User talk:Simon Harley/2006-2009

User:Simon Harley/Navigation

Image:HMS Commonwealth HS.jpg listed for deletion

An image or media file that you uploaded, Image:HMS Commonwealth HS.jpg, has been listed at Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion. Please look there to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. Circeus 00:50, 1 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Re: Pennant numbers

Actually, I suspect that nobody has thought about the issue, and people have just been following whatever the first person to edit a RN article used. If our usage is non-standard, I see no reason to insist on it; but I would suggest starting a discussion at either the Maritime warfare task force or the Ships WikiProject (or even both!), as someone with more experience editing in those areas might see some subtleties that I'm missing. Kirill Lokshin 22:47, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

WP:SHIPS :-) Kirill Lokshin 00:23, 24 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Re: Picture trouble

Actually, the image use policy states that we're unable to accept images which are released for use only on Wikipedia (as it prevents our content from being redistributable). You basically have three options:

• Try to get the guy to release the image under the GFDL or a comparable license.
• Find out the date of the photo and see if it's public domain. I'm not sure what the British laws in this regard are.
• Claim the photo as {{Non-free fair use in}} the appropriate article.

Hope that helps! Kirill Lokshin 00:29, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Harlsbottom/HMS Bellerophon

As categories are not meant to be used in articles on user sub pages (to avoid crossing namespaces), I hope you don't mind that I have put a "nowiki" tag on them. Please note also that the photo is up for CSD (deletion) as it does not have an acceptable copyright permission. If it is deleted, it can always be uploaded again with the correct GFDL or PD permission. Tyrenius 05:53, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Re: WPMILHIST

Oh, I think you're perfectly well-qualified. Now, whether you'll be elected is something I can't really make any promises on, for obvious reasons; it'll really depend on how many candidates wind up in the election, and who they are. Kirill Lokshin 22:07, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Collaboration

Re: you proposal of collaboration on Lee-Enfield and Webley derivatives: Absolutely! I'm a published writer on historic firearms in Australia, and of course have my own library- well, selection ;)- of reference material. Always wanted to visit the Royal Pattern Room, but the last time I was in the UK it wasn't open so I had to content myself with the Tower of London and their Puckle Gun... If you're not too busy, I could use some help on the Lee-Enfield article as it currently stands. Some anyonymous individual is stirring up trouble on the talk page, trying to claim the Krag-Jorgensen is a faster rifle than the Lee-Enfield, calling the editors "Fanboys", and generally acting like a rather silly person. --Commander Zulu 00:58, 7 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Assistant Military Coordinator Positions

Harlsbottom Good Morning! As you may have noted, I voted for you for one of the assistant's positions, and you had kindly done the same for me. Assuming you are one of the six - a reasonable assumption, I beleive! - what period of naval history interests you the most? (Yout interest in the British navy is obvious, but I wondered what era interestd you the most?) Though I have worked primarily on land battle articles, I also have a keen interest in naval warfare, especially the naval aspect of the Punic Wars, and (naturally!) Admiral Lord Nelson and the whole era of British rule of the seas which followed France's destruction as a naval power. I had wondered if an article was possible on the various types of warships, particularly the sail powered warships, with some sort of box to compare firepower, et al. (Ship of the Line versus Frigates, etc.) I am interested in your thoughts on these issues. One thing you said when you entered the race for an assistant's slot, and I believe it true, even if it knocks me out of a slot - sheer number of edits should not be a definitive measure of an editor's contributions. (Though before I voted for you, I went and read some of your work, which was impressive!) I hope you win one of the slots because you bring a "fresh" perspective, in addition to a knowledgable one. Whether I also win or not, I hope to work on an article, or several, with you in the future. I also wanted to run by you an idea which has been in my mind for sometime. When an editor or editors are preparing to post an entirely new article, (which, for instance, I will be doing in the next month or so comparing all types of bows, compound, {Hunnish, Muslim, and Mongol}, longbows, English, Japanese and Mongol, crossbows, {Chinese, European}, instead of simply posting it, and taking the normal flack one always gets with a new article, I have asked Wandalstouring, who is a really fabulous expert on weaponry, to proofread it for factual accuracy, article structure, and anything else he can see to improve the draft. I will also ask Rex, and at least one or two other good editors, (including yourself), and once they have all critiqued it, try to address these issues before the article is formally posted for the first time. It seems to me that this informal "peer" or "expert" review on drafts would save a lot of needless argument when the article is posted. I personally would like to see the assistant coordinators make sure all of the new articles are vetted this way - again, thoughts? Thanks, and good luck on the election! old windy bear 15:06, 12 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks very much for the support, old windy bear. I voted for you (and Kirill as well) because you are obviously devoted to the cause, and have an amazing breadth of knowledge which has obviously served the community well. My knowledge on all things historical is pretty broad (vast detail here and there and overview on certain periods) but I'm always willing to find more subjects and master them. My naval interest at the moment is limited to 20th Century Royal and Imperial Navies (which I've nearly got mastered I think) as well as good knowledge of other navies throughout histories. I did learn about the naval wars of Ancient and Roman times a couple of years back, but I'd have to refresh myself on that now, alas. I like your idea. It might give fiddlers nothing to fiddle with once an article's been uploaded, but it means that the end-product is as good as possible, which is what we all aim for. I can see that you'll be made a coordinator for sure, and we'll just have to wait and see whether I get in. Cheers, --Harlsbottom 19:33, 12 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Btw, please don't think I was knocking you on edit counts! I was merely pointing out my smaller number so that noone else did. I can only dream of having 3500+ posts at this time! --Harlsbottom 19:37, 12 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Harlsbottom Greetings again! I did not in any way take offense at the edit count comment. I actually thought you made a valid point in that a simple numerical count does not validate the quality of a person's work or their ability to work with others. I went and looked at some of your edits - and found a superior mind doing first rate work. I hope you will be with wikipedia for a long time, because you have a lot to offer, and you will pile the numbers up as the time passes! I did appreciate your vote - I have tried hard to help the community and this project in particular, as I believe you will. I am pleased you like my idea of "pre-editing" precisely for the reason you named - it will remove a lot of the na sayers reasons to bellow! And no matter how good a person is, two minds are always better! I hope I get one of the assistant's positions, but whether I do or not, I will keep working to better wikipedia. I do think you have a good chance, and would make a fine assistant, which is why I voted for you. We do need fresh perspectives, and your work is simply first rate - so you are the ideal candidate for a "new voice." In any event, I will be asking you for help in editing articles with a naval component in the future! Take care, old windy bear 19:57, 12 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi

Hi Simon. Hope you've had a good time in USA. You seem to produce quite a lot of stuff for Wikipedia - good work! Personally I don't have a lot of time for this Wikipedia malarky. Thomas Wales --AlbertW 12:09, 31 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Greetings

Just thought I'd say hi, I was impressed with the quote from the Lady at the top of your userpage, looking through your interests you are a fellow after my own heart. I'd be interested in helping to draw up a list of shipbuilders, would probably be good to do it as a subpage of the WP:SHIP namespace. Emoscopes ^Talk 01:56, 25 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There's a lot of good stuff in H. T. Lenton, British and Empire Warships of World War II. However, it isnt in a very accessible format, i.e. it's listed by ship and not by yard, and the names are often Lenton's own shortenings, I often have to refer to the google to get the full name of the company. As for funnel bands, I'm afraid I only have references for WW2 destroyers (Lenton again!). I presume you're barking up the right tree though. Emoscopes ^Talk 02:52, 25 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Battle of Ghazni

Hi There,

Just created this article, Battle of Ghazni during the First Anglo-Afghan War. I was wondering if you could fix up anything which is incorrect or add to this battle or link this battle to other articles so that it generates traffic. Thankyou. Mercenary2k 02:55, 8 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

HMS Dreadnought (1906) Collaboration

Hi. I read your pertinent comments on the Peer Review for Dreadnought from a while back. Since little seems to have been done on the article, would you be interested in a collaboration? This has to be one of the most important pages for Wikipedia yet it doesn't meet that standard in accuracy or content. I've sidelined all my Wikipedia stuff in favour of other internet projects, but this is something I'd like to see fixed. --Harlsbottom 22:40, 22 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your kind remarks; like you, I've got tied up with other stuff, but I'm keen to see this key article brought up to scratch. Do you intend to nominate this as a Collaboration of the fortnight, or just to get a few guys together and start plugging away?

Regards, John Moore 309 23:20, 22 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

PS I've taken the liberty of copying this thread to your Talk Page.

It's probably a good idea to nominate it for collaberation. It ought to generate more interest than the latest Review did (how anyone thought it would serve as a featured article I cannot imagine). On the discussion page Carom had some sound thoughts on transferring the American all-gun warship information (out of place in my opinion to a development page, but little seems to have come of it. Start plugging away sounds good. I'm armed with my Warrior to Dreadnought, The Grand Fleet, (D.K. Brown, as I believe you know) Battleships at War (B.R. Coward), Dreadnought Gunnery at the Battle of Jutland (John Brooks) and the Battleships of World War One (Antony Preston) as well as a few other unmentionables. --Harlsbottom 21:13, 24 January 2007 (UTC) (Copied back to my discussion page)[reply]

WikiProject Military History elections

Thanks much for the vote! --Petercorless 01:49, 25 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Gilbert J. Rowcliff

Thank for your incredible editing of my contribution on Rear Admiral Rowcliff. The article looks great and reads so much better. I am pretty new to this stuff but I have been studying the tutorials.

Again thanks so much. (Jarvisrb 16:53, 14 March 2007 (UTC))[reply]

Template:British Shipbuilders evolution

Hello, Harlsbottom. I have been working on improving the template Template:British Shipbuilders evolution and was rather pleased with the results, but appear to have incurred the wrath of some busybody who has proposed it as "listcruft" at templates for deletion. You were very helpful a while back when I was organising the information regarding UK shipyards that lead me to develop the template. I would appreciate any input that you might have at TFD (positive or otherwise, if I am being too protective of my "baby" perhaps its about time I saw the light). Emoscopes ^Talk 13:27, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

A true gent, sir, I doff my shipbuilding cap to you :) Emoscopes ^Talk 13:42, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks, you may be interested to have a look at my aircraft drawings at deviantART (no, I amn't one of those deviantART poetry-writing types, it's just a convenient way to upload my work to scrutiny :> ) As for the workings of a large-calibre gun turret, I think illustration might be more useful than animation, my animation skills are strictly limited to animated gifs, and I really don't have the patience for all that stop-frame stuff, however a series of 3 or 4 images might illustrate the point well. I might consider a very large animation (MB-size plus) as a personal project, and we could always external link to it, but seeing as it would require the basic drawings to be done anyway, might as well start there. It would be interesting to show the differences between pre- and post-Jutland turrets, illustrating how there was a fatal lack of flash-tightness. I think a 15 inch turret would be best, the 16 inch Nelson type and 14 inch KGV types were rather unique and horrifically complicated in their design and internal workings, would just obscure the matter.

As for shipyards, there are two ways to go about it - by shipyard and by shipbuilding company. I am tempted to go about it the former way as shipbuilding companies change name and ownership far more frequently than shipyards themselves are established and closed. I think the company approach leads to a plethora of minor articles, I am always tempted to create pages about the most well-known name and forget about the short-lived names. The exception is where the yard is still extant, where I believe policy dictates it should be known by its current name (like the daft BAE Systems Surface Fleet Solutions, with precedence over Yarrow Shipbuilders Limited).

Emoscopes ^Talk 14:21, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Turret animation

I found a good description of the operation of the 15 inch turret in Roskill's HMS Warspite, I think I'm going to have a bash at this animation, I have a simplified cutaway drawing complete with annotations. I'll let you know how progress goes. P.S. I believe I stumbled across you on facebook - a fiew friends of mine are involved in the Conservative Future too. Emoscopes ^Talk 15:06, 16 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Done! See Gun turret :) What a way to spend a friday night hehe Emoscopes ^Talk 00:13, 17 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Now that, sir, is beautiful! Works wonders for the gun turret page. Your surrendering of a Friday evening is much appreciated. Harlsbottom 02:12, 17 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Image:Rifle Automatic 7mm Number 9 Mark 1 EM2.jpg

Hello Harlsbottom, an automated process has found an image or media file tagged as nonfree media, such as fair use. The image (Image:Rifle Automatic 7mm Number 9 Mark 1 EM2.jpg) was found at the following location: User:Harlsbottom/EM2. This image or media will be removed per statement number 9 of our non-free content policy. The image or media will be replaced with Image:NonFreeImageRemoved.svg , so your formatting of your userpage should be fine. The image that was replaced will not be automatically deleted, but it could be deleted at a later date. Articles using the same image should not be affected by my edits. I ask you to please not readd the image to your userpage and could consider finding a replacement image licensed under either the Creative Commons or GFDL license or released to the public domain. Thanks for your attention and cooperation. User:Gnome (Bot)-talk 07:20, 17 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Spruce Harbour, Maine

I've proposed Spruce Harbour, Maine for deletion - that article was created by you in August, 2006, and has been marked for cleanup since then. To halt the proposed article deletion, simply edit the article to remove the template. --Chrisbak 04:29, 23 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Cunningham

Thankyou for your comments on Andrew Cunningham, 1st Viscount Cunningham of Hyndhope, i have now replied and would appreciate any further commments. Thanks Woodym555 10:10, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

St Bees School

Hello, I was in the process of starting to put together an infobox for the above school, when I found your user page concerning St Bees School [[User:Harlsbottom/St Bees School]. It is obviously a much fuller account doing the school more credit than the current entry. Given the work you have done I am not about to create the infobox. However, I would point out that I have added to the list of notable alumni in the live version the three VC holders from the school which, when you do make your content go live, may embellish it further. I look forward to seeing the live version (do you have an estimate as to when thsi will be by the way?) Kwib 11:42, 21 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not completely sure of the etiquette surrounding one of these (hopefully you can correct me if this is the wrong way to go about it), but I just wanted to make a comment about an edit of the St Bees School page. I'm not sure how the CCF was run when you were in the school, but now it is very much an uninformed service, rather than a uniformed one... Lalguy 23:25, 10 April 2008

Can you bring across the long term history of the page, as you have brought the discussion section across? You've massively changed the St. Bees page twice, once imposing your own page onto the former one, and then secondly eliminating from view the previous comments in the History section. IAC-62 (talk) 15:37, 18 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Royal Oak

Hi again, I did manage to find some more on Cdr Nichols' escape from Vanguard the night it blew up. According to Snyder in The Royal Oak Disaster, Nichols had been at the concert party; however this was a party held on board the amenity ship (Snyder calls it a 'theatre ship') Gourko – which was hosting a concert by crew members of Royal Oak. This might explain where some of the confusion has risen. Anyway, thought you might like to know this snippet. Best regards, — BillC ^talk 14:04, 30 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Six not seven

Sorry about that. I've been getting a few complaints about doing too many edits, so (for the first time) I composed a chunk of text incorporating numerous amendments and then pasted it into the source. Of course, in strict accordance with Sod's Law I thereby overwrote your edit.

As for how I came to put "seven" instead of "six" . . I think I must have been very tired.

Again, my apologies.

Regards,

Dave

Wild Surmise (talk) 10:50, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Kenneth Dewar

Great article! Will you be putting it on WP:DYK? I have a copy of Gardiner's The Royal Oak Courts Martial, and can supply additional citations if you want. — BillC ^talk 01:53, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If I were writing a DYK hook, I might try:

... that Royal Navy captain Kenneth Dewar was controversially court martialled in 1928 for criticising his flag officer, an event the press extravagantly described as a mutiny?

I made some notes from the official Royal Navy reports on the affair held at Kew. I have some clippings from The Scotsman too. I'll add what I can to the references. It is difficult in this day and age to appreciate how massive a news event this then was, but it occupied the front pages for weeks at a time: clearly the issue du jour of Spring 1928. — BillC ^talk 20:38, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Kenneth Dewar

On 2 March 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Kenneth Dewar, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--BorgQueen (talk) 10:32, 2 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

dyk

On 11 March 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article George Algernon West, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--Victuallers (talk) 21:18, 11 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Re: St Bees School

Hey Harley, I like it.. been wondering how long it would take you to get it live. It goes into a lot more depth than the previous article, which is good. If people do not want to read it all they don't have to! -- Kayedj (talk) 15:54, 22 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Kenneth Dewar

Hi, sorry for a taking a while to respond. You've done some great work on this article, it's really come along. I don't think it is appropriate for me to do a GA review on it, since I have some edits to the article myself, plus it's got a sentence or two that I wrote in another article. However, I am more than willing to contribute to adding references, making suggestions, and so on. There is a definite backlog on the GA review page, but I would advise patience: there's no deadline, and someone will get round to it sooner or later. The MilHistory project are an active bunch, and I am sure it will catch someone's eye there eventually.

(On a completely unrelated matter, I just read your user's page: I went to Leeds University too, though rather a long time ago now.) Best regards, — BillC ^talk 16:04, 22 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, this is what (in fact, all), I have on Dewar's wartime work: In 1940, Dewar, aged nearly 60, went back to the Admirality, working in the Historical Section of the Training and Staff Duties Division. The section head was his older brother, Captain A.C. Dewar (retd.) He appears to have worked there to the war's conclusion, for Gardiner makes no further reference to this period. (Ref: Gardiner, p230).

Glenton simply agrees with the above, and makes no further advance on it. Ref Glenton, p169. Not a great deal, unfortunately. It seems to have been a rather quiet war for Kenneth Dewar. — BillC ^talk 17:29, 13 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXV (March 2008)

The March 2008 issue of the Military history WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.
This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 01:22, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

HMS Hood

Hello there!

As you are a Royal Navy fan (your superb ID Ensign is a give away!), perhaps you would care to review some of the considerable edits I am making on the Hood page. I believe, given this ship served for 20 + years, that it should be longer. Bismarck's page is so yet it was only "alive" for just over 2 years. Dapi89 (talk) 11:51, 14 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

BTW, I have cited a source that claims the Hood sank the French battleship Bretagne, is this for certain as far as you know? Dapi89 (talk) 11:51, 14 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Jutland Edit/Gallery

Hello, following the link on Jutland talk I see you have a personal version of the entire page which you're editing--how does that work? Surely you don't intend to replace the entire page, wiping what anyone else has done in the interim? Or is there some Wiki tool for merging? Thanks, haven't run into this before.

Also, I see you have an admiral gallery with Scheer in it. I recommend you plug your (more complete) gallery into the article immediately to repair the recent grievous hack job, as mentioned in the "gallery" debate there.Rep07 (talk) 19:04, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your reply. You can't really mean to simply replace the page though? Isn't there a policy on that? Also Wikipedia:Ownership of articles. I've spent several hours referencing and refining a section recently and would not be pleased to have it just rolled over.Rep07 (talk) 03:07, 9 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

re: Massie, yes I am also concerned about over-reliance on Massie, but my philosophy is that inline citations are better than no citations, and tend to stabilize the article because others are much less likely to delete or revise factual material that has at least one respectable source (which Massie certainly is, though not necessarily the best possible source). At this point I only have Massie and Campbell, but for the info I am putting in I feel that they are appropriate sources (ships involved, times, hits scored, specific events). Massie is writing at a higher, and necessarily more summarized and qualitative level, than Campbell, and summary always tends to inaccuracy. I prefer Campbell, and notice that Campbell often differs from Massie slightly on times; in those cases I would trust Campbell. So I may go back and change some cites to Campbell, or double them up. And by all means, if you have better sources for anything, please add them in as well (or replace what's there); there is nothing wrong with double-backing the facts, especially since there is almost a century of controversy and inaccuracy hanging over this battle.

Re: replacing sections, for the record, I could care less about anything except the factual narrative of the battle itself; all the strategy, background, controversy etc. doesn't really concern me though I've attempted to back up some of it in a few places. I think we should try to get this article to the standard of Battle of Waterloo, which I admire. Rep07 (talk) 20:17, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

William Horrocks

Were you able to find any sources for an article about Sir William Horrocks? The question came up at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Brian Horrocks. Leithp 16:57, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've been busy with other things, but I can probably knock together a decent start-class article tonight. Glad to see BH will probbaly make FA. --Harlsbottom (talk) 17:10, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's much appreciated. I can add in anything else I find in Warner or Horrocks' books. Thanks! Leithp 17:34, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm impressed! Leithp 19:37, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As am I - wish I could knock together such a decent article as quickly as that. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 10:25, 21 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks gents. It makes a nice change from naval history! I just wish there was more on the elder Horrocks... Harlsbottom (talk) 17:12, 21 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

RE: Kenneth Dewar

No problem about exam season and the time limit, sometimes it can't be helped, but yes, it will need a new review opened. It has been closed and is currently in the archives etc so a new one is needed. Remember to move the old one to an "/archive1" if you are opening a new review. Regards. Woody (talk) 14:25, 24 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

William Horrocks

On 26 May 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article William Horrocks, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--BorgQueen (talk) 13:03, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXVII (May 2008)

The May 2008 issue of the Military history WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.
This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 00:46, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sebree

You responded very quickly on the MILHIST talk page with the date that Uriel Sebree became a rear admiral, which I really appreciated. What reference were you using? I'd like to see if I have access to a copy. Thanks! JRP (talk) 00:27, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Fire Control

Dear Harlsbottom, thank you for your kind enquiry. I am particularly grateful that you did not simply revert my changes. I have high hopes that sensible, intelligent people can reach a meeting of minds. The source I used was the dictionary.

Firing (noun) : the act of discharging a weapon. Fire (noun) : fuel in a state of combustion.

You will probably be familiar with the phrases "firing pin" and "firing mechanism".

"Fire" can also be used as a verb. Indeed, "fire" is used both as an attributive noun and as an attributive verb in the two meanings of "fire-control" as can be seen at the top of the article. Attributive nouns have been in use since the fourteenth century and are a well established part of the english language. Attributive verbs on the other hand do not share the same status. The use of attributive verbs can lead to ambiguities and misunderstandings because so many of them can be taken as attributive nouns, for instance.

Cook book : a work of biography. Pay point : where the staff collect their wages. Fry pan : a pan for cooking small fish Ski mask : a mask for a ski that wishes to remain anonymous. No fly zone : an area patrolled by spiders. Fail safe : ?

Now to some people this is all rather silly, and in a way, I agree, but I have to ask weather it is not easier for the reader to see the intended meaning if it does not have a silly meaning standing right in front of it. The intended meanings of most of these things can be discerned by moderately skilled readers with no more than a little time and patience, but to my mind at least the essence of good writing is to express one's thoughts clearly rather than to set puzzles for the reader to solve. The better terms are: cookery book, payment point, frying pan, skiing mask, flight exclusion zone, and failure safe.

I hope that this has answered your question. Best wishes Sesquihypercerebral (talk) 01:08, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Satsuma

Hi Harlsbottom. The claim for the Satsuma is also made in Jane's "Battleships of the 20th century", which, I think, is considered as a highly reliable source. Do you have any serious published reference for your alternative claim? PHG (talk) 19:28, 20 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Harlsbottom. If you don't have specific references that back up your claim, i.e. reasonnably authoritative authors who make the same argument as you do, I am afraid it cannot really be used here (your argument would constitute original research). Maybe you could find a proper author who also dismisses the Satsuma claim, so that you can mention his view in the article? Cheers PHG (talk) 20:21, 20 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

battle of jutland

Hi, just noticed a sentence i had inserted had disappeared. The specific example of Bayern and Royal Sovereign is quoted in 'Castles of Steel' by Massie while discussing the difference in design philosophy of british and german ships, specifically with regard to the outcome of the battle of Jutland. He chooses them as two brand new ships built at that time, indicating that the difference in philosophy continues. If you happen to know two comparable ships which were in the battle which could be used as example instead, then please re-make the point using the different example. Otherwise, it serves to make the point. Please put it back. Sandpiper (talk) 23:30, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am impressed by your knowledge of numbers of boiler rooms. However, that does not change the fact that massie cites this as a fair example of the difference in design philosophy between the two fleets. I do not see any reason to assume something he asserts is wrong, do you have a citation to that effect? Are you saying the point is wrong? I would assume the same design philosophies would apply to all ships in a navy irrespective of class. I seem to recall the same navy committee run by Fisher was responsible both for designing dreadnought and a sister battlecruiser, at the same time. Are you saying royal sovereign is a uniquely bad example of british design at that time? did later designs have more?

this is the second person I have met who seems to be unhappy with massie. What is the problem with his books? I'm afraid I dont see how a reference to an obscure set of plans for battleships would help. He himelf is the source for the informtion. wiki does not guarantee any of its contents accuracy. It merely guarantees (in so far as it guarantees anything) that someone else already said it. Which is the case here. The existence of the big fat book is the only guarantee of accuracy. Are you arguing the actual comparison of the two ships is factually inaccurate (ie not 3 and 6 compartments), or are you arguing it is false in general that German ships had more compartments, or that the facts are true but the example irrelevant? Not being an expert on ships, but his books make sense to me: they have an authoritative voice, and I have yet to find any significant discrepancies. Sandpiper (talk) 01:06, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Harlsbottom - the big difference at Jutland was the destruction of the British battlecruisers and the survival of the German ones. It is a bit odd to talk about the difference between Bayern and Revenge in this context. There was a much more profound difference in battlecruiser design between Britain and Germany than there was in battleship design. Whether the German ships had better subdivision than the British, I am not sure; and not sure it was down to habilitability, either (in any case the number of boiler rooms doesn't necessarily affect habitability)... The Land (talk) 09:59, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The original point we were discussing, the comparison of boiler rooms, has slipped a bit in importance. The article had a posted 'citation needed', which presumably meant someone was not happy about the comment re barracks and compartments. I inserted the ref comparing ship designs in part to address this. After you cut it, I then re-edited the piece before noticing my insert had disappeared. Thus I had already arrived at a somewhat different version which isolated the problematic statement about barracks from the one about better watertight partitioning. I have read a comment about barracks, possibly in Massie's 'Dreadnought', but I could not say exactly where it is without further work. So in that sense, I don't really consider this as an issue to go to war over.

On the other hand, while not feeling the point is essential to the article, I remain unconvinced that it would be inappropriate. The point does not simply concern the sunk british battlecruisers, but the german ships which survived. Massie makes an entirely general point about all german ships being designed to better survive complex damage. German armour was penetrated during the battle: the vessels remained afloat because designers and builders had subdsivided their hulls into an extraordinary number of small watertight compartments. Specifically citing an example of battleships, he makes it clear he is not just talking about battlecruisers. Whether right or wrong, Massie is arguing all german ships were better designed in this regard. Certainly Jellicoe was deathly afraid a salvo of 10 torpedos from a few destroyers might leave him short 10 battleships sinking from one hit each. I was just reading a piece by him 'the grand fleet' (1919)here, where he goes on about it not being possible to widen british ships as the germans had done, because there were no docks big enough. The wider hull helped in keeping torpedo explosions further away from the body of the ship.

Now, as to being a naval expert. I am hardly ever an expert on anything I write about on wiki, and this is true of most people. I write about what intersts me, and if I happen to find out about something I may check here, see what there is, and add to it. That is how wiki works. It is not written by experts and does not claim to be accurate. While I dont exactly approve of this, all it claims to do is report what other respected individuals have said about a subject. Thus, if Massie makes a general point about ship design, clearly a respected author in this field or we wouldn't be arguing about him at all, then that is entirely satisfactory for wiki. Neither of you has argued he is wrong in this case, I think? This section of the article is in the introduction, not the aftermath. In the aftermath it is appropriate to talk about specific points emerging from the battle. In the introduction it is fair to make a general point that all german ships had this advantage. This was an important consideration for the admiral, or should have been. Perhaps he didn't know? If he did know, I'm quite sure he was never going to explain to the public at the time that he didn't dare chase the german fleet for fear of torpedos he knew could very well sink his badly designed ships fast.

Funnels: I'm afraid it is not obvious to me what relevance the number of funnels has to the number of boiler rooms. A funnel is just a big pipe. There could be dozens of flues all emptying into one funnel, or each going to a separate one depending what the designers thought best.

73 year old? like, how old fisher was when re-appointed as first sea lord? He was getting a bit doddery, but still knew what he was talking about.

Superb: is this an important point? From what you say, he in a short-hand way indicated which ships were meant, without going into extra detail in an already long book. Might be a mistake, or might be he deliberately intended not to say 'belerephon's because that would more specifically exclude dreadnought. Exactly what dreadnought was doing at the time seems irrelevant, because he is talking about a discussion of a proposal. Doesn't say it took place. This appears to me to be glossing over a minor point by the author, which does not really affect his argument, where the main point was a campaign to inveigle the americans into sending ships. I read this as necessary simplification of an argument, which is what we do all the time writing. If this is the main objection to him, that he simplifies (his description of Fisher's succesive commands writing in 'dreadnought' would seem another eexample), then I don't see that as a problem provided he does so appropriately. All authors choose what is relevant to include. Any other points re Massie? Sandpiper (talk) 14:47, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Re responses: I removed a point comparing two ships which weren't at Jutland, which Massie in an unsourced passage in his book claimed were representative of the Imperial German and Royal Navies. I removed it because it isn't true. Yes, there is a point to be made that German ships whether by design or coincidence were better suited to surviving attack

It is totally irrelevant whether massie sources the points. He states them on his own authority, which is sufficient for insertion in wikipedia. You also seem to be contradicting yourself. I think you are saying the specific point is true, and the actual example is a comparison which demonstrates it. I think your only real objection is that it is not a representative comparison, which so far is only your unsupported opinion.

Wikipedia does strive for verifiable accuracy, and on the basis of the technical argument Massie is unverifiable.

I'm sorry, but wiki does not seek to verify the accuracy of external publications, just its own content. It verifies its own content by reference to existing published work. ie my insertion is verified by reference to Massie and in the absence of any contradictory source, needs no further support. Wiki in general deals with contradiction amongst sources by explaining the contradiction, ie suppose massie says one thing and Marder says another then state both. In this case there is as yet no contradiction needing explaining away. The nature of Massie's history, whether narrative or otherwise is pretty much irrelevant. He is entitled to adopt any style of presentation he chooses. At a rough count the book has 2000 references from about 350 sources.

tells a story and does not seek to elaborate and substantiate on it.

My reading of his works so far contradict this. He explains the situation as he goes along by introducing additional information apart from the simple narrative.

But you will have seen from Massie that he was utterly unable to say no to Churchill, or for that matter the British government, over the Dardanelles. Age might not have been a factor in this intriguing weakness, but it can't have done him any good. I'll admit, attacking Massie for his age is below the belt, but I'm trying to excuse his errors.

I think he might not be pleased by your suggested excuses. Jenkins on Churchill makes comments about Fisher taking naps, but then I think so did Churchill, who also took on a rather serious position at normal retirement age. I am fascinated by the relationship between Fisher and Churchill, though have yet to read what Massie may say. Churchill's whole life to that point had been about persuading people to allow him to do things not normally done. I suspect one of his difficulties was through having thus worn out his welcome with kitchener. Fisher saw churchill as a way back to power. I have yet to find out what fisher did while back as first sea lord, except for a comment he ordered 600 ships for the navy. One might suspect he took the job to make sure everything was as well as it could be, then was content to sit back again when he could no longer support the dardanelles action. Both Churchill and Fisher went about being recognised by those they met as extraordinary. The sticking point for Fisher was when de Robeck said no, and he supported his admiral on the spot. Having read the discussion over Jutland, where Jellicoe is paranoid over losing battleships (that's an unfair simplification, I know), I appreciate better why the Dardanelles campaign worried him. But I am also convinced the campaign had real merit, because however slim the chance of success, the potential benefit was enormous. Fisher would have understood this, so I can see how he might have been caught between the two imperatives.

Sorry, was interrupted, then wiki lost my post. Fisher was spot on about the Dardanelles, said it needed troops and needed to be done fast. Churchill also said it needed troops, he just couldn't get any out of Kitchener. I don't know what Fisher thought about the potential for winning the war, Massie said Kitchener eventually came round to the idea it could be a quick win, and far too late sent the troops. Fisher by the end could see the campaign just escalating, with ships sinking for no benefit. Hamilton thought the situation was hopeless the day he finally arrived with the army. So in fact, by the time Fisher felt obliged to resign about it, the campaign had already deteriorated very badly from its inception and should have been called off. He was still right. Now, the question is whether Keyes was right that a naval victory was doable, so that Churchill was right also? Sandpiper (talk) 18:19, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Over simplification without accuracy is pointless and defeats the purpose of making it easier to understand in the first place. You and I aren't writing a book meant to basically educate thousands of people on the naval history of World War One. The point re:Superb is meant to illustrate that he's confusing very different ships together, which goes back to the original comparison of Bayern and Royal Sovereign.

I defer to your knowledge and thus annoyance at imprecision, but from my perspective - which is now considerably above that of a likely wiki reader just seeking information - this is a minor discrepancy. Dare I say it, the wiki article on 'superb' says, ships of the Bellerophon class (and the subsequent three of the St Vincent class) were near carbon copies of HMS Dreadnought. which does not support a statement that he is confusing very different ships together. I'm not sure what you are writing, but I am indeed writing an encyclopedia meant to basically educate people about ww1. We may well have an article about entry of America into the naval war, but I havn't come across it yet. If we did, I would mentally note the discrepancy about exactly which ships were meant and either find additional explanation, or simply insert the information with reference and leave it for anyone else to pick up and sort out who has better information.

Re your latest post (I belatedly added a little above also):

wikipedia is not a traditional encyclopedia written by experts. It may become so. At present it has a campaign to insert reference notes on everything. I personally think this is wrong headed and a complete change of wikipedia into something different. I have no problem with people adding refs, because they are undeniably usefull to some readers and to editors. But I very much oppose the idea that they are essential, and for the purposes of most readers are largely irrelevant. You are an exception, as a professional historian. I am an exception, as a modest 2nd-rank editor. But refs are frequently not very helpfull to me as an editor either, because I do not have ready access to the source books. I repeat, wiki arbitration about a point of content is not decided ultimately by knowledge or numbers of editors, but by citeable sources. six experienced historians are not going to win unless they can find some text contradicting Massie. That is how the system is designed to work: stops pressure groups ganging up by force of numbers to bias articles. I am arguing about this mainly because I am currently interested in the subject, and frankly am quite impressed by Massies efforts. As a wiki editor I am interested to try to find out why others (likely more knowledgeable) don't like his work. I was a little disappointed when reading the jutland article to note it had quite a few massie refs already, because I am interested in what others have to say. But this must imply other editors added them considering him a worthwhile source. It is is not irrelevant that a more popularist book is likely to be more widely available as a general source which people are able to access for more information.

I rather thought you might object to the 'superb' article. Trouble is, wiki has articles everywhere which an expert can see need improving. But I am absolutely of the view that any article is better than none. I find it much easier to add to something which already exists. I find impatience with wikipedia very tiresome. It is important for anyone using it to understand that it is, and always will be, a work in progres. It does not correspond to the traditional notion of a published completed work. I think there is also very poor assessment of content which concentrates excessively on mechanical aspects (eg enough refs, but no one knows if the content is representative or how complete)

I have thus far only read the sections on the dardanelles and jutland: I started this from an interest in fisher and churchill rather than the navy. (as an aside, I found the fisher article quite interesting about his career, yet managed to fail to really explain what he did which made him important.) As I have already said, I think whether notes are sufficiently comprehensive is largely a question of the needs of the audience. Notes are irrelevant if no one is interested in searching through them. I would say a 800 page book about the navy in wwI is as much as most people are likely to be interested in. I would say, that I think it much more likely I would have taken an interest in history at school had this been a text book, and that it has many more notes and much more detail than anything I met there. Though, of course, my interests are probably different now, but what you object to -writing it as an adventure story- is what may make it readable. I think there is a danger in becoming too highbrow about the imparting of knowledge. There may also be a sanger in dismissing something unfairly because it is popularist. Thouroughness is a question of what is appropriate tothe task. Sandpiper (talk) 18:55, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Edit convenience break

I didn't mean that experts do not edit wiki, merely that wiki does not claim to be edited by experts, and deprecates the opinions of its editors. My own view is that it is impossible to write an article without forming an opinion of what should be in it. It is helpfull to be an expert on the subject, but not necessary, but it is essential to form a view of what should be included. I therefore get annoyed at obsessive referencers who use those references to arbitrate content. I don't like this at all, because extreme referencing is not a guarantee of good content. So, in response to your comments

1. referencing gives a particular statement an unwarranted air of authority which may be wholly misleading.
2. The small minority of people interested in further information may be able to look up a specific reference. Or then again, since they are likely to be internet users with no access to a good library, they may not. This is more true the more specialist are the sources.
3. A point may be checked, but the greater the number of references in an article, the less likely it is that anyone will ever bother to check them all. Thus erroneous information may stay in an article indefinitely simply because someone has found a superficially supportive ref for it. Untill an expert comes along who can see the statement is false it will not be corrected. You objected to my insertion because from your own knowledge you believed it wrong, not from what is in the ref, which entirely supports it. QED?

I see you only just created the fisher bio. did you have it ready somewhere? Sandpiper (talk) 20:06, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I had a look at it and noted a few facts I thought ought to be in the main article. Of course, that puts me in the difficult position of deciding whether you constitute a reliable source, as compared for example to Massie. Since he is a published, prizewinning author, by wiki rules I would have to prefer his version of events to yours. Sandpiper (talk) 09:05, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I expect you have seen them, but there are a couple of wiki articles about fire control and a mention in the frederic charles dreyer article. Naturally, they don't quite agree with each other. DoI take it then that the article you posted for reference is taken directly from oxford dictionary of national biography, with just some bits cut out? The page, as a pay site does not open for me.

As to Bayer, do I infer correctly that it has complete schematic blueprints for the ship, which would indicate watertight compartments? Massie says Bayern had six engine rooms and six boiler rooms. I don't know if there might be wriggle room for auxiliary compartments around the main ones which he might be counting, which would probably be fair if such did not exist on the british vessel?

i note both wiki and another random website I popped up say the bayern class is most comparable to the Revenge/Royal sovereign class. In considering the article, we would be talking about general characteristics of ships then in existence, so the issue of whether the renownrevenge class was in process of being altered might not be to the point. I am struck reading some of this stuff how remarkable it is that pre ww1 ships were becoming obsolete every few years, yet many of these ships were still in service in ww2. Bit of a halt in development. Sandpiper (talk) 18:27, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(sorry if I muddle some of the names, I'm not familiar with them) Sandpiper (talk)

There is a note here which says Bayern had three propellors and three turbines, presumably one on each shaft/propellor. Also 11 boilers. I am not sure exactly how those odd numbers fit into your two engine rooms. one would have thought that at least the design would be symmetric with one compartment for each turbine, or maybe one per turbine and one per auxilliary equipment, making 6? It says they reduced the number of boilers on the later ships which were never completed, to 9 then 6. one compartment each on the last? Also added a diesel engine on the last. Sandpiper (talk) 20:17, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And here an article comparing battleship performance which lists Beyern and Queen Elizabeth but unfortunately not revenge. It comments that a problem was not so much loss of buoyancy, but capsize due to flooding in one area only. Sandpiper (talk)

i quite agree this is time consuming, wasted yesterday evening looking through internet refs (I had intended to address myself to Fisher's career). Did find one website which had some interesting ship articles....then noticed they were suspiciously identical to those on wikipedia. After further research, I think they lifted ours uncredited (rather than the reverse). This is gratifying, but unhelpfull in finding new information if all the world becomes wikipedia mirrors. It struck me from what I could find that designs were subject to ongoing change all the time, some ships totally redesigned half way through, so there might be great scope for errors in information sources. I shalll be busy this weekend in any event, though I may get a chance just to check in. Sandpiper (talk) 09:41, 28 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Great scope for errors: oh yes. Bear in mind that many battleships which survived World War I and the Washington Naval Treaty were rebuilt in the 20s and 30s. Many of these changes were in the engine room. The Land (talk) 10:10, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Don't know if you have come to any conclusions re relative compartmentalisation of british and german ships? Sandpiper (talk)

Thanks for update. Sandpiper (talk) 14:55, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Image:John Arbuthnot Fisher, 1904.JPG

I am no means an expert, but the sleeve rank insignia seems to be that of a Vice Admiral, which if so means it is fisher pre-1901 and pre c in c portsmouth Sandpiper (talk) 02:11, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I notice you have amended the image description, which I guess means you agree with my comment about sleeve insignia. However, not being an expert on things military I did want to check that I was correct: all sorts of things might have happened, changes in rank structure, etc, which I could have missed. This same issue applies to other contemporary pictures, I have noticed, where the people seems to have the wrong uniform for the claimed rank. Sandpiper (talk) 09:38, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Image:FleetsalutingDreadnought.jpg

I have another image from Queen Alexandras Christmas gift book, which looks to be taken at the same time of another I posted showing dreadnoughts deck. I wondered if you might have any idea what the ship saluting is. Sandpiper (talk) 16:53, 3 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXVIII (June 2008)

The June 2008 issue of the Military history WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.
This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 18:53, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Question of notability

Hi there, well done on your work on HMS General Wolfe, which I started almost a year ago now. I do have a question however concerning the articles Neston Diggle and John Alfred Moreton which you started recently. I was looking at these and was hard pushed to see any strong claims for notability clearly laid out in them. When I saw it was you who'd created them I remembered your work on Kenneth Dewar and so decided to bring my corncerns here rather than Afd them. Basically, I think the articles urgently need more on why these men were notable; simply being First World War naval officers isn't really enough. Moreton looks like he certainly might be notable with his service in Latvia etc., but the claim should be stronger in the article while I'm not clear on what makes Diggle notable at all so that article needs even more urgent attention. Regards--Jackyd101 (talk) 21:44, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am afraid I take very dim views of most Wikipedia guidelines, and the notability one is definitely on my tarring list, due to the manner in which it is unevenly used on Wikipedia. I will quote though, "it is important to not just consider whether notability is established by the article, but whether it readily could be". I believe it readily could be, however I am busy with multiple other wikipedia projects and real life, and I can't see why either article should be deleted because nobody else can be bothered to put in the little bit of effort to find the information.

I've just had a look through your impressive resume of featured articles and lists, and I'm afraid I have some problems with the Francis Harvey article. There are numerous inaccuracies in the presentation of the events surrounding Harvey's death and the aversion of a magazine explosion. Harvey did indeed send a sergeant to the bridge - to report to the Captain, Alfred Ernle Montacute Chatfield as was "the formal method at exercise action of reporting a casualty or damage" (Chatfield. p. 143). It was not his place to send anyone to see Beatty and there would have been nothing Beatty could have done about it anyway. To quote from Chatfield again; "A little later my attention was drawn to a figure which had just come up the bridge ladder. His face was black from fire, his hair singed, his clothes burnt. Saluting in strict formality, he reported; "'Q' turret knocked out, Sir."

After briefly questioning him as to his knowledge of the disaster, I ordered him to be taken to the dressing station. It was the sergeant of "Q" turret. He had done his duty faithfully and I am glad to say he survived the action. Alas! he was almost the only survivor of the Marines' turret crew." Italics mine.

It is also somewhat debatable whether Harvey's order to flood "Q" magazine was carried out. From N.J.M. Campbell's Jutland: An Analysis of the Fighting, the standard work on the battle, pp. 64-65;

“

It was conjectured that the fire had spread from the gun-house to the working chamber via the electric cables as they were the only things burnt as opposed to blistered or blackened. All that is certain, however, is that a smouldering fire in the gun-house spread in some manner to the working chamber and ignited the charges there. The effect of the ignition of the eight charges that were between the handing room and 4ft above the working chamber, was very violent, although vented by the absence of part of the turret roof, and by the handing room hatch being open. The flame went as high as the mastheads, and 'Q' magazine bulkheads were considerably buckled and bulged inwards although supported by the water in the magazine which had probably by then been completely flooded. If the magazine had still been open, the Lion would, without any doubt have followed the Indefatigable and Queen Mary. The above account is largely taken from Jellicoe's memorandum of 16 June 1916 which contained notes on the more important damage to the battlecruisers and the Warspite and was later reproduced in Grand Fleet Gunnery and Torpedo Order No 15 on the lessons of Jutland. There is no mention in this of the part played by Major FJW Harvey, RMLI, the officer of the turret, except that he sent a messenger to the bridge to report that the turret was out of action. Major Harvey was awarded a posthumous VC for giving orders to close the magazine doors and flood the magazine when he was mortally wounded; in the event the order to flood the magazine came from the Captain to the transmitting station, and William Yeo, Stoker 1st class, special messenger to the transmitting station, was the man actually sent to order 'Q' magazine to be flooded. The transmitting station asked for the order to be repeated, as the Lion had partially flooded 'A' magazine in error at the Dogger Bank battle, and Grand Fleet Gunnery Orders after the action had indicated that the person in charge of a magazine, if there was no fire there, should take steps to find out why the order to flood had been given, and inform a responsible officer of what was occurring. In this case it was fortunate that 'Q' magazine was flooded in time, as tests later showed that magazine doors as then fitted, were by no means flash tight when closed. As it was, a venting plate admitted a tongue of flame into the magazine but no harm was done. At that date magazine venting plates were fitted in handing rooms, so that a sudden pressure rise in the magazine from spontaneously ignited cordite would vent into the handing room and thence up the space between the fixed and revolving turret structures, and also up the turret trunk. They were not flash-tight in the reverse direction. Many lives might have been saved if orders had been given to clear the whole of `Q' turret once the magazine had been flooded, and it is not clear why the charges between turret and magazine were not returned to the latter before closing the doors, which would have prevented the cordite fire.

”

From that it really is not clear at all whether Harvey's final command was obeyed or not, although there is no question of course that he selflessly gave the order in the first place. However, this information (which is hardly new, it's older than me actually) should be reflected in the article. Since I only edit other people's articles when it's drastically required you may want to use some of this? It should also be noted that there is a difference between shell rooms, containing shells, and magazines which contain cordite charges - the latter were the principal danger which the flooding was meant to counter.

All that gloom aside, your Orders of Battle are really impressive - indeed one day I'll have to copy the format for the Battle of Jutland Order of Battle. I'm somewhat surprised that it was promoted given the relatively small number of notes in it. I would have thought that every ship's presence at the Glorious First of June for example would have to be explained by a note. Then again, I have to say that the FA procedure bewilders me somewhat. Anyway, exposition over! --Harlsbottom (talk | library) 15:06, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the reply, I wasn't suggesting I would take the article to Afd myself, just indicating that they may well end up there without stronger claims of naotability. The ships in the Glorious First of June don't need individual sources as the information is complied from three exisiting orders of battle that are already in the sources, to cite them for every ship would be needlessly repetative. It has however been drawn to my attention that there are problems with the sourcing on the French ships, which I'd like to deal with at some point. Finally, I will take some time soon to go through your points on the Harvey article in depth, thankyou for your comments.--Jackyd101 (talk) 16:34, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Italian Mare Nostrum

[[1]] - [[2]] - [[3]] - [[4]] - [[5]] - [[6]] - [[7]] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.28.126.85 (talk) 14:58, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

St. Bees School

Thanks for the . replacement. I know the school quite well and they always use the St. I currently live in a different St. village and it's a mess as to which format the use. The town of St Bees seems to have dropped it. Personally I prefer the St. version, but each to their own MrMarmite (talk)

I was at the school not too long ago (four years) and I can't for the life of me recall whether the "." was used or not. I wouldn't trust either wikipedia or the village website as to my mind the dropping of the "." is just idleness. Alas, computers don't seem to support the proper format of S^T which is what our grandfathers and beyond used (and which I prefer above all else in written work)! Cheers, --Harlsbottom (talk | library) 18:48, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Instead of moving the page back with the 'move' tab, I see you've copied and pasted from St. Bees School to St Bees School and vice-versa. That leaves the page history with the redirect and the Talk page at Talk:St Bees School. I can only suggest more copying and pasting before moving the page... But as the full stop in "St." is (rightly) in fast retreat in the UK, it seems likely that the school itself will drop the full stop, sooner or later. Xn4 (talk) 19:33, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

sms frauenlob

I was recently adding to Battle of Heligoland Bight from Massie's Castle's. Having a look at the article on SMS Frauenlob I saw that it has a somewhat different description of the battle between frauenlob and arethusa. Massie says Arethusa won and frauenlob ran for it, the ships article says frauenlob drove off arethusa. The frauenlob article seems to be a translation of the article on the german wikipedia. My view would be that Massie probably got the description right, but I was wondering if you might have a view? Sandpiper (talk) 00:25, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There seems to be no doubt that Arethusa drove off Frauenlob", but only after the latter had inflicted quite a bit of damage on Arethusa first, which according to Tarrant Jutland: The German Perspective, was "roughly handled". However he makes no mention of Arethusa scoring ten hits on the German ship or wrecking her bridge. Jellicoe does (vide The Grand Fleet p. 111) mention the mention it thusly;

“

At 8.25 A.M. a hit from the Arethusa wrecked the forebridge of one of the enemy ships and they both steamed at once for Heligoland, which was then sighted, and our ships turned to the westward. The Arethusa had been considerably damaged during the action and had suffered several casualties.

”

It would appear that it was basically a draw, both ships trading fire with each other until both having to withdraw. My German isn't so hot so I can't make any amendments to the de.wikipedia page, alas. --Harlsbottom (talk | library) 07:02, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, nor can I. I could just about machine translate it enough to see it was probably about the same as the english one. Shame really, because for this it would be interesting to have the views of some germans interested in ships. Massie states that stetin left earlier with/after the destroyers; jellico seems to be saying frauenlob and stetin left at the same time (both sailed.. and enemy ships ), or does he mean arethusa and frauenlob sailed together towards heligoland (presumably fighting), but then arethusa and escorts turned back once land was sighted? If the latter then he seems to be basically agreeing with Massie (or massie is quoting him, perhaps). Anyway, I think we take it frauenlob retired whatever state arethusa was in. Her main difficulty later seemed to be damage to steam system and thus no engines. If I get enthusiastic I might try writing some bad german and posting it on the german wiki, with some good english. Someone likely would understand. But it may still be there exists a german account of the battle which painted it somewhat differently. Sandpiper (talk) 18:35, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

live bait squadron

Hi. I was just thinking about the article titled 7th cruiser squadron, and was about to move it to 'live bait sqadron', when I saw you had just done the reverse. My argument is that the article, at least as at present is not about the 7th cruiser squadron, but only about 'the live bait squadron'. I don't have enough info, but my impression is the name was precisely because it was terrible ships just begging to be sunk, and there is a section in massie about this. However, I don't doubt there is a life of an entity called the 7th cruiser squadron extending in history before and after this one incident, sinking of three ships by one submarine, which is the reason the squadron is memorable. I found another reference in a wiki list of squadrons, commenting about the 7th cruiser sqadron composition in WW2. I would suggest either putting this article back to 'live bait' and just writing up the sinkings, or adding more material about the 7 th squadron historically. Unfortunately I have none, do you? Sandpiper (talk) 19:02, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In my opinion it was strange that the term "Live Bait Squadron" deserved its own name since it was a nickname used for less than two months in 1914. Really any relevant information regarding the loss of the three ships would be better going in its own article. I also found it somewhat ridiculous that "Live Bait Squadron" was listed as part of the North Sea Campaign box, when in the grand scheme of things it amounts to very little.

At least now the term redirects to a page which will cover the background of the "Live Bait" name during the very brief period it was named as such, and provide a far more balanced picture of that particular section of the naval war. Noone else had done anything with the article so if they do they can do it to 7th Cruiser Squadron. I will see what else I can drag up this evening on its formation in both world wars. --Harlsbottom (talk | library) 19:19, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

could you please advise if you are planning to add more stuff right now, because I shall expand the section about the sinkings. Massie describes the ships as entirely crewed by RN reserves except for officers from the regular navy. This might be a 'nucleus crew', or it might be the more severe 'left to rust' laying up which happened to some ships. Do you have specific information which it was? Re the name: the squadron was created, got its name, sunk 3 and disbanded, so effectively the name is apt for something only describing that incarnation. Also, although it was a trivial loss of ships, it was a significant political loss. Not many ships were lost all together, this was 3 british cruisers, and that headline was mostly what mattered to the public. Ironical we are now falling over each other adding to it. Sandpiper (talk) 20:41, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, finised adding: I think you had already gone before I wrote the above. Re the name again, I' m not fussed: it looks OK as it is now described as 7th squadron, but I am not sure the same article ought to contain info about squadrons of the same name with different ships or different wars. I think it might be worth trying to figure out what foreign wiki's are doing and their nameing, at least for oddballs like this. I don't know if the battle had an accepted name? We have a north sea campaign box listing battles: I notice the one on the polish wiki for all sea battles in ww1(linked, for some reason, from the 7th cruiser squadron page) has a considerably larger number of engagements, and I do wonder whether limiting the look up list just to the north sea is a good idea. Sandpiper (talk) 10:51, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, massie says there were 5 cruisers in the squadron, at least posted at Harwich. I dont know about earlier. Sandpiper (talk)

There is a curious website post here which claims to be a first hand account from a survivor, including sinking submarines and shoting at the ships which eventually rescued them? [8] Sandpiper (talk)

I assume that you're referring to the first quote from the Chaplain? If so, then that one was posted by me!! Although I'm not quite sure where that book is in my collection.

If you have no objection, I'm going to move the section relating to the loss of the ships to a new article, viz Loss of the Aboukir, Cressy and Hogue. In my experience the names of the ships are far better known than the name "Live Bait Squadron" and since the sunken ships didn't refer specifically to the three sunken ships it's rather spurious to refer to their loss as such, wouldn't you say? --Harlsbottom (talk | library) 13:51, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The chaplains account contained some points, eg claimed sub kills and sailing line ahead, which seem to be wrong, casting doubt on its definitiveness. Which is not necessarily to say he was altogether wrong, but casts doubt on his comments as to what precisely the various ships were doing.

I would not move simply the section about the sinkings to another article by itself. If I found it in such a condition, I would then re-write all the preamble explaining the founding of the squadron, bad ships, reserve sailors, advice to stop the patrols, and add them to the article, just as now. Virtually everything there is pertinent directly to the sinking of those ships and a full explanation of it. I have no objection to an article about '7th squadron', including ww2, indeed there is a stub named in an article titled something like ' List of British Squadrons' which as yet has no entry. However, this is exactly why I felt 'Live bait' was a better name than "7th Squadron", because the article is exactly about this one incarnation of the name. It is mostly about the sinking, but significantly about that particular squadron and the problems, some political, which beset it. I also note some sources seem to be referring to is as "Cruiser squadron C"? Sandpiper (talk)

with the above caveat, I don't mind too much the name. 'loss of.. etc' would be fine: the only issue would be whether historians have an accepted name for the incident. However, mention of 'live bait' in the article needs to be kept as it demontrates what the navy thought about the ships. As a title it is probably bad because it does not explain what it is about. Sandpiper (talk) 10:29, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I notice you took out the paragraph about Jellicoe. This is sourced. Massie is repected, by some more than others clearly, but nonetheless it is his view and thus we are entitled to include it. If you feel it is wrong, then produce some evidence to that effect. I did not put it in out of contrariness. Masie is plainly making a case through his book as to why certain events happened, but that does not invalidate his claims. The case seems to me convincing, so a happy coincidence of sourced credible information?

Don't know if you had any info on whether it was 5 or 6 ships in the squadron? Sandpiper (talk) 09:35, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You give me examples of published authors quoting Massie and qualified reviews which state that his facts are unimpeachable - then we can say whether his work is well respected, let alone reliable. Note that you don't mention whether it's reliable. In his passage relative to Jellicoe and Jutland, I read through it before deleting, and then consulted my sources. Massie himself shows no actual link between Aboukir, Cressy and Hogue's sinking. If you then consulted as I did "The Jellicoe Papers" Volume I, "The Grand Fleet" by Jellicoe and Bacon's extremely thorough biography of Jellicoe which make's use of his private notes (not letters) then you would find no clear link between the loss of the ships and Jellicoe's planned intentions at Jutland. Massie is blatantly clutching at straws.

I don't care if his facts are unimpeachable, and nor does wiki. Since his book was 2004 and this is hardly current affairs I would not be surprised if no one had written anything yet agreeing with him. In this sort of situation, if there is a dipute, then the general way to resolve it would be to say 'massie says....., but Bacon disagrees and says.....'.However, the same issues would apply to works by Bacon (a friend, I think) as to those by Jellicoe, that they might be self-censored because they were contemporary views by people involved. But I'm not sure if you disagree with the general thesis, that Jellicoe had a real and well founded fear of torpedos which was not universally shared by the navy, or just the specific point that this incident did anything to affect his thinking. Sandpiper (talk)

Right - having re-read the piece I deleted and Massie p.145 - YOU were the one speculating, so I'm sorry for impugning Massie's name for once. You wrote "This attack helped confirm in the mind of Admiral Jellicoe, commander of the British fleet at sea, the extreme importance of protecting his capital ships from torpedo threats." No where in Massie does it say that - so that's YOU putting words in Massie's mouth. So it's not a case of "Massie says..." as you put it above, it's what you said, and quite frankly it's balls. The attack did NOT confirm anything in the mind of Jellioce as you put it, and it did NOT lead to him writing to the Admiralty. --Harlsbottom (talk | library) 13:36, 15 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Re:The article, I chose my words poorly - I did mean that as you say relevant sections would be amended to be included in a new "loss of..." article. As far as I can tell, having looked through my own books and checked Google Books, and the event certainly isn't referred to as the loss of the live bait squadron. Most items I;ve seen allude to the torpedoing, sinking, &c. of the Aboukir, Cressy and Hogue, so "Loss of..." would make a good start. The squadron, which formed part of Cruiser Force C at the time, was composed of the three which sank, Bacchante and Euryalus - I have no idea what had happened to Sutlej. --Harlsbottom (talk | library) 11:51, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Could be off for repairs, whatever, but leaves us the slight issue whether there should have been 5 or 6 in principle in the squadron. Then Cruiser force C had these 5 plus other ships?.

Battle of Coronel

Moving on reading through Massie, I see he presents a somewhat different picture of the battle of coronel to our article. Don't know what you think of that one? Sandpiper (talk) 09:45, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've just struck my copy of Massie in luggage preparatory to a flight across the Atlantic. I have some contemporary literature on my laptop which I'll look at. I had forgotten about the poor state of that article - I believe I summed it up well five months ago, "There might not be any POV, there's just shoddy scholarship." --Harlsbottom (talk | library) 12:06, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps one should not talk about shoddy scholarship on wiki, just articles still needing more work, all contributions welcome. I much prefer to have the article such as it is rather than nothing. However, I shall have a go at something when I get to it, assuming no one beats me to it. Nice to hear someone else is lugging around Massie. Sandpiper (talk) 14:52, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Request

Harlsbottom, since you are a member of the WW1 task force who has stated that you have a particular interest in the Western Front, I would like to ask if you are able to add to the Robert Nivelle article. It is currently on GA hold, as it requires more information, particularly about his early life and legacy. If there is a chance that you could contribute to the article by July 21, the date when the review ends, I would be very gratful. Thanks in advance. EasyPeasy21 (talk) 22:43, 17 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXIX (July 2008)

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This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 01:25, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Francis Harvey

Hi, I wanted to discuss a couple of things about your recent edits to Francis Harvey. Firstly, thankyou for adding this information to the article, its interesting and helps paint a better picture of the event. I would however like to ask you some questions regarding some of the information you removed from the article. 1) You have removed HMS and SMS in front of the names of ships in the article which I assume correlates with the “incorrect usage” mentioned in your edit summary. This is a little odd, not just because I haven’t seen this described as incorrect usage anywhere else but also because you have only done it to some of the instances where it appears, which makes the article rather inconsistent. Please can you provide some evidence that this is the correct usage and ensure that the article is internally consistent. 2) You removed a number of things from the article that were both sourced and relevant. Please explain why these were taken out

a) Casualty figures from the strike on Q turret.

b) Information about the weaknesses in the turret’s armour.

c) Information about the later strike on X turret.

d) You added that the sergeant was despatched to speak to the captain, but then further down left in “The sergeant went immediately to the bridge and notified the admiral of Harvey's actions”

All of the above had sources, and removing them changes the article fairly dramatically, the kind of changes probably best discussed on the talk page first, especially when removing properly sourced information without explanation. Regards--Jackyd101 (talk) 17:59, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

With regard to ship names, I consider it beneficial to say HMS Amethyst on first mentin, linked to the ship article. But thereafter the HMS becomes annoying simply as a matter of writing style, and I would use just 'Amethyst'. Somewhat akin to saying 'Admiral of the Fleet Sir John Fisher' on first mention, but thereafter just saying 'Fisher'. Sandpiper (talk) 18:46, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

1) It's both common sense and literally correct that the abbreviated form of "His Majesty's Ship" not be used with terms such as "cruiser" or "battleship" - "battlecruiser His Majesty's Ship Lion" wouldn't make sense at all, while being "appointed to His Majesty's Ship Queen Mary" is correct usage. If I made any exceptions which thus appear incorrect, then those are usages I missed.

I disagree here, although I don't think it is worth arguing over. HMS is part of the ship's name and many respectable naval histories quite happily use the phrasing "the cruiser HMS Neptune" or similar. I am inclined generally to use the system suggested below of using HMS or SMS on first mention in order to easily identify the ship's nationality for someone unfamiliar with the particular action or era and from then on to give the name without the prefix.--Jackyd101 (talk) 06:31, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

2)a) The way that the section was worded suggested that the shell exploded then a secondary explosion occurred which killed "over 60 men". The shell which hit the turret is the one which blew off the roof, all on its own, and mortally wounded Harvey. I would have thought now the article reflected the correct sequence of events.

I can see what you mean about the sequence of events, but the casualty figure should still appear in the article, albeit further down.

b)"Weakened joint" which I removed was incredibly vague. If you had used, say, "the junction was a weakness" - that would have been correct.

This is really a problem with the wording more than anything else, the weaknesses in the turret armour are well documented and when I have the time I will reinsert them more clearly.

c)There was NO strike on X turret. All of Lion's heavy hits were received from Lützow and none even got close to "X" barbette. The author concerned may have been confused with a hit on Tiger's "X" turret which isn't a very clever thing to do.

Its with some embarrassment that I admit you are correct here. I rechecked the source and discovered that it was written by an officer from X magazine who described the experience of being caught in the explosion without directly specifying which turret he meant until somewhat after describing the effect (he was climbing down a hatch close to Q turret at the time the shell hit). He wasn't very clear, but I should have double checked this information more widely than I did (I'm sure I used another source to confirm it but cannot now find where I did so). Thankyou for picking up on and correcting it.

d)My bad. Should have removed that.

Campbell is still the benchmark for the hits and hitting at Jutland. You won't find any historian who disputes his facts. Apologies for the above mentioned errors. Otherwise, I stand by my edit. --Harlsbottom (talk | library | book reviews) 20:12, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I was going to post on the discussion page another matter, but having perhaps "sullied" the name of Harvey enough I won't lobby to have it included in the article. The evidence ("Jutland: An Analysis of the Fighting", "Dreadnought Gunnery at the Battle of Jutland") points to the conclusion that, certain conditions notwithstanding, Lion's gunnery both at the Dogger Bank and Jutland wasn't of the first order, with possible consequences on the statements made in the article. --Harlsbottom (talk | library | book reviews) 20:19, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is not an exercise in hero worship, and British gunnery was pretty abysmal throughout the First World War, if you have sourced criticism of Lions gunnery then please add it in by all means. I think your edits have been very helpful to the article and in light of them I will, when I have the time, conduct a thorough reworking of the section on the battle, including the things mentioned above and one or two other details to clarify. Regards--Jackyd101 (talk) 06:31, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Jacky Fisher

And while on the subject, I am increasingly bothered by the article 'Jackie Fisher', on the suspicion it ought to be 'Jacky Fisher'. Sandpiper (talk) 18:47, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I would suspect "Jacky" is the more common usage also - it is the one used by historian Paul G. Halpern in his Oxford Dictionary of National Biography article. I would say personally that while he may have been known as "Jacky Fisher", he certainly wasn't known as "Jacky Fisher, 1st Baron Fisher" which is the article name and supposed to the commonest name. I don't think so. Fisher himself was known personally as "Jack", and most people at the time would have referred to him simply as "Lord Fisher". That is how Bacon in his two volume life of Fisher (which I've read but only just bought this very day) refers to him. Lump all that in with the table on the Talk page, then I think it's time to at least get it off "Jackie". If it went to a vote though I'd go for John Arbuthnot Fisher, 1st Baron Fisher. --Harlsbottom (talk | library | book reviews) 21:20, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There is a big argument about names on the page which seems to have been a can of worms. Most of it seems to be about whether it should be 'Fisher of Kilverston', with the conclusion that it should. Jacky/Jackie was raised without conclusion, and 'John' was suggested, but that part of the name never really got argued about. An article name is supposed to be that which identifies the subject most readily. I assume the reasoning behind 'Jacky Fisher' is that he had a high public profile and was referred to behind his back (affectionately) as Jacky. There is a risk that books might have edited the spelling, if only for consistency if both variants were used historically. I wonder whether this might be a 'fashion' issue: since it was only a nickname it would likely depend upon what was common spelling at that time, which might now be different or at least more confused. So I was only going so far now to take up the point that jacky seems likely to be better than Jackie. I would have no objection, however, to the title being 'John'. The choice of nickname or real name might depend on whether he is commonly recognied now by the nickname. Which might also imply that whatever form was used at the time, the form most commonly used now would be preferred. There seems to be a risk of wikipedia establishing the standard rather than reporting it. Given the confusion, maybe John would be better even though it seems likely it was only used formally and never by people who knew him. Sandpiper (talk) 08:28, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

TNA

Time at Kew isn't too much problem for me - though having chance to actually look at documents is. I think my duty to my employer (and the taxpayer) may require me to check that the service records are supposed to be free at the moment... David Underdown (talk) 12:01, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Usually new items on Documents Online are free for a month or so when they are first added, and then go tot he stadard charge of £3.50 after that. I'm not sure how long the RN service records have been available. David Underdown (talk) 12:17, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for cathcing my error on Fisher - I had meant to chagne it but somehow didn't. I'm told these are a new collection, and so will be free for 30 days (I'm not sure precisely when that period started). If you've not already found it, there's a general overview of the collection at http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documentsonline/adm196.asp David Underdown (talk) 13:43, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It appears thhat the setting of these as free was an error after all, and these will be set to fee paid very shortly. David Underdown (talk) 08:58, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, we're supposed to work on a cost-recovery basis (and I understand that the current charge doesn't actually even do that really). They are free on site, so if there's anything specific you want checking, I can look it up. David Underdown (talk) 11:31, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Dreyer/Pollen

The Dreyer ODNB article does indeed seem to skate over it, but it does indeed appear that Pollen was payed £30000 in 1925 in respect of elements of his Argo system which were incorporated into Dreyer's system, although it does appear that Dreyer's system contained further improvements. There does seem to be an ongoing controversy over the issue (though I will note here that I knew the editor who originally added the information long before Wikipedia came along, and I'd normally trust him on this sort of thing, the history of computing being an interest of his). David Underdown (talk) 11:05, 7 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This why the ODNB Pollen article is both wrong and misleading. The author of that article, Jon Tetsuro Sumida, skates over the fact that the Royal Commission on Awards to inventors found that no plagiarism took place. Alleged similarities were found between aspects of the Dreyer and the Pollen systems, but this was never actually proved, as Pollen, a trained barrister, made allegations late in the proceedings which he knew could not legally be challenged by the Admiralty. Pollen's award was made for his contributions to gunnery, not for any specific instance of his work being copied.

There isn't really a debate. John Brooks laid out all aspects of the development of British fire-control in his book Dreadnought Gunnery and the Battle of Jutland, and he is a retired computer engineer. Jon Sumida is an academic, and the evidence suggests that for 25 years he deliberately selected the evidence which would support his pro-Pollen version of events, for example somehow finding inaccurate diagrams and viciously pruning sources to get the best slant on Pollen's work at the expense of Dreyer's. Either that or he has an utterly incomptetent grasp of mechanics. Until Brooks published his thorough work in 2005, everyone had been led along the same inaccurate garden path since 1978, your acquaintance included.

What Sumida also doesn't point out is that Dreyer had already been paid a 5,000 pounds award by the Royal Commission in 1916. He applied for another at the same time as Pollen but was refused as he was a serving Flag officer of the Royal Navy and had already received a (lesser) sum. It should also be noted that Percy Scott through his work received in excess of 100,000 pounds for his gunnery work in 1920 from Vickers.

I'll have to confess to being very partisan on this. I read Sumida's work, then Brooks'. Then I was revolted that for twenty-five years the academic and naval history community had followed this idiotic line without being bothered to check the facts, which clearly reveal that the Pollen system was in no way superior to the Dreyer system and was ultimately inferior.

At any rate, there is no need to mention this debate on Percy Scott at all. Scott, as the record will show, had absolutely nothing to with the testing of fire-control calculators after his period as I.T.P. was up. --Harlsbottom (talk | library | book reviews) 14:48, 7 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The only source I currently have access to is Eric Grove's "Big Fleet Actions", which follows and quotes from Sumida, and pre-dates Brooks. Until I get the opportunity to read Brooks I'm going to have to reserve judgement. But it does seem to me that Grove, following Sumida, makes some specific claims (e.g. that the Dreyer/Elphinstone range clock ran only at a number of fixed speeds, with bearing plotted separately, as opposed to Pollen's approach of plotting range and bearing together to produce a true-course plot of the target) that show Pollen's approach to be superior and would be difficult to sustain by selective choice of sources. Not all of what Grove says seems true - I never did like his claim (presumably following Sumida?) that it was significant that Jellicoe placed the Argo-equipped Orions at the head of his line at Jutland. Jellicoe's own stated reasons for his choice of deployment make much more sense.

In any case, I agree that there's no need to mention this debate in the article on Scott (though I still think it wrong to mention Dreyer without mentioning Pollen, since both systems were employed). Perhaps something should be said instead about his development of the technique of continuous aim for small-calibre guns, which preceded his work on director firing. Philip Trueman (talk) 15:50, 7 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Apologies if I sounded arsey (I am generally), but this subject is very important to me, especially in light of all the associated repercussions it has on our view of the Royal Navy. Grove of all people should have realised just how difficult true-course plotting is to achieve (it was only finally achieved properly in Vanguard with the A.F.C.T. Mk X.) Pollen failed completely to produce a good plotter (his Mark IV plotter was not successful on trials) and the Admiralty repeatedly asked him to focus on it, but to no avail. The Dreyer table provided a reliable and practical alternative at a far more reasonable price.

Order of ships after Jellicoe formed line of battle at 1815; King George V-Dreyer Table Mk III, Ajax-Dreyer Table Mk II (Argo Clock Mk IV), Centurion-Dreyer Table Mk II (Argo Clock Mk IV), Erin-Dreyer Table Mk I (Vickers Clock) (not definite), Orion-Dreyer Table Mk II (Argo Clock Mk IV), Monarch-Dreyer Table Mk III, Conqueror-Dreyer Table Mk II (Argo Clock Mk IV), Thunderer-Dreyer Table Mk III. The first four formed the First Division (two out of four with Argo gear), the latter four the Second Division (again, two out of four). Grove was, quite politely, talking out of his behind. His flagship Iron Duke, with a Dreyer Table Mark IV and captained by Dreyer himself had arguably one of the best shoots of the battle - eleven definite hits out of ninety fired. Orion gained one definite and shared five maybes with the Dreyer Table Mark III-equipped Monarch. The other Argo equipped battleships don't seem to have hit a sausage according to Campbell, Jutland: An Analysis of the Fighting.

As far as I'm aware, there was absolutely no limitation posed by the variable speed drive which worked with the rate and bearing clocks. I will make enquiries however for more detailed information on the mechanism, as the handbook isn't particularly helpful. Something on continuous aim would be good, I'll check the article I have on Scott and the Director and also Dreadnought Gunnery for some info. --Harlsbottom (talk | library | book reviews) 03:00, 8 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Can I make a few points:

• Sumida claims that a defect of the Dreyer equipment was that the bearings were more prone to wear than the equivalent Argo equipment; errors crept in when the bearings were worn. All this means is that with the Dreyer equipment you had to replace bearings more frequently than with the Argo system. If the gunnery officer's team were good, and knew their equipment well, then this need not affect fighting performance.
• Dreyer was a very skilled gunner. Because he was interested in gunnery, and also knew the fire control system well, his ship performed extremely well.
• The assumption that all ships used all the fire control equipment they were equipped with may be false. In the mid-1980s, when I was new to all of this, I read a description of Dreyer visiting a ship and on inspecting the fire control table discovered that it was inoperable because the ship's company had used it as a source of cogs that they could use to repair other equipment. [Unfortunately I do not remember which book I read that in - also I cannot remember the date of the visit - it could have been in the 1920s.]
• I would expect there to be huge differences in the accuracy of different ships simply because of differences in personnel. This was very clear from naval gunnery exercises in the early 1900s. Operational Research Group analyses of performance of infantry in engagements in the Malayan Emergency in the 1950s found a factor of three difference between the performance of the best and worse British battalions, and the Fiji battalion did ten times as well as the average of British battalions.

--Toddy1 (talk) 19:57, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Re your first point, Sumida's claim regarding the wear of the discs is vastly over-exagerrated. The few instances of such wear came when the Dreyer Table was grossly overloaded with other equipment, i.e. abused. The only possible advantage Pollen's equipment had was that it came in a big sealed metal case, but that probably wouldn't have stopped the more enthusiastic gunnery officers from having a fiddle. You are right about the gunnery team being able to deal with any maintenance issues. Admiral Sir William M. James made the point in his memoirs that the Imperial Russian Navy bought Pollen's Argo Mark V gear because their sailors wouldn't be able to operate anything else. British sailors could.

Re your second point - a lot can be ascribed to Jellicoe, but Iron Duke's Gunnery Officer is regarded as one of the best officers never to hold the highest commands, Geoffrey Blake. If I have the time I'll go through my files and see just what percentage of Captains at Jutland were gunnery officers (the cream of the technically trained). It's worth pointing out that Chatfield of Lion was well-regarded as a gunnery expert, yet his ship shot like s***.

I'm assuming the tale from your third point is that of Stephen King-Hall's "My Naval Life 1906-1929". Dreyer was an object of derision for his perceived lack of humour and over-achieving ambition. The story concerns Tiger, and no one in their right mind would dismantle the ship's key fire control device, one of the latest. It can be written off as mindless gossip. --Simon Harley (talk | library | book reviews) 20:37, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Further to my point about gunnery officers commanding ships at Jutland: out of the Battle Cruiser Fleet's nine battle cruisers at Jutland, only one Commanding Officer was a former gunnery officer - Chatfield. Out of the twenty-eight battleships which took part, the Commanding Officers of thirteen were former gunnery officers. Beatty got the sort of men he wanted. Jellicoe got the sort he wanted. --Simon Harley (talk | library | book reviews) 10:38, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

no one in their right mind would dismantle the ship's key fire control device

Well would anyone in their right mind dismantle the anti-flash devices on the battlecruisers - but they did - Lion's were restored before Jutland because of the insistence of one individual who was shocked by what he found when he was posted to the ship. And would any in their right mind take the propellant out of their protective containers - which of course was another thing the battlecruiser force did (I assume except Lion at Jutland).

Thanks for identifying the book I read in the mid-80s.--Toddy1 (talk) 12:56, 22 December 2009

The vast majority of the material about the battle cruisers at Jutland is extremely unreliable. Chief Gunner Alexander Grant may have requested a change over of ammunition (as far as I can tell no one has checked the records). He claimed to have reduced the vast numbers of cartridges waiting in the Handing Room: The fact that eight full open charges remained intact in Lion's "Q" turret proves that exposure to fire didn't mean that exposed charges taken out of their brass cases automatically blew up or posed an immediate danger to the ship. The fact that every single waiting station was jammed with shell and cordite at the time of the "Q" turret disaster suggests that Lion was still devoted to firing as quickly as possible anyway. I wrote this a while back about the incident, still need to finish it: User:Simon Harley/HMS Lion turret explosion controversy for example. The historian who recently edited Grant's Lion memories for the Navy Records Society, Eric Grove, accused Grant of lying in parts of his memoirs, an accusation with which I agree.

Lambert in Our Bloody Ships or our Bloody System makes the idiotic charge that for daring to blame the BCF's sailors of negligence, the Third Sea Lord, Frederick Tudor, "instead of receiving an appointment to the Grand Fleet, as was his due, Tudor was sent to command the handful of dilapidated cruisers guarding British commercial interests in China." After seven years on shore, Tudor was bloody lucky to get any command whatsoever, especially one with Commander-in-Chief status. The notion that someone who had never flown his flag should take an active part in the war at sea three years into the war is incredible. Nevertheless, Lambert does make sense in one are: "The absence of any conclusive physical evidence and the disappearance over the past eighty years of so many official papers [an excuse for him not finding them] makes it impossible to provide a definite explanation for the cause of the explosions resulting in the loss of the three battle cruisers." --Simon Harley (talk | library | book reviews) 13:50, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Battle of Jutland

Sorry, but who is brooks, source of your comments on rangefinders. I don't think you have listed him in the refs. Also, some of the addition doesn't quite make sense, and I hesitate to try to fix it without being sure of the meaning. Aslo, i think you said 'guns at once', when you meant 'simultaneously', rather than 'immediately'.

I aslo note Brooks seems to be at odds with Marder, who you removed. What is the basis for prefering Brooks? Marder felt the British were incapable of making optical instruments such as the Germans used.Sandpiper (talk) 16:00, 8 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Brooks was in there, someone seems to have removed him. When Marder wrote DTSF forty years ago, nobody had done any real research into either British or German gunnery. Quite frankly he was talking out his backside about Barr & Stroud versus Zeiss. Range and Vision, a history of B&S published over ten years ago is acknowledged by critics to have shown that British optical equipment was the equal of their German counterparts. The main failing in the Royal Navy was not training their rangefinder operators up to the proper standard, while German rangetakers were generally highly trained to a better standard. An exception is demonstrated by Iron Duke at Jutland, which plotted consistently accurate rangefinder distances and achieved a better than 10% hit rate. I will go over what I wrote and sort it out, I was in a hurry this morning on the way out.

Why do I prefer Brooks? He references and quotes widely from both British and German sources. Marder does neither, operating from the disadvantage of relying on hearsay and not having the documentation. And Marder is extremely indiscriminate about which sources he uses - his treatment of Thomas Jackson, you will have noticed, comes from William F. Clarke, and is his only source for his criticism of Jackson (which is protracted). It seems to have totally escaped Marder that all the Room 40 watch officers had to do was walk out the door and inform Jackson of the crucially important fact that Scheer used a different call-sign at sea. It's idiotic to absolve the Room 40 team of any responsibility for not informing the Director of Operations (and a former Director of the Naval Intelligence Division) of such a pertinent fact. Vide Beesly, Room 40 and Andrews Secret Service for more on Room 40. --Harlsbottom (talk | library | book reviews) 19:05, 8 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well I think I would say it is not my business to judge sources. If someone with a reasonably sensible coverage and passing the bare standard of being published and selling and generally respected says something, then it goes in. We have had this debate before. It is not really the general position of wiki editors to judge accuracy. If someone said it, then it goes in. If there is disagreememnt, then we say x says this, y says that. It doesn't matter that Marder is talking out of his hat, his own authority is sufficient. Wiki is written by comparison of views, not chosing the one which is definitive: because that requires being an expert and taking an authoritative stand, which very few here have the capability to do.(i note your massive book list).

Massie supports marder on the codebreakers issue. I can perfectly see that a set of codebreakers and a set of admin stafff who despise each other could be on barely civil terms when it comes to passing over information. I do not think the room 40 people would dekiberately mislead anyone simply because they hated him, but I can well see how bad relations could reduce communication to the level where people just arent interested in volunteering additional information. Not if they regularly get sneered at if they try. It is perfectly possible people in room 40 were passing the blame on to someone else, but that is not what the two books say. So I quote the books. Not my business to go and unearth the original source documents.

As to Barr and stroud I was trying to find some background info. I came across one history of the companies work on the net, which included the comment that B&S was making and selling Zeis instruments in the USA under license, presumably because the Americans wanted those rather than B&S ones. So obviously someone liked them. Clearly there was an issue about buying from own-nation sources for vital war equipment, and then the issue of who owned what patents permitting them to make a particular design. It is not obvious at all that designs were chosen by countries on merit rather than necessity. Nor that B&S would not have adopted the Zeis design, rather than rubbishing it, had they been permitted to make it. I would suspect that the 1900's was even worse than now when it came to companies hyping their own claims with little regard to the facts. The account I was reading claimed they were capable of making equipment at least as well as any of their competition. It did not claim they had the best designs in production. I was amused to note B&S staff went to optics lectures at Imperial college: so did I.

I noted a debate on 'the dreadnought project', which I think you took part in, debating dreyer and Pollen designs and relative effectiveness at jutland. The debate started by discussing relative rangefinder performance. Reading through the posts I remained entirely frustrated that no one was comparing British with German designs and performance. I don't understand the technology properly yet, but it seems to me the fuss has been about the british politics at least as much as whether the Germans really did have a better overall firing solution. In any case, the issue remarked upon by Marder was initial rangefinding, not ultimate accuracy. Everyone seems to agree that rangefinders of any description were difficult to use in those conditions, and correcting from last shot was the better way of aiming. There was a specific description in Marder of one destroyer running the gauntlet of shot by steering towards the last fall, so I presume this must mean the Germans were correcting from fall.(or then again, perhaps not: I have yet to read a german account of problems they encountered in a real battle with rangefinding. Maybe they didn't have any, and that was the point.) It is not clear to me that any of these devices produced a truly accurate result, so it becomes a question of which design gives the best first shot. Statistics on subsequent shell fire might not be very usefull. Some of the accounts of first shots by british ships seem truly awfull. Sandpiper (talk) 00:04, 9 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

An examination of Brooks contents and index summary on amazon would suggest that the book contains little about the German system? Sandpiper (talk) 00:53, 9 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In the chapter entitled Into Battle he devotes about 4-5 pages to a referenced summation of German fire control progress, which is more than you will find anywhere else. --Harlsbottom (talk | library | book reviews) 00:54, 9 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Not my business to go and unearth the original source documents." If you read widely enough instead of relying on large overview sources and have more than a superficial interest in the subject, sooner or later you might "unearth" the original documents, which are surprisingly easy to come by. A large portion of the naval history books I have listed in my library came off the internet for nothing, and if you're lucky you'll find books which quote documents verbatim. Last weekend I had the great pleasure to take advantage of a incompetent error made by the National Archives and was able to download a few dozen service records for free, instead of the hundreds of pounds of the five hundred pounds/thousand dollars plus I would normally have had to pay. Already I have seen where certain historians (Gordon in The Rules of the Game is one) have obviously not checked the service record and made false assertions about certain officers, and also where they have cited the service record yet written something entirely different.

Marder is interesting because in his twenties he was possibly the last person to look at a great deal of Admiralty literature. It's bad enough that in many cases he doesn't cite specifically the details of the correspondence involved, but it really didn't help that the Naval Historical Section literally purged untold numbers of documents, a process which was finally halted in the late fifties. Therefore quite literally a lot of Marder's scholarship depends on his reputation and not the facts. --Harlsbottom (talk | library | book reviews) 01:14, 9 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think I would say all scholarship depends on reputation, or at least ability, at least as much as on facts. Wikipedia is not in the position of writing articles to the level represented by your library. I suspect it would be fascinating to poke about in it for ages, but I don't have the time. It may be that one day the articles here will be up to that sort of level, I would like to think so. But right now they are nowhere near. If I was prioritising a team to fix this, I would start with the awful articles and get them to a basic level, not get the relatively good ones up to brilliant. A review book like Marder/Massie is chock full of basic uncontroversial stuff which simply is not here. The Battle of Jutland article is pretty good for a wiki article, but compared to the coverage just in Marder, its tiny. As I read Marder I see points which I think are important, and later notice are not well covered here. But I also find I am asking myself about the balance of the article: in a limited space, what should be covered more or less. For example, it currently goes on at some length about shells in two places. The naval tactics section I suspect should become an article in its own right. I don't know if there is any article anywhere attempting to compare the design philosophies and success/failure of the two sides in making good ships?

This business of whether better German rangefinders accounts for superior initial shooting, or maybe better ship handling so the operators could see, or more practice, or just luck. I know what Massie, Marder have said, that the technology was superior. From what you just said, Marder like as not read some fancy report from the admiralty comparing the systems. He does comment 'German opening salvoes were always much closer to the target than were the british, and they were able, it appears, to detect alterations of course (shown by alteration of the rate of change of range) more quickly than the British could. Quite definitive. The second part sounds like someone, somewhere looked at data from the German system and was impressed. (note on p.166 V.III) Or they might just have been much better at running a navy. Bluntly, the British navy seems to have been stuffed full of primadonnas all with their own ideas of how to run a war. All this stuff about misunderstandings, missed signals, screwed up intelligence reports. Fisher may have revolutionised the ships, but we still had the captains of all those old gunboats running the show.

As to eyestrain, it is not clear to me to what extent the rangefinders remained important once range was established. From the reports I have seen so far, it sounds as though once the range was basically established, the best method was to note where the last shots fell and adjust relative to that. The importance of the rangefinder seems greatest in getting your shells on target before the enemy can hit you. Initial edge is very important. Sandpiper (talk) 18:17, 9 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Arthur Pollen

I have been reading Anthony Pollens book about his dad (the great gunnery scandal). While I have read your health warnings above, I am left not wholly unimpressed by his work. I havn't had a chance to read Brooks, so dont know what his conclusions are. What does he say about the Argo system as compared to Dreyer as put to the test in WWI? Pollen argues that the navy did not understand what it needed so his work went unappreciated and its capabilities unused. Though I have reservations about Pollens arguments (presumably the arguments of pollen sr as re-told by Pollen jr) with regard to whether his equipment could have allowed british ships to fire accurately while maneuvering, and whether it would have made any real difference if they could, he does argue his equipment was better. Does Brooks agree? The evidence in the book does suggest that he was treated shabbily by the admiralty, though I'm not sure that is surprising: it was their job to get the best deal they could. Evidence elsewhere suggests to me the navy in general was terible at sorting out the difficulties of long range shooting, despite it being a basic part of their strategy as embodied in 'big guns'.

Pollen also mentions a crooks 9ft rangefinder, an innovation of his. Does Brookes comment on this as compared to the Barr and stroud? Sandpiper (talk) 19:48, 25 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm extremely busy atm so I can only give a relatively brief answer. Brooks states that the Argo Clock was mechanically superior to the Dreyer Table - i.e. a more impressive piece of equipment - however as part of a system it left much to be desired. It dealt poorly with data and the Mark IV version which the Royal Navy tested and incorporated in the Dreyer Table Mark II was NOT helm-free despite Anthony Pollen's repeated claims. The Argo Clock Mark V was helm-free, and was undoubtedly a good piece of equipment, but in no way superior to the Dreyer Table Mark IV which by that time (1915) was its contemporary in the service. By that time Pollen had angered far too many people at the Admiralty (which due to endless rotation of officers into positions means he annoyed ALOT of people).

Does Anthony Pollen give much coverage to the Argo True Course Plotter Mark IV? Brooks emphasises that the Admiralty repeatedly tried to get Pollen to focus on it and improve it as while a good idea it left much to be desired in practice, something Pollen himself admitted. As part of the Aim Correction system this is a crucial let down.

The Thomas Cooke & Son rangefinder with gyroscopically mounting was always appreciated by the Admiralty to be a good thing - and they bought lots of them at good prices - money which Pollen could have used to put the Argo Company into good business order. At the end of WWI the Royal navy also purchased a fairly large number of Cooke 15-foot rangefinders (50 if I recall, maybe less) but by the Armistice only 10 had been delivered.

Possibly the only part of the process where Pollen was mistreated was the trial curtailed by Sir Arthur Wilson in Exmouth. However, that's really not much of an excuse. Brooks shows that Pollen repeatedly attempted to strong-arm the Navy out of money (this, the well-off chairman of the Linotype Corporation) and when before the RCAI in the 1920s lied when it suited him. The findings of that Commission are open to criticism on technical grounds, as there is very little actual proof of any influence between Pollen and Dreyer/Elphinstone's clock mechanisms. It should also be noted that the RCAI found no-one guilty of plagiarism at all, yet repeatedly this word keeps popping up.

Realistically the Navy did a pretty good job with rapidly changing technology and ideas - it should be noted that the rest of the world wasn't so hot at long range gunnery and at the end of the day, as the Germans proved and Beatty's battle cruisers demonstrated, a great deal was to do with training. Unfortunately it's thanks to people like Pollen (and his son) that people think the Navy was technologically backward, indulged in nepotism and shot itself in the foot. --Harlsbottom (talk | library | book reviews) 20:11, 25 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Out of interest does the younger Pollen give any proof Dido and Empress of India being unable to make any/many hits on the target in February, 1900? Sumida, who is Pollen's chief apologist, makes no mention of any poor rate of hitting on page 77 of In Defence of Naval Supremacy - and if it was poor he would have surely mentioned it. What's most striking about the event is that Pollen asked whether the guns fired any further than 1400-1500 yards, rather than whether they were hitting at that range. It is also worth noting that according to Goodenough's service record (which I have a copy of), he was a Lieutenant (not a Commander until 30 June of that year) on the China Station in the cruiser Hermione, before returning later in 1901 to the battleship Resolution in the Channel Fleet. Neither Sumida and I can only assume Anthony Pollen give reference Goodenough's presence? --Harlsbottom (talk | library | book reviews) 20:41, 25 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

To try to answer: I have just read the whole book through. So I have a general but not precise knowledge of its content. Broadly, it is terrible on exact details of how any of the equipment worked. So I am also largely in the dark on the technical issues of what all this stuff really did. My inference is that Pollen jr inherited a massive pile of papers, plus whatever his father told him, and wrote up the version according to his father. Its source of evidence is thus his fathers papers. I infer these exist somewhere where they are theoretically accessible. I would expect his references to them are accurate transcripts, but of course i have no idea how even handedly he might have quoted them, or if anyone might have selectively destroyed any. He mentions various admiralty reports about ARGO systems, and generally says 'the report said it was brilliant, but when it came to it they refused to buy'. I can't tell if this is correct, or whether the explanations he gives as to why the admiralty did not buy are correct. If there is a theme, it is that the admiralty did not appreciate what more his system could do than could their own, thus failed to see why they should pay his premium prices.

You say he offended a lot of people, and this must be true. Yet, the book says not only did he work as a respected (highly respected?) journalist on naval matters during the war, but that the admiralty used him to spin stories for them and leaked him information. States he was friends through the war with the DNO and secretary to first lord. Also, that he was at least assisted by the foreign office to do PR work on Britains behalf while in the US towards the end of the war. Also, every time he was turned down over something, he got strings of admirals and captains to put their names to letters supporting his equipment. So although he might have offended some, others seemed to like him. The book is quite anti-fisher, and describes him in some ways entirely the opposite of other stuff I have read, and I think he mentions Beresford complimentarily, so I take it he was on the agin Fisher side of that war. Again, he said quite a lot of stuff against Jellicoe, yet the book claims that after Jutland he was approached by someone whether, as Jellicoe's friend, he could find out how Jellicoe was feeling about running the fleet. It notes Jellicoe wrote him three personal letters after the battle, and Pollen was invited to jellicoe's leaving party when he left the grand fleet to become first sea Lord. I inserted the piece into his article from somewhere else (massie?) about him apparently conspiring with Beatty's wife to oust Jellicoe. This book mentions his friendly chats with Beatty.

I don't know if he was an amiable and brilliant inventor determined to help his country, or a scheming backstabber telling everyone he loved them and then denouncing them once he had their secrets. The book claims the admiralty was quite concerned not to allow him to become a monopoly supplier of something important who they did not control. This may have contributed quite a bit to their attitude towards him. It must be true to some degree.

This book spins Pollen as always acting in good faith trying to convince the admiralty he had a brilliant invention which many navy men realised and agreed was brilliant, yet those in charge did not accept. That he continued in good faith with everyone until things ended up with lawyers present arguing over contracts and he was dismissed as a supplier by the admiralty pre-war. The book argues that facts about other targeting systems were held back from him, for example even post war at the tribunal it says his lawyer was permitted to see certain navy documents, but was forbidden to tell Pollen what was in them. That not even as much would have come out as did, had not Dreyer also lodged a claim for compensation. That Dreyer in fact only lodged his claim after he believed Pollen's would have been dealt with, but the two ended up heard together and Dreyer became accidentally Pollens chief witness. So, it is possible that Pollen in good faith believed he had the best system, yet because he was never told details of others, in fact did not. Or, he may have been right (he does seem to have been leaked quite a few admiralty reports). At least as presented, it is clear he cooperated with the admiralty at the start and was very pleased to pick the brains of any navy men he could get hold of. It seems likely, and is claimed, they were doing exactly the same. Thus his eventual compensation for his ideas taken up. Sandpiper (talk) 00:00, 27 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As to who was screwing who for money, that is somewhat POV. The admiralty was arguing that its own offering was cheaper and better value for money. Pollen wanted a premium price. The admiralty thought he was overcharging considering manufacturing costs. The issue though is not the cost of something, but what it may gain you to have it. If Pollens equipment really had allowed more actual hits in battle then it could have paid for itself, compared to the cost of a battlecruiser, quite handsomly. I doubt anyone believed there was going to be a war just when there was. So Pollen could honourably hold out for more money, and the admiralty could honourably keep its costs down and save up for more ships. The point is made that all this stuff was secret, even when Pollen finally patented it (that the admiralty tried to gag him either from patenting or selling abroad by claiming his equpment incorporated secret information gained from the navy), so it was not simply Pollen trying to blackmail them, and he was unable to publicly make a full defence of his side.

Re Dido. The book states Pollen sr was visiting his uncle, Clement La Primaudaye, superintendant of police on Malta. It states that by chance his cousin, Bill Goodenough, 'was in a position to invite him to sail as his guest, in the cruiser Dido'. (in Feb 1900). It doesn't state it was the ship Goodenough served on, nor that he was in command, only that 'some units of the fleet would be going out in two days on gunnery trials'. It only says that in Pollens opinion the naval guns were used very ineffectually at ranges less than 2000 yards. Pollen jr says Pollen sr was comparing the ships performance with accounts of how well naval guns (demounted from ships) had performed in the South African wars at ranges of 10,000 yards, as reported in 'the times'. It makes no comment of how good the navy thought their shooting was. It states Pollen was accustomed to using a rifle and of the contrast between taking sporting shots by eye at game, or using a telescope and precise sights as a marksman. He felt the navy was still doing the 'game hunting' rather than 'marksman's' job, and had virtually no mechanical aids or even conception of the mathematical issues involved.Sandpiper (talk) 00:02, 27 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The book goes on to mention Percy Scott who was also in the China Station in 1900-1902, commanding hms Terrible. It talks about his advances by 1902. Now, it doesn't mention any connection between Pollen and Scott except that Scot was a gunnery pioneer, but it would seem Goodenough was in the same squadron. Other info on the internet talks about Scott being the chap who demounted his ships guns and sent them off overland. It says he left Durban March 1900. [9]

As below, been busy. The reason I asked about Goodenough was that whoever started the Pollen article said that the shooting had been terrible at the gunnery exercise, which from what Brooks, Sumida and your interpretation of The Great Gunnery Scandal seems to be a pile of c***.

I just read a biography of Lord Northcliffe and Pollen is mentioned as a rather poor journalist when he was at the Daily Mail, interesting. From what I gather his reputation as a naval journalist seems to have been predicated on just being able to write large amounts of bumf, relying on a networking to get gossip. After the war at the R.C.A.I. a number of officers who had previously endorsed Pollen seem to have regretted the fact, coming off as it did a decade later as favouritism of a sort (not to mention treason if admiralty documents were being passed along to him).

Brooks contention is that the only reason Pollen received such a large award was because of the technical incompetence of some of the R.C.A.I. judges (they were judges after all), and that Pollen had introduced a letter which said that a naval officer, Henley, had visited his works depsite the fact that Pollen had acknowledged the visit earlier on the stand. He used the letter to claim that since a naval officer had seen his works then the admiralty must have known what he was doing. Because it was introduced late in the proceedings, the Admiralty could not refute it. --Harlsbottom (talk | library | book reviews) 10:18, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I also have too many books to read right now without starting more. However, I mean to get hold of a copy of brooks and see what it says when I can. I have read some of the preview exerpts you can view with google. Pollen jrs book gives the clear impression the gunnery displayed at Malta was far below the capabilities of the guns, if only they could have been acurately aimed. I will look forward to reading precisely what brooks says and hopefully comparing the two versions of the tale. What is clearly not covered in Pollen's book is to what extent the admiralty research was happening independently of his fathers. It seems to me highly likely Pollen benefited fom information gained formally or informally from navy people, but it is only the side of the story known to his father. From this book it seems the navy had access to his equipment during trials and visits, and received drawings. So unless somehow refuted, I don't see how anything Pollen came up with remained secret from them. Sandpiper (talk) 18:38, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Dumaresq etc

It seems to me there ought to be separate article/articles about gun aiming. There is one called [naval artillery], which has a little about guns, but I have not found anything about aiming. The artillery article could be expanded as a start with sections on different equipment. If we got it big enough perhaps it should become separate articles. There are some tiny articles about rangeinders with not much detail. I was wondering whether in your library there are any copyright expired images of the equipment we could use? Sandpiper (talk) 09:25, 27 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Been extremely busy lately moving places, as well as doing research. I will have a look, although I doubt whether there is much copyright expired. --Harlsbottom (talk | library | book reviews) 10:08, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nominations for the Military history WikiProject coordinator election

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Von der Tann

Hi, Harlsbottom. Thanks for adding the bit about a detachment of crew from the VdT having been transferred to Blücher when the latter was sunk. I have a question though: does the book happen to mention what the detachment was doing? For example, were they working in the boiler rooms, or assigned to the gun crews? If not, no problem, but I thought it'd be nice to mention what the detachment was for if the information is available. Thanks again. Regards, Parsecboy (talk) 13:39, 20 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm afraid that all it says is that the balance of Blücher's complement was made up by men from Von der Tann. The wording is so iffy I have no idea how men were involved, or what they did. I have a contemporary article from The Naval Review consisting of interrogations from Blücher's crew after the battle which may make mention of any Von der Tann men. Likewise, I'm intrigued as to what the poor buggers would have been made to do. --Harlsbottom (talk | library | book reviews) 13:49, 20 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

First Sea Lords

Your thoughts would be welcome at Template talk:First Sea Lord#The options. Opera hat (talk) 15:45, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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Brooks, and Beatty

Just acquired a copy of Brooks from the library. On one read through I find some of the technical stuff quite confusing, but it all seems sesnsible and well argued. He doesn't really address the question of whether Pollen was a liar or an honest inventor who felt betrayed, but he does argue that Pollen was more than fairly treated. (well, you know that) What surprised me was that his analysis of the gunnery systems ended up thouroughly slamming beatty for incompetently managing the battlecruiser squadron at Jutland. I havn't researched Beattty much: is Brooks out of line in blaming Beatty for everything which went wrong there? His account rather altered my impression that Beatty was perhaps unlucky, to one where he was ignorant of important gunnery issues, failed to arrange his ships, was useless at communications and failed to address this recurring problem, never addressed the terrible gunnery performance of his ships, failed in the important role as fast armoured scouts reporting the enemy position (repeatedly)... Just good at spin. The performance of Hippers ships, which opened fire when they were ready, accurately, is in marked contrast. Whatever the capabilities of their targeting equipment, they used it effectively. Although the book has relatively little about German equipment, it gives the impression they addressed gunnery in a much more professional way, caertainly than Beatty but possibly than the RN as a whole. Sandpiper (talk) 08:58, 16 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Very rushed answer I'm afraid as I'm away working the next few days. Critics of Jellicoe in the Jutland controversy (the likes of Bacon, Harper and many, many friends of Jellicoe) are adamant - Beatty went in to battle with "superior force", six battle cruisers and four of the best battleships in the world. At the end of the day Beatty was responsible for the disposition of his force, and he was certainly responsible for the time to open fire. Even Chatfield, his Flag Captain, in his memoirs makes no excuse for Beatty's delay in opening fire. Bear in mind Chatfield was a gunnery officer of some repute, but Lion certainly didn't win any prizes for good shooting (despite what the Francis Harvey article might have you believe). New Zealand fired by far the most rounds of any capital ship at Jutland and achieved a miniscule hit rate.

Compare this to Jellicoe - at half five, even though he has very little idea of what the big picture is (in part thanks to Beatty ignoring his main task of scouting and reporting), he asks his gunnery expert and Flag Captain Dreyer what effect the light gage would have on gunnery. If you believe Andrew Gordon in The Rules of the Game, and the clues are in Dreyer The Sea Heritage, Jellicoe had already predisposed the vast majority of flag officers and 13.5-inch guns ships for a deployment to port, which suggests Jellicoe knew fully well how to utilise his gunnery. The conditions weren't exactly ideal when the Battle Fleet went into action (witness Erin not even opening fire!), yet all the battleships managed to put up a much better showing than either the Germans of the BCF, the 5th Battle Squadron excepted.

Hipper's squadron did behave well, but no better or more professionally than the Battle Fleet I'd say. I find it difficult to agree with Marder's view of Hipper as the best sailor of the war, as that suggests war is all about leading one squadron all the time (or commanding a fleet which mutinies). I've been going through a lot of Jutland materiel lately, diaries, reports and the like and there certainly wasn't a lack of understanding on the part of Jellicoe or his men, nor for that matter of the 3rd Battle Cruiser Squadron under Hood, whose shooting was very good.

If you're interested in Beatty, you're not really going to find a decent biography. S.W. Roskill wrote one just before he died, but it betrays Roskill's conviction that Jutland was an unforgiveable failure and lays the blame squarely at Jellicoe's feet. He also excuses Beatty's crude attempts at tampering with the Official Record of the Battle while First Sea Lord, which as history goes isn't very professional. In the foreward of the book Roskill waxes lyrical about a certain Jon Sumida rushing over from America with new proof of how the Admiralty stifled civilian initiative as regards fire control and an Arthur Pollen...Roskill, alas, always enjoyed the opportunity to kick the Navy he grew up in.

It is unfortunate that Brooks doesn't have more on German fire control but there really isn't that much to go on as I understand it, having communicated with other historians on the topic. As you see though I think he shows that the Argo system was given a very fair shake (perhaps excepting Wilson's curtailment of the trial in the Atlantic Fleet, the date escapes me now). I think he also shows how the terms of the award of the R.C.A.I. were perhaps unfair to the Admiralty and overly generous to Pollen. The problem is, ever since the younger Pollen and Sumida published their work in the 80s historians have all been too ready to damn key figures for their role in the Pollen-Dreyer debate. The likes of James Goldrick (a Roskill disciple), Nicholas Lambert and Andrew Gordon come to mind have criticised Jellicoe, Fisher, Wilson and others over Pollen and Argo. Since they were barking up the wrong tree, where does that leave their research and studies?

It may interest you to know, that in the latest issue of The Journal of Military History, in an article on naval intelligence and Jutland the author, having done extensive research, has essentially exonerated Captain Thomas Jackson of all blame over the "D.K." callsign debacle, which essentially urinates over Marder's onesided version of things and Andrew Gordon vicious attack on him in Rules of the Game. Yet another example of how shoddy history can be overturned. --Harlsbottom (talk | library | book reviews) 16:11, 16 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think perhaps 'shoddy' is a relative term. Although arguably time should work against new information coming to light, yet sometimes it does the reverse. I think it arguably unfair criticising people for accepting the perceived wisdom and not checking every single fact. With infinite resources this might be done exhaustively, but few people have these resources, so we proceed step by step as people add to knowledge. Brooks seems to have taken an area and worked harder at it, thus coming to a different view. The obvious interesting question is whether any of the authors on the Pollen side (as it were) have commented on Brooks views.

I havn't grasped the detail enough to spot errors which might be spottable in Brooks arguments as yet, but he essentially seeks to make deductive proofs of the timing of events, side admissions by people etc. This kind of logical prooof appeals to me. However...one might have thought that navy officers should have been familiar with methods of fire control existing in their own ships and would have been able to make informed judgements of Pollens contributions. Yet, and assuming he was a bit of a chancer who owed at least as much to navy information as the navy got from him, and also that his machinery ultimately was no better than the Deyer system, many seem to have continued to respect his ability. It is perhaps unfortunate to have to take Beatty as the example, because he very much had his own agenda, but he seems to have continued to respect Pollen. Beatty frankly seemed to have little clue about how the gunnery system was supposed to work, and one might suspect as a consequence took no steps to ensure his crews could operate it effectively. The fact that officers continued to respect Pollen seems to imply they were equally ignorant about how their ships might hit enemy ships. Something of a failing?

Then again, Beatty himself seems to have been something of a spin merchant, who might have been interested in cultivating a naval journalist, especially if he knew he had just had rather a poor showing in a battle. Similar comments might be made about some of Pollen's other naval supporters. Or not.

So what was the alternative explanation of the Signals cockup?

As it happens I have the Roskill book on Beatty just beside me now. I happened upon it a little while ago but havn't had a priority to read it. In the section about Jutland p.191, thumbing through, I noticed a comment about Beatty recommending the 'reinstatement' of 'handing room supply scuttles' after Jutland, which Roskill thinks were removed to increase speed. One might wonder who authorised their removal, why and when? Particularly when Beatty seems to have placed high emphasis upon rapid fire, as per the exchange of letters with Jellicoe quoted on p.226-227 of Brooks, where Jellicoe seems to be ever so politely telling him off. Don't know anything about Snelling, though I presume he did a relatively short bio of Francis Harvey, but Broooks quotes Jellicoe saying Beatty must have been disappointed in Lion's gunnery as per November 1915. Brooks says Lion as lead ship was least hampered by Smoke and first into position, so best placed to shoot well when firing started. Didn't do much good, though. Sandpiper (talk) 19:06, 16 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Perceived wisdom is always a dangerous idea. I've read far too many books where the adoption of the Dreyer Fire-Control Table is pilloried as one of the major errors of the pre-war Royal Navy, based solely on the work of Sumida and the younger Pollen. Brooks of course lists quite a few of these but there are many more which I come across every so often. It seems to me though very pathetic that until Brooks decided to re-investigate the matter (with the support of Sumida, it must be said), no-one else had bothered. A couple of years back I contacted Daniel A. Baugh (who had favourably reviewed In Defence of Naval Supremacy years ago, to see what he made of Brooks' work. I'm still waiting for a proper reply from him, other than a message about his time as a fire-control officer in the U.S.N.!

I've been doing a lot of background reading on the pre-war R.N. of late, and I now definitely get the feeling that Pollen was playing a flawed system for every last thing he could. I bought this lunchtime Infighting Admirals: Fisher's Feud with Beresford and the Reactionaries, which proved an interesting read on my 3-hour train journey - it seems an utter miracle the navy got anything done at all with so much bloody intrigue going on. Incidents of the nature of passing around secret documents seems to have been endemic. It is interesting to note that the author, Geoffrey Penn Captain, R.N. Retd.), even though writing in 2000, makes (to my mind) this succinct statement on Pollen: "That 'The capability of the Pollen system was far superior to that of the alternative fire control system adopted by the Royal Navy for service during the First World War' seems dubious; the evidence is hard to find. Despite his perseverance and propaganda, he never produced a workable version of his apparatus." The quotation is taken from the preface of Sumida's The Pollen Papers. Until I saw Penn's judgement above I don't think I've seen anyone criticise the Argo system in print.

The alternative to the "'DK' fiasco" is highly amusing, and provides yet more ammunition for my contempt and suspicion of most historians. Room 40 did indeed receive a signal that stated Freidrich der Groβe was transferring the ship callsign "DK" to the shore station Einfarht 3. However, Room 40's record book and Captain Hope's (the officer charged with supervising Room 40) diary all state clearly that the signal in question was in a new code which wasn't deciphered until six hours after Captain Jackson sent the signal to Jellicoe saying the H.S.F. was still in port. It wasn't until 6.40 that it was actually deciphered, and even at 7.20, forty minutes later, the infallible men in Room 40 were still using "DK" as Scheer's callsign. As far as I'm aware the Room 40 logs and Hope's logs have been available for perusal at the Public Record Office for years. Once again, gratuitous slandering of a naval officer without adequate reason, only the word of a disgruntled smart-ass named W. F. Clarke...

Anyway, I've just come off a four day work trip and have just been distracted by a question regarding Queen Mary's last captain. I will re-read your response when I am less knackered and make necessary additions. --Harlsbottom (talk | library | book reviews) 22:57, 20 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

From what I read I gained the impression that it was normal practice for scheer to transfer his call sign. Thus any usage of it from harbour at a time Scheer might possibly have been at sea should have been suspect, whether or not any specific message had been intercept stating that it had been transferred. Before you wrote the above, I don't think anything I read had mentioned any specific message transferring the ID, merely that it was his normal practice to do so, so any code officer should have given this warning regarding accuracy of the information. The initial accusation against the officer concerned was not that he had failed to accurately pass on messages, but he had failed to explain why they might not be reliable. Dumb insolence.

Actually, Marder's assertion in Dreadnought to Scapa Flow III p. 46 that "Anybody there [Room 40] could have told the Operations officer [Jackson] he was wrong." is simply untrue. The "DK" callsign switch was NOT common knowledge, even among Room 40 personnel. It is therefore extremely debatable whether Clarke or anyone else on duty at the time Jackson walked in could have told him of the mere possibility of the switch. Jackson obviously hadn't been told that the Germans were in the practice of doing it, which in itself is a criminal failing (in the army if a subordinate, such as Clarke, an R.N.V.R. officer, had failed to inform a superior of important intelligence before a battle I have no doubt he would have been Court-Martialled). Beesly in Room 40 hardly helps his case against Jackson by equating informing him of the "DK" switch (even if they had known it) with giving him "gratuitous advice". The only materiel the likes of Marder and others have used on is Clarke's unpublished memoir from after the war which lambasts Jackson, and the post-war Staff Monograph which was co-written unsurprisingly by Clarke. Quite how Jackson can be accused of dumb insolence for asking a question which he was in no position to pose and could not be answered anyway is absurd. --Harlsbottom (talk | library | book reviews) 11:37, 22 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Just got round to reading 'rules of the game' by Gordon (or starting to). As you mentioned, he seems quite hot on Captain jacksons failings, though Gordon keeps mentioning points and saying he will return to them later so I have yet to find the rest of his discussion about this. This may become another one to investigate further, although the consequence of this mistaken intelligence seem mostly to have been in reducing the sense of urgency about matters, which may have led to everyone steaming more slowly and thus eventually having less daylight to attempt to get the Germans into action. So far Gordon seems to feel that Beatty in particular felt there wasn't the remotest chance of any battle, and behaved accordingly. In general I find the book rather fun, not least because by now I am familiar with the points being argued about. Sandpiper (talk) 08:42, 25 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I just read Bacon's Jutland Scandal.(well nearly all, I will finish it shortly, I just came to the internet to look up when it was published as it doesn't say.) However, it states it was written in response to newspaper criticism of Jellicoe following the baudlerised admiralty report on Jutland, supervised by Beatty. My reaction is to wonder why the Express newspaper was so agin Jellicoe, and whether some of this might be traceable to Pollens journalistic activities. Was Beatty playing Pollen along, encouraging him about his fire control stuff? This would currently be my top hypothesis. It remains possible, not least from your comment above about rampant intrigues, that Pollen was swept up by various factions who found him usefull. His son says as much, with regard to someone or other of his contacts who liked to leak stories through him when the navy wanted information released in WWI. Much of his information about the competing Dreyer equipment was leaked to him. Logically, the leakers were in a position to spin this as they pleased. Sandpiper (talk) 01:25, 22 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'll comment on this later - I'll go have a look at The Pollen Papers and In Defence of Naval Supremacy later today, but I don't think Beatty used Pollen, if anything vice-versa. --Harlsbottom (talk | library | book reviews) 11:37, 22 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I was discussing this with someone else, so not sure if I made this point above or not, But if you had just fought a battle where frankly you made a right mess of it, and someone comes along saying it was all because the admirlty wouldn't buy his equipment, would you explain why he was wrong, or give him a bit of encouragement? By the same argument, attacking Jellicoe draws attention away from yourself whether the attack ultimately is credible or not. Crime, means, motive and opportunity. Oh, i came across the line where Bacon suggests Sturdee would have been a better choice than Beatty. I have no idea whether this is true or not, but it made me laugh having previously read a description elsewhere that Fisher thought Sturdee useless. Which perhaps brings us back to admiralty politics. Sandpiper (talk) 22:47, 22 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't get much of a chance to look through Pollen's papers today, other than the redoubtable Sumida makes much use of Pollen's version of things - for example notes made from a conversation on a telephone with Louis Battenberg regarding the results of the 1912 tests and the supposed future of gunnery in the Navy. The thought of Pollen on the phone with a notepad and a receiver jammed next to his ear is quite amusing, let alone him making incontrovertible notes on the talk.

That said, I went through a lot of Fisher's letters today in Volume III' of Fear God Dread Nought by Marder. I already was aware that FIsher talked c*** about a lot of things - what springs to mind is his slating of Jellicoe who said that by August, 1918 the Submarine Offensive would be broken and that shipbuilding wouldn't be able to outweigh losses (wrong on both counts) and his belief that the war would last well past 1918, which he wrote in October. His prophesising seems to have failed him. Also, what fails Fisher with regards to Sturdee though is that the latter was Chief-of-Staff to Beresford for a while, and he categorically refused to be used as a spy on Beresford's behaviour, as well as joining in the hoo-haa over Britain's supposed lack of defence in 1907-1910. While I have a lot of time for Bacon's opinions (his biographies of Fisher and Jellicoe are by and large EXCELLENT), he does sometimes make a hiccough, such as suggesting Wemyss in late-1917 was untried as an administrator, which is hogwash - after successfully organising the base at Mudros in the Eastern Mediterranean, commanding well in the East Indies Squadron and doing a good job as both Second Sea Lord and Deputy First Sea Lord, Wemyss was pretty qualified for the task, questions about his ascension not withstanding.

Maybe Sturdee would have been a good choice - I assume you're referring to taking over the Grand Fleet in November, 1916? Jellicoe was perhaps too cautious in not recommending Sturdee for the position, but he was by no means at fault in recommending Madden, who after all followed Beatty as First Sea Lord (and was incidentally one day junior to him on the Admiral's list, promoted by a special Order-in-Council). After all, if Marder and others are to believed, then it was Sturdee's total conceit, and an ignorance which dwarfs that of anyone else, which directly led to the sinking of Aboukir, Cressy and Hogue in 1914. Only Beatty's loss of Indomitable and Queen Mary, and perhaps Bayly's loss of Formidable, can equal it. Then again, I remain unconvinced that anything would have changed even with Sturdee and his supposed new tactical ideas taking over. When you have a dozen flag officers and scores of captain's, it doesn't how much foolscap you print out they aren't going to change their mindset that much. Basically apart from exhausting his Marine printers (and guards), Beatty's only major change was to sanction the turn towards torpedoes (I have his Grand Fleet Battle Instructions and Manɶuvreing orders, they allow alot of leeway), but of course he never had the chance to try it in action - and to my mind no-one has proved that that order would actually be obeyed, especially when you have a lot of Grand Fleet captains who would have remembered the horror of attempting to dodge torpedoes at Jutland while running away from them. Just some more thoughts. --Harlsbottom (talk | library | book reviews) 23:23, 22 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Specifically Bacon suggested either Sturdee or Madden would have been better choices to command the battlecruiser squadron instead of Beatty. Somewhat blamed this upon Churchill for favouring the inexperienced Beatty (who gave Churchill a bottle of champagne during the Sudan war when he commanded one of the nile gunboats and Churchill was a soldier). I havn't followed up torpedos, but thought I read turning towards was adopted in ww2, and some argument about the likelihood of them following the water around the ship from the pointed end instead of hitting it and exploding? Sandpiper (talk) 01:38, 23 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

beatty, commanding HMW Duke of Wellington 1900-1902

wiki says Beatty commanded Duke of Wellington, probably stationed as flagship in portsmouth harbour 1900-1902. Roskill says it took two years for him to be passed fit for sea duties after his arm injury at Tientsin in 1900. I would judge these two are probably consistent if Duke of Welligton was just offices or pottered round the harbour, but wondered if you could confirm this, as you might just be the sort of person who would either know something pertinent, or could lay his hand on something informative. Sandpiper (talk) 19:14, 23 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Laval

I can and I will add as you suggested. Sirswindon (talk) 23:48, 31 October 2008 (UTC)SirSwindon Completed 1 November 2008. 76.89.107.137 (talk) 17:51, 1 November 2008 (UTC)SirSwindon[reply]

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXXII (October 2008)

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Sources for Marcel-Bruno Gensoul and Force de Raid

I created a couple of new pages (Marcel-Bruno Gensoul and Force de Raid) to fill some red links, but they remain small and stunted. I wonder, with your stated interests, if you might have info to correct any errors and expand them a bit? Regards. Folks at 137 (talk) 20:17, 19 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'll give it a look. Materiel on Gensoul seems rather sparse as I'm sure you gathered, but the Force de Raid/Atlantic Fleet should be a lot easier to expand with refs. Thanks for the suggestion. --Harlsbottom (talk | library | book reviews) 12:09, 20 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

{{tb}}

Hello, Simon Harley. You have new messages at The ed17's talk page.
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Re: Cerberus class not-battleship

Thanks for tracking down and checking British Battleships; that has helped to put my mind at ease over the whole renaming business. In a slightly related request, if its not too much trouble and you still have access to the book, can you wander over to the article (either before or after the articlename is sorted) and check to see if the content is correct. If you do so, please feel free to throw down some in-line citations. Thanks so much! -- saberwyn 05:12, 26 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

re: Question

That seems like a very good route to me. Good luck! --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 13:02, 27 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXXIII (November 2008)

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Battle of Arroyo dos Molinos

Nice article! I changed the campaignbox reference from Portugal 1810-1811 to Castile 1811-1812 and added the battle to the latter list. In my opinion, the battle is more related to the English offensive of 1812 rather than the defensive of 1810-1811. I also added a French OOB and a reference. Djmaschek (talk) 05:19, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for making the update - the Peninsular campaign really isn't my thing I'm afraid. What I found on the Battle was generally sparse and in some cases conflicting. I do have a map of the battle from an old regimental history but it's somewhat confusing when some of the British units listed shouldn't be there according to some sources. Annoying!! One of these days I will try and expand it properly. --Harlsbottom (talk | library | book reviews) 11:31, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXXIV (December 2008)

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File:John Arbuthnot Fisher, 1904.JPG

Just got hold of a copy of Lord Fisher by bacon. It contains some pictures of Fisher, including the one you have uploaded above as c in c portsmouth 1904. Bacon's caption is commander in chief Mediterranean Fleet, which would be correct for the rank of vice-admiral as shown. I think the quality of the image I have is better than the one you uploaded, so I will scan another version and see how it comes out. The image also has a copyright credit to J. mallia and Co. Valetta. A quick google search does not give any further information, but I guess it is reasonable to assume this is now copyright expired given the age. I am minded to upload the new version to commons and see how it gets on there, giving both bacon and your engineering weekly as sources (since yours is 1904 and therefore unarguably PD in the US). Sandpiper (talk) 13:50, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The copy I got was from a contemporary (i.e. early 1900s) magazine, so the image is certainly outside the remit of copyright protection By all means upload a better version, although I don't think it will add much to any article. I also think it's time the Fisher article was moved to "Jacky" not "Jackie" - it's starting to annoy me that I have to type in Jackie Fisher, 1st Baron Fisher every time to get to it. --Harlsbottom (talk | library | book reviews) 09:46, 23 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I absolutely agree about the name. Sandpiper (talk) 11:13, 24 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See Talk:Jackie Fisher, 1st Baron Fisher#Proposed move to Jacky. Woody (talk) 11:26, 24 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

heathcote grant

Bacon has it as heathcote. Sandpiper (talk) 11:09, 24 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Bacon is wrong for once. I have his actual service record and his Times obituary. It doesn't help that The National Archives can't spell his middle name correctly on their website ("Salisbury" instead of the correct "Salusbury"). --Harlsbottom (talk | library | book reviews) 12:14, 24 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Would you be able to take a look here?

I believe that the armor percentages table, the one you looked at when helping me so long ago, might be able to help here... Thank you! —Ed 17 ^(Talk / Contribs) 03:57, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Will be back to my collection of books tomorrow but due to a hectic social schedule probably won't be able to check until Tuesday morning - hope that's not too long a wait. --Harlsbottom (talk | library | book reviews) 11:54, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Dreadnought FAC

Just to let you know I have put Dreadnought up on FAC - could you see your way to make the changes you want to the seciton on Satsuma sooner rather than later? The Land (talk) 12:51, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Will be the day after tomorrow (Tuesday morning) before I can do anything. Will sort something reasonable out. Thanks for the head's up. --Harlsbottom (talk | library | book reviews) 17:47, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

TVM! The Land (talk) 17:49, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Speaking of which, are you able to locate publication information for the two issues of Brassey's Naval Annual which are used as sources there? I can't locate it online anywhere... The Land (talk) 21:27, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I suspect that both references 8 and 9 come from the 1899 edition of Brassey's - the page reference for the 1895 edition certainly matches the 1899 edition - not sure how someone thought there could be an article on Santiago de Cuba three years before the battle! Am somewhat busy at the moment with university work (but will get round to Satsuma later today) - perhaps you could dig out some more accurate page references from the Brassey's Naval Annual 1899 which is available from Google Books? --Harlsbottom (talk | library | book reviews) 11:08, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXXV (January 2009)

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Battle of the Atlantic 1914-1918

Hello, a belated comment about this (Sorry, real life has been getting in the way of things lately).
I’ve left a note at BotA 1 about the page there; what do you think?
The convoy stuff is good BTW. There’s a lot of detail for a general article; is it worth making it a main article, on the Allied Convoy system of WWI? The Convoy article itself is a bit paltry on the subject, and there’s plenty to say. Xyl 54 (talk) 14:43, 17 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Warship International

You would happen to have a copy of Warship International's issue No. 3 from 1980, would you? I'm trying to hunt down a copy of the article Battlecruiser: Design studies for the Royal Netherlands Navy 1939 - 40 by Lt. Jurrien S. Noot that appeared in that issue... Thanks, —Ed 17 ^(Talk / Contribs) 18:14, 28 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm afraid I don't have it - all I have is one the late Bill Schliehauf sent me and a few of the latest issues. I will see if I can beg an acquaintace for a copy of the article (he has I believe every single issue). You should be writing about far more interesting topics than Dutch capital ship projects!! ;-) --Harlsbottom (talk | library | book reviews) 12:42, 1 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

LOL well someone has to work on something other than Brit and U.S. ships... ;)

I emailed the publisher; we'll see if I can get a copy put up on their site. Otherwise, I'll pray that you can get it... :/ —Ed 17 ^(Talk / Contribs) 17:48, 1 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I assume you've emailed I.N.R.O. If they get back to you with a positive response please let me know, then I can bug them with stuff on my shopping list!! --Harlsbottom (talk | library | book reviews) 19:16, 1 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

:) Alright, will do, though I don't expect a response until tomorrow at the earliest (waiting for the work week to start...(don't hear that statement too often)) —Ed 17 ^(Talk / Contribs) 19:52, 1 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXXVI (February 2009)

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Nominations for the Military history WikiProject coordinator election

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Hey Harlsbottom (I mean...) Simon

I got the Warship International article, by the way. :) But the real reason for me stopping here is to ask for your help here in confirming or denying all or most of these errors. I know you focus on British stuff, but maybe you have something. :) Cheers! —Ed 17 ^(Talk / Contribs) 14:08, 17 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I will have a look later on today (lunch time for me now), although I imagine the likes of TomStar81, MBK, (and so on and so on) will have more stuff to work with! --Simon Harley (talk | library | book reviews) 14:12, 17 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, they might not—the primary source that they used for a lot of stuff in the article, DANFS, is being questioned, and I'm assuming that they have found all of the info they can from the sources they have. By asking you, I'm hoping that we can hunt down some sources they haven't used to confirm that the info is accurate or inaccurate. BTW, I'm sending you an e-mail for a little background. —Ed 17 ^(Talk / Contribs) 14:24, 17 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Coordinator Elections

As a person running for Coordinator it is always great to see members of the WikiProject getting involved. It is great to see that some of the members really care about the future of the WikiProject. Keep Up the Good Work (cross your fingers on my bid for Coordinator) and Have A Great Day! Lord R. T. Oliver ^The Olive Branch 12:12, 18 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Military history WikiProject coordinator election

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Talkback

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—Ed 17 ^(Talk / Contribs) 14:27, 25 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Battle of the Atlantic (1914–1918), again

I’ve posted a comment here, which (at the risk of canvassing) you may like to comment on. What do you think? Xyl 54 (talk) 10:33, 26 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

PS How did you get on with the Convoy piece, BTW? Xyl 54 (talk) 10:34, 26 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm still reading up on it for my Jellicoe article. There's a massive book on the Admiralty War and Naval Staff (1912-1918) out this year which totally recasts the rôles of the Balfour-Jackson and Jellicoe Boards of Admiralty on the anti-submarine question by Doctor Nicholas Black. The only problem is it will cost £60. I've got Black's thesis which is mind-blowing in its detail. For example, for the first time there is a near-contemporary description of the meeting held by Jellicoe with the merchant ship Captains in London on 22 February 1917 and it reflects very poorly on Jellicoe; 5 of the 9 masters present commanded coasting vessels to whom convoy was anathema anyway; 2 masters had just been torpedoed, 1 under close destroyer escort (i.e. convoy!). According to one officer present with a couple of exceptions "none of the Masters present represented the better and most intelligent type of British Master Mariners".

There's a lot of information on the Admiralty debates on convoy which took place during 1916 before Jellicoe even created the A.S.D. of the Naval Staff. Still reading through it. If an when I eventually finish the Jellicoe article I will revel in producing a detailed article on the introduction of convoy in 1917-1918! --Simon Harley (talk | library | book reviews) 11:55, 26 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you

		Milhist Coordinator elections
		I wish to thank you for your gracious support during my bid for a position as Coordinator of the Military history Wikiproject in the recent March 2009 elections. I was initially apprehensive to stand for election as I was unsure on how well I would be received, but I am pleasantly surprised and delighted to have been deemed worthy to represent my peers within the project. I assure and promise you, I will strive to do my upmost to justify your trust in myself with this esteemed position. Thank you, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 01:48, 29 March 2009 (UTC)[reply] Soldiers of the 4th Australian Division crossing a duckboard track through Chateau Wood, Ypres on 29 October 1917.

Thank you

	I seem to have drawn a crowd of support!
	I'm honored to have been elected as a coordinator of the WikiProject Military history and most sincerely thank you for your vote of support. I will endeavor to fulfill the obligations in a manner worthy of your trust. Many thanks. — Bellhalla (talk) 14:32, 30 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
	A World War I U-boat draws a crowd after grounding on the Falmouth coast in 1921.

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXXVII (March 2009)

The March 2009 issue of the Military history WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.
This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 02:40, 3 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Schliehauf, William

Hi Simon Harley: Do you know of an online version of the Schliehuaf article you mentioned on the talk page of United States Battleship Division Nine (World War I)? I'm interested in reading it, but do not have the time to track it down in hardcopy at the moment. Thanks, Jrt989 (talk) 19:37, 8 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm afraid I know of no online version of the article. American gunnery is mentioned only on the one page mentioned (p. 133) and is mostly confined to the table "6th Battle Squadron Pair Ship Concentration Firings, 27 June 1918". --Simon Harley (talk | library | book reviews) 13:57, 9 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you

		The Content Review Medal of Merit
		By order of the Military history WikiProject coordinators, for your devoted work on the WikiProject's Peer and A-Class reviews, I am delighted to award you this Content Review Medal.  Roger Davies ^talk 13:49, 12 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks!

[10] :-) —Ed 17 ^(Talk / Contribs) 15:11, 22 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

lieutenant francis hunter and his book about beatty jellicoe sims and Rodman

I was glancing at Hunter's book about his personal experience of the grand fleet and various personages. I was struck by the following passage, p.27.

“

The great Battle of Jutland was fought for the British, for the world, by Beatty and Jellicoe. Each played his part with consummate skill. Beatty had the stage all through, while Jellicoe merely came on for the third act. Beatty fought the brilliant battle of a hero with such amazingly bold and persistent tenacity that his vastly superior enemy was being well hammered when Jellicoe with the main forces, came up to relieve the strain.

”

I havn't read the rest of it, but it appears to be a record of Hunters personal impressions. What struck me is that an outsider, but someone in the US navy and thus familiar with navy matters, coming into the matter some time after Jutland with Beatty now running the Grand fleet, meeting Beatty, seems to have reached what to me is a rather skewed impression of what really happened at Jutland. In particular the 'vastly superior enemy was being well hammered' seemed to be exactly the reverse of the case. It might be he was deliberately overlooking contrary facts, but if his account is his honest beliefs, it seemed to me what an extraordinary whitewash of his part in the battle Beatty had managed to accomplish. I wondered if you might have any views on this? Sandpiper (talk) 09:11, 27 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The impression I've gotten of the United States Navy I've garnered is largely negative, and Hunter is one of the many reasons for that. There's an almost criminal naïvité about what the Americans thought was going on in Europe that by and large I discount their views, other than to use as a contrast. I really don't know how to judge Hunter's opinions - either he sat on his arse and accepted whatever gossip someone told him about Jutland. That option just reflects poorly on his intelligence. Or he knew full well what happened at Jutland and deliberately took a partisan approach. Which makes him a cretinous liar. Either way, it reflects poorly on the United States Navy as a whole.

I can give you just one example of U.S.N. self-delusions. I recently went through a large amount of material on the U.S. Sixth Battle Squadron - of a practice shoot on 27 June 1918 Rear Admiral Rodman wrote back to his superiors "the firing was exceptionally fine, most encouraging and much better than we have ever done previously." This was a blatant lie, as the results were in fact categorically worse.

i was impressed by Hunter's vivid description of the ship nearly sinking on the way to Britain from the US. That is, as a piece of evocative writing, not for what it said about the lack of seaworthiness of the ship. This issue of the propaganda war after Jutland bothers me quite a bit, not least the question of who were insiders and chose not to speak accurately, and those who were outsiders ignorant of the exact facts. If Beatty's reminiscences were Hunters sole source of information, I'm not surprised by what he wrote. But there were a whole lot of people present at the battle still serving on all those ships. Sandpiper (talk) 22:07, 27 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Something which may be of interest to you

The last annual report on the shooting in the British Navy shows that the percentage of hits to rounds fires during 1909 was 64.67. In 1905, it was 20.02; in 1906, 34.60; in 1907, 35.81; and in 1908, 58.32. The significance of these figues will be evident when it is stated that in 1907 the size of the target was greatly reduced, the number of hits in that year being consequently only slightly greater than in the year preceding.

— "Engineering". Scientific American. 102. New York: Munn & Company, Inc.: 235 19 March 1910. ISSN 0036-8733.

—Ed 17 ^(Talk / Contribs) 00:57, 29 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hello & thanks!

Hi Simon, good to know you. Thanks for the "tip" about translating with Google. Impressive "user page" you have, maybe I can use it as a guide to improve mine? (once I guess how technically can be done! 8P). Happy to collaborate together in topics of interest to both.
Kind regards, DPdH (talk) 01:57, 29 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The tip for Google came from The ed17 actually! I spent far too much time on my user pages instead of doing mainspace editing, but feel free to borrow whatever features you want - by and large I borrowed them off other people anyway. --Simon Harley (talk | library | book reviews) 09:24, 29 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXXVIII (April 2009)

The April 2009 issue of the Military history WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.
This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 23:12, 5 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Jutland Snippet

Well first, I'm not quite sure where the piece is supposed to fit. It starts by mentioning condenser troubles, which have obviously already been talked about somewhere else, but there is no mention of condensers in the current Jutland article. I presume this would go somewhere in the current German planning section, but would have to be mixed in with the present information to make sense. I notice that you have your own version of the Jutland article which does include mention of condensers. Are you asking me what I think about possible additions to your own private version of the Jutland page? If so, then what I think is that all changes intended to go into articles should be inserted as soon as possible. Wiki is a cooperative venture, and while it makes sense to prepare something in advance and then add it, so as to avoid leaving the page with spelling mistakes, broken sentences and edit conflicts, it doesnt make much sense to work on something for a year without inserting it. I read some of your work on Jellicoe, and I thought why on earth do you not directly edit the current article instead of preparing a brand spanking new one which I presume you intend to replace the existing one sometime. This would then allow people like me to also work on it and gives readers benefit of work so far. It occurred to me to start taking some of the info from your page and add it to the proper version, having been reading about jellicoe, except I am rather too busy. You may have gathered that my own researches tend to jump from topic to topic, so it makes a lot of sense to me to work on just a section of an article which I happen to have been reading about. Alternatively, if you never intend inserting your version,I was puzzled why you are creating your own alternative naval wiki within the main one. Now, as a case in point, you seem to be asking me to familiarise myself with your version of Jutland and respond how I feel your new stuff might fit into that. Having a sandbox for your sandbox seems to be taking the concept a bit far.

By and large I haven't touched my Battle of Jutland sub-page for a year - on reflection it wasn't very good anyway - and I only keep it because I'm a virtual as well as a real pack rat. In the sandbox chunk I do need to include more of the background, including condensers, which is lacking from the current article. As to why I haven't just edited the Jellicoe article it makes far more sense to create a well-structured article from scratch instead of making piece-meal edits. This is what happened with the Jutland article where everyone has added something at some time and the result is still a bloody awful mess. At any rate I know that when my Jellicoe article is finished (and I finally have this week off to accomplish it) it will be the most complete summary life of the man yet written, which for Wikipedia is not a bad thing to aim for.

I didn't check it to see what was yours, just assumed you had written the rest which the piece seems to fit with. I remember looking at it before and thinking it was based on an old version but you had been editing it. I dont entirely agree about Jellicoe: I seem to remember you have had a notice saying you were working on it for some time. Poor Jellicoe is rather neglected, but someone else might have come by and re-vamped it entirely. I don't have enough time now to do much here, but I look forward with interest to what might happen to him. Did you see I had posted some photos on commons?Sandpiper (talk)

In general, yes, I think the article ought to go into more detail about intelligence somehow. I ended up writing a section about intercepted messages in the piece I wrote about the night action. This is also an incomplete article with more stuff to add when I happen to get round to it, or for someone else to add to should I never make it. It became clear the exchange of intelligence was important to an understanding of why peoiple did things, that it needed a section and a detailed explanation was entirely desireable to avoid misleading about what mistakes actually happened. I noticed a mention in Bennett to the Germans intercepting British messages also, which is not something I have normally read about and clearly needs mention where it happened.

As i have already moaned at length, I don't exctly know how you envisage the section might work in situ. The Jutland article is quite long, and while it might be best to add to it first and then see whether it is becoming really too long or unbalanced, it might also be necessary to give some thought to whether a new daughter article concentrating on the buildup might be necessary. I took the view to create a long detailed article about the night action (as I say, still incomplete and will get longer) and leave the current description in place. I felt it might need revising later to match as a summary of the new main article when completed, but that couldn't really be done without a better idea of the main articles final scope, and anyway I rather like the idea of having slightly contrasting summary and detailed descriptions. Keeps things interesting. So it might be a new article would be necessary about buildup intelligence, which might affect what needs to be written.

From looking at the Battle of Jutland article I reckon the German planning and British response sections could just be replaced.

yesSandpiper (talk)

The comment about initially translating a message correctly, then someone 'correcting' it is quite interesting and suggests there was someone clever at work (and maybe someone not quite so clever), which might be worth further explanation. You introduce this issue of mistranslation, and I immediately want to know a little bit more about who (in a very small department) was responsible for these translations.

It is interesting that they guessed the meaning right the first time, then changed it before it reached the Operations Division. This is another example of sources conflicting - The Naval Staff Appreciation and the article by Hines, working from the Room 40 logs, both have the signal in question going to "All Ships". Tarrant, working from one of the British naval staff monographs, has it going to "All Submarines". Was Room 40 in saying it was going to ships or did the authors of the post-war monograph know something Room 40 didn't?

My impression of the 'naval staff appreciation' was that it was a work of fiction in certain significant respects. Not that there is any immediately obvious reason why the Dewars might have wanted to substitute 'fleet' for 'submarine', but it could have been a minor point which just transmogrified. Logically the Dewars were working from some other list. A note in Tarrant/german perspective appendix 10 mentions the original german not distinguishing battlecruisers/armoured cruisers, which suggests some original German text was involved in his source? Tarrant says the message was from 'Bruges'. Is there any mileage in who they would have been ordinarily transmitting to, the fleet was in harbour so were there only submarines and maybe fishing boats to send messages to? If this was a general message, might there be other copies of the same thing received from different locations or addressed to different fleet elements? Sandpiper (talk) 23:43, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry to repeat, but I keep reading the piece you linked and wanting to know more about the context you intend, so for example whether there is more about submarines in your alternate Jutland. They don't get much of a mention in the real one. Well, the concept of a submarine ambush seems to be explained about four times over without giving any detail of what submarines were where, and why it didn't work out. Yes, that would benefit from info about the deployments. The article 'order of battle at Jutland' also doesn't mention submarines, but I came across some info somewhere nd was thinking it ought to be added even though they were not in the same physical location. This ties in better if their deployment gets explained in the article.

I'm having enough trouble from Tarrant working out which submarines were involved in lying off the British coast. Other sources mention different numbers of subs which seem at odd with the one listed by Tarrant. It is a pain in the backside.

Yes, point about Scheer getting confusing intelligence suggesting British units going off in different directions ought to be explained. Again. I was thinking this intelligence war needed more coverage generally.

A point which immediately bothered me when I read Scheer was getting intercepted british messages, was the immediate difficulty if any British messages might contain reports about supposedly secret German ones. The admiralty might have been very cagy about sending Jellicoe messages if they had any suspiscion the germans might be able to read them, and work out that the contents could only have come from intercepts. A general perception that Germans were reading British wireless messages might also be relevant to the failings by british ships to send intelligence reports. Not read any suggestion of this, but maybe some of these people weren't as thick as they seem sometimes. It seemed to me an obvious reason clever intelligence people might not want to pass on details of what they had intercepted.

I thought I recalled reading that the swapping of call signs was an established practice, so that whether or not a specific message had been decoded to say it had taken place, it was to be expected. I see you have a ref against 'condescended', but I would think as a POV issue, that a sentence imputing condescension to Jackson would have to be revised in a more neutral way explaining there was some sort of issue between different people/departments. It just feels a bit like glossing over a longer explanation, though I appreciate it might not be possible to find a better explanation to quote. Sandpiper (talk) 09:08, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hines, who seems to have done the legwork and gone through the Room 40 log books, says specifically that the callsign switch was not well-known even in Room 40. Even while the battle was going on Room 40 was still referring to Friedrich der Gross as "DK" and not "RA" (as late as 7 in the evening on 31 May). The problem is everything which is known about Jackson's attitude comes from W. F. Clarke who was the duty officer in Room 40 during the battle, and he's the one responsible for making the callsign swich an issue, when the evidence suggests it wasn't. "Condescended", while NPOV admittedly, is there to indicate the level of contempt in which Jackson is held by so many historians. Since none of them at all reference the Room 40 logs, their contempt is only equalled by mine for them. --Simon Harley (talk | library | book reviews) 10:02, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Then I think you are entitled to use editorial judgement and not imply wiki asserts that jackson condescended, that would be taking sides in the dispute. It wants an explanation that traditionally historians have blamed Jackson, (perhaps long ref list) but there is limited hard evidence of this and some to suggest the opposite. To be clear, were they getting messages from Friedrich DG being logged as from harbour, and vice-versa, or were they continuing somehow in notes to use DK meaning actual messages from the ship? Wouldn't it be noticeably odd from the content of messages, say that the harbour was reporting shell damage or position reports? During the night Scheer sent position reports, maybe because he didn't care who heard by then, but did he send other messages when he started out? latterly in the battle he seems to have been very chatty. It strikes me that if I was logging messages, I would probably note them exactly as they arrived, with whatever 'official' nomenclature applied. Even if I could see they were being mis-labeled it might be correct recording to note them as such until definitely shown what was what. An issue of keeping your facts straight until they can be absolutley definitely sorted out. I can't say, but there might be scope for the contemporary record to be showing something other than people believed at the time to be the case. I think I also remember something about directional tracking of radio signals. If this was being done, then the approximate point of origin of some of these signals might be coming in alongside the messages themselves. I'm sure I recall someone, perhaps a contemporary description, talking about it not being possible to fit direction finding equipment on board ship... obviously therefore it was possible elsewhere. At some point there must have been secrecy issues attached to this information, which meant it would be censored for publication. Even after the basic messages were published, they might still have been in edited form without some of the originally accompanying info. Spys are notoriously secretive. Sandpiper (talk) 23:43, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And here was I thinking of reading some of Beresford's books.Sandpiper (talk) 23:43, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Greissmer's BB book

Hi, Simon. Barely 2 hours after you told me you have the book, I'm hassling you to check it ;) I've been discussing with User:Orpy15 a discrepancy over the range of the Kaiser class BBs, and specifically that of Prinzregent Luitpold (the discussion is here). Groner's German Warships 1815-1945, which I normally trust to be accurate, seems to have an error. I was wondering if you could check Greissmer's book to see if it can give us an accurate answer. Regards, Parsecboy (talk) 00:01, 20 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I had a look, and there's a lot devoted to the background on the diesel propulsion, but no details as far as I can see on range, power &c. The problem with Griessmer would seem to be that in the book I have he doesn't do tables like everyone else in regards to classes, as it's more on development rather than service. Send me an email and I can send you a copy for you to check, it's only 14mb. --Simon Harley (talk | library | book reviews) 12:45, 20 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks a lot. I just sent an email, so you should have it shortly. Yeah, I noticed the same in regards to his battlecruisers book. Parsecboy (talk) 13:16, 20 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Everything went through correctly, and I really appreciate you sending me that. I've been looking through it, and saw some interesting line drawings, like the one on the bottom of page 59, with the three centerline turrets and the odd pair forward. I've got to run off to class, so the rest will have to wait until later. Regards, Parsecboy (talk) 13:57, 20 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Talkback

Hello, Simon Harley. You have new messages at Wikipedia talk:Did you know.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

—Ed (Talk • Contribs) 06:07, 23 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

RN Floating Dry Dock - Jarrow Slake

Hello:

Would you have an interest in a copy of the October 1919 issue of "Smith's Dock Monthly", a monthly publication by "Smith's Dock Company Ltd"? It is the Great War history of the RN floating dry dock that was relocated from Medway to Jarrow Slake, just east of Newcastle. Smith's operated the floating drydock for the RN.

I came by the document while searching for information about the 20 October - 4 November 1918 drydocking of the Battleship Texas. The document was located in a Newcastle public library by someone identified by a reference librarian as an "expert".

The is Charles Moore, from the BB35 Wiki article. IronShip (talk) 21:20, 28 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm always interested in anything pertaining to the Great War Royal Navy. Incidentally, in the upcoming annual Warship 2009 there will be an article on Admiralty Floating Docks by Dr. I. L. Buxton. --Simon Harley (talk | library | book reviews) 21:48, 28 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It did not occur to me until just now that I might have sent to Bill the “Smith’s” article for inclusion be on The Great War website. If it is not, can I email it to you? IronShip (talk) 04:37, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I may be blind (and it is always possible) but I can't see it on the GWPDA site. If it's no bother please do send it along - It would be much appreciated. I am easily reached on [e-mail]. --Simon Harley (talk | library | book reviews) 15:03, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

My BB35 website - Charles Moore

Hello Simon:

21 July 2007 is when I removed my BB35 website from the internet. I no longer wished to pay for the account and no one I knew wanted to take it over.

When I created the site, I used only original source documents. I did so for I kept finding the published secondary sources, even DANFS, were full of errors. DANFS for BB35 still contains errors. I did write to the Naval Historic Center in 2005 with about 20 errors to correct. BB35 published secondary sources have repeated the same errors for decades. My site was a plain-jane for design but for content no website for any ship could compare.

I have regrets now about my BB35 site no longer being on the internet. The site involved a lot of years of research, scanning, site formats changes etc. I purchased a lot of documents from the National Archives. Up until the removal, I never considered the time and cost as a negative. For me it was fun and sometimes exciting when I found what had been lost over time. If you know some who is interested in a cd copy of my website, I will provide. All I ask for is a pre-paid mailer be sent to me. Internet, or cd the method of providing the data does not matter to me.

My interest in BB35 is returning. I am looking into digitizing my reel of 35mm microfilm that contains the complete BB35 deck log (1,100 pages) for the complete year of 1918. To my knowlege, I have the only such copy aside from the National Archives, from where I purchased.

I did not know Bill had died but it has been a while since I was at the The Great War website. I did email him some time back that the links to my material on EV1 had been changed to BB35library but the links were not changes. I will contact the site and offer to send them my digital files that the site is linked to.

On a completely different note, I bet you know at least a little bit about Clithero, near the River Ribble, and near the boarder of West Riding Yorkshier. I attended a Clithero boarding school (The Moorland School)during form IV (13 - 14 years), During a long weekend those of us who were still at the school went taken to the Lake District for kayaking on Lake Wendemyer (?spelling). I can still remember the lake surface was smooth as glass and the kayak glided effortlessly through the water. Clithero is also where I got hooked on Rountree's Fruit Pastells (?spelling again) IronShip (talk) 04:27, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Re: site gone: did you try http://www.archive.org? —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 04:30, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Alas, there seems to be only the main page available.

Bill S. seems to have rarely updated the site for quite a long time, although I gather he was completely incapacitated for two or three months before he succumbed. I've passed the word along to the person who made the original inquiry about your site, and I'll see if I get any response to your offer on the CD.

I do know of Clitheroe, I have a friend who lives there though I've never been (I did once lead the thrashing of a quiz team from Clitheroe Royal Grammar School however). It now lies wholly in Lancashire. I myself am from the part of Cumbria which used to be Cumberland and am currently studying in West Yorkshire which used to be the West Riding of Yorkshire in which Clitheroe used to lie. As for your spelling (can't say I blame you getting them wrong!) Lake Windermere is in the Lake District and Rowntree's Fruit Pastilles are still around! --Simon Harley (talk | library | book reviews) 15:14, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : XXXIX (May 2009)

The May 2009 issue of the Military history WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.
This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 22:52, 4 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

BatDiv9

Hiya Simon! I've reviewed United States Battleship Division Nine (World War I) for GA here; as you have commented on the article multiple times on its talk page, would you have the time to leave any opinions on the review? Thanks muchly, —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 22:20, 7 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your review

		The Content Review Medal of Merit
		By order of the Military history WikiProject coordinators, for your devoted work on the WikiProject's Peer and A-Class reviews April to June 2009, I am delighted to award you this Content Review Medal.  Roger Davies ^talk 19:31, 5 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for letting me know. I'll correct elsewhere as necessary.  Roger Davies ^talk 19:31, 5 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You're totally right. And I'm blind.

I was talking nonsense. Dunno what's the matter with me recently, my reading ability has become very erratically. Only now I see the line explaining the category: "These are battleships that were not built as a member of a class". So, you're totally right. I apologize.Gray62 (talk) 19:42, 5 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Good God, I didn't see the line either! That was just an off-the-cuff comment on my part. --Simon Harley (talk | library | book reviews) 20:07, 5 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

One other question: Do battlecruisers count as batteships, or what's the consenus on this? I would say, yes, but I'm not expert, and want to avoid further controversy. Would it be ok to add SMS Von der Tann to the category "unique battleships"? Gray62 (talk) 12:34, 6 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Battle cruisers are definitely counted as a class apart from battleships, so Von der Tann wouldn't fit in. --Simon Harley (talk | library | book reviews) 13:04, 6 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That, and we already have Category:Unique battlecruisers (hope you don't mind my butting in :) Parsecboy (talk) 13:05, 6 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thx for the info, boys! :-) Gray62 (talk) 16:35, 6 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

About that obituary on the front page

Simon, with all honest respect, and with much understanding about you feeling the loss quite personally, but don't you think you should reconsider the phrasing? "The world is a much sadder but far better informed place without them." may be quite easily misunderstood as saying that the world became better informed after those experts passed. I don't think this is what you want to say! How about slightly rephrasing this, for instance like "The world is a much sadder place without them, but their work will stay and keeping people better informed" or so? I'm German, English isn't my native language, so I'm sure you'll find a more elegant way to say that. Just my two eurocent...Gray62 (talk) 11:32, 6 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oops!

Sry, without noticing it's in your user area, I edited the Lion turret explosion article. Feel free to revert it, if you think it's not ok. But afaics you got confused in that one sentence, and used "Grant" two times, when actually the second name should be "Harvey", as is obvious from the context (and the quote you cite). Again, pls excuse my interference. Apart from this, this is a great article! Will you publish it here in the near future? Gray62 (talk) 18:42, 6 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No worries, I obviously got it wrong. I do need to finish that article actually (have the copy of Campbell right next to me). I started it because someone was so completely convinced that Francis Harvey was worthy of a Victoria Cross it annoyed me greatly. I hope the article shows that it's not so obvious. --Simon Harley (talk | library | book reviews) 18:55, 6 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Breyer

Hi again Harls, by your library page I see you have Breyer's Battleships and Battlecruisers 1905–1970. After reading this (scroll down the the "Super Yamato" part), I was wondering if Breyer had any further information and/or a line drawing that you could scan in user fair use on the Design A-150 battleships, an article which I am working on. Could you help me out? Thanks and cheers, —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 03:46, 7 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It just so happens I'll be heading down to where my copy of Breyer is stored in three-quarters of an hour. I'll have a look through for you. --Simon Harley (talk | library | book reviews) 08:16, 7 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I checked (p. 367) - only one big paragraph on the "super-Yamato" class and no line drawings I'm afraid. --Simon Harley (talk | library | book reviews) 12:48, 7 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! Could I trouble you to, next time you go to where the book is, check if the A-150 article is missing any information or specifications (specifically I am thinking of the displacement)? Thanks again, —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 21:02, 7 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I kept it with me, so it's easy to check now (am heading Stateside for seven weeks next Tuesday, am debating whether to scan the damn thing to keep with me for reference). On p. 330 Breyer gives the displacement as "~ 70000". He also writes (p. 367) that the main armament was going to be 50.8 cm rather than 51 cm (this is shown in the Japanese guns table on p. 327 as well). --Simon Harley (talk | library | book reviews) 21:21, 7 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Awesome, thank you! Garzke and Dulin and NavWeaps are/use more recently printed books (and so would have access to uncovered sources), so I'll leave the article with 510 mm, but I will note the discrepancy with a note. Cheers! —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 21:29, 7 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Having checked my records (God, I do love saying that) apparently Illustrated Ships Data of IJN 1868-1945: Vol. 1/Battleships and Battle Cruisers by Ishibashi Takao (Namiki Shobô, ISBN 978-4-89063-223-7) has a line drawing of the Super-Yamato in it, albeit not very detailed because of the nature of the design. This book, published last year in Japanese, costs $300 and is apparently the last word in research on Japanese battleships, battle cruisers and associated projects. I will ask the chap who told me about the book what it says about the gun size and see if he'll give me a page ref. Doubt I'll be able to get a fair-use line drawing though! --Simon Harley (talk | library | book reviews) 21:52, 7 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(outdent) Forgot to mention, sorry - Breyer lists weights in "English tons" - which I can only assume are LT. --Simon Harley (talk | library | book reviews) 22:02, 7 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(@ first message) - haha :) Thanks for all of the help; please don't go through too much trouble!

(@ second) - ah, will correct. Thanks (again)! —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 03:35, 8 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Forum?

I have sought discussion before reverting your reverting me on the Peter Hitchens talk page. If this is not a forum why not revert him? I am commenting on the subject at hand. I invite you to contact me on my talk page, if you do not I will consider the matter closed and restore my comment. Mimi ^(yack) 14:08, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

On 2nd thoughts, as you are clearly busy elsewhere just now, I have amended the comment. Regards, Mimi ^(yack) 14:27, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : XL (June 2009)

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hope you're ok!

sorry to see your userpage update about your Dad, hope everything works out ok and you're back to naval history soon :) The Land (talk) 09:04, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oh wow, same wishes from me, my friend. —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 05:23, 30 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the kind words, guys. I hope I'm back editing properly soon as well! --Simon Harley (talk | library | book reviews) 00:05, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

JamesYates

Interesting book! Havn't finished, but so far he seems to be saying much the same as I have been here and there. And no, I'm not Yates and never read it before you mentioned it. I discovered in a note he pretty much credits Grant (with Chatfield) with saving Lion from exploding, and I posted the quote on the Francis Harvey talk page. I don't know if he expands on it later, but he also suggests the BCF might have been using reduced charges, and this might have gone some way to explain poor hitting power of their shells???

Once again with Yates - he if he doesn't cite a source for his speculations then I'll discount his views. The fact that he accepted the Pollen/Sumida view so unquestioningly means I have a poor view of his scholarship anyway. At any rate, his figures for full charge and three quarter charges are incorrect - according to the 1918 Range Tables (p. 147, p. 155) they were 297 and 222¾ lbs respectively. The reduced charge argument also totally ignores the fact that the Royal Navy often undertook practice firings with reduced charges to save on barrel wear right up to the end of the war and after - they wouldn't have done this is if it adversely affected accuracy. --Simon Harley (talk | library | book reviews) 11:56, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well.. this is a Phd so it is supposed to contain uncited original thought, that's the point. I have to say I would rather expect a decent history book to also contain original ideas too, the purpose of writing a history is not simply to regurgitate old ideas but to advance new ones. Otherwise, why bother with a new history book about old events at all? Brooks book is copyright 2005, so obviously not going to be mentioned in a 199something work. I recall Brooks book was also a PhD, but I don't recall when, and I think this revolution in the Pollen/Dreyer issue is relatively new? I have noticed before that you are very unforgiving of mistakes and inclined to dismiss a work entirely if it contains any mistakes, whereas myself I incline to the view that mistakes are inevitable, we just try to mimimise them.

I'm not suggesting reduced charges necessarily affected accuracy, though obviously you would have to re-calibrate the guns rangefinders, or keep two separate scales for full and partial charges. What I would entirely agree with him, as a simple matter of physics, is that the shells would fly slower. As I posted on 'Jutland' talk, E=1/2mv^2: energy of an object depends on the square of the velocity, so basically a shell at twice the speed has four times the punch. Very approximately, if they used 3/4 charge, then they might expect 3/4 the punch when a shell struck something. This is hardly insignificant if we are discussing the chances of a shell pushing through armour plate. The best designed shell in the world will not penetrate if it is going too slowly. If this is true, then they were using the guns at 3/4 power. Like, would you? Even if it was only 90% power? 95%? There are lots of factors which would affect this so it would need someone knowledgeable about ballistics to comment properly but potentially this is quite significant. The guns were made to use the largest charges possible to maximise the muzzle velocity. Yates also suggested something about fuses in the shells not being automatically armed if either they were travelling too slow, or not spinning sufficiently fast. This implies some further knowledge about how the shells armed themselves, which I know nothing about, but again if he is right then it might mean firing the shells at slow velocities meant they would not explode when they arrived? (and some didnt, reasons unknown to me) reducing charges reduces maximum range, but need not affect accuracy, particularly at medium ranges, which was the case here. Particlularly when the the range issue was more to do with ability to target accurately at long range, and restricted gun elevations. I'm not certain about the BC guns, but the 5BS 15 in guns were modified for greater range before WW2 by increasing their maximum elevation. The full charge guns had considerable 'reserve' range which they theoretically could have achieved if the mount designers had believed it was possible to plot targets accurately at the ranges concerned. Neither side started the war believing this could be done.

The reason he quotes why they might use reduced charges was to increase spread of shells. Well lets put aside why they might want to de-grade the only bit of the process they were doing well, this can only work if the shells are travelling slower. Thus they are more affected by the air they are travelling through and end up more spread about. Thus confirming that the purpose of reducing charge is to make the shells slower...and incidentally less effective when they arrive. Of course, I thought his argument about proving reduced charges were being used was flimsy, but it might be there is some other way to find out about that. Your observation that reduced charges were routinely used for practice implies that the guns were at least set up so they could be fired accurately that way, so the option to do this would have been available to them. Sandpiper (talk) 21:07, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The only basis Yates seems to give for his theory is that Hipper noticed that "many shells appeared to have irregular flight patterns, as if from ricochets" - it would have been nice if he had provided a source for both Hipper's statement and the translation - no doubt I've got the statement somewhere in one of my books or files, but it's exceptionally unhelpful that he doesn't cite it. The fact that Yates doesn't discuss at all the fusing is indicative. If I had been Yates's supervisor, I would have wanted to know where he got his knowledge of British fusing arrangements from. There is nothing mentioned in the entire paper about the well-documented failings of British shell and fuses discovered by Admiralty committees in 1917. To me it looks like Yates, in accusing Beatty of covering up his mistakes by blaming the matériel, is ignoring the real matériel failings of the shells, either willfully or ignorantly.

There is actually a technical explanation for smaller spread, suggested by Dr. Norman Friedman in U.S. Naval Weapon Systems. p. 32: That the inherent lower muzzle velocity in British guns (somewhat lower than German or American guns) helped minimise it.

The problem with the whole argument is this: if I've read Brooks correctly the range at the start of the Battle Cruiser action was 16900 yards. Lion has the range as 18500. To achieve this range with full charges, elevation of her guns would have to be 13°7.63'. Her muzzle velocity was 2550 feet per second. The angle of descent of the shell would be 19°51' and the remaining velocity of the shell would be 1366 feet per second.

Here's the kicker. According to the range table, shells fired with three-quarter charges could only reach 15200 yards. Therefore the 1250 lb projectile couldn't even reach either the actual range or the extreme ranges recorded by Lion and New Zealand. And most of the B.C.F.'s shells were "overs" first if memory serves.

None of this goes into the very deliberate train of events which would have to be put in motion to order a shoot with three-quarter charges rather than full charges. A paper trail would have been left. I myself have an account written by a Lion turret officer and he's very chatty about many other gunnery aspects, but makes no mention of using reduced charges. --Simon Harley (talk | library | book reviews) 19:59, 1 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

well I agree with you that there is insufficient information to make any usefull conclusions. As far as I can see, if small charges had been used, it would indeed have meant the shells were less effective when they arrived. I take your point about range, but logically they would only have used such an arrangement if the range was short enough, so presumably not when they believed it was 18,000. As to paper trails, generally and certainly from Yates, they are by now quite thin on the ground. Had this really happened and steps been taken to cover it up, then this might have been a secret at the time and omitted from accounts. I couldn't say whether that might be practical, or not. I don't doubt there were technical problems with british shells. Really in the nature of things it would be surprising if there weren't. The question is not whether they had problems, but whether this was actively promoted as THE reason why Germann ships werent sunk.

Yates account makes it plain to me the extent to which there was a coverup, not merely in misinformation, but in actively loosing or falsifying contemporary records. I had not appreciated before just how far this had gone. One or two people have commented that Beatty's son was not as cooperative with biographers as he might have been. This again is only circumstantial evidence, but is entirely consistent with not wanting to disclose his fathers career enhancement program. Brookes book, with its comments on the role of Pollen as a journalist and friend of Beatty's is something Yates misses, but as I said, this was perhaps after Yate's work? However, it rounds out the argument Yates makes and demonstrates his misinformation program in action immediately after the battle.

Yates persists in saying Beatty really believed the version of events which he was promoting. I find this difficult to accept, unless he was really pretty stupid and incompetent. Chatfield's biography comments that beatty before the war was pushing for target practice to be at more realistic (longer ) ranges. Assuming this is true, and not simply more hype of the Beatty myth, then it is something of an irony that his view seems to have reversed by the middle of the war, in that he was arguing for engagement at middling ranges. Although, to be fair, these were precisely the ranges he had been advocating at the start, just the GF had become more ambitious. the evidence seems to show the 5BS was effective at extreme range. It is not clear to me how much better the BCs might have been at long range shooting had they taken it seriously. I also think I noted a comment by Yates that while the 3BCS which had been sent to scapa for practice was said to have much improved, they still only spent most of their time not practicing maximum ranges or use of tracking equipment such as they had. There is still for me some issue about what were considered sensible ranges and by whom. The only person who seems to have definitively been shooting at max is Evan Thomas, Mr Gordon's hero. Sandpiper (talk) 22:54, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : XLI (July 2009)

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Fisher

You could well be right; I just looked at Jackie Fisher, 1st Baron Fisher - I now see there's a discussion on the Talk page there from January that concludes that the page should be renamed to Jacky, but it doesn't seem to have been done. My main concern was to avoid "John A.". Cyclopaedic (talk) 07:52, 21 August 2009 (UTC

Handley Page Type O

Something seems to have gone astray after your edit of 10 May. There is now a new ref, Jackson 2006, which retains the page numbers of the earlier source Jackson 1974. Do any of the inlines actually refer to the 2006 vol? I've put a note on the discussion page.TSRL (talk) 21:16, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I was under the impression that most of my edits had been reverted already. At the time I understood that there was no difference between the two editions of Jackson's book. --Simon Harley (talk | library | book reviews) 20:42, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Admirals - Andrew Lambert

Hey Simon, long time no see - I didn't realize you'd changed your username! There's a copy of Admirals by Lambert in my local charity shop for £1.75; I nearly picked it up, but then I remembered that there's an expert on naval warfare on here that I could ask about it. It looks rather interesting, and I've been wanting to pick up something on the Royal Navy for a while - but is this one I should be picking up? It looks populist rather than academic, which isn't a problem for me given that I'm just looking for an entry-level book - but does it have any major problems or flaws that should make me think again? Cheers, Skinny87 (talk) 08:28, 2 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

£1.75 is a good price for any nearly new book! I'd buy it just for the sake of it. I read the chapter on Beatty (which is closest to my interest) and wasn't too impressed: nothing can transcend the fact that Beatty was a lying, ambitious and occasionally very stupid man. The naval aviation fiasco was largely of his own doing from 1917 and he still didn't get it sorted in the longest First Sea Lordship in modern times. He also found alot of time to try and fudge the official Jutland histories, which has to be a first for a modern First Sea Lord.

I should point out that I'm not the greatest fan of Lambert. I've heard him speak at a couple of conferences and in general conversation and it's like listening to paint drying. What he writes and talks about is anything but - I think he compensates by making his work as controversial as possible.

It just so happens I've corresponded with a learned acquaintance about the book in the past day or so, and he says the rest of it is quite good. So I'd buy it! --Simon Harley (talk | library | book reviews) 21:34, 2 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Alright, cheers for that, I'll make sure to pick it up, thanls. Skinny87 (talk) 07:59, 3 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I met him a number of times in the late 80s early 90s; when he worked at Sandhurst he lived in the same road as the Public Record Office. I very much liked his first book Battleships in Transition.--Toddy1 (talk) 13:13, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've just read the Fisher and Beatty chapters of the book. His Fisher arguments, especially regarding the Baltic Plan, are without substance. His Beatty chapter is a laugh - Lambert spends most of it reminding the reader why Beatty was such a cretin, then expects us to believe he was one of the greatest admirals the Royal Navy has ever had. B******.

That said, I do need to read his new book on Sir John Franklin - the reviews actually made it seem interesting.

I tried getting in touch with him not so long ago about a point he made at a conference two years ago, but haven't heard back from him yet. At any rate, he'll be at a conference I'm attending in March, and I may try to make an appointment to see him when I'm in London next month. --Simon Harley (talk | library | book reviews) 13:42, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

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The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : XLII (August 2009)

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Question on ship identification

Hello SH. Can you assist with identifying this vessel? As shown on the Commons page, on-line sources differ. I uploaded it as HMS Calliope, then came across a source which listed it as HMS Calypso. The photograph bears a remarkable likeness to a black-and-white drawing of the latter (which, however, has a slightly different perspective). Perhaps the paint scheme might help. (Does a dark hull signify northern or home waters, and white signify the tropics?) Any assistance would be appreciated. Regards, Kablammo (talk) 14:40, 19 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And should you come across the image in your considerable library, please let me know where, and whether there is information as to its provenance. Thanks again. Kablammo (talk) 15:12, 19 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm afraid that cruisers such as Calypso or Calliope are somewhat out of my field of interest. I can only recommend you head to a forum to see if anyone else has the picture. I heartily recommend this forum. The owner of the battleships-cruisers website runs it, so he may have an answer. The members of the forum have an obscenely large collection of images in their collections, and they're only too happy to help. If you want, I can ask about your image, but I still wholeheartedly recommend you join. --Simon Harley (talk | library | book reviews) 09:43, 20 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the suggestion. Regards, Kablammo (talk) 11:10, 20 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

utopia limited

I noticed you removed reference to G&S opera Utopia ltd from the HMS victoria article. The text appears to say there was a mention in utopia ltd, not that it was mentioned in HMS Pinafore, written before the accident. Merely that it had the same characters as in Pinafore.Sandpiper (talk) 01:18, 20 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This is the section I removed:

“

In 1893, in the Savoy Operetta "Utopia, Limited", William Gilbert brought back his character "Captain Corcoran" (here called "Captain, Sir Edward Corcoran, K.C.B.") from "H.M.S. Pinafore" as one of the "Flowers of Progress" sent to the Pacific Island Kingdom of Utopia to bring it into the modern world. In a song in the first act, Corcoran boasts of British sea power, and how the men "never run a ship ashore". Then follows a chorus (as in "H.M.S. Pinafore") of "What never?", "No never", ending with a shamefaced Corcoran admitting "Well...hardly ever!".

”

Suggesting that the return of Sir Edward Corcoran's character was a result of the Victoria disaster is original research. The reference to "never run a ship ashore" seems to be in this context a rather poor taste reference to the loss of the Victoria. There's absolutely no justification for the section to remain. --Simon Harley (talk | library | book reviews) 08:39, 20 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I tire of people on wiki claiming something is 'original research'. This is a strategy designed to win an argument, not to establish correct facts. I usually find that people quoting rules rather than explaining are not interested in facts or accuracy. Sometimes it is fun to play silly games quoting wiki rules, but when addressing history articles I am more interested in trying to establish facts in a sea of various alternative and often contradictory accounts. Your edit comment suggests your reason for deletion was because pinafore predated the disaster, which seems not to be your reason.

The text does not suggest that Corcoran was brought back because of the sinking, merely says he was brought back, reason unknown: this seems to me a reasonable preamble to explaining what is being talked about.

From my own knowledge of G&S, their stock in trade was lampooning topical issues, so if this infamous disaster had just happened, well you can be sure they would try very hard to give it a mention. I don't see it in poor taste, though certainly you can view it from different angles. However, I gooled a bit and found this copy of the script at [11] . There is a footnote saying:

19 The remaining dialogue preceding the Finale, was cut during the rehearsal period, for political reasons. The British vessel, HMS Victoria, had recently been sunk during manoeuvres off Tripoli.

and the cut dialog in question is:

Zara. Yes. I had intended to bring a seventh - a British Admiral in his own iron-clad - typical of England's naval supremacy - but unhappily he ran his ship aground at the mouth of the Thauser and I was obliged to leave him there. King. Bless my heart that's very unlucky! I should like to have seen a British Admiral in his own iron-clad.

So ironically, it may be the case that dialog was cut from Utopia because of the sinking rather than added to it. Or it might be that the dialog was inserted and then cut because of objection. Though as the wording relates to groundings, and a number had happened earlier, including to Victoria, then it may perhaps be that we should say the result of the sinking was that 'Utopia' was cut'. It may still be that the reference in Utopia referred to Victoria's grounding (well, it says 'grounding', not sinking) and this is reasonable and legitimate comment. I havn't looked into the wording of the song yet, but it might be the sung reference to groundings remained while that spoken was cut? Sandpiper (talk) 18:34, 20 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Though thinking about it, Victoria was Tryon's flagship, and he was not on board when she ran aground. Which makes sense of the cut comment about 'would like to see a british admiral in his own ironclad'. Sandpiper (talk) 18:49, 20 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I was under the impression that in the absence of a reference, most things can be labelled as original research. The same goes for any kind of research. Find a reference stating that the mention of "What never" in Utopia was a direct reference to H.M.S. Victoria and I'll have no problem with it being reinserted in the article. Just bear in mind that Victoria wasn't the only Royal Navy ship to run aground in the latter part of the nineteenth century.

The section you've dug out regarding the cut dialog is certainly something relevant to the Victoria article, although "political reasons" is a rather woolly explanation. --Simon Harley (talk | library | book reviews) 20:06, 20 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Another legalese response? If you want to argue rules, then I suggest the one rule to rule them all... that there are no binding rules on wiki and everyone is expected to act in furthereance of creating a better encyclopedia. References here are tools of war used to maintain entrenched points of view. The comments about G&S give context to the article and I consider such topical references highly desireable for an article. Whether they are right is almost beside the point, because they make the article more interesting. Sandpiper (talk) 22:09, 20 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Talkback

Hello, Simon Harley. You have new messages at The ed17's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

—Ed17 (talk • contribs) 04:06, 21 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

hms victoria

there is a report in the times shortly after the collision which says that part of Tryon's TA system was to hoist a cone, the hight of which indicated his speed and up or down indicated forward or reverse, and then flags to indicate turning port or starboard. The way the times is written suggests it was specifically part of TA that captains were supposed to watch for these signals and act accordingly. I wondered whether you would know if these were his own invention or signals generally in use by the navy already?

I also saw an interesting comment quoting colomb, who is reported as saying (before the actual facts were known) that a turn involving two columns turning inwards with one going on an inside track and the other in the opposite direction past them was quite normal. This surprised me as some of the books seem to suggest this was not a usual manoeuvre. yet, Colomb is quoted as suggesting this might have been what was happening when things went wrongSandpiper (talk) 10:08, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : XLIII (September 2009)

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Hey dude

Hi again Simon, long time no talk. Would you be able to comment here? In a question about WWI British battlecruisers, I figure that you are our best bet. :-) Many thanks, —Ed (talk • contribs) 15:59, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If you haven't watchlisted this page, you may want to, we've got something else to ask you there. -MBK₀₀₄ 02:00, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, the question awaiting your answer was posed by me. :-D —Ed (talk • contribs) 04:42, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I watchlist everything automatically (makes things interesting). It just so happens I'll be going to my annexe (i.e. garage) later today and will check Roberts then re: Kongo. --Simon Harley (talk | library | book reviews) 07:15, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks! —Ed (talk • contribs) 14:48, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

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The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : XLIV (October 2009)

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A question about Beatty

Hi, Simon. I'm doing some work on my undergrad honors thesis (broadly speaking, about the battlecruisers at Jutland), and Campbell states on page 38 that Beatty decided to close to within the range of the 12" Mark Xs of Indefatigable and New Zealand before opening fire, but he doesn't say why. Do we know why he made this decision, given that all of the German guns out-ranged the two older BCs? I'd assume it was to concentrate his firepower, but he had to have known the effective range of the German guns. Do you know of any sources that discuss the decision?

Also, I'm interested in getting my hands on some primary sources from the RN. Do you have any recommendations or know how I'd go about doing that? Thanks for any help you can provide. Parsecboy (talk) 20:41, 8 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm currently without my copy of Campbell and am having to resort to a Word file; is this the passage in question?

“

The British 9ft range-finders were not satisfactory at such distances, and in addition the New Zealand and Indefatigable could not range much over 18,500yds at 13 1/2° elevation. Beatty thus intended to close to within the latter distance, but the Lion's range-finders over-estimated the range by more than 2000yds and it had sunk to about 16,000yds when the Germans opened fire at 1548.

”

Off the top of my head Beatty re-arranged the battle cruisers' disposition so as to have his most powerful ships at the front to concentrate on the head of the German line as per his own Battle Cruiser Fleet Orders, and of course Beatty being Beatty wouldn't be anywhere else but in the van. Roskill, Beatty's most competent biographer (to my mind not saying much), does not address either the re-arrangement of the line or the delay in opening fire. Marder says the delay was due to Beatty waiting to get in range of the 12-inch gunned ships, as Beatty believed that at the time fire was opened by both sides the range was 18,000 yards, when it was 16,000 - a fact known by the number two ship in the line, Princess Royal, which for all of Beatty's vaunted-espousals of initiative declined to open fire as soon as possible, and God knows might have even fluffed the fire distribution signal to the ships astern which would cause so much chaos later.

At any rate, I'll have a look through some of my sources when I get the chance and do some quoting later today.

As to primary sources, what sort are you after? The sort of stuff Campbell would have looked at when writing Analysis of the Fighting? For some perverse reason material is scattered all over Britain regarding the Royal Navy. National Maritime Museum for ship plans and papers, Admiralty Library at the Royal Naval Museum for papers and records, Churchill College for Memoirs and papers, Imperial War Museum for the same, The National Archives for reports and records, British Library for papers, Liddle Collection at the University of Leeds for reminiscences and papers. If only we had the equivalent of the Naval History and Heritage Command in the U.S.N. There is a Naval Historical Branch but when they produce garbage like this page on Jutland (I was specifically informed by the webmaster who was responsible) I have no hope. --Simon Harley (talk | library | book reviews) 10:55, 9 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Image from Roberts that you listed for deletion

Regarding Wikipedia:Files for deletion/2009 December 13#File:IndefArmorDiagram.jpg, you should also be aware that another diagram from the same book has been uploaded: InvincibleArmorDiagram.jpg. If one should go, both should go.--Toddy1 (talk) 10:52, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Toddy1, I wasn't aware and I'm fairly sure that Roberts isn't aware either. --Simon Harley (talk | library | book reviews) 21:32, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Simon - how did you nominate the file for a deletion review? Since it was deleted, and exactly the same arguments apply to the File:InvincibleArmorDiagram.jpg image taken from the same book, I think one of us ought to nominate it for deletion.--Toddy1 (talk) 13:06, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I will have a look and sort it out - a pain in the a** process if memory serves. --Simon Harley (talk | library | book reviews) 13:52, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : XIV (November 2009)

The November 2009 issue of the Military history WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.
This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 18:35, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]