Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/French battleship Brennus/archive1

French battleship Brennus

 * Nominator(s): Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 11:50, 13 October 2019 (UTC) and 

As part of our recent push bring French battleship articles to FA-class, we present for your consideration the first modern French battleship, named for your favorite sacker of Rome and mine. The article passed a MilHist ACR last month. As usual, we'd like reviewers to look for any stray bits of BritEng and infelicitous prose.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 11:50, 13 October 2019 (UTC) and

Comments Support by CPA-5

 * Sturm you sure it should be written in British English? Because if so this nomination needs a major overhaul in replacing American spellings with British ones. Cheers. CPA-5 (talk) 13:54, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Other way around, we want stray bits of BritEng identified so that we can them to change to Am Eng.
 * You'd be more than welcome to come back and review this one.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 19:51, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Blimey!!! How did I forget this one?

Those are the only things I found here. Cheers. CPA-5 (talk) 18:11, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
 * on a naval construction program that included the ironclad battleships Hoche Is there a name of the "construction program" or was it part of a major programme?
 * Not sure if it had a formal name or not, none of our sources really discuss the legislative history since Brennus was so different than the first four ships.
 * parts of the original were reused in the latter vessel --> "parts of the original were re-used in the latter vessel" it just looks odd in my eyes to not use a hyphen in it.
 * Both are acceptable since "re" is a prefix. Thanks for responding to my reminder.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 19:27, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Looks good to me. Cheers. CPA-5 (talk) 16:53, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

Comments Support by PM
I looked this over at Milhist ACR, so don't have a lot to add: That's the lot I could find. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 08:29, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
 * convert the main guns in the body?
 * the commissioning date in the infobox is unsupported in the body
 * move the (Captain) after Capitaine de vaisseau to first mention
 * All done, thanks for looking this over.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 15:08, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
 * No worries, supporting. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 00:58, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

Source review - spotchecks not done


 * Some of the details in the infobox, such as cost, don't appear to be sourced anywhere
 * Good catch
 * How are you ordering References?
 * Ooops
 * Suggest including state for Annapolis. Nikkimaria (talk) 23:26, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Nikki.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 15:08, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

Support by Gog the Mild

 * "she served as its flagship early on." Possibly it is just me, but "early on" doesn't sound encyclopedic. Is there a more formal phrase?
 * " The ship had been decommissioned before the beginning of the First World War in August 1914" This reads as if Brennus were decommissioned in August 1914 - I assume that wasn't the case.
 * "The ship also suffered from very poor stability" Delete "also".
 * "The ship could carry 706 t (695 long tons) of coal which gave her a range" Comma after "coal.
 * "semi-armor-piercing, capped (SAPC) ... SAP" Which?
 * " protected by armor plates 455 mm (17.9 in) thick while those of the aft turret" Comma after "thick".
 * "where some 70 t (69 long tons) of material were removed" Removed from what, the propellers which had just been mentioned? And what was the nature of the material removed?
 * Not specified by the source.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 19:17, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
 * That's a very big quote in the middle of the article. Is there some reason why it hasn't been paraphrased into Wikipedia's voice per MOS:QUOTE? ("It is generally recommended that content be written in Wikipedia editors' own words. Consider paraphrasing quotations into plain and concise text when appropriate ..."
 * I'm a bit reluctant to eliminate this quote as I like contemporary ship evaluations, but I've cut the second para as not that interesting in the hopes that it isn't too long now.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 19:17, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Ho, hum. I am also fonder of quotes than the MoS approves of, so OK.


 * "Gervais was relieved by Vice-amiral Jules de Cuverville on 15 October and was replaced in his turn by Vice-amiral Edgar Humann" "and was" → ',who was'.
 * "ironclad battleships Neptune and Marceau got 26 percent hits at a range of" → 'ironclad battleships Neptune and Marceau achieved a 26 percent hit rate at a range of'.
 * "prompted the Navy to make the method" "the" → 'this'.
 * "The ship participated in the annual fleet maneuvers during 8–20 July and then Navy Minister Édouard Lockroy observed gunnery exercises aboard her in September" Suggest breaking the sentence after "July".
 * "The Mediterranean Squadron included five other battleships, including Gaulois, Charlemagne, Charles Martel, Bouvet, and Jauréguiberry" It's not "including" if you list them all. Suggest a colon instead of ", including" and semi colons to separate the other parts of the list.
 * "At this time it consisted of" Suggest deleting "At this time". I think that can be assumed.
 * "a reduced crew, which were augmented" "which were" → either 'who were' or which was'.
 * "she was reduced to reserve" Should that be 'the reserve'?
 * Maybe. Like most navies the French had several different levels of reserve and I'm not sure which one she was in on this occasion.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 19:17, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
 * I didn't realise that. OK.


 * "lest she sink" Optional: → 'to prevent her sinking'.

The prose flows along very nicely. Gog the Mild (talk) 21:32, 25 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your very thorough reading; see if my changes are satisfactory.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 19:17, 3 November 2019 (UTC)


 * Nah. That was the quick skim. Let me know if you would like the very thorough version. ;-) Your usual fine job of work. Supporting. Gog the Mild (talk) 19:47, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Good eye, then, 'cause you caught stuff that had been missed earlier. Either way happy to have benefited from your attention to detail.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 19:50, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

Coordinator notes
Image review? -- Laser brain  (talk)  15:57, 19 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Image review:
 * File:French battleship Brennus NH 64443.jpg and File:French battleship Brennus NH 82700.jpg: I take we are certain that that license statement also applies to these images?
 * Only insofar as we can trust the NHHC to reliably indicate what images fall outside of the statement; I've seen a number of them over the years I've been using their images that, for example, note an original author and state when it was donated to their collection. Photos like these are, most likely, French photos that were commercially acquired either by the naval attache or the Office of Naval Intelligence for the purposes of ship recognition training, or less likely, photos taken by the attache or ONI (and so for our purposes, even if we assume French copyright applies, the fact that they were available when the ship would have been of interest to the USN is evidence that they were published before 1924, so at the very least, they'd be PD in the US even without the NHHC statement). Parsecboy (talk) 17:11, 19 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Location of all images seems reasonable. No ALT text that I can see anywhere. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 16:57, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Comments Support from Harrias
I reviewed this article at the ACR, and it has only improved since then. A couple of minor points:
 * Since that review, I have discovered the, which should be used instead of  for foreign-language terms such as Jeune École, Marine Nationale, soufflage, Capitaine de vaisseau, and other ranks per MOS:LANG.
 * "..the guns had a range of 10,900 meters (11,900 yd).." Given the distance, would this be more useful in kilometres and miles? If so, there are multiple other uses of the range.
 * Most navies have traditionally reckoned gunnery distances in yards/meters, dating back to the days when ranges were measured in hundred of yards or meters. More importantly, those are the units universally used by our references.
 * Fair enough. Perhaps for improved comprehension, consider adding miles as a conversion: 10900 m . With them being such big numbers, it is easy for the eye to skip over them as meaningless: telling someone a gun fires 11,900 yards means less to them than telling them it fires 6.8 miles. Irrespective of whether you make this change, I'm happy to support the article though, great work as usual. Harrias  talk 08:58, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
 * The final paragraph of Construction and career (before 1896–1900) is unreferenced, including the quote. Harrias  talk 14:13, 2 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Good catch. Thanks for looking these over.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 15:30, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

-- Laser brain  (talk)  13:14, 12 December 2019 (UTC)