Talk:Austro-Italian ironclad arms race/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Sturmvogel 66 (talk · contribs) 03:28, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

• I'll get to this shortly.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 03:28, 12 August 2018 (UTC)
• No DABs, external links OK
• File:Battleship Emanuele Filiberto.png needs a US copyright tag

• Done.

• Garibaldi, known for his extremely loyal followers, Why is this important?

• Removed.

• These numbers were bolstered by the desertion of most of the Neapolitan Navy in July 1860 to Garibaldi's cause. Following Garibaldi's conquest of Naples in September, the Neapolitan Navy was handed over The "remainder" of the Neapolitan Navy was handed over

• Done.

• Carlo immediately assimilated these ships into the Sardinian Navy in a similar fashion to the navies of past Italian states I don't see a need for this sentence as Carlo (why are you using his first name?) wouldn't do anything else with the ships and men.

• Changed to Persano (which makes it consistent with the rest of the article). Sentence exists to make it clear that the Italian Navy was formed in a very short time period through the assimilation of the various Italian navies into a single unified force.

• Then say something on the lines of "as he would do to all the other national navies" or some such the first time it happens. It's not something you want to repeat every single time it happens.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 00:47, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

• Done. If there are any more references that repeat the assimilation of the Italian navies, I will cut them out. If you find any more as well, please don't hesitate to let me know and I'll remove them.

• I tweaked this to shorten it. See if my phrasing works.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 01:06, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

• Austria's recent military defeats and financial difficulties You already told the reader about the defeats and their consequences, so delete "recent military defeats"

• Done.

• Down to Onset. More later. This is probably one of the longest articles on Wiki, you should consider shortening or splitting it.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 18:39, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

• I have considered that, but we're talking about a subject that spans 20 years that was centered around a very new piece of technology which changed navies across the world forever, and includes a major naval battle that was the first ever engagement between multiple armored warships in history. It's going to be long by nature of the subject and the scope involved. It's about the same length as Byzantine Navy however, which I feel is appropriate.--White Shadows ^{Let’s Talk} 23:00, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

• I'd probably have broken that article into Operational history, organization and ships/tactics to make it more digestible. This article really, though, doesn't lend itself to that sort of thematic breakdown. But I will be looking for what I think is excessive detail.

• That makes sense.

• in just a matter of month in less than a month

• Done

• Lawrence Sondhaus in his book The Habsburg Empire and the Sea: Austrian Naval Policy, 1797–1866 Drop the book title and call Sonhaus a naval historian

• Done

• Move the link for frigate to its first usage, and the same for other ship types like ship-of-the-line, paddle steamer, and corvette. Also link Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, Istria, on first use.

• Done

• ironclad warships of the Italian Peninsula in the peninsula

• Done

• Ludwig von Fautz for their expensive cost. rephrase the last bit.

• Done

• possessed mines that would be necessary to develop the iron needed for the vessels, and ironworks could also be found in the region, strategically close to the Austrian Southern Railway, which ran from Vienna to Trieste Too much detail just say that it had the iron ore and facilities necessary to make the wrought iron armor.

• Done

• Ferdinand Max went to work on constructing Austria's first class of ironclads in December 1860 by first ordering two large engines capable of powering the ships from Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino. Ferdie ordered the ships and their engines in December 1860 from Navale Adriatico shipyard and Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino respectively.

• Done

• Down to securing the armor contracts--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 00:47, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
• As a result, the Archduke was forced to look to other sources for the iron plating his new warships would require.[68] Ferdinand Max began looking into the various iron foundries which were spread out across the Loire Valley in France, but his overtures to French firms had to be kept secret due to a ban on armor exports issued by French Emperor Napoleon III, who wished to preserve French resources for France's own ironclad projects. These sentences need to be consolidated along the lines of "...the Archduke was forced to look to France for the iron plating that his new warships would require. His overtures..."

• Done

• were thus supplied therefore had to be supplied

• Done

• Link florin

• Austrian Florin is already linked earlier in the article. Wouldn't linking it again constitute WP:Overlink?

• Sorry, I'd missed that. And it would indeed!--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 01:47, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

• six-times the cost of previous warships constructed for Austria no hyphen and "previous Austrian warships"

• Done

• Down to Prelude to war. I've made numerous changes myself in the hope of speeding things up. See if they suit. More later.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 01:06, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

• I like your edits. I made one small change the first bit as well. Thanks!--White Shadows ^{Let’s Talk} 01:34, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

• Link Société Nouvelle des Forges et Chantiers de la Méditerranée, Cantiere della Foce, casemate ironclad and magazine
• Based on the design of USS Monitor, Affondatore was intended to have two turrets as opposed to one on the American ironclad. This ironclad, which would become Affondatore, was the most expensive warship the Regia Marina had ever ordered. Indeed, the costs to construct Affondatore were so high that Persano had to substitute the two British-built ironclads Menabrea had initially proposed and which he had supported, for this single warship. Awkward, rephrase for clarity
• The class was ultimately named the Erzherzog Ferdinand Max class, after Archduke Ferdinand Max himself. The class' lead ship, Erzherzog Ferdinand Max That's not how it works. The lead ship was named for Ferdie and the class was named for the lead ship.

• Fixed and rephrased

• Not sure if we really need exact dates of laying down, month or even early, mid- or late is probably good enough. This is supposed to be a summary, sort of.

• Does it really hurt to have the dates in there? I'm not sure it'll save on a ton of length to replace a full date with just the month or year. I know this article is at a very large size and we'd like to keep it from getting larger (and possibly trim it down more), but I'm not sure if we'd really gain much by cutting out full dates. If you insist, I can certainly do so however.

• The 1864 budget was very large, so what did they actually spend it on? Did they resume all the stuff that they'd been forced to curtail?

• I wouldn't say it was actually that large. It looks large in comparison because other years around it were so small. If this is something you'd like to see included in the article I can probably add in a sentence or two about the budget's purpose that year since no new funds were put aside for warship orders. I think Sondhaus states it was to speed up construction of existing ships, and to fund other tid-bits like shore installations but I'd have to check again.

• The whole Background section to the 7 weeks war needs to be trimmed as a lot of it isn't really relevant. Summarize all this, without the excess and irrelevant details.

• Agreed it needs to be trimmed...I'm always extremely bad at trimming my own writings however. Any suggestions you could possibly offer about what to keep and what to discard?

• This is something that you're going to have to learn if you want to be able to handle solo noms at FAC because they're generally not going to want to hold your hand. It might surprise you, but I want this finished as I suspect you do, so I'll go ahead and do it and you can see what I take out and how I rephrase things so they flow coherently.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 03:27, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

• The naval traditions of Venice also strongly clashed with those of Sardinia, Sicily, and Naples. Many Venetian officers and sailors viewed Sardinian, Sicilian, and Neapolitan sailors as inexperienced, leading to severe disputes between men from Venice and the rest of Italy. How is this possible since Venice wasn't yet part of Italy?

• Interesting story! So while Austria possessed Venice, many sailors in the Italian Navy at the time had Venetian heritage or hailed from Venice. They were considered some of the best sailors in the Navy, but the fact that their home wasn't yet part of Italy, and that they considered themselves so far above the other regions of the Italian peninsula in regard to naval affairs, made them detested by many sailors from places such as Sardinia, Sicily, and Naples. Sondhaus explains this a bit in his book...how the Italian navy was extremely fragmented by regional differences and cultures and attitudes, vs the largely cohesive Austrian Navy (despite its multi-ethnic makeup).

• Down to post-war effects--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 04:54, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
• Rework the 1867-1885 table with one column for each country so the reader can see which one outpaced the other.

• If you want me to do that, I'll have to also rework the earlier table to make them conform with one another. Are you sure this is a better format than what's currently up there? I based the table off of the South American dreadnought race. If you think it's better, I have no issues changing it...just wanted to check first.

• Looking over it again, I see what you were trying to do, but I'm not sure that it's really the best way to present the information. Leave them for now, so you can get input during the ACR.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 03:27, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

• I fail to see how Ferdie's fate is relevant and have cut that whole bit out.

• Good point

• Is Kaiser converted into an armored frigate or a casemate ironclad?

• Casemate ironclad. That's been corrected.

• Is there any reason to capitalize florin?--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 14:01, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

• The sources I've seen capitalizes Florin when referring to the Austro-Hungarian currency. I've just followed their lead.

• Almost forgot, let the pics be default sizes unless it's a diagram with small lettering. I took out a few of them in the post-war effects section--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 14:01, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

• I enlarged the pics just so there wouldn't be tons of text with little images. I was also worried that things like the file showing the unification of Italy at the start of the article would be too small to properly read.

• Thanks for the edits and continued review Sturm!--White Shadows ^{Let’s Talk} 02:05, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

• Hey @Sturmvogel 66:, is this still ongoing?--White Shadows ^{Let’s Talk} 20:49, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

• Yeah, down to Developments--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 03:27, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

• Cut the builders and their locations; and just characterize them as foreign, with country, or domestic.

• Done

• I suggest cutting the day and month of construction and just leaving the year.

• I'm worried that cutting these out would require rewriting larger parts of the article. Even if the month/day were cut out, it wouldn't really save a whole lot of space in the article...is it truly a bad thing to include this sort of information?

• Sorry, I'd missed this comment earlier. True, but remember that the primary focus of the article is the political background to the acquisition of the ships, not the ships themselves. Similarly, it took me years to realize that I was cramming too much detail into my individual ship articles that really belonged in the class article; like gun caliber lengths and the number of propeller blades. And I think that you're doing sort of the same thing here by including lots of detail that isn't really relevant to the primary focus of the article. Like how Tegetthof got sick, for one example. And I think that the exact ship construction dates is all part and parcel of that. After all, what does the article gain by using them rather than just the year? Is the reader going to gain anything by learning that the ship was commissioned on 17 October 1871 rather than just 1871? And remember WP:SUMMARY.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 15:04, 31 October 2018 (UTC)
• Strum, I'm truly sorry for the delay here, October was one of the busiest months of my life. I've taken your suggestions and cut down the precise dates for the ships, but left the months in place where I felt they were necessary. If you'd like further changes here please don't hesitate to ask and I'll make them as soon as I can. Thanks!--White Shadows ^{Let’s Talk} 02:07, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

• Take care of these and we'll be done here.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 19:47, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

• Replies above. Thank you so much for doing this review Strum. I know it took you a lot of work and time to go through this. I really appreciate it!--White Shadows ^{Let’s Talk} 23:52, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

• I honestly don't see any significant difference between 17 May 1871 and May 1871, but you'll have to learn to dial out the level of detail on your own like I did. Passing.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 02:10, 5 November 2018 (UTC)