Talk:Central battery ship

tons

I wonder what kind of tons Sondhaus is using, because Conway's gives Lissa at 7086 tons displacement. Have mörser, will travel (talk) 10:24, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Data from Conway's on Austrian center battery ships:

• Lissa: 7086 tons
• Custoza: 7609t (they also say the name was a spelling error of Custozza)
• E. Albrecht: 5980t
• Kaiser: 5720t
• Kaiser Max–class: 3548t with 3 built:
  • Kaiser Max
  • Don Juan D'Austria
  • Prinz Eugen
• Tegetthoff: 7431t

After that the Austrians switched to barbette designs by Josef Kuchinka (not the football player, of course). Have mörser, will travel (talk) 10:29, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

"Central" vs. "centre"

I think the "central battery ship" is simply the American spelling of the UK term. In Conway's, chapters on navies other than GB use "central battery", but the one for GB uses "centre battery". Also see [1] (The Oxford illustrated history of the Royal Navy, p. 212, which uses centre). Have mörser, will travel (talk) 13:56, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Actually, I'm wrong about the particulars in Conway's; the GB chapter uses "central" as well. It's the one on Austria that use "centre". I think it's simply a matter of author's preference. The GB chapter in Conway's is written by a John Roberts (possibly John Roberts (historian), although he wrote no naval history books, so it might be someone else); the Austria one by Erwin Sieche, author of ISBN 3813207668. J. Richard Hill uses "centre" in Oxf. book and also in his War at Sea in the Ironclad Age. I suppose we should go with both given this. For the continental Europeans, I'll try to find more of the original names. The Austrians called them Casemattschiff, but it's not clear to if this word alone distinguished the design from the previous, plain broadside ones, so Sondhaus may be stretching it. Have mörser, will travel (talk) 14:32, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Apparently in Austrian jargon the word Casemattschiff did come to refer just this design, at least in some later writings, e.g. a document from 1899 says "Die Panzerfregatte „Habsburg" und die Casemattschiffe „Kaiser Max" und „Don Juan d'Austria" sollten an der albanesischen Küste kreuzen." Panzerfregatte Habsburg is SMS Habsburg (1865), not the battleship launched in 1900. The Austrian Statistisches Jahrbuch of 1875 also has separate classes for Panzer-Fregatten and Casemattschiffe. Have mörser, will travel (talk) 15:07, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Prior content

I see that the bulk of the article and main reference were added by different editors [2]. Given this, I assume the contents I found here before my first edit, although generally correct, does not follow the source closely, so I'm taking the liberty to change it here and there. Particularly the part about turret ships is rather more complex than the straight progression implied here. I don't have Warrior to Dreadnaught on hand, but the British part story is easy to source from other sources as well. Have mörser, will travel (talk) 17:10, 21 September 2011 (UTC)