Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/List of protected cruisers of Germany

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Article promoted Hawkeye7 (talk) 05:44, 23 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

List of protected cruisers of Germany

Nominator(s): Parsecboy (talk)


Another one of my warship lists, this summarizes all of the protected cruisers built by the German Navy, before the type was superseded by the armored cruiser at the turn of the 20th century. Most of these ships served extensively overseas, and some were involved in major incidents, including the seizure of Tsingtao and punitive attacks on Venezuela. None saw much service during World War I, and all were soon dismantled after the end of the war. This list completes this topic, which hopefully will one day form one component of a massive "Cruisers of Germany" topic that includes all types of cruisers. Thanks in advance to all who take the time to review the list. Parsecboy (talk) 11:12, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support, with two minor comments:

  • "The protected cruiser designs generally followed developments in foreign navies" - could be unclear if this means that the designs resembled developments in foreign navies, or that they came after them in terms of timing, or both.
    • Changed to "copied" - should be clear now.
  • "Most of the German protected cruisers served on overseas stations..." - this read oddly to me; I'd have expected "at overseas stations" or "from overseas stations" for ships, but I might well be wrong (being a land-environment man myself...!) Hchc2009 (talk) 19:09, 8 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments This is a very solid article - great work. My comments are mainly queries about whether extra material can be added:

  • "The protected cruiser designs generally followed developments in foreign navies, and the Victoria Louise design resembled contemporary German battleships, which favored smaller-caliber main guns and a greater number of secondary guns" - I think that there's too much going on in this sentence, and it's tricky to follow. What the number of guns are "smaller" and "greater" than is unclear (foreign designs I presume)
    • See how it reads now.
  • Is it possible to include a summary of why the Germans built these ships? Were they specifically intended to serve on distant stations?
    • Yes, they were designed primarily for overseas service.
  • What were the Irene class used for for the 14 years they were in service in European waters?
    • Apart from refits after returning from China, I haven't been able to find anything on their service in Germany. Presumably training with the fleet, but that's just a guess. This is a major problem I've been running into - there's decent literature on the Imperial Navy in the 1870s through 1890s, and then again in the years leading up to World War I, but the period between the 1890s and about 1910 is pretty sparse. Unless something notable happened (like participation in a diplomatic incident or a major collision), the service records weren't recorded.
  • Given her brief career (most of which was spent under refit), was Kaiserin Augusta considered a bad design? Can you also add material on why only one ship of this design was constructed?
    • I haven't seen anything explicit, but it seems to have been an unsatisfactory design (serious stability issues and such), and budgets were tight in the pre-Tirpitz era. I've added a bit on this.
  • "Problems with the Niclausse boilers installed on Vineta prompted the Navy to standardize boiler types in future warships." - this is a bit unclear. I presume that the Navy standarised on a different boiler type to avoid this problem? Nick-D (talk) 11:29, 11 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support My comments are now addressed: nice work with this article. Nick-D (talk) 10:48, 14 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments Support Just some thoughts.

  • I'm disappointed there isn't any detail about any lessons learned from the cruisers of the first two classes and if their design strengths and weaknesses affected the final class, which was built five years later. Where, if anywhere, did the Germans base their designs for the ships?
  • At the same time, there could also be a little more information about why so few ships of this class were built by Germany. It would be easy to sub in some info from Victoria Louise class cruiser about the stability and maneuvering problems, to explain for the layman why this class of ship was built only briefly.
  • Sondhaus reference isn't used in the footnotes. —Ed!(talk) 22:26, 13 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Unfortunately, these ships are fairly obscure, and not much has been written about them. There are a couple of reasons for why Germany only built these eight protected cruisers, the first being tight budgets, and the second being the rise of the armored cruiser by the turn of the century. The rise of Tirpitz in 1897 probably played a role as well. As I said to Nick above, however, these are my impressions from the evidence - no one has come out and said specifically why they stopped building protected cruisers. Parsecboy (talk) 14:51, 14 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • I understand. In that case, changing my vote to Support. —Ed!(talk) 18:19, 18 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support just one comment: the abbreviation SMS should be explained in a footnote and one question: "pre-Tirpitz era" I wonder if everyone understands what you mean by this. MisterBee1966 (talk) 13:01, 15 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support Comments

  • Eliminate duplicate conversions.
  • Link engine types and standardize use of the hyphen for triple-expansion engines.
  • Images are all OK. Nicely done.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 17:17, 17 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Both should be fixed - let me know if there's something I missed. Thanks for the review. Parsecboy (talk) 23:26, 17 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • Link engine types for the ordinary steam engine and the triple expansion engines. And shouldn't it be "gold mark" (plural)?--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 22:23, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • Yeah, should be plural - must have been a copy-paste error. Links added too. Parsecboy (talk) 23:17, 22 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
          • Narrowed reciprocating engine to marine steam engine to be a bit more specific. --Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 00:57, 23 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support on prose per standard disclaimer. As always, feel free to revert my copyediting. - Dank (push to talk)

Thanks Dan, all looks good to me. Parsecboy (talk) 20:36, 22 June 2012 (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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