Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/HMS Eagle (1918)

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.

Closed/promoted -- Ian Rose (talk) 03:14, 18 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

HMS Eagle (1918)

Nominator(s): Sturmvogel 66 (talk)


I am nominating this article for A-Class review because I believe that it meets the criteria. Readers will note a plethora of red links for flights, normally a unit too small for notability, but since these were the largest units of the Fleet Air Arm of the RAF of the time, I believe that they're notable. Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 17:18, 19 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sources comments
  • Page ranges use en, not emdashes (–, not —)
  • "et al" is a foreign term and should hence be italicized
    • Sorry, it may be latin in origin, but it's common enough in English now that I disagree.
  • Be consistent in whether you include "England" after English publisher locations
  • ...and a taste-based suggestion: since you use WP:CITESHORT, my recommendation would be to increase the number of ref columns as the shortened footnotes create a lot of useless white space when they're only in two columns. --Eisfbnore • talk 18:45, 22 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • All done, thanks for the review.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 21:35, 22 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support with a few minor comments:

  • David Beatty, 1st Earl Beatty is referred to as just "Admiral Beatty" on first reference. Should be "Admiral David Beatty" or have a more complete title upon introduction.
    • Done.
  • Captain Wilmot Nicholson is referred to as "Captain Nicholson" several times after first reference. Should be just "Nicholson" each time.
    • Done.
  • "The first large through-deck aircraft carrier to join the Royal Navy, Eagle was assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet on 7 June 1924 after she commissioned on 26 February and completed her training." - I'm not sure if this is referring to final sea trials or crew training. Please clarify. —Ed!(talk) 05:16, 28 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • Done.
    • Since Brown makes no reference to the difference in size between Argus (labelled a "small" carrier in this article) and Eagle, I think the statement "The first large through deck aircraft carrier to join the Royal Navy" is not warranted. As an aside, during the trials Nicholson's appointment was described as "Naval Staff Representative", and he continued to hold the appointment after promotion to Rear-Admiral. --Simon Harley (Talk | Library). 18:24, 29 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Grandiose:

Support for A1, A2
Comprenhensive coverage and good referencing. The bit about the sinking seems brief, but I suppose it was.
Comment Support on A3: I think that the headings in the Career section need looking at. I think that the current system is firstly probably in mistake and secondly doesn't make as much sense as it could. At the moment it's:
  • Career
  • World War II
  • 1939–41
  • Battle for Malta

I'd suggest that it should be like:

  • Career
  • Inter-war period (covering the bit at the top of the career section)
  • World War II
  • Split "1939–41" into two of this level
  • The other one of them
  • Battle for Malta

You may have other ideas. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 18:03, 29 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

      • I added Inter-war and further indented Battle of Malta.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 19:40, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments' This is a very solid article, but I think that it needs a bit more work to reach A class:
    • " In early 1918 she was purchased by Britain for conversion to an aircraft carrier, although she was not commissioned until 1924" - the use of 'though' seems odd here as purchasing a ship under construction and commissioning it are quite different things
      • The extraordinary thing is the amount of time between purchase and completion, so I've substituted completion for commissioning.
    • "Almirante Cochrane was virtually complete up to the forecastle, although her side armour had not yet been installed when war broke out, and no work was carried out during the war until the British decided to complete her as an aircraft carrier for the Royal Navy. She was therefore purchased from Chile on 28 February 1918 to be converted into the carrier HMS Eagle." - the first sentence is overly complex and should be spit into two sentences. This wording also suggests that Chile was powerless to either ensure that the British completed the ship or retain the ship once the RN took an interest in it - is this correct? If so, it would be good if this could be explained.
      • Split as per your suggestion. Chile had zero leverage on deciding the fate of the ship, but nothing I have supports that so I'll leave it alone.
    • "on 21 October 1919 as Chile wanted to repurchase the ship and have it re-converted to a battleship.[7] The £2.5 million cost to do so would have been higher than the £1.5 million sale price and the Admiralty decided to retain the ship." - this is unclear: did the Admiralty have the right of veto over selling the ship? What's meant by '£1.5 million sale price'? (is this the price the Chileans would have had to pay in 1919, or the price they had already paid?)
      • The RN purchased her in 1918, presumably covering the original cost to the Chileans. The 1.5 million was the 1919 offer. The actual power of the Admiralty in this situation is a bit unclear, but probably amounted to a real veto as no government would want to spend more money than they were going to get. Rephrased to clarify.
    • The first paragraph of the 'Flight trials' section is a bit vague, and seems to be missing an introductory sentence or two
      • Ties in to ref in the previous paragraph.
    • "Her boilers were cleaned and her bottom cleaned in Durban, South Africa, in mid-December" - 'cleaned' is repeated, and there has to be a less awkward way to word things than "her bottom cleaned"!
      • Haha. - Dank (push to talk) 23:49, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
        • Consolidated the "cleanings", but bottom cleaned is most proper nautical terminology, no matter what thoughts that might arouse in your dirty little mind!
          • I try to 15 year old boy-proof articles wherever possible ;) Nick-D (talk) 07:42, 17 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • The statement in the lead that " Whenever Eagle was not at sea, her aircraft were disembarked and used ashore to support the Army." doesn't seem to be directly supported by the body of the article. Nick-D (talk) 05:48, 4 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • I suppose the issue is how broadly "the Army" vs. the campaign in Libya is defined, so I've deleted that bit. Thanks for the review.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 19:40, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
        • Nick, this is getting close to the standard 28-day limit and appears just about ready to promote -- did you want to add anything following Storm's responses/edits? Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 06:27, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support My comments have now been addressed. Sorry about the delay with responding - this one slipped off my radar. Nick-D (talk) 07:42, 17 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments. As always, feel free to revert my copyediting. Please check the edit summaries. - Dank (push to talk) 02:36, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • The capitalization of "royal" and such is hard for this Yank ... can someone tell me if "Royal dockyard" as opposed to "Royal Dockyard" is okay? - Dank (push to talk) 02:36, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • What's a "strength deck"? An article search didn't help me. - Dank (push to talk) 13:47, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • If you think of a ship's hull as a hollow girder, the strength deck is the top flange of the girder, built to handle all the consequent stresses. This is not a concern for most ships, but for carriers it's a very big deal. Either the flight deck or the hangar deck is chosen as the strength deck and each had consequent advantages/disadvantages. This should really be a section in the aircraft carrier article under design considerations, but I don't know if I'm ready to write that section yet, so I just mentioned it briefly in the article.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 16:42, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • Added "or main supporting deck". - Dank (push to talk) 03:22, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • In Flight trials, I don't understand the first sentence, and the second sentence isn't a sentence. - Dank (push to talk) 03:34, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Actually check that whole paragraph, please.
    • Oh, my, that was incoherent, wasn't it. Fixed.
  • "Larger aircraft like the Bristol F2B fighter, the Sopwith Cuckoo torpedo bomber, and De Havilland DH.9 bombers": I'm not getting why you're using the model name for the first two (which is singular in form but implies multiple aircraft) and then the plural for the last one; is the last one different from the first two in some way? - Dank (push to talk) 19:27, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Nope, fixed.
  • "faired": haven't heard this one
    • Past tense of what a fairing does.
  • "standard load": AFAIK, "standard load" was defined at the WNC, which ran from 12 November 1921 to 6 February 1922, which is about a year after this point in your narrative. This isn't necessarily an issue, because the time frames are close, but you might possibly want to say "what was defined a year later at the [WNC] as "standard load"". - Dank (push to talk) 20:18, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Actually, the stats are for when the ship was completed in '24 so standard load is OK.
  • "60 feet (18.3 m) radius": add "|adj=on" to the convert template.
    • Done.
  • "three at the stern and the remaining six were distributed the length of the ship on both sides.": nonparallel. How about this? "three at the stern and six all along both sides of the ship". (The "all" is optional.)
  • Support for half of it on prose per standard disclaimer, down to where I stopped, Career. These are my edits. - Dank (push to talk) 20:37, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - I hate to the be an image stickler, but there are some problems here that will come up at FAC anyway:
  • Otherwise, excellent work as usual. Parsecboy (talk) 20:33, 17 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Both deleted. Good catch, nobody had done an image review.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 21:21, 17 September 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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