Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/HMS Vanguard (23)/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 GrahamColm 09:10, 14 April 2012 [1].

HMS Vanguard (23)[edit]

HMS Vanguard (23) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 21:36, 16 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Vanguard was the last battleship built by the British and the last to be laid down anywhere in the world. Completed after the end of World War II, she had a short career before falling victim to budget cut in the late 1950s. The article completed a MilHist A-class review in December and I've tweaked it subsequently to clarify a few things.Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 21:36, 16 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments. - Dank (push to talk) 04:04, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • "after the end of the war": after the war
  • "The British had enough guns and gun turrets in storage that would allow": ... to allow
  • "The Lion-class battleship design was modified to suit the different main armament to save time": I don't follow
    • Is it a little clearer now?
      • I tweaked it; I hope I understood your meaning. - Dank (push to talk) 18:29, 24 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "In addition, her design was revised several times, even after construction had begun, to reflect war experience and these changes prevented her from being completed during the war.": In general, two independent clauses are joined by a comma unless the two clauses are relatively short and straightforward. There's a lot of leeway for personal style on this, but the wiggle room doesn't extend this far; a comma is needed after "experience".
  • "King George's growing ill health": "ill health" is tough to modify; "growing" might be okay, but I'd drop it
    • How about "declining health" instead?
  • "constraint of": constraint on
  • "was the limited capacity available to build large-calibre guns": would "was the availability of large-calibre guns" be wrong?
    • It was really a question of the capacity and time required. Clarified a little, I hope.
  • "Using four twin 15-inch (380 mm) mountings in storage offered": Does this mean "Four pre-existing twin 15-inch (380 mm) mountings offered"? If so, that might be easier to parse.
    • Good idea.
  • "⅓ of a knot": not everyone will go for this; some will want a conversion.
  • "The flat transom stern was retained ... This made Vanguard the only British battleship built with a transom stern.": I may be missing something here ... it's not clear to me how it was "retained" if this was the only battleship that had it. What previous ship did this ship inherit that stern from? - Dank (push to talk) 04:04, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • The Lions, as mentioned in the previous sentence.
      • Okay, so I'm not following "This made Vanguard the only British battleship built with a transom stern." - Dank (push to talk)
        • The Lions were never built, which clarification has been added.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 05:15, 4 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "of the class, being almost 50 feet (15.2 m) longer and displaced": of the class, almost 50 feet (15.2 m) longer, and displaced
  • "Some 2,200 long tons (2,200 t) of this was because Vanguard was overweight.": Per WP:Checklist#cause, be careful about causality, which seems to go in the other direction here.
    • OK, what would you suggest then? She was larger as designed, but, in addition, was overweight.
      • I'm suggesting avoiding causality words unless there's causality. That is, being overweight didn't cause her to gain a lot of tonnage; if anything, it's the other way around. - Dank (push to talk) 18:40, 24 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "seaboat": Not in Cambridge Dictionaries or M-W as one word ... I'll check SOED if you like.
    • Split
  • "Vanguard was well regarded as a good seaboat, able to keep an even keel in rough seas. This was due to the large flare applied to the bows after experience with her predecessors, the King George V-class ships. The latter had been built with almost no sheer to the main deck forwards to allow 'A' turret to fire straight forward at zero elevation, resulting in a poor seaboat that took a lot of water over the bows.": This would flow better in chronological order ... the King George V-class ships did it this way, so it was done differently with different results on Vanguard.
    • Rewritten.
  • "exposed surfaces": I wouldn't think asbestos insulation would be on every surface, so I'm not sure what "exposed" means here. Hot surfaces?
    • Clarified.
  • "The ship was provided with a powder-handling room above the shell room to mimic the arrangement that turret's hoists were designed to handle and another set of hoists moved the propellant charges from the magazines to the powder-handling room." Comma needed between the two long independent clauses.
  • "a 80-pound": an 80-pound
  • "her main, secondary and the tertiary guns": See WP:Checklist#series
  • "in all except for 'A' turret": a little better is: in all turrets except 'A'
  • Except as above, so far so good. I got down more than halfway, to HMS_Vanguard_(23)#Protection. These are my edits. If someone else can finish it up, I'll come have a look, and hopefully support. - Dank (push to talk) 03:49, 20 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The thickness ... was 2.5 inches (64 mm) in thickness.": repetition
  • "sub-divide": subdivide
  • Except as above, so far so good. My comments cover two-thirds of the article, down to HMS_Vanguard_(23)#Career, and this is all I have time to do on this one. I've asked for help finishing up at WT:MHC#FACs that need copyediting attention. - Dank (push to talk) 00:26, 23 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • So far so good. Your changes all look good, thanks. - Dank (push to talk) 18:40, 24 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sources and images but no spotchecks. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:51, 20 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • File:HMS_Vanguard_(1946).jpg: source link returns 404 error
    • Pity, excellent image, but replaced.
  • FN 45: journal name should be italicized, author format should match other sources
  • Be consistent in how multi-author sources are notated. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:51, 20 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Question: Perhaps I just didn't see it in the article, but what was the requirement that this battleship was intended to fulfill or threat it was intended to counter, i.e. why was this battleship built, what was the justification that was given for spending the immense amount of money to build it, and under which naval expansion plan, budget year, or armament program was it part of? Cla68 (talk) 00:01, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • That was laid out in the first paragraph of the Design and description section, although I've added that she was built under the 1940 Emergency War Programme.

Comments A quick look due to lack of time, but the following struck me:

  • growing ill health - reads oddly to me, would prefer 'declining' or 'deteriorating'
    • Good idea.
  • transom stern - the significance of this feature is mentioned, but not illustrated. Are there any good photographs that might be used to illustrate this feature?
    • Not in any free photos.
      • Got one for you -- look at the September 1952 image here. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 01:03, 26 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • I rarely remember to check the NHHC website for American photos of British ships. Thanks, Ed. Added.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 05:15, 4 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • fuel supply was increased to 4,850 long tons - how large an increase was this? --IxK85 (talk) 17:54, 23 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support Comments: I've done some copy editing work to follow on from Dank's work. I looked at the Career section only in this regard. Please check that you are happy with my edits and change as you see fit. I noticed a couple of minor points that I couldn't resolve:

  • inconsistent dates: In the infobox: "Commissioned: 9 August 1946", but Career section: "not commissioned until 28 March 1946";
    • This is a little tricky. McCart says that the White Ensign was first hoisted on 28 March, while the ship was still fitting out, but that the formal commissioning ceremony, with Princess Elizabeth in attendance, was on 12 May. I've standardized everything the latter date. Interestingly enough the ship was not formally accepted from the builder until 9 August, after the completion of her sea trials, which must be where that date in the infobox came from.
  • the 7 June 1960 decommissioning is mentioned in the infobox, but not in the body of the article;
    • Fixed.
  • inconsistent: in the infobox: "Sold for scrap 1960". In the lead: "Vanguard was sold for scrap in late 1959"; in the Career section: "She was subsequently sold to the Iron and Steel Corporation of Great Britain for £560,000 in 1960" (this one is probably my fault, due to my copy edit - for this I apologise - but I'd be obliged if you would adjust whatever needs adjusting to rectify). Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 09:05, 26 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks for catching these nits. The exact date of sale isn't given in any of my sources, but I presume that it had to be after she was decomissioned, so I've dropped all references to the date and just gone with the commencement of scrapping.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 05:15, 4 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support -- Reviewed/supported at MilHist A-Class Review and after checking changes made since then I'm happy to support for FA. Just to walk through the various elements:

  • Prose: I recall mentioning at that ACR that some copyediting might be needed for FAC; with help from Dank and other reviewers the whole thing seems to read well -- I only spotted a couple things I wanted to alter.
  • Structure/detail/referencing: All appeared satisfactory.
  • Images: I'll take as read Nikki's image check.
  • Source spotcheck: Given that Fifelfoo spotchecked Storm's and Ed's Arizona article in December, I don't need to see one here -- I can't of course speak for other FAC delegates on that, obviously my support here means I recuse myself from closing this. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 15:34, 6 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support -- I give my full support for this article, which has been improved with Dank's helpful comments. --Lecen (talk) 20:34, 11 April 2012 (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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