Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/HMS Courageous (50)/archive1


 * The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Ucucha 15:58, 23 November 2011.

HMS Courageous (50)

 * Nominator(s): Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 06:10, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

This British battlecruiser was one of a class of three built during World War I that were nicknamed the 'Weird Sisters'. They sacrificed armour in favour of a large-calibre armament and very high speed. The ship and her two sisters were all converted to aircraft carriers during the 1920s lest they be scrapped to met the tonnage limitations of the Washington Naval Treaty. While hunting U-boats at the beginning of World War II, she became the first British warship sunk during the war.

This article received its A-class review a year ago and has been updated to better conform to FAC standards.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 06:10, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Source review - spotchecks not done. Nikkimaria (talk) 12:46, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Be consistent in whether states are abbreviated or not
 * Damn, I thought I'd caught all of those.
 * Where is Greenwich?
 * Done.
 * Check edition capitalization for Rohwer. Nikkimaria (talk) 12:46, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
 * You think it should be 3rd revised ed.?--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 16:16, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Comments. As always, feel free to revert.
 * I'm getting over 19K hits for "No. 800 Squadron" ... I haven't verified all of those of course, but I do see a lot of hits, including in Wikipedia. I agree that we can't say "800th" or "The 800 Squadron", that we should attempt to get as close to correct military usage as possible, and that there's nothing wrong with "10 Downing Street" (that is, there's no absolute rule against beginning a proper noun with a numeral).  My call would be to go with "No. 800 Squadron" at first occurrence in an article and "800 Squadron", "801 Squadron", etc., after that (and I made the edit).  So for instance, I'm leaving the next sentence alone: "810, 820 and 821 Squadrons were embarked for reconnaissance and anti-ship attack missions during the same period." This is a judgment call, and discussion is welcome. - Dank (push to talk) 13:06, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Not fond of it, but I can live with it.
 * "after the end of the war": after the war. Good grief, who was your copyeditor (oh wait ...) Btw, in cases where you want to mention a specific number of months, you can make a case that, say, "two months after the end of the war" would be okay, although for my money, "two months after the Armistice" would be better. If anyone wants to remove "the start of" from "a few months before the start of the Second World War" later in the lead section, I won't holler. - Dank (push to talk) 13:16, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Added the date of the start of WWII if that helps any.
 * I'm assuming you did your usual thorough job and that the reason you're not telling us how many survived the sinking (in the lead or text) is that reliable figures aren't available ... still, "518" deaths with no additional information feels like a case of raising an unanswered question to me, that is, this is one of those points where the reader might start skipping ahead in vain. It would help to say something like "only a few survivors" if you don't know exactly how many. - Dank (push to talk) 13:29, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah, no figure for survivors can be found, but they likely outnumbered the dead, given the total of 1200-odd crew and air group.
 * "which had to be curtailed after structural damage.": This too seems to raise a question it doesn't answer (damage from what?) ... I removed this here, since the question is answered a few paragraphs below. - Dank (push to talk) 13:45, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
 * We have a consensus among writers of articles on cruisers and battleships to insert a technical section (Origin and construction) before the main narrative starts, and I think copyeditors should generally observe and support rather than push against clear consensus. I understand that there's value in making the point right up front that the writers have done their homework and know the ship thoroughly, but in Wikipedia's high-level non-ship articles (such as aviation articles), this level of detail is more often than not avoided in early sections, and I don't offhand see any part of the narrative that I wouldn't understand if most of what's in Origin and construction were moved to a separate section at the end. - Dank (push to talk) 14:10, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I generally prefer to follow a roughly chronological order, for the sake of simplicity.
 * "Upon commissioning, she served with the 3rd Light Cruiser Squadron of the Grand Fleet. After most of the 1st Cruiser Squadron was sunk at the Battle of Jutland on 31 May 1916 the squadron was disbanded, but it was re-formed near the end of the year with Courageous as flagship along with her sister ship Glorious.": This would be easier to follow if the second sentence began, "She became flagship ... after ...". - Dank (push to talk) 14:58, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Rewritten
 * "The 1st Cruiser Squadron were ... but were": It's complicated, but all things considered (you use "was" above; it's multiple ships rather than multiple people, and it looks quite strange to Americans), I changed "were" to "was". - Dank (push to talk) 15:03, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
 * This may be a case of mutually annoying usage between BritEng and AmerEng. I believe that the Brits are quite fond of "were" in this context.
 * But you treat squadrons as singular elsewhere in the article. My sense is that the Brits need "were" for a group of people, and can go either way if we're talking about a group of things containing a group of people. - Dank (push to talk) 22:09, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
 * "the Admiralty decided": See WP:Checklist. I can elaborate if you like. - Dank (push to talk) 15:05, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Changed.
 * Tweaked. - Dank (push to talk) 22:09, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
 * "Rear-Admiral": Correct me if I'm wrong; I think we decided to go with "Rear Admiral" (no hyphen) but "Vice-Admiral" in BritEng. I made the edit. - Dank (push to talk) 15:08, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I never can keep it straight which is the preferred British usage.
 * Based on the official RN account of Dunkirk that I just read, I've decided to hyphenate both ranks.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 22:17, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
 * "During this time": which time?
 * See two sentences previous. Thanks for the copyedit.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 20:35, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Support on prose per standard disclaimer. These are my edits. - Dank (push to talk) 16:36, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Copyscape check – Copyscape searches have revealed that 4% of the content matches this source. , which claims to be © 2010 Yearsley DNA. Graham Colm (talk) 14:40, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Yay for Copyscape. Sturm, the problem is limited to the last section, Second World War and sinking; some rewording needs to be done there.  See this page. - Dank (push to talk) 14:51, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Maybe not. That website is copyright 2010 and this |diff from 2009 gives much of that same text. So I think that it copied Wiki rather than the reverse.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 16:16, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Sigh. Sorry. - Dank (push to talk) 16:24, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Yay for uncredited reuse.  S ven M anguard   Wha?  12:46, 12 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Media Review You're good.  S ven M anguard   Wha?  12:46, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Support -- Minor copyedit but not much needed re. prose; detail, referencing, structure and supporting materials all check out as well. My only minor suggestion is that it looks a bit odd having only one subsection in a section so what about changing the Conversion heading to Between the wars (or similar) and making Conversion a subheader immediately after (same level as Air group). This would also maintain a more obvious sense of chronology, i.e. WWI, then between the wars, then WWII. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 01:53, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Good idea, thanks for the review.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 05:20, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Comments
 * I think you need to re-research the casualty numbers; the single source you cited is very difficult to find so I can't verify its number but I've found 17 officers and 464 men (481) on pg. 33, and 515 (probably not the most reliable source). I would also specify all 24 Swordfish were lost. Kirk (talk) 23:11, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I've clarified that no aircraft managed to take off before she was torpedoed. I've found a by-name roster of survivors and the lost, but I don't know if it's complete and therefore won't spend the time to tally up the numbers myself. I'm rather fond of Sturtivant, though I've not seen that book of his before, but he may be counting just the ship's crew and excluding the air group.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 02:42, 18 November 2011 (UTC)
 * The actual event probably easy enough to find in many other World War II; its probably worth checking to see if one of these numbers is more common (or the air crew casualties are separated out)
 * Palomar and Genda give 519. No number at all in Rohwer, Conway's or J. D. Brown.
 * I checked 7 print sources: 518 in 3, 516 in 1, 515 in 2, no number in 1. Only one 518 was cited, the rest were uncited; I guess 519 is close enough. Thanks for adding the aircraft detail.
 * Note 24 is sourced for just the cost of conversion number; I would think this information could be found in a tertiary source.
 * Perhaps so, but it's not in Burt or Friedman. It's a secondary source, so why does it matter?
 * That's what I meant, thanks for checking.
 * Note 29 (Air-Britain) - does that article have footnotes/references for its information? (Do I need to track it down?) Kirk (talk)
 * I don't know, I've never seen a copy of an issue to even guess.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 00:10, 19 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Sturtivant on pg. 14 matches the info closely enough for me.
 * Support - nice work Kirk (talk) 19:43, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Regards, RJH (talk) 03:11, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment&mdash;It's a decent enough article. The historical jumping back and forth bothers me a little, but I can live with that. What seems to be a more serious lapse is the complete lack of information about the ship's commanding officers and their level of experience. Did I miss something, or is there a reason this isn't included? The German commanders are listed for the final battle, for example.
 * The names of her captains generally aren't available in my sources. I can add it for her sinking, but probably not many other times.
 * Captain William Totfield Makeig-Jones, 24 July 1939; died on the bridge. The only other names I could locate were Captain Arthur Bromley, 1916-1919, Captain Sidney Julius Meyrick, 1920-21, and Captain Geoffrey Alexander Rotherham, 1938-39.
 * OK, but how does that really help anything? Meyrick and Bromley are notable, but I need to confirm the exact role of flag captain during this period before I'll add them.
 * Ah... I think I'm done commenting here. Good luck with your article. RJH (talk)
 * I've added one notable captain and an admiral to the article, once a friend pointed out some sources regarding their service.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 22:17, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Some lesser concerns caught my eye:
 * "To obtain ships suitable for traditional battlecruiser roles": if the battlecruiser only appeared in the first decade of the twentieth century, how can this role be considered "traditional"? Isn't this just the traditional role of the cruiser?
 * The RN had a doctrine/tradition for their battlecruisers, the Courageous-class ships didn't fit that doctrine. It included fighting their way through an enemy screening force to locate the main battle force, something that even armoured cruisers were not judged capable of doing.
 * Right. My issue isn't with the role, but with the word "Tradition". A role that is a decade old doesn't meet my expectation of a "tradition". Doctrine might be better.
 * Done, but I don't think it's any improvement.
 * "...the first large warships...": this does not explain what is a "large warship". Is it just anything larger than a light cruiser, or is it a particular tonnage?
 * It wasn't defined that strictly, but light cruisers weren't considered large warships at that time.
 * "large" seems vague and relative. Can the wording be used more concisely? Maybe "larger classes" for example.
 * It is large and vague, but perfectly accurate. The RN went from a ship of 3750 tons to one of 20,000 tons in one step.
 * "...the installation used in the light cruiser Champion ... was simply doubled...": does this mean twice as big or twice as many turbines? The latter I suspect, but it would be good to clarify.
 * The latter, but how to word it? Twinned, repeated, duplicated, etc.? None of them read any better. Doubling is what my sources used.
 * Couldn't you just say they doubled the number of turbines? Otherwise it's too vague.
 * Done.
 * "In mid-1917, she received half a dozen torpedo mounts...": this apparently gives the ship a total of 14 torpedo tubes, but she only carried ten torpedoes. Did the capacity change?
 * The capacity was based on her submerged tubes. I don't believe that any reloads were provided for the deck tubes. But each deck tube had a torpedo in it, I believe.
 * Okay. Could the article say so then?
 * Can't, my sources don't actually say that each torpedo tube had a torpedo in it; that's the natural inference. I did clarify that the reloads were for the submerged tubes.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 05:34, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
 * "Courageous and the light cruiser Cardiff opened fire with their forward guns seven minutes later": Is there a range listed at which the ships opened fire? This might give a little context for the battle.
 * Not given, everything's time based in the accounts. She opened fire 7 minutes after spotting the German ships.
 * "...2-pounder "pom-pom" Mark VII mounts...": it might be good to clarify that this was for anti-aircraft fire, rather than ship-to-ship.
 * Done.
 * "She also received four water-cooled .50-calibre Mark III machine guns in a single quadruple mounting": do we know what for and where it was located?
 * Added. Thanks for the review.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 03:49, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
 * From what I read of the two vessels, Glorious and Courageous, their designs were treated with skepticism in both the press and the fleet, with their value being perceived as minimal. But I don't see any coverage of this criticism, either in the HMS Courageous (50) article or in Courageous class battlecruiser. (They were nicknamed the Curious and the Spurious by the press.)
 * Lots of criticism, mainly centered around their near-total lack of armour and light scantlings. But little of it is in a form suitable for wiki, IMO. They had lots of nicknames, I gave one used by the RN itself.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 05:34, 22 November 2011 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.