Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/HMS Indefatigable (R10)/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 GrahamColm 09:44, 27 July 2014 [1].

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HMS Indefatigable (R10)

Nominator(s): Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 00:31, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

The aircraft carrier Indefatigable was one of the last pair of six armoured carriers built by the Royal Navy during World War II. These two ships had their design modified by the Royal Navy to carry more aircraft at the expense of reduced armour. She was not completed until 1944 and her aircraft attacked the German battleship Tirpitz several times before she was transferred to the Pacific to support the American invasion of Okinawa and attack targets in the Japanese Home Islands in 1945. After the war she helped to repatriate troops and ex-PoWs home before she was placed in reserve. The ship was recommissioned in 1950 to serve as a training carrier for the Home Fleet until she was again reduced to reserve in the mid-1950s and sold for scrap. The article passed a thorough MilHist A-class review last month and should be in pretty good shape. I believe that everything is in BritEng and trust that reviewers will spot any remaining examples of AmEng as well as any infelicitous prose so that I can fix them.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 00:31, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

I copyedited the article per my copyediting disclaimer. These are my edits. - Dank (push to talk) 13:19, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

Comment: Several of the references' pages overlap or could be combined. See for instance refs 19 & 21, 37 & 41, 47 & 48 & 49 among others. Perhaps it would also be best to merge footnotes such as 44 to something like Hobbs 2011, pp. 261-67 as the page range is still relatively small. There is also some inconsistency in the years in the footnotes: you have the style Sturtivant (1984), yet you also have the style Hobbs 2013. More consistency here is needed generally. But on the positive side the article seems to be well written and comprehensive at first glance, but unfortunately I don't have time for a full length review. JZCL 17:56, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

• Thanks for noting the problem with inconsistent usage of the parentheses. I can't combine the cites as you'd like as they're either in separate paragraphs or have information from a different source separating them. If you get more time, feel free to come back and look it over more thoroughly.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 15:00, 6 June 2014 (UTC)
  • I'm not quite sure what you mean - as an example I have combined refs 47 and 48 because they literally overlapped. It's perfectly acceptable to have the same reference in separate paragraphs, so I don't quite understand what you're saying. JZCL 13:32, 7 June 2014 (UTC)
    • And I've undone it because the first paragraph didn't contain any material from McCart after p. 157. I see no virtue in excessively consolidating cites. That's certainly not how it's done in academia.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 15:22, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Image review

• File:HMS_Indefatigable_(R10).jpg: source link returned error
  • Fixed.
• File:Indefatigable-_Turnbull_lib_1_4-020662-F.jpg: what was creator's date of death? Nikkimaria (talk) 13:08, 7 June 2014 (UTC)
  • The file says 1955. Thanks for looking these over.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 15:28, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Support--Wehwalt (talk) 05:36, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Comments looks like another fine effort.

Lede

• "joining the American forces" I would strike "the" as surplus

Body

• It is a bit ambiguous as to which class was part of the 1938 Programme. It may be worth mentioning that the 1938 Programme was part of the rearmament programme to meet the international situation under the Chamberlain government.
• I would reverse the order of the two clauses in this sentence, "To remain ..."
• "By the end of the war" I would add "in September 1945" (or whatever date you prefer)
• "based on the radars fitted aboard the Illustrious-class carrier Victorious late in the war." this is ambiguous. Do you mean the radars were based on those you mention, or do you mean the fact that Victorious was fitted with these means that this ship was also likely fitted with the same radars?
• "were either 1.5 inches (38 mm) or 2 inches (51 mm)." another ambiguity. Do you mean it was one or the other, or that it ranged between the two of them, depending on where on the vessel?
• "King George VI inspected the ship, and the ground crews embarked for 820, 887, 894 and 1770 Squadrons" ambiguous. Does it mean the King inspected the ground crews, or that the ground crews embarked, or some combination?
• "The Seafires claimed to have shot down four of the Zeros but probably shot down four," I don't quite see the discrepancy.
• "She departed three days later for Manus en route to Sydney. The ship arrived there" Manus or Sydney?
• "22 August to prepare for sea. The ship arrived at Devonport to begin the necessary modifications on 30 July" I think this is out of chronological order, so a "had arrived" may be more appropriate as a verb.
• "The Admiralty announced on 26 January 1954 that Indefatigable and her sister" the last four words could probably be summarised as "both ships"
• "This had no short-term impact on her activities" you are describing the actions of both ships, it's a bit odd to mention only the one for this one sentences. If the sister ship also kept going in the short term, suggest "This had no immediate effect on their activities"Wehwalt (talk) 00:20, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

• I think that I've addressed all of these. See if they clarify the issues that you raised. Many thanks for your thorough review.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 22:06, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Comments

• The specifics of the Implacable-class ships' radar suite are not fully known. I would add a specific citation for this fact if you think its important; considering the specifics in the article you probably could delete it.

• The specifics are probably in the archives somewhere, but they're not available in any published source that I have available. I have detailed data only for a few of the systems that they mounted and I don't want readers to think that the others that I name there are confirmed.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 05:45, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

• The pennant number is cited as 10 vs. R10 in the article name. I would think the latter would be preferred since that's how some other British carriers are named - either way, it should be consistent, right now R10 isn't cited. Kirk (talk) 22:16, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

• No source that I have gives postwar pennant numbers so I can't cite it. I do cite its wartime pennant number which was simply "10". I'd prefer to delete the pennant number entirely from the article name and use launch year as most ship articles, but I gather that there was some sort of movement to use pennant numbers, no matter how confusing, instead of launch years for British ships that had them some years back and I'd need to establish a new consensus to do so, which isn't imminent. Thanks for your comments.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 05:45, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

• Gotcha, but it reads like one of the citations says it, I meant to cite that fact specifically. I guess your opinion is ok, maybe someone else has a suggestion. The use of pennant number in the article title is unusual and was personally confusing - it took me a while to figure out what 'R' was. I agree replacing pennant with year is more of a project question than a FA one. Kirk (talk) 22:14, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Support Comments -- Recusing myself from coordinator duties here to comment, as I have a FAC open myself right now. I reviewed, copyedited and supported at MilHist ACR and have gone over the changes since I last looked at the article. Tweaked a couple of things this time round and have the following queries:

• "Based on the radars fitted aboard the Illustrious-class carrier Victorious late in the war, the ships probably carried Type 279 and Type 281B early-warning radars." -- Sturm, is this your own observation based on lack of cited specifics about this class and knowledge of specifics of other classes, or has one or more of your sources explicitly stated that they don't know but suspect this was the case?
  • Nobody actually discusses the full radar suite of this ship; only a few systems are specifically mentioned in various sources. The comparison with Victorious is my own since she's about the only one of the six armoured carriers for whom I can find a full listing as for the time when Indefatigable was completed. Hence the "probably". This may be borderline OR, but I don't want readers to think that the listed systems were the only ones she had.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 20:15, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
    • Not easy, is it? I guess even saying the radar systems are not fully known (or "available") could be considered borderline OR, since in WP terms, how can you be certain all the data isn't available unless an RS says it isn't...? ;-) Well, I can wear that, but I wonder if we might be able to drop the "probably" and recast the Victorious comparison... Something like "Victorious, one of the Illustrious-class ships upon which Indefatigable's design was based, also carried carried Type 279 and Type 281B early-warning radars"? Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 00:00, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
      • That will do, although the information is probably available in the National Archives, but not published anywhere.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 00:18, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
• "Sources disagree about the thickness of this armour. Historians David K. Brown, H. T. Lenton, and Norman Friedman believe that it was probably only 1.5 inches thick, but many other sources give 2 inches." You cite three sources for the first contention and three for the second, so I'm not sure if the second constitutes "many other sources" or simply "other sources"...

Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 13:36, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

• I dropped the many, although I could probably find more sources that say they had 2 inches rather than 1.5, but I don't really think that it's worth the effort to do so. Thanks for looking this over.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 20:15, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Okay, tks. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 00:00, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
    • FTR, as well as looking at prose, detail, structure and image licensing at MilHist ACR, I gave the citations/sources a scan for formatting/reliability and I don't think there's been significant change there so happy to offer support for FA -- that said, a thorough source review by Brian or Nikki may reveal things I missed. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 11:53, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

Source review - spotchecks not done

• Brown cites are sometimes disambiguated by date and sometimes by name - suggest using date consistently
• Fn47: which Hobbs?
• Brown 2006 needs endash in title
• Be consistent in how editions are notated. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:19, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
  • All done, thanks for looking this over so promptly.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 01:59, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Comment File:Indefatigable- Turnbull lib 1 4-020662-F.jpg is the only high-resolution photograph of the ship in the article, but it's also one of the last ones in it. Perhaps it and the current lead image should be swapped? Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 02:02, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

If at all possible, I try and use an aerial photo in the infobox as it's generally the best way to present the "look" of the ship to a general reader. The rest of the photos I try to order chronologically. I generally don't pay much attention to image size, but focus more on interesting views that show the ship at various dates. Thanks for allowing me to explain my reasoning.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 03:04, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

Good answer, thanks! Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 00:30, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

Comments from Singora

The article refers to the vessel as "she" 48 times. A search for "her" (with a leading space) brings up 36 hits.

Step by step.

1. The vessel was named HMS Indefatigable and part of the Royal Navy. Should it be obvious that you're referring to the British Royal Navy?

Common usage in English is that the (British) Royal Navy is the only one that isn't preceded by an adjective. All others have some variation of His Norwegian/Swedish (etc.) Majesty's Ship. That's actually made it into NATO regulations even though their own prefix for their ship doesn't specify nationality.

2. Lede; paragrpah 2. RE: "Indefatigable ... ferried troops .. before she was reduced to reserve". Why not try "before being reduced to reserve"? What do you think? I mean, military historians probably won't care at all about the "she / her" repetition, but are such people your core audience? I think the average reader may prefer a bit of variety in terms of prose.

I try to use her name, the ship, and she/her in rotation to mix things up a bit. I'm leaning more towards she/her nowadays after some criticism I received on an earlier article. At this point I don't really think that I can satisfy everyone about the "proper" proportions and just try avoid monotony by my definitions. In the example that you queried above, I wouldn't phrase it like you suggested because you're weakening the statement by rewording it in passive voice. I think it's a good rule to avoid nominalizations and the resulting passive voice as much as possible and stick to direct verbs as much as possible.

3. Design and Description. RE: "The Implacable class were ordered ...". Is "class" singular or plural?

That's a difference between Brit and AmEnglish. The Brits would say that it should be "were" because it's a collective noun and the Americans would say that the Brits were high and that it's singular. Being an article about a British ship, they win.

4. RE: "The design originated ... and was intended to be 2 knots .. and to carry". Your second use of "to" is redundant.

OK.

5. RE: "The turbines were designed to produce a total of 148,000 shp (110,000 kW), enough to give them a maximum speed of 32.5 knots". Shouldn't this be "enough to provide a maximum speed" or "enough to give Indefatigable a maximum speed"?

Good catch on the uncertain antecedent.

6. RE: "Both hangars had a height of only 14 feet". Why "only". If 14 feet was unusually low, why not say so (and provide comparisons). Would "Each hangar" sound better than "Both hangars"?

Each is probably better because I'd been using both quite a bit in the previous sentences. The hangar height issue explained by the fact that they couldn't stow American fighters the lack of height.

7. RE: "The specifics of the Implacable-class ships' radar suite are not readily available". This doesn't appear to be sourced.

The multiple sources given at the end of the para cover the entire para.

8. Construction and Career. RE: "The ship was commissioned on 8 December 1943". In the lede, you say she was commissioned in 1944.

Good catch.

9. Indian Ocean and Pacific operations. RE: "The ship underwent a brief refit at her builder's yard between 28 September and 8 November". Could you not change "at her builder's yard" to "at Clydebank"? If nothing else, you get to lose another instance of "her".

There were more than one shipbuilder in Clydebank.

10. RE: "The BPF arrived in Sydney on 10 February; the crews received some leave and the ships got some maintenance before they sailed for the BPF's advance base at Manus Island". Your (repeated) use of the word "some" is vague.

Deleted the use first use of "some".

11. RE: "The first airstrike was tasked to attack .. but was forced to divert to their secondary target". The words "was" and "their" don't tally. One is singular, the other is plural.

Tripped up by that pesky difference in referring to collective nouns.

12. Post-war service. RE: "Indefatigable was sold for scrap in September 1956". What was her scrap value?

Not given in any source available to me. Thanks for looking this over so thoroughly.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 01:53, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

Overall, it's an interesting article. It's very detailed, too. Why don't you provide links to your sources on Google Books?

Singora (talk) 15:22, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Support from Singora

All my issues / questions have now been addressed. Good luck!

Singora (talk) 03:22, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

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