Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Deutschland-class battleship


 * The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page.  No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Deutschland class battleship

 * Promoted Woody (talk) 10:35, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Nominator(s): Parsecboy (talk)

I rewrote this article at the beginning of the month, it has since passed GA, and I feel it meets the requirements for A-class. This article will eventually make its way to FAC, so please feel free to nitpick :) Thanks in advance to all editors who take the time to review this article. Parsecboy (talk) 22:59, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Comment: The sentence "the five Deutschland class ships came to the aid of the mauled battlecruisers of the I Scouting Group when the Deutschlands intervened and prevented the British battlecruisers under Admiral David Beatty from pursuing the German ships" seems too long to me. I think there should be another comma, or even a full stop, in there somewhere. Otherwise, I don't see anything big. - The Bushranger (talk) 00:09, 23 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Fixed. Thanks for pointing that out. Parsecboy (talk) 01:25, 23 April 2010 (UTC)


 * No problem. Support. - The Bushranger (talk) 02:49, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Questions and nitpicks: More observations as I come up with them. Very well done so far. I'm happy to call it a support. -- saberwyn 03:14, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Toolbox: No disambig links, external links are all good, all images have alt text.
 * Lead image: The infobox image carries the caption "Deutschland class battleships in line", but I count at least nine vessels, as opposed to the five ships in the class. Could the caption be tweaked to clarify?
 * In the "Machinery" and "Armament" sections, the capabilities of Deutschland are less than her later sister ships. Was there a particular reason or impetus for the improved propulsion system and thicker armour?
 * In "Inter-war years", the last sentance states that the ships were replaced in active service by "newer ships"...do you know what ships these were?
 * The "World War II" section states that Schleswig-Holstein was sunk in shallow water in December 1944, but continued to serve as a glorified coastal battery until gutted by a fire. When was the fire?
 * What happened to the hulks of Schleswig-Holstein and Schlesien after they became immobilised? -- saberwyn 13:21, 23 April 2010 (UTC)


 * The ships nearest the observer are the Deutschlands. I'm not quite sure what to add to make that clear. Any ideas?
 * Its a pity the Bundesarchiv caption doesn't give us more to work with. You could do something along the lines of "Deutschland class vessels leading a line of German battleships"? -- saberwyn 13:21, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Yeah, the Bundesarchiv captions often leave a lot to desire, and in some cases, they're just flat wrong. Take this one mistakenly identified as the cruiser Gneisenau; it's very clearly a Roon-class armored cruiser. But as to this photo, the ships are steaming away from the observer, so it'd be "bringing up the rear" or something similar. I tried a note; how does that look? Parsecboy (talk) 01:59, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm happy. -- saberwyn 06:23, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I haven't seen any explanation. All Staff says is The first ship of the class, Deutschland, was almost identical in every way to its predecessors...After Deutschland, however, the remaining ships of the Deutschland class were built to a modified design (p. 5), but no explanation as to why. I would imagine the design staff was incredibly overworked; Groner says that the Braunschweig design was completed 1900-01, the design for Deutschland followed in 1901-02, and the design for the other four ships in 1902-1903. A year seems like a long time, but I don't know if it's long enough to first do all the design work and then conduct all the testing needed to make sure the new ship doesn't pull a Vasa on its maiden voyage. That's just my assumption though.
 * It might be worth adding a line to the "Design" or "General characteristics" section using the little info provided by Staff and Groner (i.e., while the design for Deutschland was completed in 1902, the design was modified over the following year for the other four ships, particularly the engines and armour). On a related note, are the characteristics in the infobox for Deutschland or the other four...it might be worth noting. -- saberwyn 13:21, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I reworked the design section to include this information. The only thing in the infobox that is part of the difference between the ships is the belt armor thickness. In the infobox its the figure for the later four ships. I added a note to clarify this. Parsecboy (talk) 01:59, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
 * What about the propulsion horsepower figure? The infobox says 17,000, but the body says Deutschland was rated at a thousand less. -- saberwyn 06:23, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Good call, I added another note for this one. Parsecboy (talk) 13:14, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I added a note explaining this.
 * Cool -- saberwyn 06:23, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Williamson doesn't give a time period on the fire, but he does say that the crew was then taken ashore to assist in the defense of Marienburg; according to that article the battle was in early 1945 up to March, so it wasn't all that long between the sinking and the fire. Maybe a month or two. Parsecboy (talk) 11:44, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Do you think we could get the phrase "Within a couple of months of the bombing, a fire permanently disabled the ship, and her crew...", or would that be too close to OR? -- saberwyn 13:21, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I would hesitate to add anything without a clear indication in the source. Parsecboy (talk) 01:59, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Fair enough. -- saberwyn 06:23, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

It very much looks like Class A in my opinionSteven1969 (talk) 01:40, 25 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Note: OK, this is bizzare. The link in note 5 for the later Deutschland class (the panzerschiffen) is a redlink. But when you click on it you get the correct article despite this...?? never mind, a tweak to the sclass code fixed it. - The Bushranger (talk)
 * That's odd, it was a redlink as Deutschland-class heavy cruiser (I hadn't looked at the target article when I put that in) and then when I changed it to Deutschland-class cruiser it worked fine for me. All's well that ends well though, right? Parsecboy (talk) 13:16, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Support Oppose 
 * Comments
 * Can we get citations for the notes in the article? At the moment only the last one has a source for the material present, and that concerns me.
 * The last part of the World War II section fails to provide the fate of the battleship Schlesien beyond noting that she sunk 3 April. Can we assume that she too was broken up, or was she destroyed by the allies/captured as a war prize? TomStar81 (Talk) 21:39, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Comments:
 * in the infobox the date ranges for Built and In commission use emdashes when they should be endashes per WP:DASH;
 * in the Construction section, this sentence is missing something: "Although she was launched on 29 September 1905 and commissioned on 1 October 1907" (something like "Although she was launched on 29 September 1905, she was not commissioned until...)
 * in the World War II section, I suggest wikilinking "RAF" as it is not mentioned earlier and some readers might not know what it refers to;
 * in the World War II section, in the last sentence, I suggest changing the first instance of the word "artillery" to "guns" to avoid repitition;
 * in the References section a couple of the titles don't have endashes for date ranges: Herwig, Newton, Williamson. — AustralianRupert (talk) 07:34, 2 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I think I've got everything you mentioned. Thanks for your help! Parsecboy (talk) 11:47, 2 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Support: all my concerns have been addressed. — AustralianRupert (talk) 12:08, 2 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Link to the Danish Belt.
 * Done. Parsecboy (talk) 11:17, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Hasn't Whitley covered these ships in one of his books? If so, then it might have some more detail on their history under the Nazis.
 * Do you mean this book? He only mentions the pocket battleships, not the predreadnoughts. Parsecboy (talk) 11:17, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Ahh, you probably mean this one, but from the abstract in google books it also doesn't cover the pre-dreadnoughts. Parsecboy (talk) 11:21, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I think some more details of their activities during WW2 are in order. Rohwer's Chronology of the War at Sea would be the place to start.
 * They didn't really do all that much during the war though. The most notable thing was S-H shelling Westerplatte; Schlesien spent a good chunk of the war sitting in harbor or ice-breaking. Parsecboy (talk) 11:17, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
 * About the only thing that Rohwer lists that you didn't have covered was Schlesien's fire support mission between 15 and 21 March 45, which I've added for you. For some reason I'd thought that there were trips to the English Channel for both ships, but no mention in Rohwer.
 * Thanks for adding that for me. Parsecboy (talk) 16:28, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
 * And some more details as to which operations they participated in during WWI would be useful.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 18:29, 2 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I generally prefer to keep the service history sections in class articles fairly short. I see class articles as being primarily technical articles with a short overview of the service histories of the ships, and the individual articles vice versa. See, for example, Moltke class battlecruiser. The idea is I'd like there to be as little overlap as possible between the content of the class and individual articles so they're not just duplicating information. Parsecboy (talk) 11:17, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I probably put too much into my class articles although I do tend to try and summarize the action instead of laying it all out in detail. But that's just me.
 * You've got a problem with Williamson, he's wrong on the date of sinking of Schlesien. Groener and Rohwer agree on 3 May, not 3 April. And Rohwer doesn't mention any further fire support missions by her before her sinking.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 19:34, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I fixed the date (supported by Conway's as well). I cut out the fire support bit though. Parsecboy (talk) 16:28, 9 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Support - two minor comments though:
 * in the lead you write that the German Navy was allowed "to retain several old battleships, including the four Deutschland-class ships" under the Treaty of Versailles. This seems to contradict the corresponding paragraph in the Inter-war years section where you wrote: "Following the German defeat in World War I, three of the Deutschland class battleships were allowed to be retained in the German Navy"; and ✅
 * the phrase 'prohibitively enormous strain' in the Design section seems a little like hyperbole, maybe reword? ✅

Anyway thats it from me. Good work. Anotherclown (talk) 22:18, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks for reviewing the article. I clarified the intro and removed "enormous" from the line you mentioned. Parsecboy (talk) 16:34, 9 May 2010 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.