Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Russian battleship Petropavlovsk (1894)

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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.

Article promoted by HJ Mitchell (talk) via MilHistBot (talk) 20:19, 26 December 2017 (UTC) « Return to A-Class review list[reply]

Russian battleship Petropavlovsk (1894)[edit]

Nominator(s): Sturmvogel 66 (talk)

Russian battleship Petropavlovsk (1894) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

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Petropavlovsk spent more time under construction than she did in service as she was sunk early in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05 after striking a mine. While her loss certainly weakened the Russian position in the Far East, the biggest impact was the death of the Russian squadron commander, the aggressive and charismatic Vice Admiral Stepan Makarov. I've thoroughly overhauled the article recently and believe that it meets the A-class criteria. As usual, I'm looking for infelicitous prose and any jargon that needs linking or explaining before I send this to FAC.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 01:08, 12 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Iazyges[edit]

Will start soon. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 20:24, 14 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  • " The ship was sent to the Far East almost immediately after she entered service in 1899. " Would suggest mentioning when she was laid down and launched before this bit.
    • I save that sort of detail for the main body.
  • "in the Battle of Port Arthur that began the war" would recommend you change this to:
  • "in the Battle of Port Arthur which began the war"
    • I always get confused about the difference between "which" and "that", but I think that I'm using it correctly here.
  • ", higher-velocity," is there a better way to phrase this? It seems like its saying the guns are faster (although you certainly wouldn't use high velocity to talk about any main gun moving).
    • I think that this is OK because readers understand that guns generally don't move much, but their shells do.
  • "were unable to fulfill the existing demand so" probably should put a comma between "demand" and "so".
    • OK
  • "That same year a radio was installed aboard the ship." Would recommend that you move this up to the design section.
    • No, because it was added later.
  • "destroyer Strashnii fell in with four Japanese destroyers in the darkness while on patrol." Does this section mean that the Japanese realized that Strashnii wasn't supposed to be there immediately, and Strashnii then realized it; or else that they sailed in formation for some time before Strashnii realized they were Japenese ships?
    • I think that the beginning of the next sentence makes it clear that it took a while for the Russian commander to figure out that they were Japanese.
  • That is all my comments. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 06:57, 24 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Happy to Support as is. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 07:13, 24 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

CommentsSupport by PM[edit]

This article is in fine shape. A few comments from me:

  • suggest "She participated in the suppression of the Boxer Rebellion
  • in what way were the replacement 12-inch guns more powerful? Longer range, high muzzle velocity?
  • link ship displacement
  • check rounding of characteristics between body and infobox eg length
  • link naval mine
  • belt armour doesn't match between body and infobox
  • "the ship helped to suppress of the Boxer Rebellion", and link Boxer Rebellion
  • IJN isn't introduced before use, suggest in full
  • I'm not familiar with Japanese naming conventions, but should it be Tōgō or Heihachirō?
  • suggest using Makarov's rank and full name when first mentioned in the body
  • link Vasily Vereshchagin in the body.
  • The Silverstone footnote doesn't have a full citation in Sources
  • The Corbett footnote doesn't properly link to the full citation in Sources
  • The full Gangut citation needs some more detail, I assume it is a periodical, is there an ISSN OCLC or other identifier, also a date of publication is needed
  • Kowner needs a publication location

That's me done. Cheers, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 01:00, 19 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the very thorough review. If I linked something in the lede, I didn't bother linking it again. Other than that I think that I've responded to all of your comments.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 03:22, 19 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by AustralianRupert[edit]

Support: G'day, Sturm, nice work as usual. I have the following suggestions: AustralianRupert (talk) 11:57, 22 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  • in the lead, "652 men and 27 officers died": typically sentences shouldn't start with numerals, so I suggest maybe: "A total of 652 men and 27 officers died..."
  • "of 1904–05," and "of 1894–95, both..." --> "of 1904–1905," and "of 1894–1895, both..." per the (newish) guidance at WP:DATERANGE
  • there is an inconsistency regarding the launch dates in the infobox and the body of the article
  • in the infobox the deck armor is listed as 3 inches, but in the body it is 2-3 inches
  • "Delayed by shortages of skilled workmen, design changes and late delivery of the main armament, the ship was laid down on 19 May 1892": do we know when it was ordered?
  • "were unable to fulfill any further order..." perhaps "were unable to meet the demand"? (to reduce repetition of order and ordered)
  • "which naturally caused problems between them" --> "resulting in tensions between the two nations"?
  • "A further issue was the...": perhaps "The situation was worsened..." or "These tensions were heightened by..."?
  • "war was now inevitable" --> "war was inevitable"
  • "exiting the harbour" --> "exiting the harbor"
  • in the translation "Armoured cruiser "Bayan" and her offspring. From Port Artur to Moonsund", should this be "Armored" as you are using US spelling elsewhere?
    • I've adopted most of your suggestions, a few with tweaks, see if they suit. Thanks for the thorough review.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 03:10, 24 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

CommentsSupport by Factotem[edit]

Have only some very nitpicky comments on prose, which speaks for the quality of this article:

  • Section "Design and description", 2nd para, The Petropavlovsk-class ships' main battery consisted of four 12-inch guns mounted.... The main armament is already twice mentioned. Wonder if this sentence would be better started as something like "The four 12-inch guns of the main battery were mounted..."?
  • Designed to fire one round per 90 seconds.... "Per" reads slightly awkward to me. Maybe use "every" instead?
  • Section "Battle of Port Arthur", 2nd para, Petropavlovsk was not hit by the initial attack by torpedo boats.... Replace the first "by" with "in" or "during"?
  • ...and sortied the following morning when the Combined Fleet.... I tripped on this, thinking the Petropavlosk making its sortie was part of the Combined Fleet. The fleet is linked, and the next clause makes it obvious from the commander's name that it was a Japanese combined fleet, but maybe remove the trip by qualifying it as "...the Japanese Combined Fleet..." or similar?
  • Section "Sinking", 1st para, ...who believed that they were Russian destroyers whom he had ordered to patrol that area. The use of "whom" seems odd. I would have thought "which" was more appropriate.

None of the above is enough to dissuade me from supporting, so feel free simply to ignore as you see fit, but the following are perhaps a bit more problematical...

  • Source ISBNs are a mixture of ISBN-10 and -13. From Amazon, ISBN-13 for Kowner is 978-0810849273, Silverstone is 978-0882549798 and Westwood is 978-0887061912. Don't know what you want to do about different hyphenations with the existing ISBN13s - I learned from an ACR of mine simply to remove all hyphens.
    • There's no requirement to standardize ISBNs on all 13 digit ones, so I don't ever bother.
Ah. OK. I thought that came under "consistently referenced" per criteria A1, and it was picked up in a recent ACR of mine, but maybe that's because I signalled an intention to take it to FAC. Factotem (talk) 10:12, 24 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
In my experience at FAC, that only applies to the use of dashes or not.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 14:23, 24 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
And a very extensive experience it is too, I see. Still finding my feet with A-Class reviews. Live and learn. Factotem (talk) 17:52, 24 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • The lead image is licensed as public domain based on a copyright term of author's life plus 70 years, but given that the image summary states that the author is unknown, is this a valid tag?

That's all from me. FactotEm (talk) 13:11, 23 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

    • Good catch on the tag. It was a workable one, but not the best one, which I've now switched it to. Thanks for the review; I liked most all of your stylistic changes.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 03:23, 24 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above 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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