'funnel' interchangeably, further proving that the two terms have the same meaning. While 'stack' is correct and accurate, the same applies to 'funnel' and the status quo. Do you believe the two terms have different meanings? If so, please explain, as I am interested in what you mean.

I am also not that read up on the Smith-class. You are free to make the edits you see fit, as long as the information you add is directly cited.

Happy editing! GGOTCC 22:13, 30 August 2025 (UTC)

This is also not an A-class article. The template at the top of the page shows that it is rated 'C', and can not proceed due to issues with referencing. GGOTCC 19:30, 30 August 2025 (UTC)