Talk:French battleship Henri IV

Superfiring gun?
The July 8 2009 "Did you know..." section on the front page says that the Henri IV "was the first ship to mount a superfiring gun turret". There was only one turret at each end of the ship, so neither could have been superfiring. Just being mounted above the main deck doesn't qualify. Nibios (talk) 23:59, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
 * ...two more were mounted on the shelter deck with gun shields and the last gun was mounted in a shelter deck turret superfiring over the rear main gun turret. This was the first superfiring turret in naval history and was not very successful in this case because the barrel of the 138 mm gun was too short to clear the sighting hood of the turret below. Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 03:01, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Ah okay, somehow I'd missed that paragraph on first reading. Thanks for the clarification! Nibios (talk) 04:15, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
 * You were probably expecting superfiring _main_ gun turrets, not secondary armament turrets, which was most of another decade in the future. Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 05:38, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Not to nitpick, but the South Carolina-class battleships, launched just 5 years after Henri IV, had superfiring main gun turrets. Parsecboy (talk) 12:49, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I'll pick your nit; the South Carolinas launched in 1908, 9 years after Henri IVs launch in 1899. I think you were getting mixed up with her date of completion of 1903. Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 17:14, 25 July 2009 (UTC)