Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/SMS Bayern


 * 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.

Promoted EyeSerene talk 08:58, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

SMS Bayern (1915)

 * Nominator(s): Parsecboy (talk)

Yet another German battleship, Bayern's career was rather short and uneventful (being in commission for little more than a year and a half), though she was mined during Operation Albion in late 1917. I feel the article is as complete as possible, and I look forward to working with reviewers in ensuring the article meets our A-class standards. Thanks in advance to all those who take the time to examine this article. Parsecboy (talk) 13:50, 11 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Tech review:
 * no dabs;
 * no issues with ext links;
 * images lack alt text, but it is not currently a requirement;
 * images seem appropriately licenced. AustralianRupert (talk) 04:27, 13 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment Check link to SMS Großer Kurfürst and by token of the last review, shouldn't it be SMS Grosser Kurfürst? But my preference is clearly SMS Großer Kurfürst. But this is your call. Note: I am working on the article of Ernst Lindemann at the moment. Lindemann was II. and later I. F.T. Offizier (F.T.&mdash;Funktelegrafie; 2nd and 1st wireless telemetry officer) on board of Bayern. Lindemann went on to command Bismarck in WW II. Maybe this is worth mentioning? Who was the commanding officer of Bayern? I found a reference to a Kapitän zur See Max Hahn. MisterBee1966 (talk) 10:15, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Shouldn't the lack of acceptance of the wonderful Eszett ß in the German language make the Großadmiral into a Grossadmiral? Or at least "Grand Admiral" :-) Otherwise I can't follow the reasoning why the orthographically correct ß in Großer Kurfürst is wrong but right in Großadmiral. MisterBee1966 (talk) 10:35, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The reason we don't use the eszett for the ship's name is due to the naming conventions (specifically WP:UE), which is policy) - the vast majority of English-language sources do not use an eszett for ship names. Hence, we don't use the eszett throughout the articles, such that the links match the article title. There is, however, no prohibition against using special characters for other things in the article, such as Großadmiral.
 * As for the ship's CO, I haven't seen anything about him. Where did you find Max Hahn's name? It would be good to add Lindemann to the article, though I'm not sure where to put him. Any ideas? Parsecboy (talk) 13:39, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * All the commanding officers of Bayern are listed here. Hahn is also mentioned in "Grützner, Jens (2010), Kapitän zur See Ernst Lindemann: Der Bismarck-Kommandant - Eine Biographie (in German). VDM Heinz Nickel. ISBN 978-3-86619-047-4." MisterBee1966 (talk) 21:52, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Alright, I've added a paragraph with the info on Max Hahn and Lindemann. Thanks for finding that information for me. Parsecboy (talk) 02:17, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
 * No problem, nice article by the way. I am not a naval expert so my comment may be totally irrelevant. The book about Lindemann goes in quite a bit of detail on how the crew aboard Bismarck was organized, how many divisions, officers, who was responsible for what, etc. Shouldn't an A-class article about SMS Bayern touch on these points as well? I found only one sentence in the article "Upon commissioning, she carried a crew of 42 officers and 1,129 enlisted men." This is more a question than a criticism. MisterBee1966 (talk) 08:15, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks, you've done some nice work with Lindemann as well. As for crew specifics, I have never seen information to that level of detail on any ship in any book I've read - including Richard Stumpf's diary. It would be interesting to know, however, but I doubt much of that information has survived. Parsecboy (talk) 12:10, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Hm, I understand your problem about finding information fully. I once submitted the article Joachim Helbig for A-class review. An A-class rating was denied on the grounds that too much of his personal life remained undocumented. I tried as hard as I could to close the gap but failed. So the article remained at GA-class. This to me established some level of expectation, when it comes to A-class criteria. MisterBee1966 (talk) 14:06, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
 * weak support -- I feel that information about the crew is very sparse. With only a three year service history it should at least be possible to add a section about the most senior commanding officers of Bayern. MisterBee1966 (talk) 07:59, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Support -- Tweaked a couple of things for prose but generally I can't fault this. One other point:
 * Construction began at the Howaldtswerke Dockyard in Kiel under construction number 590 -- To avoid repeating "construction" could the latter occurrence become "order number 590" or some such? Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 09:26, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Changed to "Work began..." Parsecboy (talk) 13:39, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Comments. "The first of what were eventually two ships in her class, Bayern would later be joined in service by SMS Baden (1915)." Maybe: "Bayern would later be joined in service by one sister ship, SMS Baden (1915)."  I guess it's time to start working on our A-class checklist, and I'd like to put in a vote for: if there's a way to replace any whole sentence or long phrase with a couple of words without losing any information, do it. - Dank (push to talk) 04:03, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
 * "standard displacement": to my knowledge, the term wasn't defined until the Washington Naval Treaty. - Dank (push to talk) 18:24, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
 * "three Parsons steam turbines, which was rated at 35,000 shaft horsepower": three Parsons steam turbines rated at 35,000 shaft horsepower ... - Dank (push to talk) 18:26, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
 * "The ship was armed with eight 38 cm (15 in) guns ... Bayern was the first German warship to feature guns of this caliber.": The ship was the first German warship armed with eight 38 cm (15 in) guns ... - Dank (push to talk) 19:53, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
 * "Kapitän zur See": Kapitän zur See (captain). Another one for the checklist: explain or rephrase any terms whose approximate meaning couldn't be guessed by most of our readers.  You'd have an argument that the approximate meaning of "Kapitän" could be guessed, I think. - Dank (push to talk) 13:32, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
 * "König class ships": König-class ships - Dank (push to talk) 13:39, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
 * "the only two remaining German battlecruisers still in fighting condition": "remaining" is redundant. Another one for the checklist: don't say the same thing twice, using the same or different words.  Readers may think you're trying to say two subtly different things, when you're not. - Dank (push to talk) 01:45, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
 * "dreadnoughts, would trail behind": dreadnoughts, were to trail behind (I made the edit). - Dank (push to talk)
 * There are several more instances of "König class" and "Kaiser class" that need hyphens because they appear directly in front of nouns. - Dank (push to talk)
 * For the checklist: items in a list separated by commas should be parallel. (I made the edit.) - Dank (push to talk)
 * "Bayern, along with Moltke and the four Königs": for the checklist: parenthetical phrases (meaning here any phrases that would make at least some sense if you enclosed them in parentheses) take either a comma on both ends or no commas, never one comma. (Understood that copyeditor-types are more likely to care about commas than some, but it looks so wrong without the second comma and it's so easy to spot and fix ... this is just the kind of mechanical thing that folks from WP:GOCE would be able to help with. - Dank (push to talk) 15:13, 19 December 2010 (UTC) Sorry, no disrespect to GOCE was intended, I just meant that it's generally easier to find people to help if you can carefully define the job. - Dank (push to talk) 13:56, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Alright, it took me a few days to get around to it, but I think I've fixed everything you pointed out. Thanks for your help, Dan. Parsecboy (talk) 14:17, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry I had to stop in the middle, I've got a bit more to do. You've gotten some resistance in the past when you didn't mention whether the article was reporting German (CET) or British times, but it seems to me that it's reasonable for a reader to assume that an article that's clearly focused on a German ship would give German times.  The objection makes more sense to me if the article focuses on an engagement between British and German forces. - Dank (push to talk)
 * I got a note on my talk page about the "note" in the first sentence (concerning a different article). The German Wikipedia sometimes handles the definition of SMS with a link (see for instance SMS Goeben).  Until we get some actual data, it's going to be a judgment call who our readers are; if you think a large majority of the readers who are interested in an article about "SMS Bayern" already know that the German SMS and British HMS are equivalent, then just a link would be fine with me.  My sense from all the FACs on these ships was that the only thing we could get universal acceptance of was a construction like SMS Bayern ("His Majesty's Ship Bavaria"); that saved you the trouble of having to explain what both the prefix and the named meant in separate sentences, so it passed the "tightness" test.  Also, most readers don't click on most links, even when they don't understand what the sentence means if they don't click.  That's my .02 cents, but I'll go along with whatever the wikiproject wants ... but I doubt the wikiproject wants to handle this different ways in different Imperial Germany Navy articles. - Dank (push to talk)
 * I was wrong on this above: the current text is "... Bayern was captained by Kapitän zur See Max Hahn." Whether a phrase is in a foreign language or not, if most readers won't know it, then it should be reworded or explained in the text.  But "... Bayern was captained by Max Hahn." doesn't sound right to me either, since we usually mention ranks.  "... Bayern was captained by captain Max Hahn." would just be silly.  Ideas? - Dank (push to talk)
 * Some of the writing, such as the description of the sinking at Scapa Flow, seems livelier to me than the previous versions ... good job. - Dank (push to talk) 20:01, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Now supporting, although answers on these last points would be appreciated. - Dank (push to talk) 20:03, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
 * No worries, things always find a way of coming up in the middle of a project. I added the note on CET time and fixed the SMS explanation (I wrote this article before we came to that solution and forgot to fix it afterward). As for Max Hahn, could we just insert a ("Captain at Sea") after giving his rank in German? I was hoping the MOS would be more helpful, but it doesn't have much to say on this. Parsecboy (talk) 12:33, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Sure, but then find a way to remove "captained". - Dank (push to talk) 12:48, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
 * How does this look? Parsecboy (talk) 12:51, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Great except for the typo. - Dank (push to talk) 12:54, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Comments
 * There's nothing in the text to support her quoted endurance; I'd suggest adding a sentence covering coal or oil storage capacity, which would also answer my constant question of oil or coal fired? Otherwise looks good, although I still dislike fleet advance.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 05:08, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Added. Just out of curiosity, what about "fleet advance" do you dislike? It seems like a pretty straightforward term to me. Parsecboy (talk) 12:17, 17 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Support Comments: only a couple of very minor points from me, otherwise it looks fine:
 * in the References section, some of the ISBNs have hyphens and some don't. These should probably be consistent;
 * in the References section, endashes should be added for the year ranges for the Herwig and Weir works. AustralianRupert (talk) 23:04, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Both fixed. Parsecboy (talk) 12:33, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Support I made a few minor edits to add a few links, otherwise it looks good to me. One question though, in the Operation Abion section, when the ship struck the mine, were there any injuries or casualties among crew? This should be clarified, even if it says no one was injured. — Ed! (talk) 21:54, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
 * According to Grützner (Lindemann Biography), seven sailors were killed. MisterBee1966 (talk) 23:26, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Very good. That should be added to the article so it's clearer to the reader. Once that's done the article has my full support. Thanks! — Ed! (talk) 01:57, 24 December 2010 (UTC)
 * MisterBee, can you add that information with the relevant page number from Grützner? Thanks. Parsecboy (talk) 02:33, 24 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Done -- Please have a look my English is too awkward. The wording that the mine explosion ended her involvement is incorrect. According to Grützner she briefly engaged the landing beaches, shelling them from a distance of 9000 to 10000m. You may want to tweak the section a bit more. MisterBee1966 (talk) 13:20, 24 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks for adding that material - Your English was fine, but I made a few tweaks for flow with the older material. Parsecboy (talk) 14:40, 30 December 2010 (UTC)


 * A1 is good: but publisher location needed for: Tarrant, V. E. (1995). Fifelfoo (talk) 04:33, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Done prior to review closure. EyeSerene talk 08:58, 6 January 2011 (UTC)


 * The discussion above is closed. 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.