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Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/List of ironclad warships of Germany

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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.

List of ironclad warships of Germany

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Article promoted Hawkeye7 (talk) 23:37, 15 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Nominator(s): Parsecboy (talk)


Another list of German warships, this one caps off this project, which is all but ready for nomination as a Good Topic. This article follows the formatting of my previous ship lists. I look forward to working with reviewers in ensuring this article meets our project standards, as well as with preparing the list for WP:FLC. Thanks in advance to all who take the time to review this list. Parsecboy (talk) 01:18, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support Comments

  • Link tender, guard ship, training ship, ship breakers, boiler room, barracks ship
    • Fixed.
  • Specify that turrets of Prinz Adalbert are fixed.
    • Fixed.
  • This is awkward: The ship was commissioned into the Prussian Navy in January 1867. Friedrich Carl served with the fleet from her commissioning in 1867. What's the point of the last sentence?
    • Fixed.
  • Link to the 1873 insurrection; I think it's the Third Carlist War or some such.
  • Shouldn't it be "during" rather than "in": The ship was refitted at the Imperial Dockyard in Wilhelmshaven in the 1880s.
    • Fixed.
  • What's a harbor ship? Do you mean hulk?
    • Groner simply says "harbor ship" - he usually says that a ship was hulked if it was.
  • This is awkward: Only two sorties in which Kronprinz participated were conducted, both of which did not result in combat.
    • How does it read now?
  • Move link to naval register to first occurence.
    • Fixed.
  • The conversion to short tons is unnecessary, IMO. Only long and metric tons are important for ship articles. Just specify t|LT in your conversions. That will improve the appearance of the tables as well.
    • Fixed.
  • Consider consolidating identical entries in each table to streamline their appearance. Just be sure to center them vertically.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 18:10, 10 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • That's a good idea.

Comment

  • The article title is not good since this seems like just a list of Panzerschiff (and maybe Panzerfregatte and Panzerkorvette), not ironclads in general. I agree with MisterBee that the distinction is kind of lost; the Prussia/German navy had other warships which would be considered ironclads in other navies such as the Kreuzerfregatte or armored frigates and two river monitors. Does one of your sources limit the list this way? Perhaps you'll need to expand it to include those other ships or maybe just rename the article List of Panzerschiff-type warships of Germany. Kirk (talk) 21:18, 10 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • In general, the term "ironclad" refers to capital ships of the era, not necessarily all warships armored with iron/steel/etc. Many references, such as Sondhaus's two books, use this schema. As to a specific source that limits the list this way, Gröner's German Warships breaks the chapters down as such (the chapter that covers all of these ships is titled "Armored vessels 1864-1884" in the English translation - this would be the general "panzerschiff" in German). None of the contemporary cruising ships to which I assume you're referring (such as the Bismarck and Leipzig classes) were armored, neither were the steam corvettes (such as the Nymphe through Carola classes). Those are iron and steel-built ships, not ironclads. Only a small number of coastal and riverine gunboats (including Rhein and Mosel as you noted) carried armor. When one talks of ironclad strength in this era, these ships are not included. Parsecboy (talk) 23:33, 10 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • Ironclads at War has a page at the beginning which supports what you are saying but also talks about the type in general; maybe you can add similar wording in a note. Also, I suggest re-reading the Ironclad warship article since its FA and does talk about all warships armored with metal not specifically capital ships. Kirk (talk) 14:52, 11 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
          • The wiki article is almost entirely about ironclad capital ships, and really only discusses smaller craft in passing in the section on the American Civil War (and it would be an omission not to, given the sheer number of coastal and riverine craft operated by the Federal Navy). The point remains that the small riverine/coastal craft aren't typically referred to as ironclads, while all of the ships in this list are. Parsecboy (talk) 23:48, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
        • I hadn't thought about this, but ironclad does specifically include small armored ships like river monitors and the like. So I agree with Kirk and the armored gunboats should be added unless you want to specifically limit the list to ocean-going. Which is what I'd suggest if you're going for a good topic as getting the gunboats up to GA would be very, very difficult.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 22:06, 11 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
          • I disagree - I've never seen an author discussing ironclads include small craft, especially when discussing the ironclad strength of the various navies of the period. I don't know that anyone would include the flatiron gunboats. Aside from them, the only iron-armored vessels that aren't included are the two Rhein class riverine monitors. At least in my experience, the unqualified "ironclad" is a term of art that means more than a ship clad in iron - there's a reason other vessels are qualified as "ironclad floating batteries", "ironclad gunboats" and the like. Parsecboy (talk) 23:48, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
            • The vast majority of ironclads in the US Navy were small craft, and they really had no ocean going types until after they stopped calling them 'ironclads'. Also consider the Union ironclad template Template:Union ironclads, which includes river and coastal ships, and your definition is inconsistent with the ironclad warship article, which includes small craft. A term of art is a good way to put this; that's why I though you should go with a different title to avoid confusion. Kirk (talk) 01:26, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
              • The Old USN was an anomaly and should not be the basis of understanding a concept that was nearly universally accepted in every other major navy. My definition is in accordance with that understanding, which is essentially that "ironclad" = "Victorian-era battleship". There's a reason that Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships refers to, for example, "Warrior class broadside ironclads", but "Vixen class armored gunboats", even though the types were near contemporaries. Go read through contemporary naval annuals that talk about "ironclad strength" of the major European navies. For example, the 1889 edition of Brassey's Annual on page 662 talks about German ironclad strength that year. It makes no mention of anything other than capital ships. Does this note address your concerns? Parsecboy (talk) 11:29, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
                • Its better but I would like to see "ironclad" = "Victorian-era battleship" somewhere (a note, the ironclad warship article) because that's what this article is trying to list and the average reader still might be confused if we don't attempt to make this more clear. Ironclads at War had a whole page on this at the beginning. And I don't think you can dismiss the US Navy that easily since the Arminius and Prinz Adalbert, a monitor and an ex-Confederate ram, don't really match your definition of an ironclad warship. I'll go read some of the sources you mentioned; it sounds like to me the definition changed as the Civil War designs gave way to the Royal Navy's designs. Kirk (talk) 16:03, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
                  • Update: Sondhaus(2001) p. 134 "...by the standards of the early 1880s, navies no longer considered ships capable only of broadside fire as first-rate battleships, regardless of their size; likewise, ironclads displacing less than 2,000 tons, along with some larger monitor type, were considered suitable for coastal operations only and not counted as part of the battle fleet...Germany ranked a distant third with nine [ironclads], not counting 12 coastal and three broadside ironclads." Based on that standard, you could have two lists: the last 10 ships in the current article as ironclad battleships/armoured frigates and the first 6, along with 9 other ships in another list. You could change the list to Armored Frigates and leave out the Hansa, Arminius and Prinz Adalbert. We don't have Conway in our library so I couldn't check how the ships are organized. In any case, it seems like an incomplete list of ironclads at this point based on how Soundhaus defined them. Kirk (talk) 21:10, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
                    • Does the note better address your concerns now? The definition didn't change in that it referred to armored capital ships - the designs of ships are what changed over time, from essentially armored versions of sail/steam ships to barbette/turret-armed ships that eventually grew into pre-dreadnoughts, by which time the term "ironclad" fell out of use (much the same as how "dreadnought" fell out of use after WWI).
                    • The problem with using that quote from Sondhaus is that the article isn't titled "List of ironclad warships of Germany defined as first-line battleships in the early 1880s." By that logic, List of pre-dreadnought battleships of the Royal Navy should be renamed because after 1906, none of the listed ships were regarded as first-rate battleships. The fact remains that in the 1870s, all of these ships were viewed as capital ships. Conway's accordingly groups them as such under the heading "Capital Ships", stating on page 242 "German battleship development up to 1906 can best be seen as a four-stage process. Initially in the mid 1860s a number of vessels already begun for other customers...were purchased from British and French builders...by these means...Prinz Adalbert Arminius, and the powerful central battery vessel Konig Wilhelm were acquired." Groner similarly arranges them (as I pointed out above) as "Armored vessels 1864-1884", directly before the chapter on the Siegfried and Odin classes of coastal defense ships, and before the chapters on pre-dreadnoughts, dreadnoughts, and WWII-era battleships, a clear indication that these 16 ships are all to be regarded as capital ships. Rhein and Moselle and the Wespe class flatirons are appropriately grouped in both works under chapters on gunboats. Parsecboy (talk) 21:59, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
                      • I understand what you are saying but none of the authors I checked have a List of Ironclads of Germany with the ships you have listed; most have the more specific types of ships listed chronologically. I read the Gröner book in German and he calls the ships in this list Battleships (Schlactschiffe) with the Panzer-schiff -fregatte -corvette subheading which was translated to 'Armored Vessels' instead of 'Ironclad' or 'Battleship'. The article matches Gröner so I supposed you could go with the terrible sounding 'List of armored vessels of Germany' but none of the other authors seem to use that term. Maybe ironclad is the least worst option here but I just don't see a lot of evidence that you can leave out the non-captial ironclads in any 'list of ironclads' article/infobox so the note probably isn't sufficient; Hopefully some other editors will comment. Kirk (talk) 20:05, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm still with Kirk on this name issue. But let me reiterate, the simplest thing is to rename the article as the list of ocean-going ironclads .... You're missing some data in the armament entries for the tables for the Kaiser and Sachsen classes and a bunch of the later tables still have short tons.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 14:57, 23 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree - there are several sources that support what I'm saying about the difference between these ships and the two Rhein class river monitors, and the usual meaning of the term "ironclad". As for the short tons, that should now be fixed, and I only included the main battery guns for the Kaiser and Sachsen classes, per standard practice with the later ships. Parsecboy (talk) 00:43, 28 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think the Arminius was ocean-going, but a little explanation with that ship being grouped with the others in German sources would address my concerns. Kirk (talk) 14:17, 28 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Groner states that Arminius was horrible at sea and that she needed her ruddle to be turned 15 degrees just in order to sail straight. I dont believe she was ever used beyond coastal duty until she was converted to an icebreaker.XavierGreen (talk) 04:00, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Arminius sortied some 40 times during the Frano-Prussian War to attack the blockading French squadron - she was essentially the only operational ironclad of the war. How does this note read, Kirk? Parsecboy (talk) 12:31, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You probably only need one footnote, but other than that looks good. Kirk (talk) 18:36, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Good call - merged the note. Parsecboy (talk) 23:12, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Whenever I get around to doing lists of US, Confederate and Brazilian (and maybe Austro-Hungarian) ironclads I'm going to have little choice but to include riverine ironclads as they make up the bulk of the ships in question. And I could make the case that the French, British and Spanish armored floating batteries should be included as well. I think that Sondhaus, et al., are making a false distinction among European ironclads (ocean-going and coastal defense) simply because ships like the floating batteries and river monitors are poorly documented and thus very obscure. My impression is that most of these people aren't nuts and bolts type of people and may not even know that they exist. Which would explain why they defined ironclad as they did. BTW the tables look fine now.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 19:44, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
They might be making a false distinction, but there is a distinction nonetheless. We should be following the example of what are essentially naval encyclopedias (Conways and Groner in this case - oddly enough Conway's 1860-1905 doesn't even include the US riverine craft). As for the Rhein class, they're included in both Conway's and Groner, though in the section on gunboats, and are not referred to as ironclads. Parsecboy (talk) 23:12, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Conway's lumps all of the Union ironclads together, subdivided into broadside ironclads, monitors and other armored ships. All Confederate ironclads are lumped together as armored ships as are the Brazilian ironclads, called coast defense battleships, curiously enough. There's no mention of either the French or British floating batteries, nor of the Brazilian Para-class (river) monitors. So no real support for your position from Conway's. To my mind an ironclad is any armored ship built between 1850 and about 1885, regardless of size or role. And I suspect that that's the definition in most people's minds. You can parse it more finely if you choose, but you need to explicitly say so to prevent confusion.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 03:13, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Right, but Conway's doesn't list the small (500 tons and less) ships - the Neosho class isn't mentioned at all, for example. Conway's does include the Rhein class, which does make clear the editors were aware of them (or at least Lyon, the author of the Germany chapter). There are two classes of the French floating batteries, though not of the ships they used at Kinburn. As for specifically stating what the list treats as ironclads, that's in the note I added per Kirk's request. Parsecboy (talk) 10:24, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That's better, but I can find a lot of authors who describe any armored warship of the period as an ironclad, with the possible exceptions of the floating batteries. Again, by Greene and Massignani's definition only New Ironsides and, perhaps, the large ocean-going monitors, would count as ironclads and that's simply not how the term was used in the US. I'd suggest that you move that note to the lede and explain that you're following G & M's definition and mention that other authors define ironclads more broadly. As I've said before, you can define the list criteria as you wish, you just need to justify it.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 01:18, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It might be helpful to note that Groener does not have a category of ironclad in his book, so using him as an example for descerning which ships are ironclads or not is rather useless.XavierGreen (talk) 22:25, 11 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Sturm, do you mean take the justification for the list definition from the note and in place it in the lead? If not, it's already after the first sentence in the lead. I did add a bit that the term can be used to incorporate smaller vessels, especially in the case of the US Navy. Parsecboy (talk) 22:34, 13 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Xavier, "Ironclad" and "armored ship" are synonyms; that'd be like arguing that since the protected, armored, and battlecruisers are in the same chapter, they should be considered equivalent for list purposes. Parsecboy (talk) 22:34, 13 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I would like to see this article promoted so stepping back, I'm concerned about all list articles, since a List of A article implies to the reader that A is a complete set of A instead of a subset of B, and its pretty clear to me after this discussion this list is a subset of B. Note #1 is a good way toward to addressing my concerns, although I feel sentence #2 is an opinion instead of a fact and I serious doubt I'd find a version of that sentence on page 261 of Gardiner. In my opinion the Wespe and Rhein classes aren't included in the source lists because the sources don't really consider those ships important enough to write about, which makes your job difficult so its easier to toss them aside, which is fine with some justification. The beginning of the third sentence I would remove "frequently" (it doesn't seem frequent to me) and specify the list contents matches Groener but he doesn't use the term ironclad (in both German and the English translation), and then specify the author(s) who use the term ironclad with these ships. Hope this helps! Kirk (talk) 18:11, 14 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
How many times do I need to state that "ironclad" and "armored ship" are synonyms? I don't know why I need to keep explaining this. There are two alternative definitions for the term "ironclad"; I have chosen the one I have seen expressed more frequently, which is to say, an armored capital ship. Similarly, one could reasonably expect a hypothetical List of cars to contain only cars. The argument could be made that the list should be based on the more expansive definition that includes trucks, vans, and other motor vehicles. I have chosen the former rather than the latter here. In any case, Gardiner and Groner, both include the Rhein and Wespe classes, and Sondhaus (Weltpolitik) refers to the latter extensively; none refer to them as ironclads. If you'd like, I can supplement the Greene & Massignani citation with a citation to Olivier's German Naval Policy: 1856-1888, which states "A ship-of-the-line was a large warship, usually armed with 50 or more cannon arranged on two or more decks, designed to fight in the line of battle. This type of ship eventually evolved into the ironclad, the battleship and the dreadnought" (emphasis mine). Parsecboy (talk) 19:06, 14 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The last bit is a good addition; let's see what the other dissenters think. Kirk (talk)

Support (my macros aren't working at the moment). Hyphenate "Kaiser class vessels" and "Sachsen class ships". For the last sentence of the lead, see WP:Checklist#because and WP:Checklist#intention. - Dank (push to talk) 03:35, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Templates fixed, and as for the last sentence, Sondhaus talks specifically about Caprivi's (the chief of the navy at the time) views on the Jeune Ecole and the dissatisfaction of the navy in general with the Sachsens, and ties these issues directly to the decision to halt construction - for example, "Caprivi acknowledged the need for new armored warships but wanted to avoid the mistakes of Stosch's designs." on page 165. Parsecboy (talk) 12:25, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Please see WT:Checklist#A little more on the two new points. - Dank (push to talk) 14:28, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I don't quite follow. The poor performance of the Sachsens and the rise of the Jeune Ecole to prominence in the naval officer corps (which is to say that its prominence is more directly important than the tenets of the doctrine themselves) were the direct reasons for the decision to wait on building new ships. I don't see the problem with using causal language when the relationship was directly causal. If I were overstating the situation, then yes, there would be a problem, but that's not the case here. Parsecboy (talk) 15:05, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It might be good to add to the text what you just said. - Dank (push to talk) 15:13, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
To clarify: the WP:Checklist is designed mainly to give copyeditors some help with getting articles through FAC. This is a list, and I've never had a good feel for WP:FLC. If you're headed there, I'll keep an eye on it and try to learn a bit more about what's needed there. FAC is a little idiosyncratic. - Dank (push to talk) 17:58, 10 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
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.
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