Talk:German cruiser Admiral Hipper

Untitled
KM or not KM? Some writers prefix German warships with 'KM' or 'KMS' (Kriegsmarine or Kriegsmarine Schiffe) - equivalent to 'HMS' for Royal Naval vessels. The advantage is that it distinguishes between the ship and the thing (person, place etc) it's named for and immediately identifies a warship. Is there a Wiki convention? I've also used 'IJN' for Imperial Japanese Navy & 'USS' for US naval ships. There are other instances.

Comments please.

Folks at 137 08:52, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

I have no objection to KMS, or IJN for that matter.

Out of interest, did the damage to Hipper from Glowworm's ramming attempt really qualify as "heavy"? From what I've read it amounted to a section of armour belt becoming dislodged (reducing speed to 25 knots)and a torpedo mounting dismounted. Inconvenient, certainly, but I'm not sure if it qualifies as "heavy". Hipper's behaviour after the action (stopping to rescue survivors, continuing with her moderately danagerous mission) does not suggest a badly-hurt ship. -- The dates are screwed up. The "fate" entry on the sidebox does not correspond to the eventual fate that is listed in the article. Could someone clean it up? I'm not familiar enough to determine which one is correct.

WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Tag & Assess 2008
Article reassessed and graded as start class. --dashiellx (talk) 14:43, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

It would be useful
It would be useful to also express the bores and other measurements of the armaments of the main armaments of all of the cruisers of this class in inches, just for the sake of comparison with the America, Australian, British, Canadian, and New Zealand warships of the same era. Also, by the Washington Naval Treaty, the heavy cruisers of that era were defined by and limited to eight-inch guns (and projectiles), and light cruisers were defined by and limited to six-inch guns (and projectiles) - which I believe is 203 millimeters - though I believe that the U.S. Navy had one or two cruisers with 15 six-inch guns that were classified as heavy cruisers.

Also, there were two standard diameters of torpedoes, which were 18 inches and 21 inches, though the Imperial Japanese Navy did design, mass-produce, and deploy thousands of heavy and long-range "Long Lance torpedoes" with the diameter of 24 inches.

While you are at it, it might also be useful to express the overall length, beam, and draft of these ships in feet as well as in meters, like this: 100 meters (330 feet).98.67.102.100 (talk) 00:10, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Comparison to other ships
I would like to see the article compare the design of this ship to other heavy cruisers, both German and foreign. Jc3s5h (talk) 12:55, 31 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately, that would not be possible. To do so would require a heaping amount of synthesis and original research, and would be a bad idea in general. We are not in the business of editorializing warship designs. Parsecboy (talk) 13:09, 31 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I have seen reliable sources which compare warship designs, but those sources were for battleships. If such sources exist for Admiral Hipper they could be used. Jc3s5h (talk) 13:21, 31 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Even then, it's highly problematic. There was an article that compared North Carolina class battleship and King George V class battleship that was deleted for the reasons I highlighted above. You're asking to compare apples to oranges. Different navies built their cruisers for totally different reasons, with totally different strategic and tactical doctrines, and totally different combat expectations. Parsecboy (talk) 13:35, 31 July 2011 (UTC)
 * FWIW, the article was Comparison between HMS King George V and USS North Carolina. Parsecboy (talk) 13:47, 31 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Good Wikipedia articles put their subject matter in proper perspective. If reliable sources exist that allow the perspective to be given, but the article lacks perspective, the good article nomination should be failed.


 * The overview in Admiral Hipper class cruiser would be a good example of the kind of perspective that would be helpful, except that article only has two inline footnotes that actually seem to refer to a specific article in an external source. Jc3s5h (talk) 14:09, 31 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Look, I've written 25 featured articles on warships here; you don't need to lecture me about what should and should not be included in a high quality article. If you are planning on reviewing more warship articles for GA (after the HMS Vanguard (23) review), then you need to review articles that are already rated as GAs and familiarize yourself with what's expected for articles of that rating. Parsecboy (talk) 14:24, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

The Good article criteria state "Broad in its coverage:"
 * "(a) it addresses the main aspects of the topic;[4] and"
 * "(b) it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style)."

with the footnote:

"[4]This requirement is significantly weaker than the 'comprehensiveness' required of featured articles; it allows shorter articles, articles that do not cover every major fact or detail, and overviews of large topics."

So, assuming sources exist, it would seem that the lack of perspective could be forgiven under the good article criteria, but not under the featured article criteria.

As for referring to other good and featured articles about warships, judging by the samples I've viewed of all warship articles (not necessarily good or featured), they systematically focus on minutia, giving details about when the ship went to this or that port, and ignoring issues of perspective, such as how the designers decided to make changes to the proceeding class, or how the ship compared to ships of the same category in other neighbors. If there are large numbers of "good" and "featured" articles that suffer from these faults, then I consider those assessments to be in error. Jc3s5h (talk) 14:44, 31 July 2011 (UTC)


 * What did I just say? If you can't handle communicating with people without resorting to lecturing them, please stay away from me and from reviewing articles I write. I wish to have no further dealings with you if you can't behave civilly. Parsecboy (talk) 14:49, 31 July 2011 (UTC)


 * You do not get to pick who reviews your article. Imagine if authors could send a list of acceptable reviewers to the The New York Times Book Review. Jc3s5h (talk) 15:05, 31 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I am not picking who reviews my articles. I am telling you to stay away from me if you continue to make outrageous demands on articles (like requesting we violate WP:SYN and WP:OR as you have elsewhere) and arrogantly lecturing long-time contributors on basic policy. If you can't seem to handle that simple request, we can go over to WP:ANI. Parsecboy (talk) 15:18, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Location of bell
There is a Hipper bell at the German naval museum at Laboe, I saw it there today. Is there more than one bell, or is this article incorrect? Intelligent Mr Toad (talk) 19:03, 24 October 2012 (UTC)


 * It was probably transferred back to Germany some time after Groener initially wrote his book (in the early 1960s) - the editors who updated the book in the 1990s may have missed the transfer of the bell. Is there a good source for the bell being in Laboe (like a photo on their website or something)? Parsecboy (talk) 19:15, 24 October 2012 (UTC)


 * I've posted my photos from Laboe at the Axis History Forum, here: http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=62&t=193942

I don't know if you regard that as an acceptable source. If not, the article will have to stay wrong (if it is wrong). Intelligent Mr Toad (talk) 20:51, 24 October 2012 (UTC)


 * This photograph: https://www.flickr.com/photos/yetdark/3452725426/in/photostream/ is taken at Laboe, Kiel. It is a plaquet next to the Hipper bell. It is fully readable if it is magified. It states that the bell was taken to England after the war, but returned to Germany in 1982. From 1983 it has been on display at Marine Ehrenmal Laboe, Kiel Deutschland. KjellG (talk) 20:09, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Scuttled, was she?
From the article:

1) "Her crew scuttled the wrecked ship at her moorings at 04:25 on 3 May."

2) "Admiral Hipper in dry dock at Kiel 19 May 1945".

3) "In July 1945, ..., Admiral Hipper was raised"

When was she scuttled? KjellG (talk) 21:17, 17 October 2013 (UTC)


 * scuttled with explosive charges while docked on May 3 1945. --Denniss (talk) 21:34, 17 October 2013 (UTC)


 * So Hipper was scuttled on May 3. floating in drydock on May 19 th and raised in July -45? Confusing to me. KjellG (talk) 20:15, 12 May 2014 (UTC)
 * No, she was badly damaged by bombers on 3 May (effectively neutralized) and scuttled on 19 May (to make sure she couldn't put to sea, even to be towed) and raised in July for scrapping. I don't see what's confusing here. Parsecboy (talk) 20:30, 12 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Article says: "Her crew scuttled the wrecked ship at her moorings at 04:25 on 3 May." You say she was scuttled on May 19th. KjellG (talk) 21:08, 12 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I was confused - you referenced the 19th above and I didn't check the article carefully enough. Parsecboy (talk) 15:23, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

"Denmark Strait" and ship classes
The article refers in several places to "Denmark Strait" as a route for Hipper to return to Germany. Apparently this is supposed to refer to the Danish straits, i.e., the straits between the Danish islands and between Denmark and Sweden that lead into the Baltic from the North Sea and that were under German control after the occupation of Denmark. "Denmark Strait", however, refers to the strait between Iceland and Greenland.

The article also refers to Gneisenau and Scharnhorst as "battleships" and to Lützow (former Deutschland) and Admiral Scheer as "heavy cruisers". Both the former and the latter were armed with 280 mm (11") guns, which are heavy even for heavy cruisers but light for battleships. For this reason, the Deutschland (Lützow) class (Lützow, Admiral Scheer, Admiral Graf Spee) are usually referred to as "pocket battleships" (though this was not an official classification), while the Gneisenau class are often referred to as battlecruisers -- after all, 11" main armament was originally typical of German WW1 battlecruisers (e.g., von der Tann, Moltke class, Seydlitz).--Death Bredon (talk) 16:03, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
 * In short, no and no. The article correctly refers to the Denmark Strait (as opposed to trying to break through the Channel [a la Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, and Prinz Eugen]). And no, we’re not going to use a British propaganda term. The Germans themselves reclassified them as heavy cruisers once they had proper battleships, which they did with the Scharnhorsts (which has in turn been discussed to death at that page). Parsecboy (talk)|