Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/SMS Schleswig-Holstein

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Article promoted Anotherclown (talk) 00:43, 9 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

SMS Schleswig-Holstein

Nominator(s): Parsecboy (talk)


Yet another German battleship, this is the first pre-dreadnought to grace the hallowed ACR pages in quite some time. Part of this project which is rapidly very slowly approaching the 50% necessary for an FT, this article will probably go to FAC at some point, so please nit pick away. In addition, this article is a few years old, and some dust has probably gathered - thanks to all who help ensure this article meets the project's criteria for A-class. Parsecboy (talk) 14:25, 23 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Images: On the talk page of File:Bundesarchiv Bild 101II-MN-1571-23, Linienschiff "Schleswig-Holstein".jpg someone claims the ship pictured is in fact "SMS Schlesien". The Bundesarchiv does get things wrong. Could you confirm? I smell something fishy on File:Westerplatte makieta.jpg. That to me looks like a board in a museum photographed but not created by the uploader.I have serious concerns looking at the uploader's other contributions (e.g. File:Witraz sw krzyz rumia.jpg - which I very much doubt the user created). Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 17:59, 23 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It took some digging, particularly because the bow crest (which would be a dead giveaway) is cut off, but it is in fact Schlesien. Compare the portholes on the photo to this one of S-H and the modernized photos here of Schlesien. I'll report it at the BArch error page and get it corrected in their database. You're right on the second image too - I guess I didn't look too closely at it a few years ago. Thanks for catching these! Parsecboy (talk) 21:03, 23 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments by MisterBee1966 based on HRS volume 7 pages 130 to 138
    • I found two of her commanders for which we have articles, Friedrich Bödicker and Gustav Kieseritzky. Maybe integrate them into the article. p130
      • Do you know when they commanded the ship?
        • yes Friedrich Bödicker (September 1910 – September 1913) and Gustav Kieseritzky (June 1938 – April 1939), page 130 MisterBee1966 (talk) 16:41, 16 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
          • Thanks, added now.
    • Christened by Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein, speech Ernst Gunther, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein, the Kaiser was also around p131
      • Added.
    • Won Kaiser-Schießpreis in 1913 under artillery officer Kaptl. Gottfried Hansen p131
      • Added.
    • "Inter-war years": I think a reference to article 181 of the Treaty of Versailles should be made
      • Added.
    • "Inter-war years": Is this the best name? Politically the period was the Weimar Republic. The ship went on many representative missions. Can they be mentioned?
(Specifically on the one point) wouldn't that be a bit confusing since the Weimar Republic ended in 1933? "Inter-war years" might be boring, but at least it means we don't break it up based on anything arbitrary (like "up to 1930" for example). Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 15:35, 25 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I can get you the specifics on the missions she went. Give me a few days please if you want to include this. Regarding my other point, just as an example from the article as it stands now, the infobox has "Career (German Empire)" followed by three flags. In her career she served under three different types of government in Germany. From my point of view the article needs to make these distinctions more evident. MisterBee1966 (talk) 07:07, 26 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Atlantic and Spanish cruise 14 May to 17 June 1926, visit in Palma de Mallorca 22 to 30 May along with Hannover, in Barcelona with Elsaß 1 to 7 June. In Vigo from 12 to 14 June with Hessen, Elsaß and Hannover. The chief of fleet VAdm. Mommsen visited the Spanish King Alfonso XIII on this trip. page 132
Educational cruise from 30 March to 14 June 1927. Schleswig-Holstein visited El Ferrol, Porto da Praia, Santa Cruz de Teneriffa, La Luz, Funchal, Horta, Angra and Ponta Delgada. In Lisbon Mommsen is welcomed by the Portuguese president, Óscar Carmona. page 133
Added the training cruises - thanks for this info. Parsecboy (talk) 14:56, 13 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • ordered under the contract name "Q", page 131
  • at first Königsberg was intended to visit Danzig, but the plans were chaged because of Wall Weiß. page 136
  • the 225 men of II. Marine-Artillerie-Abteilung were transferred to Schledwig-Holstein on 24 August from the mine sweeps M8, M5, M3, M4, M7 and M1. The transfer was made at sea. page 136

This is a comprehensive and interesting article on this important warship - great work. I have the following comments:

  • The third and forth sentences of the first para and the first sentence of the next para start with 'the ship'
    • Reworked.
  • "The ship's bell is on display in the Bundeswehr Military History Museum in Dresden." - is this still the case? The reference dates to 1990 (before German unification, when it actually would have been the East German military history museum rather than the Bundeswehr museum) and the museum was completely renovated recently. I can't remember seeing this item when I visited shortly after it reopened in 2011, and it's not in the museum guidebook (though this is entirely written in German, which I can't read), so a more recent (post 15 October 2011) source is needed.
    • I didn't see it either MisterBee1966 (talk) 10:19, 1 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • I haven't been able to find anything on it, but the MHMBW doesn't have an online listing of what's there (even searching their site for the Brandtaucher gets 0 hits. I'd rather not remove or change it, since all we're going on is the fact that neither of you saw it there. The ship was in Soviet possession, so it's not unreasonable that it ended up in the East German museum before unification. Parsecboy (talk) 15:15, 13 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
        • I reckon that two recent eye-witnesses trump a 23 year old reference from the pre-unification era for a statement that the bell is currently on display ;) It's my understanding that the renovations to the museum involved gutting and rebuilding the entire building and reworking the displays from scratch - every aspect of the displays were obviously brand new when I visited the day after it reopened. Nick-D (talk) 10:37, 15 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
          • But aren't those eye-witnesses original researchers? :P Would you prefer something along the lines of "The bell is currently in the holdings of the Bundeswehr..." ? Parsecboy (talk) 13:51, 15 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
            • If you have a reference for that, yep. Otherwise it will need to be something like 'as of 1990 the bell was on display...'. Germany features lots of quite new or recently remodeled museums, and this item could very well have been transferred to another museum. Nick-D (talk) 00:08, 16 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • The dates in the second and third sentences of the first para of the 'Construction' section don't match up.
    • I think I was thinking that Dreadnought was commissioned two years before S-H. Fixed now. Parsecboy (talk) 15:15, 13 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • "In addition to being the fastest ship of her class, Schleswig-Holstein was the second most fuel efficient." - what were the extent of these differences?
    • Can anything be added on this? Nick-D (talk) 09:45, 18 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The training regimen in which Schleswig-Holstein participated followed a similar pattern over the next five years. This included another cruise into the Atlantic, which was conducted from 7 July to 1 August 1909. Fleet maneuvers were conducted in the spring, followed by a summer cruise to Norway, and additional fleet training in the fall." - should the Atlantic cruise sentence be moved to after the Spring maneuvers if this was an annual pattern of training deployments?
    • Sure.
  • Schleswig-Holstein appears in the first three sentences of the first para of the 'World War I' section
    • Fixed.
  • "They constituted part of the battleship support for the battlecruisers that bombarded Scarborough, Hartlepool, and Whitby " - what did this involve? (eg, did the BBs stand off the English coast while the BCs conducted the bombardment?)
    • Yeah, that's basically it - they stood in support in case the Grand Fleet showed up. See how its worded now.
  • The positions of the various ships in the para which begins with 'Admiral Scheer decided to reverse the course of the fleet with the Gefechtskehrtwendung...' is a bit unclear, especually following the 180 degree turn. Why did this place the slow battleships out of position? If they were at the tail of the formation at the start of the turn, wouldn't this have placed them at the head of the new formation and thus in a reasonable position to maneuver?
    • They already were out of position, since they were lagging behind - so when the fleet (basically the I and III Sqdns and Hipper's BCs) reversed course, the II Sqdn was on the disengaged side of the fleet, but still ahead of the line, as you note. The question was where should Mauve position himself, whether he should allow the fleet to pass him and fall in behind, or try to place himself at the front of the line, which is what he chose to do.
  • "the gunners aboard Schleswig-Holstein could not make out a target; as a result, Schleswig-Holstein" - repetition of the ship's name
    • Fixed.
  • "The explosion tore apart 4.5 m (15 ft) of the superstructure deck and disabled one of the port side casemate guns" - did it inflict any casualties on the crew?
    • Tarrant doesn't specifically say, but it seems reasonable to assume the ship's casualties were caused by the one hit she received during the battle. Parsecboy (talk) 23:49, 14 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • "During the attack, Schleswig-Holstein was forced to turn away by torpedoes." - what did she turn away from?
    • Reworded.
  • "Shortly after 05:00, Hannover and several other ships fired repeatedly at imaginary submarines" - I don't think that 'imaginary' is the right word here (unless the crew were delusional by this stage of the battle!)
    • They thought they saw a submarine periscope (a frequent occurrence in both fleets during the battle). Do you have a better word to use?
      • Something softer like 'mistaken sightings of submarines' perhaps. 'Imaginary' makes it sound like the crew were incompetent, when its famously difficult for surface ships to spot submerged submarines (even as late as 1982 the Royal Navy's surface fleet, which was mainly focused on the mission of fighting Soviet submarines, dropped a large number of torpedoes and depth charges on what turned out to be whales during the Falklands War). Nick-D (talk) 09:45, 18 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Can you explain why the ship was taken off the front line after Jutland? (presumably because it revealed that these ships were liabilities, or at least a bad investment of resources)
    • Added a clarification, good idea.
  • "and an enlarged aft superstructure for the admiral's staff." - which admiral? (and was she the flagship, or did all the BBs receive this accommodation in case they served in the role)
    • No specific admiral, and yes, she was recommissioned in 1926 as the fleet flagship (which the article already says :P
  • "In May 1935, the Reichsmarine was reorganized as the Kriegsmarine after Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party came to power." - the Nazis came to power in late 1933, so this is a bit simplistic
    • Reworked a bit.
  • The sentence which begins with 'Schleswig-Holstein ceased to be fleet flagship ' is a bit over-complex - I'd suggest splitting it into a couple of sentences
    • See how it reads now.
  • "Schlesien" and "Schleswig-Holstein" - these should be in italics
    • Fixed.
  • "A force of German marines" - did Germany have 'marines' or 'naval infantry'? (I think it's the latter, though I could well be mistaken)
  • If Schleswig-Holstein was primarily a training ship in 1939, why was she used to spearhead the assault on Danzig? Was she selected for this role as she was the only large warship available? (and somewhat expendable if things went wrong)
    • Presumably because her being in Danzig on a routine training cruise wouldn't arouse too much suspicion. That and Graf Spee and Deutschland were already in the Atlantic, prepared to attack Allied shipping, though Admiral Scheer was available.
      • OK. This should be covered off by the time it goes to FAC though as some source should explain this. Nick-D (talk) 09:45, 18 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • There's a bit too much repetition of the ship's name in the para which begins with 'The German military then turned its attention westward'
    • Should be better now.
  • "hit three times by RAF bombers" - RAF should be spelt out fully given that this is the first and only time it appears in the article Nick-D (talk) 09:46, 1 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • Done. Thanks for reviewing the article, Nick. Parsecboy (talk) 23:49, 14 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Support All my comments have now been addressed, so I'm pleased to support the promotion of this article. Nick-D (talk) 09:56, 5 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

  • Infobox
    • Fate: Based on wording for other FA BB articles I think you should put something simple like Scuttled on March 9, 1945 (and research/cite the date) then add a Note for the salvage/target/re-sinking phrasing and leave out the 'still extant' sentence.
      • Found the date of the scuttling, but I think the fact that the ship is still there (in pieces, of course) is a relevant detail.
        • In my head the fate line is supposed to be a date with a description, and this ship seems kind of unique since it was 'sunk' 3 times, scrapped once and yet still exists, that's why I thought you could pick a sinking/date and put the detail in a note. Maybe another editor has a suggestion on the way to FA?
          • I did check the template instructions - "Use Ship fate when the ship sank or was scrapped" and "Only list the event and the date it occurred". Kirk (talk) 19:22, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • Armament - I think this needs conversion to (11") somewhere. I think you can delete (removed in 1940) in the 1926 section since it repeats in the 1939 section.
      • Done.
    • Armor - I didn't see a citation for the 100mm size.
      • Fixed.
    • Add Namesake citation (its in Staff). Also, if you can include which members of the German Royalty were involved in the christening in the prose that would be nice. Kirk (talk) 15:31, 7 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - Added final comment on the fate question - it certainly meets the A criteria. Kirk (talk) 20:57, 18 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments. As always, feel free to revert my copyediting. Please check the edit summaries. - Dank (push to talk)

  • "As of 1990": That's the most recent information? - Dank (push to talk) 03:16, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • I haven't been able to find anything more recent, unfortunately. Parsecboy (talk) 02:15, 5 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I had to fiddle with a lot of stuff, Nate, so please check the changes to make sure they're right. - Dank (push to talk) 22:42, 25 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support on prose per standard disclaimer. These are my edits. - Dank (push to talk) 23:33, 25 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

CommentsSupport. Mostly nitpicks.

  • suggest you mention in the lead that she was hit during the Battle of Jutland.
    • Added.
  • suggest you state where her original torpedo tubes were mounted (fore and aft, broadside or wherever).
    • Added.
  • suggest you re-word "As the last ship assigned to the IV Division of the II Battle Squadron, at the rear of the German line, Schleswig-Holstein was the rearmost battleship in the line.". The repetition of "line" is a bit jarring.
    • Fixed.
  • Reinhard Scheer and Grand Fleet are linked twice.
    • Fixed.
  • Did Mauve manage to get his ships at the head of the line? Suggest you clarify this to tie off that para.
    • Added a bit more on this.
  • It is not clear why they were known as "five-minute ships". Could you clarify this?
    • It's in the note here.
  • Do we know which British ship hit her?
    • No, it was quite dark and hazy by that point in the battle, and it's unclear which British ship was firing at which German ship.
  • (Pet nitpick) "At around" is precise yet imprecise. No reason why you couldn't just go with "Around" or "About"
    • Fine by me.
  • Could you re-word "imaginary submarines", perhaps with a clarification that there were no British submarines in the area (if true) but that the Germans believed the contacts were subs? Or something like that?
    • See how it's worded now.
  • CITEREFGardiner_.26_Gray is a formatting thing by the look...
    • Don't know how that happened...
  • she wasn't really used as a target by U-boats was she? For dummy runs or practice? Needs clarification.
    • Presumably with dummy torpedoes, but Staff doesn't clarify.
  • throughout you might like to format your date ranges consistently. Some are in the format "22 to 30 May" and some "22–30 May". I personally prefer two day events to be in the format "22 and 23 May", but who cares what I think...
  • suggest you link "Atlantic", and add that Palma is in the Med.
    • Done, good idea.
  • " with the her forefunnel" typo needs fixing.
    • Fixed.
  • suggest "by the reforms that created the Wehrmacht instituted by Adolf Hitler" be "by the reforms instituted by Adolf Hitler that created the Wehrmacht"
    • Fixed.
  • suggest "and torpedo tubes" be "and her torpedo tubes" as it might be thought that she had upper deck torpedo tubes.
    • Good call.
  • suggest "the remaining crew scuttled the wreck," has an errant comma at the end. No reason not to move the citation to the end of the sentence and delete the extra comma.
    • Fixed.
  • suggest "resided" in the final sentence be replaced with "was held in the collection of" or similar.
    • Good suggestion, added. Thanks for reviewing the article, Peacemaker. Parsecboy (talk) 02:15, 5 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • No worries, it really is a pleasure to review ship articles you've worked on. Moving to support. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 02:38, 5 March 2013 (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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