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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 Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 23:52, 30 November 2018 [1].

HMS Erin

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Nominator(s): Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 03:04, 24 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

HMS Erin was one of the two battleships being built for the Ottomans when World War I began and was seized by the British, which probably contributed to the Turkish decision to enter the war. Like almost all of the British dreadnoughts she had an uneventful war; even more so than the others as she was the only British dreadnought not to fire her main armament during the Battle of Jutland in 1916. After the war Erin became a training ship before she was sold in 1922. The article passed a MilHist A-class review earlier this year and I've recently tweaked it a bit. As usual I'm looking for remnants of AmEng and any unexplained or unlinked nautical jargon that I may have missed.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 03:04, 24 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Tony1

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Lead and first section, 1a:

  • "The class was designed to be at least the equal of any other ship afloat or building."—> "afloat or under construction"?
  • "When the First World War opened in August 1914,"—I've not seen that verb used for a real war. It's more what I'd expect if at the opera. "started"?
  • Agency is weird (same as first bullet above): "Fatih Sultan Mehmed had only begun construction in April" ... ships don't construct. "Construction of X had only begun in ..."
    • This gets into the anthropomorphization of ships where they are given agency as a stylistic shortcut even though everyone knows that the only actors are the humans aboard.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 14:54, 24 October 2018 (UTC) \[reply]
      • It's very bizarre. I trip over it. We don't want readers to do that to. And it's so easy to fix. Tony (talk) 01:48, 25 October 2018 (UTC) Later: I consulted a linguist on this example—he's an English-language professional. He agreed immediately with my objection. Tony (talk) 11:32, 26 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agency again: "The turbines were rated at 26,500 shaft horsepower (19,800 kW) and intended to give the ship a maximum speed of ..." ... those turbines have a mind of their own. "were intended", surely.
My apologies—I pasted the old version in rather than his suggestion: "The turbines, rated at 26,500 shaft horsepower (19,800 kW), were intended to give the ship a ...". Tony (talk) 13:35, 29 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
That reads nicely.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 14:34, 29 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • As well as reducing the density of she/her, we can tame an already-cluttered sentence: "The ship carried enough coal and fuel oil to give her a maximum range of 5,300 nautical miles (9,800 km; 6,100 mi) at a cruising speed of 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph)." –> "The ship carried enough coal and fuel oil for a maximum range of 5,300 nautical miles (9,800 km; 6,100 mi) at a cruising speed of 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph).
  • 'A', 'B', 'Q', 'X' and 'Y' ... I thought MOS insisted on double quotes. Maybe it's changed.
  • "The main gun turrets were 11 inches (279 mm) thick and they were supported by barbettes 9–10 inches (229–254 mm) thick." It's close enough to elide, I think. Or maybe even: "The main gun turrets were 11 inches (279 mm) thick and they were , supported by barbettes 9–10 inches (229–254 mm) thick."

Generally pretty good so far. Tony (talk) 05:58, 24 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for looking this over; see if my changes are satisfactory.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 14:54, 24 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Comments support by Nick-D

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It's good to see the article on this interesting ship at FAC. However, it seems a bit under-developed compared to other recent FAs on battleships. I've noted some areas below where the article could be broadened, sources permitting of course (which I suspect may be the underlying issue)

  • "The second of the two ships of the Reşadiye-class battleships would have been known as Fatih Sultan Mehmed." - not sure that the name of the other ship in this class needs to be in the lead (especially the first para) - I found this a bit confusing
  • "Fatih Sultan Mehmed had only begun construction in April and was broken up for scrap." - ditto: this doesn't seem important enough to include in the lead of this article
  • "Another ship, Sultan Osman I, originally ordered by Brazil but being fitted out for the Ottomans, was also seized" - also a bit confusing here (and not mentioned again in the body of the article - I'd suggest moving this material from the lead into the body, and possibly augmenting)
    • I've cut everything on the other ships out of the lede.
  • "A proposal by the British government to compensate the Ottomans for the loss of their battleships was ignored" - it's not clear who ignored the proposal: did one part of the British government make this proposal (can you say which part?), and another ignore it?
    • I've never seen any other info on this, so I'm deleting it.
  • Should the role which the British seizure of the ships had in bringing the Ottoman Empire be noted? (though I think historians tend to now regard this as being marginal at best)
    • Added a paragraph on the effects of the seizure on the Turks.
  • How was a crew so quickly found for the ship? - presumably they were very competent given that they were conducting operational patrols a few weeks later. Did they have any problems using a ship customised for Turkish sailors? (dials in the wrong language, unusual accommodation, etc?)
    • Based on some comments by Jellicoe on the other seized ships, I'm pretty sure that she was still effectively working up for most of the autumn. Annoyingly, Jellicoe really doesn't mention Erin in any significant detail.
      • Fair enough. I take it Hough doesn't cover this? Nick-D (talk) 09:20, 13 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
        • Right, he focuses on Agincourt and doesn't discuss Erin much. Jellicoe says ..."on the evening of September 17th, the Erin, a new battleship bought, incomplete, from Turkey, being in company for the first time in order to accustom her officers to working the ship with the Fleet." Which I'd interpret as working up still, but that's my inference and I haven't found anything that says when he thought Erin was combat ready.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 15:39, 13 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • The summary of Erin's career doesn't actually have much material on the ship. While this isn't surprising given that she was just one of many battleships in the fleet, can you add when she underwent periods of major servicing and any other incidents which affected the ship and her crew?
    • Her wartime history is very poorly documented outside the archives and I've added everything that I can find about her activities. If I hadn't been pointed to Jellicoe and the Navy Lists, there's no way that I'd be able to even pretend to satisfy the completeness criteria.
  • There's almost nothing about what did the ship did in 1917.
  • Regarding 1918, am I right in remembering that the Grand Fleet's battleship squadrons took turns escorting convoys to Norway, which presumably got Erin out of port.
    • Some of them did, but they're only mentioned in the published sources in conjunction with German movements towards Norway, so I cannot determine if she participated or not.
  • Given that Erin was designed to be as good as any other battleship in the world, why was she so swiftly relegated to second tier status and then disposed of after World War I? Is it because tbe delays to her construction meant she was nothing special or worse by the time she entered service, and she'd been made well and truly outmoded by subsequent designs such as the Queen Elizabeth class and/or was an orphan? Nick-D (talk) 09:27, 27 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • Probably the latter two reasons, but nobody actually goes into the reasons why

Thunderer became a training ship rather than Erin. See if the changes that I've made are satisfactory. And thanks for the review.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 02:36, 5 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Support My comments are now addressed - great work with this article. Nick-D (talk) 09:33, 15 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]


Image review

From FunkMonk

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Well, I'd agree with note 2, but not note 4, where you mention a specific source, without actually citing it formally. I see no reason why it doens't contain a citation to the source discussed. FunkMonk (talk) 00:29, 7 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
What, a cite to Jellicoe's whole book? Seems kinda redundant to me.
Of course not, but for example the page number of the most prominent or first usage of this ship's name used in that way would make it verifiable. Citations are rarely redundant. FunkMonk (talk) 13:50, 13 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Reşad V[2][10][11] in honour of Mehmed V" What is the correlation between these very different names? What does the word "Reşad" (and Reşadiye) itself mean?
    • They're variants of one of Mehmed V's names.
To prevent ambiguity, why not spell out the name "Mehmed V. Reşâd " then? The reader has no idea without clicking the article (which should be avoided, per "don't make the reader chase links"). FunkMonk (talk) 13:50, 13 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill ordered the Royal Navy to detain the ships" Why?
  • Expanded.
  • "was too far away participate" Missing word, it seems.
    • Indeed
  • "as they fell back upon on the main body" Not sure what this means. And is "upon on" not redundant?
    • Extra word, I think
  • I think you could name and link the Battle of Jutland in the caption of the relevant map.
    • Added a header and main link to clarify what the map's for.
  • "Admiralty" is linked at last, instead of first, mention in the article.
  • "flagship" should be linked outside the intro as well.
  • The intro seems a bit short compared to the article body, there are plenty of interesting details it could cover. In addition to more background info (the seizure of the ship was a reason for Turkey joining the Germans in WW2?), there should be some description of the ship, as the intro is supposed to summarise the entire article.
    • I've added a little bit about the seizure and its consequences to the lede. I see no reason to add technical details there as they'd be redundant to both the main body and the infobox. It's impossible to summarize them in any useful manner; you can only give selected parts which seems pointless to me.
  • Thanks for your review. I've made some significant changes that I hope are satisfactory--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 05:35, 13 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The added info gives nice context, I've made two replies above. FunkMonk (talk) 13:50, 13 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Both added.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 15:28, 13 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

CommentsSupport from PM

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This is looking good. A few comments from me:

  • in the lead, suggest "the inconclusive Action of 19 August the same year"
  • the length conversion doesn't match between the body and infobox
  • suggest "Erin was powered by two pairs of" as a set could be any number
  • what aircraft were the flying-off platforms for?
    • Probably a Sopwith Pup and a Sopwith 1½ Strutter, but that's only sourced for the battlecruisers and I don't know if the battleships were allocated anything different.
  • the "distant cover" for a convoy crossing the Atlantic seems weird. Perhaps this was more of a distraction/demonstration?
    • Probably not given the difficulties the Germans had in tracking British fleet movements. I think that they were simply prepared to intercept any attempt to interfere with the convoy.
  • drop the comma from "Reports of submarines in Scapa Flow,"
    • Indeed.
  • was the fleet dispersed (meaning "distribute or spread over a wide area") or relocated?
    • IIRC, one squadron didn't go to Lough Swilly, but none of the battleships remained in Scapa Flow, so either term works, IMO.
  • I think you could link Battle of Jutland in the body for the benefit of readers

That's me done. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 09:47, 5 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Support from Parsecboy

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Source review - spotchecks not done

  • Some of the details in the infobox don't appear to be sourced (eg yard number, order date); others differ between infobox and text (eg spelling of original name)
    • Good catch on the yard number and order date. There are multiple ways to transliterate the Turkish, but I've standardized on one.
  • FN19: IA should use |via=; the rest should be the original citation details. Same with other similar refs
  • What makes Dreadnought Project a high-quality reliable source?
    • Not just anyone can edit it and one of its editor proprietors is a published naval historian
  • Generally author honorifics like Dr aren't included in citations
  • There appear to be some details in this source not currently covered
    • Those are more appropriate for the class article, IMO.
  • The Halpern ISBN appears to be for a different edition. Nikkimaria (talk) 21:49, 18 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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