Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/French battleship Suffren/archive1

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) 18 October 2020 [1].

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French battleship Suffren

Nominator(s): Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 14:25, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Another one of my ill-fated battleships, Suffren was the last predreadnought battleship built for the French Navy. She spent almost all of her career in the Mediterranean, frequently serving as a flagship. She was an unlucky ship before the start of World War I, twice colliding with other ships and she had a strange habit of breaking propeller shafts. Thoroughly obsolete by the beginning of the war, Suffren was ordered to the Dardanelles in late 1914 where she bombarded Ottoman defenses on multiple occasions. The ship was badly damaged when she collided with a British cargo ship at the end of the 1915. After repairs she spent most of 1916 in Greek waters. Suffren was ordered home to refit in November and she was sunk by a German submarine with no survivors en route. The article had a MilHist A-class review earlier this year although I recently overhauled it a little in preparation for this FAC. I'd like reviewers to look for the usual suspects like unexplained or unlinked jargon with particular attention to the prose.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 14:25, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Comments Support by Hog Farm

Will probably be claimed for WikiCup points. Hog Farm _Bacon 18:30, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

• General characteristics in the infobox, should maybe be qualified as (as designed), as the horsepower and top speed were different as designed and as in practice.
  • Trial speeds and horsepower generally exceed the specifications because the ship often isn't as heavily loaded as it would be in service and the designed figures are closer to what the ship could do in service. So I usually put which ever is lower in the infobox
• For consistency's sake, use either 164.7 mm guns or 164 mm guns (one's used in the infobox, and the other's used in the prose)
  • Good catch
• Coastal artillery is a duplink
• "The armour plates were 2.5 metres (8 ft 2 in) high of which 1.4 metres (4 ft 7 in) above the waterline and 1.1 metres (3 ft 7 in) below it - Feels like there's a word missing in this
• Isn't conning tower armor normally included in the infobox for these ships?
  • Usually, but it's not a requirement. Everything in the infobox must be sourced in the main body, but not vice-versa.
• "remained in the area until she fired her last mission on 31 December." - What does "fired her last mission" mean?
  • Her last gunfire support mission as mentioned in the preceding sentence.

That's all, I think. Good work. Hog Farm _Bacon 18:55, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the review, see if my changes are to your satisfaction.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 16:51, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

CommentsSupport by PM

I was surprised to discover this was my first look at this. A few pretty minor prose things:

• "the constant thickness of the waterline belt armour compared to Iéna's belt which thinned towards the ends of the ship" but Suffren's did too, didn't it?
  • Damn good catch. Caresse's article didn't mention the thinning of the armor in what is a pretty cursory description, but his book with Jordan provides much more detail.
• perhaps add that the main battery turrets were on the centerline and move that link up?
• the secondary guns are 164 mm in the infobox and 164.7 mm in the body
• what is "special-steel"?
  • I wish I knew, Jordan & Caresse never explicitly state what it is.
• link ship commissioning
• "When Suffren was commissioned on 3 February 1904 in Brest" as you've already given the date
• "Suffren accidentally rammed the submarine Bonite"
• Escadre de la Méditerranée and Mediterranean Squadron are both used. Suggest choosing one, perhaps the French as it seems to predominate in unit names within the article.
• "German battlecruiser SMS Goeben and the light cruiser SMS Breslau"→"Ottoman battlecruiser Yavuz Sultan Selim and light cruiser Midilli, both of which had been transferred to the Ottomans by the Germans in August"
• predreadnought or pre-dreadnought?
• suggest "The pre-dreadnought Bouvet assisted Suffren"
• Asian side or Asiatic side?
• "On 7 March the French squadron attempted to suppress the Ottoman guns while British battleships bombarded the fortifications." where?
• "They returned to assist in the major attack on the fortifications planned for 18 March." which ones?
• "Admiral John de Robeck's"
• drop the comma from "she collided with and sank, the British steamer Saint Oswald"
• "the French ship returned to theirits harbour"
• "which was en route to the Austro-Hungarian naval base"
• perhaps say that Cattaro was in the Adriatic

That is all I could find. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 11:10, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the thorough review.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 17:30, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

no worries, a pleasure as usual. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 04:03, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

Images are appropriately licensed. Nikkimaria (talk) 18:33, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

Coordinator notes

I have added this to the Urgents list hoping to get more feedback. Otherwise, it will need to be archived soon. --Laser brain (talk) 13:10, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

Comments from Mike Christie

• The opening sentence of the body begins "To save time..." I think the body should be able to be read independently of the lead, so how about an introductory sentence that gives us the background -- was the French Navy building up strength at the time? Was this part of a string of builds? You mention Iéna as if the reader should know what that refers to.
  • D'oh! I've added a paragraph adding some context that I hope lays the groundwork adequately.
• The biggest changes were the mounting of the bulk of the secondary armament in turrets, rather than Iéna's casemates, and the stowage of shells for the main armament increased from 45 to 60 rounds per gun. Suggest "The biggest changes were that the bulk of the secondary armament was mounted in turrets, rather than in casemates as in Iéna, and the stowage of shells for the main armament was increased from 45 to 60 rounds per gun." I think it reads more naturally if the two halves of the sentence have parallel structures, and this is one way to do that.
• I looked to see if there was a suitable link for "Indret"; it seems it would be Naval Group, but perhaps that's not clear enough to be useful for the reader.
• While a new shaft was ordered from Indret, Iéna's corresponding shaft: so Iéna was broken up after the magazine explosion and her parts used as spares?
• The annual manoeuvres of the 1er Armée Navale began on 19 May and the ships were reviewed by President Raymond Poincaré, when they were concluded. What does "when they were concluded" mean? I think it means that the manoeuvres concluded on the day Poincaré reviewed the ships. If you have the exact date, it would be clearer to write "The annual manoeuvres of the 1er Armée Navale began on 19 May and concluded on xx May, when the ships were reviewed by President Raymond Poincaré."
  • Annoyingly, my sources do not give the exact date, but I've adopted most of your wording.
• She remained in the area until she fired her last mission on 31 December. I don't understand what "fired" means here.
  • Reworded and combined with the following sentence.
• Why were French ships prepared to fire on Greek ships in Eleusina? Were the Greeks allied with the Central Powers at that time? If so, how were they able to come to a peaceful resolution?
  • The situation was complicated, as the King wanted to remain neutral, but a significant portion of his gov't was pro-Entente and they split off to form a rival gov't in August. My sources do not cover why the Allies stood down, but it may have been something to do with the former prime minister, Eleftherios Venizelos, joining the pro-Entente faction several days later.

These are all minor points and I expect to support. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:17, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for looking this over and pointing out several major flaws. I'm not entirely happy with some of my reworked text, feel free to make any further suggestions for improvements.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 18:17, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Support. I think your revisions look fine; I'll have another look through but this is FA quality. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:20, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

SG

• WP:BADITALICS proper names in non-English languages need not be italicized. Samples, 1re Division cuirassée (1st Battle Division), Contre-amiral (Rear Admiral). On that score, a query/suggestion, your choice: since there are so many foreign terms in the article, would it be more readable to define the French word in parentheses on first occurrence, and use English only on subsequent occurrences ... just to lower the amount of italics along with the ship name italics ??
  • Crap, I missed that bit about proper names of organizations not needing to be italicized. And I've so careful to properly code the multitude of italicizations! That will negate most of the italics in the article other than ship names, so I'm not sure it would be worthwhile to use just the English terms subsequently. Lemme de-italicize everything and you can decide if the plentiful French terms are still a problem.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 18:32, 11 October 2020 (UTC)
    • It might be new(ish); I never used to do that, but a GOCE editor pointed it out to me last year. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:08, 11 October 2020 (UTC)
• The last two shells, fired with full charges, cracked the plate, but Suffren's turret was fully operational, as was her Germain electrical fire-control system and the six sheep placed in the turret were unharmed. Add a comma after system? It took me a while to figure out what sheep were doing in there to begin with (for testing purposes?), so maybe something can be added.
  • Reworked.
• Pre-war ... magazine is linked twice in successive paras. Is there a distinction between the general and specific (naval) magazine ?
  • Interesting, the duplicate link widget didn't catch that. The latter term is more specific to ships which are generally more elaborate affairs than land-based.
• Another shell tore a hole 80 millimetres (3.1 in) across in the bow which flooded the base of the forward turret ... "tore" feels somewhat dramatic for a 3-in hole, perhaps punctured or something else?
• Not sure that Portugal needs to be linked when it follows closely by Lisbon, which will get the reader to Portugal. off the Portuguese coast near Lisbon, she was ...

Support. That's all I've got, nothing to hold off promotion, mostly queries and personal prefs, but the BADITALICS should be fixed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:08, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, Sandy, appreciate you taking the time to review this.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 19:11, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

• Closing note: This candidate has been promoted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. --Laser brain (talk) 13:12, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.