Talk:Crossing the T

message: Crossing the tee was a tactic only developed in the late 19th early 20th century when steam power allowed ships to manoeuvre speedily in line astern. Before then, the term was raking and was usually only possible between single ships or in a few cases when the usual line of battle gave way to a general melee and several ships were able to rake the same one as the line was broken. Dabbler 14:58, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

message: For battle groups that are not centered around a carrier, would it still be viable to use a battle line formation in an attempt to cross an opponent's T, with anti-ship missiles substituting for guns? It could be even easier to set up with the aid of satellite imagery Masterblooregard 05:10, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ships engaging each other with cannon will probably always have use for it, however the invention and dominance of the anti ship missile has rendered the tactic obsolete. Anynobody 05:23, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

text: Actually with missile combat perhaps the opposite holds: missiles work better when there is a larger cross section exposed for radar deflection. So crossing someone's T would leave yourself exposed more and less capable of counter-manuvers against guided missiles.
Anynobody 05:23, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

text: Why the notion that missiles would make T-crossing obsolete? It still brings the relative force, both in terms of offensive missiles to saturate the anti-missile defences and in allowing the crossing ships to mutually support each other in defending against incoming enemy missiles. BP OMowe (talk) 01:37, 11 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Crossing the T in modern naval warfare? 

message: I have provided a reference which states that crossing the T only became properly established as a tactic after 1905, though it was used by steamships before that date. Can anyone provide a single meaningful quote which states that "crossing the T" was a noted tactic of the age of sailing ships. Sailing ship tactics are so different that the term is meaningless. The only example ever used is Trafalgar which means that Nelson was a lousy admiral who instead of fighting in the line of battle allowed himself to be put into a most disadvantageous position by deliberately getting his T crossed, yet his fleet won. In other words, crossing the T is not relevant and was certainly never used. He "broke the line to allow for individual ship to ship battles instead. Dabbler (talk) 20:19, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: indeed i'll find a proper text RS for pre-steam use or at least theory --might be up in the air whether any captain actually managed to pull it off in the sail-era.   they hoped to though.  i've got the books but just need to find them and get page numbers or maybe googlebooks page links.  nelson?  arr i'm not getting involved, but user dabbler is correct that he sure didn't really do it at trafalgar.  a mini-t variation at best and putting some of T's advantages to use, but not a proper formal T there.  (minor: i am going to adjust the current wikilink for salvo so that it goes to the actual salvo article. the current wikilink goes to projectile or some such --inaccurate in this context.)  cheers.  Cramyourspam (talk) 02:04, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Crossing the T is not pre-steamship

message: i'm changing a phrase to: "moving ahead of the enemy line on a perpendicular course (crossing the T) enabled a ship to launch salvos."   the old phrase mentioned ships "off to the side" but that was unclear (since two parallel lines of ships also have "ships off to the side" of one another).  i changed it after two readers found the text confusing (thank goodness for the diagrams).  many wikipedia articles put their own page topic in bold so i did that to crossing the T.  it is also proper to italicize a letter used alone in the manner of a noun.  (yeah sure i don't follow grammar rules in my talk page comments where i'm too lazy to capitalize.  sue me.)  cheers. Cramyourspam (talk) 02:24, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  perpendicular / off to the side,   boldness, ital       (etc) 

message: Just a minor detail here. The illustration provided seems to have the ship at the bottom having its bow facing downward and its aft facing the enemy ship. According to the definition, shouldn't crossing the T involve passing perpendicular in front of the enemy ship? While the black arrow does point up the bow is pointing the other way, so it's probably an issue with the original file but I am not familiar with how Commons works so could someone perhaps help? The Average Wikipedian (talk) 05:28, 26 September 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you may be overanalysing - for example, the Iowa class have a bow of that rounded shape, although their sterns are not pointy. Pinkbeast (talk) 06:34, 26 September 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: If you are interested in getting it changed, it may only be possible by contacting the original creator as I think that you need to have the original source file to modify the orientation. Dabbler (talk) 11:45, 26 September 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Illustration in the lead section