Talk:Admiralty tug

Comments

Am I right that HMRT stands for His/Her Majesty's Rescue Tug? Biscuittin (talk) 22:19, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Problems with content

(copied from AfD by Xyl 54 (talk) 13:08, 20 June 2012 (UTC))
...a very poor article that fails to justify its main premise.

• We still have no substantial references for the concept "Admiralty tug". A description of some other group (let's hypothesise the Bustler class) as "these were Admiralty tugs" still isn't defining what an Admiralty tug is beyond this class, or if there was such a definable group.

We also claim the following:

• All Admiralty tugs had wooden bridge houses. Really?
• All Admiralty tugs were armed. This is unsourced (without a definition of the set of "Admiralty tug" concerned, then how could it be sourced? I also very much doubt this. Why would the RN need to arm tugs working in Plymouth Sound, surrounded by far more effective warships of every size? Now clearly the Admiralty had many tugs, many of which were or could be armed, however they also had plenty that were unarmed. I still don't see a concept of "Admiralty tug" in the same way as "torpedo gunboat", and any more specific than "tug". Andy Dingley (talk) 16:08, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

To try and answer this: The RN built a considerable number of vessels of civilian types (Trawlers, drifters, whalers, tankers and oilers) as well as requisitioning civilian vessels for war use, so it isn’t unreasonable to talk of "Admiralty types" for these.
The rationale for this (for example, trawlers (Elliott p285) was:

• Requisitioning civilian trawlers gave large numbers of suitable vessels (and experienced crews) but these needed conversion for war use. Also a wide variety of types gave problems of standardization, while some were still needed in civilian employ (Britain still needed fish!) The notion of an Admiralty trawler was to focus on limited number of classes, built from the keel up for war use.
• Building trawlers made use of those shipyards which ordinarily only built trawlers, with the minimum of disruption
• It produced vessels that could be rapidly disposed of (by conversion to civilian use) at the end of hostilities

The same considerations applied to other vessels, like Tugs. In WWII the RN built about 200 Admiralty trawlers, and requisitioned another 1300 civilian vessels. So too with whalers (one Admiralty class of 6, plus 200 requisitioned), drifters (24 left over from WWI, plus 550 requisitioned) With tugs Jane's WWI Ships lists one class (the "Saints") of Admiralty tugs, though I don't have their WWII ships to hand. But Uboatnet lists both Tugs and Rescue Tugs (and Fleet tugs of the US Navy) for WWII; the Tugs came in 3 (Admiralty) classes totalling 18 vessels and 83 vessels of no class name (ie requisitioned) and seem mostly smaller, and confined their work to home waters. The Rescue Tugs came in 9 Admiralty classes (87 vessels) and another 53 civilian (of no class) They seem to have been used for salvage and rescue work on the high seas ( torpedoed merchant vessels and the like): An example of their work is here (and of one of the vessels here) With reference to the rationale above, this one was built for the Admiralty in WWI, disposed of after the war, and wound up being requisitioned in WWII.
As to armament, some of them were larger than a corvette, and as well armed. (I’m sure I’ve seen tugs being listed as escort vessels somewhere, part of the early escort groups, though I can't bring to mind just now)
The significance of the wooden bridge house is that merchant ships had them ( navy ships had an open bridge) and the navy ships built in merchant yards generally had merchant rather than navy features (the early Flowers for example). It could be explained better in the text, I admit. I hope this helps, Xyl 54 (talk) 13:37, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

This is rather what I'd expected - particularly the similarities to the Admiralty trawlers.

The problem is that the current article just doesn't explain this - it's more misleading than anything, as it strongly implies that the "Admiralty tug" was a specific design, with a rigid specification. There needs to be a significant expansion of the lead and first non-lead section to explain the context and just what the Admiralty had required, without straying into over-rigid description of details that might be accurate for particular members of the group, but were never part of the requirement. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:28, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Fair enough: and I agree about the article as it stands. I'm thinking of doing a re-write, when I can find some sources; an overview, with a paragraph on each class was what I had in mind. Or would you (or anyone else) prefer to do it? Xyl 54 (talk) 14:45, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Possible copyright violation

This page was first written by an editor currently banned for widespread copyright violation.
As this makes all their work suspect, it is suggested all text written by them (and their IP address/sock/s) be properly attributed, or deleted and replaced by text that meets WP guidelines and standards.
(I had plans to do some work on this page, but now I'm thinking of something more definite). Xyl 54 (talk) 16:21, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

OK, done. I've deleted the text concerned and replaced it. Xyl 54 (talk) 15:40, 9 July 2012 (UTC)