Talk:French battleship Bouvet

Tumblehome
I don't quite get how this design leads to decreasing stability in capsizing; this effect is also not mentioned in the Tumblehome article. --Cancun771 (talk) 08:41, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I didn't write that part, but I think that you could get an intuition of the phenomenon with an experiment of though: think of the "tumblehomed" ship as a mostly submerged cylinder with a keel underneath and a small plateform on the top, and of the "not-tumblehomed" ship as a U-shaped thing.
 * Now puncture a hole (say on starboard) and let water pour in as the U-hulled ship starts capsizing, the port size will rise above the water, adding weight to this side and creating a momentum opposing the capsizing (things weight more outside water than when submerged). In the "tumblehomed" hull, as the upper part of the hull is significantly narrower than the beam, this momentum is much less significant.
 * The dynamics might be different than that of water-sealed hull, where tumblehome would be rather an advantage for the stability of the ship. The first U-shaped ships of the line had to be fitted with stabilisators under the floating line because the weight of their upper batteries made them roll too much. Rama (talk) 10:02, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid Rama has gone rather off in the weeds there. The answer is simple:  imagine a ship (or rowboat, or whatever) with flared sides.  As it rolls to onw side, the effective beam will increase, due to the flare of the side.  This will increase the righting moment, because the bouyancy will be acting with a longer lever arm (i.e. half the beam).  Now imagine a ship with a reverse flare, which is effectively what tumblehome is.  As it rolls the effective beam will decrease, and the righting moment will likewise decrease.  Voila! - you have a loss of stability, which is just another way of saying the righting moment is decreased.  If you decrease the righting moment to 0, then you capsize.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:589:300:C7C0:7DE4:DA0:EB7:67E (talk) 22:41, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Timing
Hi, I am curious about the official evidence of the time she hit the mine; I only ask this as I found a reference to the incident in the logs of a British Destroyer HMS Grasshopper which say's: "00.15 Proceeded up Dardanelles at full speed to assist rescue of 'Bouvet' survivors" Which seems odd if she hit the mine around 03.15 LameCat (talk) 15:54, 29 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Perhaps part of the confusion is that the article jumps from a 24-hour clock to a 12-hour clock. It should read 15:15. In any event, the sinking was surely not at 00:15 - the picture of the ship capsizing is clearly during the day. Probably an error in Grasshopper's log. Parsecboy (talk) 16:02, 29 April 2015 (UTC)
 * 00:15 is during the day. Naval days started at noon (presumably because that's when sights are taken for a navigation fix).  3:15 is also correct, that would be mid-afternoon on naval time.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:589:300:C7C0:7DE4:DA0:EB7:67E (talk) 22:45, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Photo
Here. Parsecboy (talk) 20:27, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

American spelling
Hello, you reverted an edit I made on this article removing the sp=us in the convert template, you quote: MOS:ENGVAR. One sentence of which states "The English Wikipedia prefers no national variety over others", and yet you do, by adding spelling equals United States. Wikipedia is read worldwide, meaning 95% of the world population uses metres, tonne, etc. If this is about a US subject or place I would support use of sp=us but in an article on a French warship I think the "no national variety" applies. The remainder of the edit was to replace Convert+Abbr=on when Cvt has the same result. I think you should have left this as edited. Avi8tor (talk) 14:58, 29 December 2023 (UTC)


 * Yes, you are correct that this article about a French warship has no strong national ties to any national variety of English. But you are wrong in your implementation of that fact; it means that any spelling variation may be used by the editor(s) who write the article. It does not mean that the article must default to British spellings, American spellings, or any other variation. And it definitely does not mean that US spellings can only be used in US topics.
 * Swapping convert to cvt has no effect on what the reader sees, and is an irrelevant change. So it wasn't worth the effort of retaining that part of your edit instead of simply rolling it back. If you want to restore those, I don't much care, but it seems like a solution in search of a problem to me. Parsecboy (talk) 15:33, 29 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I think the Wikipedia Manual of style is very well written for a global audience. I Have no problem with American articles using American spelling, nor British articles using British spelling, etc. etc. (I'm also an American). I do have a problem forcing the rest of the world to accept spelling that is used by 5% of the planet's population on the rest of the planet, this strikes me as totally wrong. It should have the default spelling with NO preference, which would appear to be metres and tonnes. Avi8tor (talk) 09:31, 30 December 2023 (UTC)
 * No, metres and tonnes are the British preference. There isn't an English variant that is the default; the entire point of WP:ENGVAR was to stop stupid arguments like this one. If an article has no strong national ties to any English-speaking country, then whatever variant can be used, full stop. Please move on to something more productive. Parsecboy (talk) 10:28, 30 December 2023 (UTC)
 * You are wrong on being a British preference, they are a worldwide preference, the British just happen to use them, as does every other country outside the USA. The default NO preference would be not to add a preference which is what you did with sp=us. Avi8tor (talk) 16:37, 30 December 2023 (UTC)
 * No, that is not the case. Tell me, what type of English do they speak in France?
 * The template defaults to British spellings, which is why the sp=us parameter is used. But there should be no further inference to that given, since the template must default to something. Again, no matter what you mistakenly believe, there is no default spelling. That you are apparently upset about American spellings (here and elsewhere) is a personal problem, not one for this article or Wikipedia as a whole. Again, stop wasting both of our time here. Parsecboy (talk) 17:33, 30 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Just to be clear, "tonne" is the American spelling, as well as the rest of the world, for a unit of 1000 kilograms. A "ton" is something different (2000 lbs in America, sometimes; 2240 lbs in the rest of the world, and also in America when talking about ships).  Please now carry on with the remainder of your discussion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:589:300:C7C0:95E2:C61E:C792:1183 (talk • contribs)
 * No it isn’t; the unit of measure is referred to as a “metric ton” in the US, to differentiate it from the long and short tons. Parsecboy (talk) 17:33, 30 December 2023 (UTC)
 * It can be called a "metric ton". It can also be called a "tonne" (and originally was in the NIST standard), and when it is so called, it is spelled "tonne" in the US.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:589:300:c7c0:1517:7dfd:7c92:ea57 (talk) 15:40, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
 * You are getting very personal, I'm merely stating what I read in the Manual of Style and editing with a global perspective, I'm doing this to reach consensus. I think the template probably defaults to International English, why would it default to British English? Tonne is international, metric ton is not. Everyone speaks the English used in their native country, but units of measurement are international and are understood by everyone. I personally speak American English, other English speakers speak the English from their native country be it Canada, India, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, I could go on, but it's irrelevant. So given Tonne is the American spelling why not leave it like that in the article and highlight it for readers who may only be familiar with ton (which has two definitions). After all Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia to increase knowledge? I'm very familiar with the SI because it is all I use. The Tonne and the metric system has been adopted by the United States, see Metrication so why not use it? Happy New year. Avi8tor (talk) 08:45, 31 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Go to merriam-webster and type in "tonne" and tell me what you find. You are wrong, plain and simple. Accept it and move on. Parsecboy (talk) 09:56, 31 December 2023 (UTC)
 * You said above "Just to be clear, "tonne" is the American spelling," I know it's used in the rest of the world and what it means, so use it in this article. Wikipedia has the definition of Tonne. Avi8tor (talk) 16:49, 31 December 2023 (UTC)
 * No I didn’t; 2601:589:300:C7C0:95E2:C61E:C792:1183 did. Why would we use American spellings for everything except for one unit of measure? Parsecboy (talk) 17:25, 31 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Sorry, thought it was you. Someone in Florida. Avi8tor (talk) 08:59, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Bouvet's guns
In the text is says "This was sufficiently powerful to allow Bouvet's main guns to easily penetrate the armor of most contemporary battleships at the common battle ranges of the day". This is dubious for a couple of reasons: Bouvet's guns are cited as penetrating 24" of iron at 2000yds.  But the contemporary battleships (e.g. the Royal Navy's Royal Sovereign and Majestic classes) Bouvet was designed to counter didn't use iron armor, they used compound steel armor or Harvey process armor, both of which are much stronger than iron armor.  It is likely Bouvet's 12" could penetrate a contemporary ship's armor in some circumstances (hitting it at a right angle from reasonably close range), but "easily penetrate" seems an exaggeration.

Also, "common battle ranges" is troublesome, for the simple reason that there really weren't any battles to use as examples for "common ranges". Naval gunnery practice was commonly done at around 2000yds in that time period, but the only battles between pre-dreadnoughts were in the Russo-Japanese war of 1904, and those were fought at ranges of 6000yds or more (which astounded military experts of the day). It seems likely that if there had been battles between pre-dreadnoughts in the 1880s and 1890s they would have been fought at ranges closer to 6000yds than 2000yds. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:589:300:C7C0:1517:7DFD:7C92:EA57 (talk) 16:00, 2 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Take it up with Cooper, who states: "Both sorts are in the first rank of armor-piercing guns, and have a penetration equal to most armor afloat at near range." You may find it an exaggeration, but Cooper was a US Navy officer at the time, and presumably knew what he was talking about.
 * Navies at the time expected to fight at close range, as you yourself note. In this specific case, it would have been hard for Bouvet to fight at 6,000 yards, given that her fire control system had a maximum range of 4900m. Parsecboy (talk) 18:42, 2 January 2024 (UTC)


 * "Equal to most armor" is scarcely the same "easily penetrate". But I see you have appointed yourself as the arbitrator for this page, with sole right to approve or disapprove of changes, so I won't attempt to improve the wording in the article.
 * Based on how other battleship engagements went, if Bouvet's control could range out to 4900m, they'd have started firing at something close to 4900m. You could look at the Battle of the Yellow Sea as an example, where both sides opened at ~13000m and never got closer than ~5600m (all of which was well beyond the effective range of either side's rangefinders).   (incidently, that 4900m factoid seems worthy of being in the article, you might consider adding it). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:589:300:c7c0:e1b3:6d06:57b9:ffea (talk) 18:50, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
 * What do you think "equal to most armor" means? And yes, I did write the article and shepherd it through a number of reviews, so I will expend my time and resources to protect it. In this situation, that means you need to provide sources to justify your changes - otherwise, it's well, you know, just your opinion, man (and about as useful as a movie quote). Parsecboy (talk) 19:12, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Person from Florida: Could you please sign your talk page comments. Otherwise it is difficult to see who is saying what. Ttwaring (talk) 21:25, 3 January 2024 (UTC)