Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/French battleship Iéna/archive1

French battleship Iéna

 * Nominator(s): Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 16:32, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

Iéna had a short history after her completion in 1902 as she suffered a magazine explosion while in dry dock in 1907. The ensuing investigations caused a scandal that resulted in the resignation of the navy minister and did not solve the fundamental problem because another magazine explosion occurred in 1911 aboard another battleship to much the same cause. The ship was patched enough to be refloated and used as a target in 1909 before sinking. Her wreck was sold for scrap three years later. The article had a MilHist A-class review several months ago and meets the FAC criteria, I believe. I'd like for reviewers to check for any unlinked or unexplained jargon and infelicitous prose.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 16:32, 16 November 2019 (UTC)


 * Quick question: Is Caresse's book the only secondary source for the various reports into the ship's loss? I also take it that the Michel Commission's vague report didn't place blame on Poudre B? Lord Roem ~ (talk) 22:43, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Gille doesn't have much of significance on the explosion and I couldn't find copies of any of the reports on Gallica to read them for myself. The Michel Commission did not, that's correct.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 23:08, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

Sources review
The article had a pretty good sources review at its recent A-class nom. I have only a few minor comments:
 * The WorldCat isbn link names the author as "Anthony Preston" (and provides a blurb in Dutch!)


 * Umm, are you sure this review is for this article? 'Cause I don't reference Preston anywhere.
 * I should have been clearer. The ISBN to which I refer is that for the Caresse book. It goes to this. Brianboulton (talk) 22:39, 25 November 2019 (UTC)
 * The ISBN is as printed in the book. This English-language link differs by the OCLC # If you want I can replace the ISBN with the OCLC #. Preston is listed as the founding editor with Jordan as the editor. I don't consider the former position to be noteworthy.
 * Suggest leave well alone. The chances of anyone else picking up on this are vanishingly small. Brianboulton (talk) 20:35, 27 November 2019 (UTC)
 * As you give full publisher name for the previous book, maybe for consistency you should do so here (or shorten the earlier one)
 * This refers to the Campbell and Caresse books. Brianboulton (talk) 22:39, 25 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Those are as given in the books. Conway has had a number of different owners that have given it a number of variations on the basic name.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 23:19, 25 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Fine. Brianboulton (talk) 20:35, 27 November 2019 (UTC)
 * I've never seen "n°" before – is that what you intended, rather than "no"?
 * That's a French thing. Like superscripting the full abbreviation for première as 1e.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 21:23, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

Otherwise the sources seem to beet the required FAC criteria for quality and presentation. Brianboulton (talk) 20:00, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

Comments Support by PM
I reviewed this at Milhist ACR, so only have a couple of comments to add: That's all I could find. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 22:34, 22 November 2019 (UTC)
 * suggest replacing well-aged with ageing or old in the lead
 * first name for "Rear-Admiral Marquis"?
 * It's in the Armament section
 * Then I suggest "Iéna became Marquis' flagship as commander..." Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 23:31, 22 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Looks good.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 23:41, 22 November 2019 (UTC)
 * is Torpedo Boat No. 96 likely to be notable?
 * No, she only displaced 53 tonnes and there's little coverage of her in English.
 * Appreciate the review.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 23:12, 22 November 2019 (UTC)
 * No worries, a pleasure. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 00:42, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

Comments Support by CPA-5
Long time no see mate. :) I think that's anything. Cheers. CPA-5 (talk) 11:48, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
 * No link for Naval Council?
 * Not enough material in English for the
 * No links for Director of Naval Construction and Jules Thibaudier?
 * Naval historians John Jordan and Philippe Caresse evaluated --> "The naval historians John Jordan and Philippe Caresse evaluated" I think this is an American English thing.
 * No link for shafts?
 * Iéna carried a maximum of 1,165 tonnes (1,147 long tons) of coal which allowed her to steam for 4,400 nautical miles (8,100 km; 5,100 mi) --> "Iéna carried a maximum of 1,165 tonnes (1,147 long tons) of coal, this allowed her to steam for 4,400 nautical miles (8,100 km; 5,100 mi)"
 * Wait a second the magazines stored 45 per gun but later the article says the magazines stored 15,000 shells. How many guns does she even had? Unless I'm blind or forgot something here.
 * 15,000 rounds for the 47 mm guns.
 * 15,000 shells were kept in the magazines This sentence starts with a number.
 * Reworded.
 * Hey mate I don't want to disturb you but my comments here are already 10 days here just a little reminder. Cheers. CPA-5 (talk) 12:14, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
 * What's an extra couple of weeks between friends? See if my changes are satisfactory.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 23:34, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Weeks? You mean months. :p Looks to me great. Cheers. CPA-5 (talk) 19:57, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

Support by Llammakey
That's all that I can find. Llammakey (talk) 17:03, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
 * In Design section, "Charlemange class ship" should be hyphenated
 * Is there a reason why in the fourth paragraph of the Armament section that the millimetres are not abbreviated?
 * Same for the Disposal section.
 * There is a harv error in the Further reading section for Schwerer.
 * How can this be? I don't use harv citation format anywhere in the article.
 * I checked it out. It's because it uses the citation template. I fixed that for you. Llammakey (talk) 13:19, 29 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks for looking this over; I guess I wasn't thinking about being consistent with my abbreviations.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 23:44, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

Comment by Parsecboy
This is just a placeholder for the moment, but I have this book at the moment, and can scan you the chapter if you'd like. Parsecboy (talk) 12:40, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

Not much to complain about:
 * You might consider not abbreviating metric horsepower - I stopped doing that after I got questions about what PS/CV stood for (and PS is the German abbreviation anyway - I don't know that you can force it to abbreviate as CV).
 * Me neither, but not abbreviating it seems like a good idea.
 * "by Contre-amiral Léon Barnaud" - earlier, you give the rank in English and then the French translation, but here you only give the French rank. I'd think based on your earlier practice, you'd just give the English rank. Parsecboy (talk) 19:46, 18 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Good catch.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 23:49, 28 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Image review:
 * File:French postcard of Iéna after the explosion.jpg - can we get a better source than a Google search link? Parsecboy (talk) 14:37, 30 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Indeed I can.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 16:08, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

Coord note
Hi Sturm, I know it's a busy time but can you just indicate you'll get to the outstanding comments before long? Tks/cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 11:39, 25 December 2019 (UTC)

Support Seems all good. Just a couple of minor things.
 * "The lower strake was backed by a highly subdivided cofferdam intended to reduce flooding from any penetrating hits as its compartments were filled by 14,858 water-resistant "bricks" of dried Zostera seaweed (briquettes de zostère)." It's not clear either from this or the article on the seaweed what these bricks did.
 * Why do you refer to one admiral as "Rear-admiral" and then another as Contre-amiral?
 * Sigh, I thought that I'd fixed all of those.
 * "To test this theory, Gaston Thomson, the Navy Minister, ordered that a replica magazine and the adjacent black-powder magazine be built on 31 March, but when the tests were conducted on 6–7 August, they were deemed inconclusive ..." I might move "on 31 March" to before "ordered" to avoid some small ambiguity.
 * Similarly move up "on 6 August" a bit later.
 * Good ideas.
 * That's it.--Wehwalt (talk) 12:20, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks for looking this over when most people are in recovery mode. See if my changes are satisfactory.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 20:56, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

-- Laser brain  (talk)  14:11, 14 January 2020 (UTC)