I apologize for being so slow with this message that Zoe became alarmed.
As a result of the discussion on [[Wikipedia_talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)]], I have written a datebot that will convert dates of the form "[[March 2]], [[2003]]" to "[[2 March]] [[2003]]" (and also the simpler case of "[[March 2]]" to "[[2 March]]"). I have tested it in my own sandbox and on a few naval ship pages.
Currently it has no automatic article selection mechanism; it only munges the single article it's pointed at. I intend to run it manually and slowly on the ship articles and make sure I haven't missed anything about its operation.
I have no intention of doing anything precipitous.
-- Sean Barrett | How am I supposed to hallucinate sean@epoptic.com | with all these swirling colors | distracting me? --Lisa Simpson