Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/French battleship Bretagne/archive1

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 Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 29 March 2019 [1].

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French battleship Bretagne

Nominator(s): Sturmvogel 66 (talk) and Parsecboy (talk) 00:50, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Bretagne had a typical career for a French dreadnought of her generation. Her participation in World War I mostly consisted of swinging around a mooring buoy as she was tasked to prevent a breakout into the Mediterranean by the Austro-Hungarian fleet. Between the wars, she was extensively modernized and remained in 1st-line service. She was briefly deployed in search of German commerce raiders and blockade runners after the start of World War II. The ship blew up when Perfidious Albion attacked the French fleet in mid-1940 to prevent it from falling into the hands of the Germans. Parsecboy and I have extensively reworked the article recently and it passed a MilHist A-class review earlier this month. We believe that it meets the FA criteria though we'd like reviewers to look for any stray AmEng and unexplained jargon.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 00:50, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Image review

• Suggest adding alt text

• Use |upright= rather than fixed px size to scale images
  • Removed altogether as its unnecessary
• File:French_battleship_Bretagne_NH_55630.tiff: given your response at ACR, would suggest using a different tag to represent the image's status, if no pre-1924 publication can be identified
  • Well, that's the issue - we only have the supposition that the photos are Neeser's work based on the context (i.e., the photos are in the US Navy's collection, they appear to be from the same set as those explicitly credited to Neeser, etc.), but they have not explicitly credited him - that's why I've left it at the generic {{PD-US}} template, since we can't for certain say it's Neeser's work. I suppose I can reach out to them and see if they can clarify, but I don't know what kind of response I'll get (or when). Parsecboy (talk) 21:08, 5 March 2019 (UTC)
• File:Bretagne_October_1916_Q58294.jpg: again, given response at ACR, this tagging would not appear to be correct. Nikkimaria (talk) 16:26, 2 March 2019 (UTC)
  • I'll upload the higher-res version from the NHHC, but that'll have the same issue as above. Parsecboy (talk) 21:08, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

CommentsSupport by PM

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

• Is it necessary in an individual ship article to say that the ships of the class has different types of boilers? Surely with this one only her boilers matter?
• "and became the flagship of"
• when the first increase in elevation is mentioned, it isn't clear what range they had before the modifications.
  • Generally I reserve gun performance data for the class article. Is it better just to say that the increase in elevation increased the range, without providing specifics, or to add the original range for comparative purposes?--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 03:18, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
    • In that case, I would just say the increase in elevation increased the range, without going into specifics. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 04:19, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
      • Done.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 13:12, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
• were each of the 75 mm AA guns replaced by four 75 mm AA guns, or were the two guns replaced by four AA guns in total?
• what rank was Paul Teste at the time?

More to come. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 08:41, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

• is 3rd Cruiser Division notable? Redlink?
• Perhaps say who Darlan was when he is mentioned? Particularly as he became a noted collaborator?
• when you say "outnumber", perhaps "overmatch" would be the best description?

That's all I have. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 09:26, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

• Thanks for looking this over. See if my changes work for you.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 03:18, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

• Yep, all good. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 03:56, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

FunkMonk

• I'll have a look soon. FunkMonk (talk) 15:20, 13 March 2019 (UTC)
• I wonder if the exact dates could be stated in the last two image captions, as you do in some of the other captions?
  • Yes on one, no on the other.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 15:35, 13 March 2019 (UTC)
• "of 28,000 metric horsepower" Horsepowers?
  • No, horsepower isn't pluralized
• "were able to rescue all but three of her crew" How large was the crew?
  • I'll let Sturm handle this one - I don't have Jordan & Caresse in front of me at the moment.

Ok, I'll support after Sturmvogel 66 has responded to this (I realise the source might not specify). FunkMonk (talk) 18:42, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

The source doesn't specify.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 19:22, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

• "part of her forward hull armour was removed to make her less wet forward" What does wet mean here?
  • Reworded
• "cover for the Otranto Barrage" Why only explicitly stated in the intro?
  • Mentioned in the body
• "the British attacked the ships there" I think it might be important enough to note in the intro that the crew rejected surrender?
  • Good idea
• "and broken up for scrap" Only stated in the intro.
  • Clarified. Thanks FunkMonk. Parsecboy (talk) 18:37, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
• Support - looks good. FunkMonk (talk) 19:24, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

CommentsSupport by L293D

• The four forward 138 mm guns were removed, and their casemates plated over, because Bretagne was so wet forward that they could only be worked in good weather. - the term of a ship being 'wet' might not be known to the average reader.
  • I think that TheEd17 already fixed this for me; see if it suits. Thanks for the review.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 21:07, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

Source review The sources are all very reliable and high-quality, as usual for Sturm-Parsec articles. L293D (☎ • ✎) 01:59, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

Support from The ed17

• Support overall, great work as always. The following are only minor points.
• Not really thrilled by the semi-colon in the opening sentence... are the sister ships important enough to be named there?
• What about the drydocks forced the turrets closer to the ends of the ships? (Was it a beam restriction? Length?)
  • It's complicated. To save time, the same hull form was repeated in the Bretagne's as in the Courbets, which was length-constrained and the need to put a main-gun turret on the centerline required more space along the centerline than the wing turrets used previously and forced the turrets closer to the ends. I want to save that explanation for the class article and don't want to get too down into the weeds here.
    • Gotcha, that makes sense. Might be worth a footnote with a link to the class article when that's done.
• There's a bit of a gap between Bretagne's arrival in Mers-el-Kébir and its loss. Do we have no information on anything that happened during that time?
  • Swinging at her moorings, as far as I can tell.
    • Ah! I added a small bit to make this clear. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 02:13, 18 March 2019 (UTC)
• The loss section could use a bit of context for the seemingly out of nowhere surrender of France. (I know, but I'm trying to put myself in the mind of someone unfamiliar with the history here.) Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 06:00, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
  • Umm, the reader is already informed that France and Germany at war in September '39, what more can I add that's relevant to the ship itself? Working in the causes for the surrender itself isn't really appropriate, IMO.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 21:05, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
    • I'm coming at this from a narrative concern, even if not directly of relevance to the ship—I'm hoping you can add a small bit of info about how quickly the French mainland's defense fell apart. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 02:13, 18 March 2019 (UTC)
      • I added a bit to the lede to cover this. Not entirely happy with the wording; feel free to tweak as necessary.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 02:52, 18 March 2019 (UTC)
        • And I added a line to the body to make it clearer there as well. Parsecboy (talk) 11:37, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

Support by CPA-5

I was at the A-class review and I think it meets the FA-class criteria. Cheers. CPA-5 (talk) 13:40, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

Coord note

Just on source formatting, I think you need to spell out which state Mechanicsburg is in. Won't hold up promotion though... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 14:12, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

• Closing note: This candidate has been promoted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Ian Rose (talk) 14:13, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.