Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Normandie-class battleship/archive1

Normandie-class battleship

 * Nominator(s): Sturmvogel 66 (talk) and Parsecboy (talk) 15:52, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

The Normandie-class dreadnoughts were part of an ambitious French naval expansion program begun in 1912 to replace most of the older battleships in the French Navy that had been rendered obsolete with the British completed HMS Dreadnought in 1906. All five ships were still under construction when WWI began and were suspended for the duration. After the war, the navy considered finishing them or modifying them to incorporate the experiences learned during the war, but the government's perilous financial state prevented any such major expenditures. The least advanced ship, Béarn, was converted into an aircraft carrier during the 1920s and later became an aircraft transport before she was scrapped in 1967. The article passed a MilHist A-class review several months ago and we believe that it meets the FA criteria. As usual we'd like for reviewers to look for any stray bits of BrEng, unexplained or unlinked jargon and infelicitous prose.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 15:52, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Comments Support by CPA-5
First here. ;p
 * and I see a lot of American words here you sure it should be written in British?
 * I think that was a slip on Sturm's part - he mentioned removing stray BrEng at the Milhist ACR. Parsecboy (talk) 17:21, 24 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Yep, lemme fix that!--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 18:14, 24 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Well true Sturm, but I searched and found that the article originally British was written. Cheers. CPA-5 (talk) 18:25, 24 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I work with whatever an article's written in when I start on it. When I started work on this late last year, it was in AmEng, so that's what I went with.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 19:04, 24 July 2019 (UTC)


 * turret and preferred an armament of twelve guns I don't think we need an "an" between preferred and armament.
 * I think that it reads very oddly without it
 * Council (Conseil supérieur de la Marine) could not reach a decision
 * What do you mean here?
 * Oops I think I forgot this one Sturm. I meant to change "reach a decision" to "decide". Cheers. CPA-5 (talk) 12:47, 20 August 2019 (UTC)
 * There's a subtle distinction between the two that I think it's necessary to keep. "Reaching a decision" implies a process that "decide" doesn't.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 19:23, 20 August 2019 (UTC)


 * boilers and new, more-powerful turbines More-powerful needn't a hyphen.
 * the Aventurier-class destroyer purchased from Argentina in 1914 Current countries oughtn't to be linked.
 * I don't think that most Americans could point out Argentina on a map, so I link less well-known countries.
 * About that BB told me that MOS tries to tell us we shan't link current countries. Cheers. CPA-5 (talk) 10:03, 18 August 2019 (UTC)
 * This is the relevant part of of MOS:OVERLINK: This generally includes major examples of: geographic features (e.g., the Himalayas, Pacific Ocean, South America), locations (e.g., Berlin; New York City, or just New York if the city context is already clear; London, if the context rules out London, Ontario; Japan, Brazil, Southeast Asia), languages (e.g., English, Arabic, Korean, Spanish), nationalities and ethnicities (e.g., English, British, Chinese, Turkish, African-American, Hispanic), and religions (e.g., Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism)
 * I interpret that as not to link major European and Asian countries as I generally think that this overestimates the general geographic knowledge of readers based on my experience and news reports.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 13:09, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

That's anything from me. Cheers. CPA-5 (talk) 20:10, 14 August 2019 (UTC)
 * One point still to be resolved, but otherwise all done.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 18:19, 16 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Looks great. Cheers. CPA-5 (talk) 08:30, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

Comments Support from PM
This article is in good shape. I have some comments: That's all I have. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 08:40, 25 July 2019 (UTC)
 * for the lead sentence suggest "The Normandie class consisted of five dreadnought battleships ordered for the French Navy in 1912–1913."
 * suggest "It comprised the lead ship Normandie, Flandre..."
 * suggest "Named after provinces of France, the ships were never completed"
 * "were instead "
 * move the link to Displacement (ship) to the first mention of displacement
 * suggest "all with a secondary armament of twenty 138 mm (5.4 in) guns in a new twin-gun casemate mounting."
 * 340 mm versus 34 cm, suggest consistency in giving calibres in either mm or cm throughout
 * state how many 340 mm guns the Bretagnes had
 * suggest "in two quadruple-gun turrets fore and aft"
 * the proposed turbine/engine arrangements are unclear. Does a set = 2? If so, suggest using pair. Also suggest "a hybrid system that used a direct-drive turbine on each of the two inner propeller shafts, and a vertical triple-expansion steam engine (VTE) on each of the two outer shafts for low-speed cruising" if that is correct?
 * Problem is that turbines of this period used the same system of high-, medium- and low-pressure steam as did the multiple-expansion steam engines, only with turbines replacing cylinders. So a single turbine set would consist of three turbines, of which two would actually drive the propeller shafts. Don't recall off the top of my head how the French worked it, but the British usually had the high- and low-pressure turbines (in separate casings) driving the shafts with the medium-pressure turbine combined with one or the other. 20+ years later, they were combining all three turbines into one casing, kinda like the stages of a jet engine, and calling the whole kit-and-kaboodle a single turbine.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 20:49, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
 * also "equipped with four turbines to allow her to operate with the Bretagne class" if that is right?
 * given we've established already that the designers had opted for the 20 × 138 mm guns on all three designs, you could probably drop "but wished to retain the twenty-two 138 mm guns of the Bretagnes"
 * with my ancient schoolboy French, I reckon Conseil supérieur de la Marine translates as Supreme Naval Council, not Naval Supreme Council, but you should go with what is in sources
 * That's how Preston translates it.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 20:49, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
 * suggest "rejected the twin-gun casemate mounting"
 * "the arrangement of five twin turrets" would this have meant a turret amidships? Perhaps state this explicitly, as the blast damage issue has been discussed earlier
 * I'm not following the accepted secondary gun arrangement. If there were originally going to be 18 × 138 mm and 12 × 100 mm guns, and the 100 mm guns were to be replaced by 138 mm guns because the 100 mm guns weren't ready, then there should have been 30 × 138 mm guns, not 22 then 24? Or am I being thick?
 * It would be impolitic for me to say ;-) It wouldn't have been a one-for-one swap, if for no other reason than weight.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 20:49, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
 * suggest "one set pair of steam turbines" in general, set can mean any number of engines/turbines, pair means two
 * suggest link=on for the power conversion to link kW and shp
 * suggest using future tense ie "would have" or "were designed to" "was to have" consistently throughout the description except if they were actually fitted and/or operated, as they didn't actually do those speeds, achieve those ranges, have those guns etc, as they weren't actually built or operated as designed
 * This came up in the FAC for the Borodino-class battlecruisers which had a similar history of starting construction, but never being finished. Jordan & Caresse wrote entirely in past tense, so that's mostly what we've used, although some of the stuff has been phrased like "intended" to clarify that the true figures wouldn't have been known until the ships were completed.
 * no crew numbers as a private ship?
 * Not in any of the sources.
 * generally, once you've introduced millimeters, use mm, same with m for meters
 * "called to the colors" is a bit jargonish, "called up"?
 * under Construction and cancellation, perhaps mention that none of the guns were actually fitted?
 * I dunno, it seems pretty implicit given the statements that they were only worked on to clear the slipways once the war began.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 14:09, 7 August 2019 (UTC)
 * "which could be obtained by building new turbines" does this mean better turbines, or additional turbines?
 * link plunging fire
 * suggest "primary naval rival" if that is what is meant?
 * "He suggested there were three options for the first four ships of the Normandie class"
 * "he had decided "? Do you mean Ronarc'h here?
 * perhaps state that Martinique is in the Caribbean
 * Thanks for your typically thorough review. See if my changes are satisfactory.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 14:09, 7 August 2019 (UTC)
 * No worries, supporting. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 01:47, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

image review


 * Suggest adding alt text


 * File:Normandie_class_battleship_Project_1.svg: what is the source of the data presented in this image? Nikkimaria (talk) 17:10, 27 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Added.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 21:00, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

Sources review
Brianboulton (talk) 13:42, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
 * No spotchecks carried out
 * There are minor discrepancies between infobox data and that recorded in the text. For example, Length: i/box 176.4m, text "limited to 172m"; Beam: i/box 27m, text 27.5m; Draft: i/box 8.84m, text 8.7m – and a few others. Ought these not to be consistent?
 * No, those figures were from a draft of the design; the figures as built are in the description section.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 20:35, 6 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Formats: no issues
 * Quality/reliability: no issues
 * Thanks for checking on these.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 20:35, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

Comments
Wow, that's all I have. Maury Markowitz (talk) 18:25, 6 August 2019 (UTC)
 * "based on previous experiences with blast damage on battleships from the 1880s" - some color here might be useful? Is this blast the enemy shells or the blast of its own guns?
 * Clarified
 * "was instead equipped with two sets of turbines to allow her to operate with the Bretagne class" - why did this allow that? Speed?
 * Clarified
 * "138.6 mm" - this seems oddly specific. The linked article does not contain the ".6", so why has it been added here?
 * Normally I'd use nothing more than three significant digits, but the French used four for this gun for some reason, so I've followed their practice.
 * Thanks for taking time to read this through. See if my changes are satisfactory, especially about the turbines of Béarn as I'm not entirely satisfied with the wording. Suggestions welcome.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 20:42, 6 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 18:22, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

Support from The ed17
With a few comments.
 * Is the translation "Section technique" needed? Same with "Minister de la Marine."
 * You're just not accepting of our subliminal mission to teach foreign vocabulary terms to our readers, are you?
 * Apparently not. ;-) But like I said, a minor point and I don't feel strongly about it. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 01:58, 24 August 2019 (UTC)
 * "" I get where you're going with this, but the opening sentence that defines what the paragraph will be about doesn't gel well with the turbine comment. I'm not sure if this needs to be addressed, but I wanted to point it out nonetheless.
 * I dropped it entirely.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 21:38, 18 August 2019 (UTC)
 * These are minor points. Great work here! Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 16:55, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

-- Laser brain  (talk)  17:51, 25 August 2019 (UTC)