Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Kongō-class battlecruiser

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.

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Promoted -- Ian Rose (talk) 23:26, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Kongō class battlecruiser

Nominator(s): Cam ^(Chat)

This article, concerning Japan's workhorse class of fast battleships from the Second World War, has been in development since November 2009. She passed her GAN on 28 March, was featured as the imaged DYK a day later, and has undergone minor tweaking since then. Respectfully submit for A-Class, with special thanks to Ed for his assistance with some of the sections, and to Parsecboy for his GAN Review. Cam ^(Chat) 01:52, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

• Comments This article is in good shape, but needs a bit more work to reach A class. My suggestions for improvements are as follows:
  • Some material isn't covered by citations

Just so that I have a bit more to go on, would you mind citation-tag bombing the article so I can see what needs citing? Cam ^(Chat) 21:44, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

• • It seems a bit unnecessary to say that Kongō "was the last Japanese capital ship constructed outside of the Japanese Empire" - unless any Japanese capital ships were built in Korea or China (which I'm pretty sure didn't happen) this could just be 'outside of Japan'.

Fixed. Cam ^(Chat) 00:07, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

• • "every single major engagement" is a bit over complex and could be replaced with 'all' if this was correct. However, as no Japanese BBs took part in the Battle of the Coral Sea it's not accurate, particularly as there were also a number of one-sided naval engagements in which large US carrier task forces clobbered Japanese bases without meeting significant opposition (eg, Operation Hailstone)

Fixed. The one-sided small ones aren't "major", but I've changed it anyways. Cam ^(Chat) 00:07, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

• • The article has some passive prose which could be converted to the active voice (eg, "During the Battle of Guadalcanal, Kongō and her sisters played an active role in fighting American naval forces, with Kongō and Haruna bombarding Henderson Field..." could be converted to Kongō and her sisters engaged American naval forces in the Battle of Guadalcanal. During this engagement Kongō and Haruna bombarded Henderson Field..." and "Following patrolling duty off China" could be 'After conducting patrols off China")

Alright. Dank has agreed to do a major copyedit once the ACR is completed, so I imagine a lot of those problems will be fixed then. I'll do what I can in the meantime though. Cam ^(Chat) 21:44, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't generally make those tweaks. I try to "tighten" things if a substantial improvement leaps to mind, for instance when I think we can use a word instead of a long clause, or when information is repeated that doesn't need to be repeated, but I don't generally fiddle with passive voice or with rearranging a sentence so that I can change 3 words to 1 word or lose a comma, unless I really don't think what you've got works. - Dank (push to talk) 15:40, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

P.S. I make an exception for the introduction; the introduction needs to be very tight and precise to pass FAC. In this article, people have already commented on the introduction and I'm not sure what they're looking for, so I didn't do much with it. - Dank (push to talk) 15:59, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

• • 'Port Darwin' is an anachronism - the town was known as Darwin by the time of the war.

My bad. Fixed. Cam ^(Chat) 00:07, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

• • What are First Reserve, Second Reserve and a 'Imperial Service Ship'?

First and Second Reserve are different levels of reserve (you call on first reserve before you call on second reserve), while Imperial Service Ships were vessels used by the royal family for transport. I've designated the first group as just "Reserve", and I'll outline what the Imperial Service ships were in a footnote. Cam ^(Chat) 21:44, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

• • What islands other than Guadalcanal did Haruna bombard? I've read widely on this campaign and can't recall Japanese BBs making more attacks than just the famous bombardment of Henderson Field

None to my knowledge. I've tweaked accordingly. Cam ^(Chat) 00:07, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

• • There's some over-linking which needs to be fixed (eg, the Battle of Midway is repeatedly linked)

Alright. I'll try to fix that as best as I can. Cam ^(Chat) 21:44, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

• • To say that "The primary armament of the Kongō class took the form of eight 14-inch (360 mm)/45 calibre naval guns." is rather unclear - could the guns have taken an alternate form? ;) - 'was' seems simpler and more appropriate than 'took the form'

Well, later vessels used 16-inch and 18-inch, but you're right that it does sound a little bit convoluted. Changed. Cam ^(Chat) 21:44, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

• • Are 'quick battlecruisers' a separate type of battlecruiser?

I don't believe so. I think battlecruiser is a pretty one-size-fits all kind of ship designation. I've changed that a bit just to more reflect that they were meant to have very high speeds. Cam ^(Chat) 21:44, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

• • The Propulsion section basically states that the ships remained coal-burners throughout their careers - is this correct?

Ah. Thanks for catching that. They were replaced by oil-fired boilers during reconstruction. I've added something on that. Cam ^(Chat) 21:44, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

• • The article states that the ships where highly advanced at the time they entered service, but doesn't provide any information on how they compared to their World War II era opponents (the results of the fighting around Guadalcanal suggest that they were inferior to the US Navy's battleships)

I mention it in the armour section - that they were lightly armoured compared to later vessels - but I can probably expand on that. Cam ^(Chat) 00:07, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

• • Can anything on the human side of the ships be added? - eg, details on their habitability (particularly in tropical waters), the make up of their crew, etc - the article is rather 'dry' at present.

Other than crew numbers, none of my sources have anything on the human side of the ships. They're mostly mentioned in the context of their actions from a military POV. Cam ^(Chat) 00:07, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

• • I'm a bit surprised that none of the many specialist works about the IJN have been consulted when developing this article, though that's more of an issue for a FAC than this ACR given that the current references are perfectly adequate. Nick-D (talk) 12:39, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

• Support My comments are now addressed. There remains a need to consult specialist books on the IJN though - I skimmed through a copy of Kaigun in a library last weekend and it had some material on background to the decision to build the ships which isn't in the article, for instance. Nick-D (talk) 07:44, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

• Comment I would suggest that whoever trawled through the Conway's entry on Kongō refer to the entry in the same book on HMS Tiger. --Simon Harley (Talk | Library). 16:44, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

• Comments
  • No problems reported with the external links. You have a dab link and a redirect that comes back to the article, these need to be fixed. None of your images have alt text, and while I realize that the relevant policy has shifted I still think that we can add alt text here with no real loss at FAC. TomStar81 (Talk) 03:43, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Comments

• You tell us twice in the lead that they built four ships in the class. Rework the first paragraph and go over the rest of the lead as well.
• Given that they served during WWI please add the Japanese ships of WWI template, if it exists. I'd like to be able to check on the preceeding classes of Japanese capital ships and I can't do that easily from here. I know that you've sourced the statement about Invincible obsoleting the entire Japanese fleet, but that seems a bit extreme. Dreadnought did that far more thoroughly, IMO while Invincible did that to just to the armored cruisers.
• Pretty trivial name change by Vickers, I'd delete mention of it personally.

Alright. Deleted. Cam ^(Chat) 20:55, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

• You're over-converting. Only the first instance need be converted in the main body. Watch your dashes vs. hyphens. And some of your citations are appearing out of order, as they did on the HMAS Australia article.
• Jackson's wrong about Tiger being a repeat Lion. Tiger was originally going to be an slightly improved Queen Mary, but that design was heavily modified to include 6-inch guns, revised turret layout and a revised armor scheme. Tiger wasn't even laid down until 18 months after Kongo!

Ay Caramba! The number of disputes that have been had over the Tiger is crazy. The reason she wasn't laid down until 18 months after the Kongo was because they decided to incorporate a few of the design ideas (all forward-aft battery, for example) into her design scheme. I'll see what I can do with this though. Cam ^(Chat) 20:55, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

She was laid down about 15 months after Queen Mary although the first design studies were submitted in July 1911 (11 months earlier) for ships with super-firing turrets. As far as I can tell she was much more closely related to the Iron Dukes as two of the three designs proposed copied their turret layout with the deletion of the center turret. The third design separated the two rear turrets as the turret was moved between the engine and boiler rooms as that was a more convenient lacation given the new bulkhead arrangement that a rear torpedo room was introduced. Maybe Simon can scan the article on the design history of Tiger for you to judge for yourself.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 02:31, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

• Link to the article on the Type 90 floatplane.

More later.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 04:18, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

• • Some of your references are missing place of publication.
  • Swap the positions of the ship histories with the specifications; it makes no sense to discuss the ship histories before talking about their specifications, which should flow naturally right after the design section. I'd also suggest renaming specifications to description as that's what you're doing in this section.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 21:00, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Here's the thing. I based the page format for all of my battleship stuff off of Iowa class battleship and Yamato class battleship, both of which go through the vessels first, and then go into specifications. I'm basing my format on precedence, and no one objected to the order during the Yamato class FAC. Cam ^(Chat) 20:55, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

That's as may be, but it certainly isn't logical to have a design section, switch to ship histories, and then go into a detailed description.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 02:31, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

• • The boiler layout doesn't match what you're saying here. 36 boilers doesn't fit evenly into 8 boiler rooms. Please clarify.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 21:09, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Comments

• I'm doing some general copyediting. This might be a good time to mention that I have basically two goals (both difficult, but worth the effort) for FAC-bound articles: preserving as much of your own "voice" as I can without risking the wrath of the FAC reviewers and the puzzlement of general-interest readers, and staying out of the line of fire of the conflicts that are bound to arise when knowledgeable editors care about the finished product. That second goal means that even if I think something could possibly be reworded, I'm likely not to fiddle with it if I'm sensing there's a judgment call on a matter of substance on which different WP:SHIPS editors might disagree, unless IMO we're constrained by MOS and/or FAC. - Dank (push to talk) 17:33, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
• Ahoy, newb question here about navy lists: "She was removed from the Navy List on 20 January 1945". Does it really matter what day she's removed from the roster when she's lying at the bottom of the ocean? Isn't it pretty much over when she's sunk? - Dank (push to talk) 18:30, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure about the exact details, but I believe it has to do with legal issues, primarily. Although I would say the date of removal is notable. - The Bushranger (talk) 19:52, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Personally I've always wondered why they don't backdate the stricken date to the date of loss.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 21:35, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I'd presume because the ship is "still on the books" until the stricken date. - The Bushranger (talk) 22:47, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Occasionally it is due to secrecy, the British Admiralty kept the loss of HMS Barham (04) secret for months. -MBK₀₀₄ 04:49, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

• "Hiei was sunk northwest of Savo Island on the evening of 13 November by Japanese destroyers." Scuttled, or friendly fire? - Dank (push to talk) 12:06, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

It was a scuttling - both sides would 'finish off' crippled and unsalvagable ships to avoid their potentially falling into enemy hands. - The Bushranger (talk) 16:13, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

• fitting out vs. fitting-out: that page title uses a hyphen, so if you use a hyphen, you've got an argument to fall back on if challenged at FAC. OTOH, there are fewer and fewer hyphens these days in good writing, and it's likely that it's fine either way. - Dank (push to talk) 12:13, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
• I understand the dilemma that leads to writing (without quotes) "Fast Battleship", but capitals aren't an acceptable answer at FAC per WP:MOS#Capital letters. Something else will have to alert the reader that we're not talking about just a fast battleship. - Dank (push to talk) 12:24, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Alright. Perhaps italics or something? Cam ^(Chat) 02:57, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Italics doesn't feel right either, I'll poke around in other articles. - Dank (push to talk) 04:29, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

• I'd prefer we link stowage, but that article is a stubby-stub and might be in danger of disappearing; should we link to the glossary instead? - Dank (push to talk) 13:11, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Glossary probably. Cam ^(Chat) 02:57, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

• Just offering this as a "peek behind the curtain" of the life of a copyeditor. Most writers have a great feel for what looks right to them but not so much for what looks right to everyone. One "trick" that copyeditors use (including on Wikipedia) is to ask for consistency. A writer might not follow that "5 in turret" will make some readers wonder "5 of what in a turret?", but usually you can get writers to buy into the idea that it just makes more work for everyone if we make up different rules on the fly, that consistency makes it easier for everyone to learn how it's done. Learning a handy set of rules and making edits per those rules generally makes for a more collegial relationship than making the kind of snarky comment I just made. - Dank (push to talk) 13:46, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
• Sigh. I know that a lot of military historians write "the Kongōs", but per WP:JARGON (a page that was recently redirected ... grrr, it was handy), jargon that's rarely used outside of a specialty field just isn't suitable for a general readership. Not one reader in a hundred would guess that most of the "the Kongōs" don't have "Kongō" anywhere in their name. I understand that it gets really tedious to repeat "blah blah class ships", but you don't have to keep repeating that. In articles like these, we expect the readers to either know the acronyms and definitions already or to read from top to bottom, otherwise they won't know what for instance "IJN" means. By the middle of the article, readers ought to know what we mean by "these four ships". - Dank (push to talk) 14:02, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, I have a little more confidence in the average reader being able to figure that out. But "the Kongo class" would seem to me to be a reasonable middle ground between the two examples you gave. - The Bushranger (talk) 16:13, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Outside of military articles, and even in most military articles, I'm drawing a blank on this usage. "The Sputniks" means, to most readers, Sputnik 1 through Sputnik 25; if another satellite was designed and ordered at the same time, but called something else, most readers would say that that's not a Sputnik. We say "the space shuttles", not "the Enterprises". Even if half the readers of this article understand what that means, it's still kind of the point of copyediting to help the writer reach a wider audience. - Dank (push to talk) 18:13, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, that's because the space shuttles aren't ships. Ships, with very few exceptions (for instance, the MEKO types), are grouped in classes with the class name being (as a rule) that of the first ship of the class - the Holiday class cruise ship provides a non-military example; while Nimitz class aircraft carrier provides a (different than Kongo) military one. When referring to a specific ship as being part of a group of similar ships, the useage is always "__________, a _________ class ________", and as a group, the "ships of the _______ class" or "the _________s". - The Bushranger (talk) 20:56, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I see I'm not being clear ... if you put this in the first section, and then use the term throughout the article, then we're fine:

The Kongōs (meaning "the ships of the Kongo class") ...

Some reviewers may object on various theories, but we've got defenses to those theories, I think. Or they may not ... it's kind of random, especially on articles that have already gone through an extensive review like this one. But if you use language only used in reference to ships and don't explain the language, then not only can I not defend that on style grounds, I can't even defend it on policy grounds. Per WP:NOT, "A Wikipedia article should not be presented on the assumption that the reader is well versed in the topic's field. Introductory language in the lead and initial sections of the article should be written in plain terms and concepts that can be understood by any literate reader of Wikipedia without any knowledge in the given field before advancing to more detailed explanations of the topic. While wikilinks should be provided for advanced terms and concepts in that field, articles should be written on the assumption that the reader will not or cannot follow these links, instead attempting to infer their meaning from the text." - Dank (push to talk) 13:22, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

One other issue ... the ship FAs I've read have all used "class" rather than "the Xs" consistently, and WP:SHIPNAME doesn't mention the "the Xs" usage in the section on classes. What I don't recommend is trying to do this in one or two FACs without making a change to WP:SHIPNAME, lining up support, and doing it in a bunch of FACs. I guess my advice is: feel free to champion any language you want, but line up support and pick your battles. - Dank (push to talk) 13:28, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, I don't think that "the (class name)s" is something that would require assumption that the reader is well versed in ships to understand, seeing as I knew what that meant when I was 8 years old. But if WP:SHIPNAME calls for it to be done differently, then I have no problem at all with consensus/guidelines. :) - The Bushranger (talk) 15:17, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

• I removed the quotes from "up to" in: "and carried up to 118 of them in varying configurations". I'm not sure, but I think FAC reviewers (if they think about it) will say: either you believe your sources or you don't. If you don't, don't say it. If you do, don't add scare-quotes. - Dank (push to talk) 14:12, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
• Not sure if the same article should contain the spellings "armour" and "maneuverability". - Dank (push to talk) 14:19, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

British English (i.e. with the U's) should probably be used if possible, as the ships were built in England and Japan was a British ally, if for not other reason. - The Bushranger (talk) 16:13, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Understood, so is that the right spelling of "maneuverability"? - Dank (push to talk) 17:54, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

• I don't know what this means: "Two each were located together, separated from the others by longitudinal bulkheads." - Dank (push to talk) 14:30, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Ah. The boilers were in two per chamber; chambers are separated by bulkheads. My apologies for the convolutedness. Cam ^(Chat) 02:57, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

• I don't know what "Haruna was unique in receiving Brown–Curtis turbines." means ... if you want to say that Haruna was the only Japanese ship, or the only ship ever, to be fitted with these turbines, then please say that. If it's the only one of these four ships, I made the change and it's fine now.

Ah. Yep. She was the only one of those four ships to receive Brown-Curtis turbines. Cam ^(Chat) 02:57, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

• There's another "Fast Battleship" in the last section; see above.
• Support per usual disclaimer. - Dank (push to talk) 14:34, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
• Another general comment for whoever happens to read it, and this is not a big deal. I'm aware that copyeditors tend to get annoyed over time if writers aren't picking up on things the copyeditors are saying and fixing them in future articles. Volunteers, including volunteer copyeditors, like to see that their contributions are making a difference. I suppose I'm no different, but OTOH, I'm not above digging in and doing the work myself. The whole point of copyediting is that human brains are wired to ignore "small things", like punctuation, because ignoring details help with grabbing and storing the meaning of the words ... so most readers and writers tend not to see exactly the things that copyeditors are looking at (until they're forced to slow down and look closely ... which they generally resist), so I can't complain if there's work for me to do on every article. I do appreciate the effort that many of you are making to respond to some of the things other copyeditors and I have said. - Dank (push to talk) 15:21, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
• Weak Oppose Dab links are still present, and alt text has yet to be added. This is problematic to me. TomStar81 (Talk) 20:15, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

  I have an idea what's going on with the alt text debates at WT:MOS, but I don't know how you guys feel about alt text in general. I was distressed that we added a FAC requirement of alt text (by adding WP:ALT to the style guidelines) before we had hashed out what was required, and why. I would prefer not to do alt text on my own ship articles and let other people add whatever they think works, just to stay out of that whole mess. - Dank (push to talk) 20:27, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

  P.S. And ... most of you know this, but ALT was demoted out of the style guidelines a couple of months ago. - Dank (push to talk) 21:36, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

  Personally I'm not inclined to sweat the alt text, but I think that Tom is thinking a bit more long-term.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 20:39, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

disambig fixed. Alt text isn't required. Cam ^(Chat) 22:37, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

• Weak Support I would feel better to have alt text for images, however I am aware of the discontinuation of this requirement. Still, I believe that it will be reinstated sometime in the future; when that happens, I like to think that our articles will be one step ahead of the rest of the pack. TomStar81 (Talk) 23:29, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
• SupportComment: there's an "awkward wording" and a "clarification needed" tag. Can these be dealt with, please? Otherwise I think the article is fine and believe it meets the A class criteria. I agree with Tom regarding alt text. I understand it is not a requirement at the moment, but as it probably will be requirement again sometime, would it not make sense to add it in now while we are doing the ACR, so that we don't have to come back later and add it later? (This does not affect my support, though). — AustralianRupert (talk) 23:55, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive. 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.