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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/French battleship Jauréguiberry/archive1

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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 Laser brain via FACBot (talk) 11 June 2019 [1].

French battleship Jauréguiberry

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Nominator(s): Sturmvogel 66 (talk) and Parsecboy (talk) 20:31, 27 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Jauréguiberry was one of five roughly similar battleships built in the early 1890s in response to a British naval expansion program. Constrained by fiscal and size limitations imposed by the French National Assembly, they were inferior to their British counterparts and had much longer building times. The ship was particularly accident prone over the course of her career with incidents of running aground, boiler and torpedo explosions. She played a minor role in World War I, although she did participate in the Gallipoli Campaign before becoming a guard ship in Egypt for the rest of the war. She was then used as an accommodation hulk before being scrapped in 1934. The article just passed a MilHist A-class review that included image and source reviews. While Parsecboy and I believe that it meets the FA criteria, we would like reviewers to look closely for any remnants of BritEng and unexplained or unlinked jargon.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 20:31, 27 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Support from PM

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I just looked over this article at Milhist ACR, and consider it meets the Featured criteria. One thing though, the Foreign Periodicals Data Service newsletter has an OCLC which should be added, 41554533. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 02:16, 28 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Damn librarians, cataloging anything and everything ;-) --Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 02:27, 28 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

CommentSupport by CPA-5

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Sources review

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The sources all appear to meet the appropriate standards of quality and reliability as required by the FA criteria, and are uniformly and consistently presented. Brianboulton (talk) 18:14, 10 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Coordinator notes

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This is well past the one-month mark and hasn't seen much action in recent weeks. I'll add it to the Urgents list but it will have to be archived soon if it doesn't attract some more review. --Laser brain (talk) 11:40, 3 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Prose Comments bySupport from Factotem

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General

  • You use AmEng spellings for caliber and millimeter throughout, but given this is a French battleship shouldn't the, erm, BrEng spellings be used (if that makes any sense to you)? It just looks a bit odd to me that an article about a French ship does not use the European spelling of millimetre. If you accept this as a general principle, then the 'u'-less armor also needs fixing.
    • No worries, I don't, since I'm using AmEng throughout.
  • In listing the armaments, in one case you insert a comma after the quantity ("fourteen,[10] 47 mm (1.9 in) 40-caliber Canon de 47 mm Modèle 1885 Hotchkiss guns") but not in others ("two 305-millimeter (12 in) 45-caliber Canon de 305 mm Modèle 1887"). I think the comma works.
    • The comma is there because it's marking a subordinate clause ", although d'Ausson lists fourteen,"
  • I also wonder if a comma is necessary between the millimeter and caliber identifiers, ("fourteen,[10] 47 mm (1.9 in)<comma> 40-caliber Canon de 47 mm Modèle 1885 Hotchkiss guns"), though maybe I'm getting a tad over-enthusiastic with commas here. What do you think?
    • I don't know why I didn't put the conversions in the weapon name like I usually do, but I think that is a much cleaner way of doing things.

Lead

  • "...built in the 1890s. Built in response..." Repetition - maybe replace one "built" with "constructed"?
    • Agreed, although I reworked the first sentence a little bit as well.
  • "...was armed with a mixed battery..." Not sure about this, but maybe: armed with mixed batteries?
    • I see your point, but naval books typically use battery when discussing a ship's entire armament and will break it down further if necessary by adding some sort of qualifier like secondary or 6-inch battery.
  • "...and a mixed batteryarmament that was difficult to control..."?
    • Agreed, proximity issue.
  • "The ship's peacetime career was spent participating in routine training exercises..." -> In peacetime the ship participated in...
  • "... was tasked with escorting troop convoys from North Africa..." -> ...escorted troop convoys...
    • Good idea.

Background and design

  • "In 1889, the British Royal Navy passed the Naval Defence Act that, which resulted in the construction..."
    • I think that the difference between "which" and "that" has always eluded me.
  • "this major expansion of naval power led the French government to pass its reply,respond with the Statut Naval (Naval Law) of 1890..."
  • "The law called for a total of twenty-four..."
  • "...a group of four squadron battleships that were built to different designs but metwhich were to meet the same basic characteristics..."
    • I think that the real issue here is "characteristics", but I don't want to use "requirements" because it's used in the next sentence, even if that is a different paragraph.
      • Not happy with my previous change, I've swapped things around and tweaked things a little.
Nor was I, but then you made the exact same change as I was going to suggest, so all good there. Factotem (talk) 16:08, 4 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • "...displacement wouldshould not exceed..." given that the rest of the specifications use "should"
  • "The secondary batteryarmament was to be either..." (YMMV, but to me a battery of guns is more of a set of guns as a single unit, as one might find in an artillery unit or, in this case, a single turret, but maybe there's some naval terminology I'm not aware of here)
  • "...submitted proposals to the competition; the design for..." that semi-colon doesn't seem right to me; doesn't the prose warrant a full stop there?
  • "...and their mixed gun batteries comprising several calibers..." And here you do indeed refer to the armament as batteries, plural. Strike that. Missed the fact that you're referring to several ships.

General characteristics and machinery

  • "The boilers were divided into six boiler rooms..." The boilers were divided? Maybe "distributed across"?
    • "Between", I think.
Still not happy with the idea that the boilers were divided, as if part of each one was in one room, and other parts were in another. How about "The boilers were installed in six boiler rooms..."? Factotem (talk) 16:11, 4 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Any thoughts on this? Factotem (talk) 09:35, 6 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I'd missed this comment. I think perhaps distributed?--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 11:26, 6 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Prefer installed, but not objecting. Factotem (talk) 13:48, 6 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Armament

  • "Jauréguiberry's main armament consisted of two 305-millimeter (12 in) 45-caliber Canon de 305 mm Modèle 1887 guns in two single-gun turrets, one each fore and aft of the superstructure and two 45-caliber 274-millimeter (10.8 in) Modèle 1887 guns in two single-gun wing turrets, one amidships on each side, sponsoned out over the tumblehome of the ship's sides." Long sentence with a lot to convey. Maybe: "Jauréguiberry's main armament consisted of two 305-millimeter (12 in), 45-caliber Canon de 305 mm Modèle 1887 guns in two single-gun turrets, one each fore and aft of the superstructure. Two 45-caliber, 274-millimeter (10.8 in) Modèle 1887 guns were mounted in single-gun wing turrets amidships, sponsoned out over the tumblehome on each side of the ship."
    • OK
  • "...with the same muzzle velocity ofas the larger guns."
  • "The ship's offensive armament was rounded out by a secondary battery??? of eight 45-caliber 138-millimeter (5.4 in) Canon de 138.6 mm Modèle 1891 guns that were mounted in manually operated twin-gun turrets." That battery/batteries thing again – maybe use "complement" or "armament" here? You've used "single-gun" before, so why not "twin-gun" here?
    • I've already mixed it up a little more earlier.
  • "...although d'Ausson lists fourteen,[10] 47 mm (1.9 in) 40-caliber Canon de 47 mm Modèle 1885 Hotchkiss guns..." Is it necessary to state 47 mm twice?
    • No, I've folded all of the conversions into the designations.
  • "Her 305-mm gun turrets were protected by 370-mm (15 in) of armor on the sides and faces while her 274 mm turrets..." (I think the gun designations here need to be made adjectives by inserting hyphens between number and "mm").
    • Not by MOS. Hyphens are only used if the measurement is spelled out.

Service

  • "Throughout the ship's peacetime career, she was occupied with routine training exercises, which that included gunnery training, combined maneuvers with torpedo boats and submarines, and practicing attackingpractice attacks against coastal fortifications." Never quite sure about that/which, but I think ", which" works better here. Never like two "ing" words colliding.
  • "...her boiler tubes were renewed at Cherbourg that took four monthsin a four-month refit."
    • Good idea.

World War I

  • "was sent to French North Africa, where they would escort the vitalescorted troop convoys..."
  • "As part of this effort..." "This" appears to refer back to the Goeben's flight to the Ottoman Empire. Maybe, "As part of her duties..."?
    • I think "As part of this mission" is better because it isn't just her.
It's the "this" I have a problem with. The previous sentence ends with the German ship fleeing to the Ottoman Empire, so I'm reading "this" to mean that German movement. You're effectively writing, "As part of the German flight to the Ottoman Empire, Jauréguiberry went to Oran..." See? Change "this" to "her" in your original and it's fine. Factotem (talk) 16:18, 4 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I see what you mean now. Fixed.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 16:41, 5 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • "... restored to effective strength, includingand included..."
  • "SheJauréguiberry provided gunfire support..." The subject of the previous sentence was the 3rd Battle Division, so I think you need the ship's name here rather than a pronoun.
  • "...kept the Ottoman guns on that side of the strait largely suppressed, unable to interfereand prevented them from interfering with the main landing at Cape Helles."
  • "SheJauréguiberry continued operations..." Again, because the subject in the preceding sentence included other ships, I think you need the ship's name here rather than a pronoun.
    • No, because they're not named, there's no possibility of confusion.
  • "She was stricken from the Navy List..." I have a vague memory of reading about this somewhere before, but are ships stricken or struck from lists, or does it not matter?

That's all from me. Factotem (talk) 14:54, 3 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Comments Support from Cadar

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I think Factotem has covered most of the outstanding issues. Go ahead and implement his suggestions, then by all means ping me or mark that they're completed on your last edit and I'll take a run-through myself and see if there's any suggestions or polishing I can do to help.
Cadar (talk) 16:48, 3 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Sturmvogel 66: One thing I picked up on: the convention when talking about the calibres of heavy ship armament is to speak in terms of their absolute calibres, usually in inches, although centimetres would probably be valid these days. So rather than "45 calibre" main guns, the Jauréguiberry would have been armed with 45-inch main guns, describing the absolute calibre of the shells. These days, "45 calibre" is too easy to confuse with ".45 calibre" handguns. Oh, and I'm using the British spelling of "calibre," but whichever works for you, of course.
Cadar (talk) 19:53, 3 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Very confusingly caliber is length of barrel measured in multiples of the inside diameter of the bore or gauge, generally only used for artillery, and it's also that very same inside diameter for small arms like pistols. Strictly speaking a .45 caliber pistol should be written as a .45-inch caliber pistol, but given how we like to shorten things... I link caliber on its first use so that people who are curious will understand that a 50-caliber artillery piece has a barrel 50 times longer than its bore diameter.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 20:34, 3 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Sturmvogel 66: I've done a run-through and tidied up a couple of minor grammar issues. Otherwise it all looks good to me. Nice job :)
Cadar (talk) 14:44, 4 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Most of them look fine, although one or two were rendered redundant when I implemented Factotem's suggestions. The one that I really didn't like was changing "and was reduced to reserve in 1918". I understand why you did it, but it just seemed too short to be worthy of a semi-colon and there were too many "she"s in close proximity.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 15:50, 4 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Sturmvogel 66: Just one quibble from me: my Pocket Oxford Dictionary gives the past participle of the verb "to strike" as "struck", whereas "stricken" is deprecated because it's archaic. Fowler's Modern English Usage says that it's archaic but survives in certain phrases (none of which apply), and also "The use of the word by itself as an adjective = afflicted, in distress, is sometimes justified, but more often comes under the description of stock pathos."
That's why I changed it. By all means, double-check me, but I do this kind of thing for a living, so I tend to revert to the sourcebooks when in doubt :)
Cadar (talk) 08:21, 5 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
This is from Chambers:
stricken adj, often in compounds
(1) deeply affected, especially by grief, sorrow, panic, etc • horror-stricken.
(2) afflicted by or suffering from disease, sickness, injury, etc • a typhoid-stricken community.
ETYMOLOGY: 17c; 14c as the past participle of strike.
"Struck" in the sense of "was removed" is definitely the right word in this instance. Hope it helps.
Cadar (talk) 14:49, 5 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
On further reflection, I think that you're right and I've changed it back.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 16:39, 5 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Glad to have helped sort that out. Admittedly it's fairly obscure, so not too many people would even notice it or know why it wasn't appropriate in this instance. I just happen to be a writer, so I'm dealing with this sort of meaningful nuance all the time. If you're interested, essentially it comes down to a difference between weak and strong verb inflection forms, similar to hung/hanged. In each case the past participle of the weaker version of the verb has evolved its own identity and meaning separate to the much more widely-accepted (and much older) strongly inflected version which is in regular use. Each verb only gets the weaker past participle for a specific usage, and none other. So "to strike" gave "stricken" when specifically deeply affected by some sort of affliction, while "to hang" gives "hanged" for an execution. The difference is that "hanged" is very much still in current use; also, it's a legal affectation which was consciously adopted because the archaic sound of it was felt to give weight to pronouncements concerning hangings. So there you have it :)
Anyway, regarding the article: it all looks good to me now. I'll keep an eye on it and let you know if I notice anything else. Good job, by the way. Well done!
Cadar (talk) 08:33, 7 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your help.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 12:32, 7 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Comments Support by The ed17

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  • "By 1907, she had been transferred to the Reserve Division, as more modern battleships had entered service by that time, though she continued to participate in maneuvers and other peacetime activities. The "modern battleships" part of this statement is not supported in the text, as far as I can see. I might also add that Jauréguiberry didn't spend much time in what most people would think of as the "reserve", so I suspect that this line should be rewritten.
    • Reserve meant different things to different navies at different times. As best I can tell, around this time for the Brits and French, reserve meant the bulk of the crew was reservists who were called up once a year to participate in the annual fleet maneuvers, not the mothball fleet concept familiar to Americans where the ships only have caretakers and rarely went to sea. I can only use the terms as they were used by the owning navy. As for more modern battleships, by 1907 there were eight more modern battleships in commission, some of which were mentioned in the following paragraph, albeit in a 1908 context.
      • Hey Sturm, I think the modern battleships point needs to be added to the text—in the article proper, there's no reason given for the ship's move to the reserve division. That more modern battleships are mentioned in the next sentence in a rather different context doesn't obviate the need to back up that line in the lead. ;-) Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 00:30, 6 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The ships suffered from a lack of uniformity of equipment, which made them hard to maintain in service, and their mixed gun batteries comprising several calibers made gunnery in combat conditions difficult, since shell splashes were hard to differentiate. Why did people have to differentiate between shell splashes? I know the answer (fire control!), but I suspect that most people, even enthusiasts, will not know.
    • Fair enough, lemme expand that.
  • The sea trials began in January 1896, but a 24-hour engine trial wasn't done until June? Is that really correct? Any idea what took so long?
    • It's correct, but nobody discusses why it took so long.
  • What was the Special Division/why was it so named?
    • No idea, nobody discusses it. I only know of it because it's listed on an OB for 2 August 1914.
  • What was the reason for the quick reversal of the ship's deployment to the Suez Canal during WWI? When did it return to the canal to offload her guns?
    • Unknown, it couldn't have been related to the raid by the Ottomans as that was in 1915. Annoyingly, Jordan & Caresse almost totally ignore Egyptian activities and d'Ausson only provides a very terse listing of activities.
  • Was there a pre-WWI plan in place for how the French planned to deploy these aged warships in the advent of a conflict? The boiler tube replacement—a major undertaking, if I'm recalling my Bahia class history correctly—might imply that they expected the ship to take on a non-trivial role, which would make some sense in that the French Navy had a major shortage in proper dreadnoughts, but I'm not sure if this topic is remarked on in your sources. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 23:32, 3 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • They probably replaced the boilers simply to keep her usable. I haven't seen any formal planning for these ships in case of war, although they probably had a vague idea of second-line duties of some sort. Thanks for the comments, see if my change to the shell splash thing is clear enough.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 16:29, 4 June 2019 (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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