Talk:Brazilian battleship Minas Geraes

Grammatical question from...guess whom?

In 1900, Brazil had fallen behind Chile and Argentina as the third-highest South American naval power.

What does "highest" refer to here? Most powerful? Largest? If you have the answers now, please fix it, as I am off to bed now and will be gone for most of tomorrow, if not the entire day. Cheers, —La Pianista ^(T•C) 05:41, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Further, was there a great competition to be third, as is implied in the sentence? How about By 1900, Brazil had fallen to the third [whatever] South American naval power behind Chile and Argentina. — Bellhalla (talk) 06:42, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Gold discovered in the late 1800s? Was that in addition to the initial discovery in the early 1700s under Portuguese rule? Was there another gold rush in the late 1800s?. Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 05:20, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Pronouns in sentences at the ends of.

Black sailors on Minas Gerais were widely discriminated against.

How about "The crew discriminated against black sailors aboard the Minas Gerais?" That doesn't change the meaning, I hope; I want to make certain of this before I edit anything out. —La Pianista ^{♫ ♪} 16:45, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

That would change the meaning too much. :/ Pretty much everyone in the navy discriminated against them, including officers and white members of the crew. (technically, "officers" aren't part of the "crew"). —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 16:47, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Hm. Any ideas to move "against" towards the middle? —La Pianista ^{♫ ♪} 16:54, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

?

Her maiden voyage was a journey from Britain to Norfolk, Virginia, from where she escorted the American armored cruiser North Carolina, with the body of deceased Brazilian ambassador to the United States Joaquim Nabuco embarked, home to Rio de Janeiro.

What does that mean? I could rephrase it if the sentence were chopped up into tiny bits so my brain can make sense of it. :) —La Pianista ^{♫ ♪} 04:57, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

For the simpleton. ;) Ship went from Britain to Norfolk. Joins North Carolina, who had the body of the ambassador on board. Minas Gerais escorts North Carolina to Rio. —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 05:47, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

"Layman" is preferred, but thankye nonetheless. ;)

How's: "On her maiden voyage, Minas Gerais traveled from Britain to Norfolk, Virginia, where she met North Carolina. The latter carried the body of deceased Joaquim Nabuco, Brazilian ambassador to the United States, and was escorted by Minas Gerais to Rio de Janeiro." —La Pianista ^{♫ ♪} 05:53, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

That's a little unclear about where she met North Carolina. Could that be added? —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 05:59, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Certainly, if it's accurate: "On her maiden voyage, Minas Gerais traveled from Britain to Norfolk, Virginia, where she met North Carolina. The latter carried the body of deceased Joaquim Nabuco, Brazilian ambassador to the United States, and was escorted by Minas Gerais to Rio de Janeiro." —La Pianista ^{♫ ♪} 06:01, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Looks good :) Thank you! —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 06:06, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Anything for lil' Ed. :) No problem at all. —La Pianista ^{♫ ♪} 06:09, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Contemporary when ?

"sometimes spelled Minas Gerais in contemporary sources" Is this intended to mean contemporary to the active life of the ship or contemporary now ? "in contemporary sources" actually correctly means, during the time at which the events ( such as the naming of the ship ) occured. This meaning would be inconsistent with the later statements about changes to Portugese orthography. Phrases such as "contemporary sources" are often misused, as people confuse this meaning of the word, with other phrases such as "contemporary art" or "contemporary design" which mean modern and/or current. "Contemporary sources", however, doesn't mean modern or current books or records about the ship, it means books or records about the ship which were made during the lifetime of the ship. Which is just the opposite! I am not quite sure what is meant here, but it should probably be changed. Eregli bob (talk) 15:35, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

I've reworded it. Thanks! —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 15:56, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Hi All, I've fixed also spelling in the class wikiarticle, please give a look at it just in case I missed anything. Kind regards, DPdH (talk) 05:41, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Links to google books

I think that it isn't good to put links to preview publications.--Vojvodae please be free to write :) 05:57, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Why is it not? I've done it in my other four FA's and never had a complaint... —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 21:43, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Sorry but it can be frustrating when some pages miss :)--Vojvodae please be free to write :) 10:26, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Boilers

Is Thornycroft correct? I would have thought John I. Thornycroft & Company was more likely? ϢereSpielChequers 12:25, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Wow, good question. From Thornycroft: "Thereafter [1907] the vehicle building firm and the marine side (later to become Vosper Thornycroft) were separate companies." From the JIT&company article: "usually known simply as Thornycroft". Question marks? —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 21:42, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I suspect as we are talking marine boilers for big ships it should be John I. Thornycroft & Company, but it may not be easy to confirm this. ϢereSpielChequers 22:01, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Wait, both articles state they merged to become Vosper Thornycroft (well, the former says that the marine part merged). :-) I'll change it to the new link, as that article seems to be about the marine side of the business. —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 06:47, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Featured article review?

This has been through featured article review, and is the next scheduled Feature Article.

So why does it contain nonsense like this (bold added for emphasis):

Displacement: 19,281 t (21,254 short tons) normal

21,200 t (23,400 short tons) full load

the only relatively new Brazilian ships larger than 3,000 t (3,300 short tons) were two cruisers and two coastal defense battleships of the Deodoro class

the new vessels were intended to be 19-knot (35 km/h), 12,000-tonne (13,200-short-ton) displacement ships

Nobody outside Wikipedia measures the displacement of anybody's naval ships in short tons. So why does an article which "exemplifies our very best work and is distinguished by professional standards of writing" use such strange units. We look more like Britannica instead! Gene Nygaard (talk) 22:30, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

[removed one comment by me, see history if needed to understand Ed's response—Gene Nygaard (talk) 14:29, 5 January 2010 (UTC)]

Thank you for your comments, Gene, but it future posts, could you cut the sarcasm and patronizing out of your posts? Remember that we are all people here, ones that took a lot of time to put articles like this together and ones that don't devote 24/7 to Wikipedia. As to your last sentence, I point you at WP:1.0/A#Grades: "No further content additions should be necessary unless new information becomes available; further improvements to the prose quality are often possible." Featured articles aren't necessarily perfect.

I have added conversions for long tons, but it is standard Wikipedia practice to convert the units into all three varieties of tons (metric tons aka tonnes, long tons and short tons). I'm not sure of the exact reason, but I suspect it has to do with how little the unit of long tons is used in modern times by regular people—the audience this article is targeted at. Regards, —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 23:00, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I'd say the clock is still running, at T−18 minutes. Gene Nygaard (talk) 23:42, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

If you'd state your concerns in a more rational, measured and serious way, I might be inclined to listen to them. Please leave your cynicism related to (I think?) the FA process at the door. Regards, —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 00:28, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Okay, several points:

1. Like I said, nobody uses short tons to measure the displacement of naval ships. Nobody. Nobody. Nobody, except a few fools on Wikipedia, of course.
2. Unlike the case if you are talking about 3½ tons of one sort or another, nobody has a "feel" for how much 21,254 short tons is. Readers might see a difference between 3½ and 4 tons and think they understand the numbers, but not the difference between 21,254 short tons and 21,524 short tons.
   • The only real usefulness of these number is to compare one ship to another. If both ships have the figures in both long tons and metric tons, you can easily make that comparison in whichever units in choose. In fact, even if only one of the ships being compared has those two units one the other has only one of them, you can still make that comparison and understand it just as well, no matter which units you have to use to do it.
3. Displacement figure are often stated to a somewhat unrealistic precision in the first place (you wouldn't really have five significant digits in the measurement of mass, even if you specified the time it was measured and who or what—how much fuel, etc.—was on the ship at the time); two overly precise numbers together are hard to read—three of them are hopelessly impossible clutter.
4. Don't be claiming that it is "standard Wikipedia practice to convert the units into all three varieties". It is not.

   Just go look at Category:Battleships of the United States Navy, for example. How many articles can you find there (most of them are in subcategories by class), which use "short tons" for their displacements? Come back and tell me how many you looked at, and how many you found using short tons for displacement.

   • Furthermore, {{convert}} is robust enough to allow you to chose which conversions you can make, even though it is broken enough so that the sp= parameter doesn't work if you use {{convert|21254|t|LT|sp=us}}, which yields 21,254 metric tons (20,918 long tons) with a spelling far more foreign to American English usage than "litres" are.
5. There are no standard symbols for "short tons" or for "long tons". The most common symbol used for either is likely "t" (the same as the only symbol proper for metric tons in usage compatible with the International System of Units); when a distinction needs to be made, a whole hodgepodge of symbols are used, including "MT" for metric tons which might also be used for "million tons" or "thousand tons" (with MMT used for million tons in pseudo-Roman numeral style) or "megatons" of one sort or another.
   • The convert template abbreviates those tons as "ST" and "LT" (thank God they through out the ones the used to use, "S/T" and "L/T" making it look like there was a division involved and that the units might be siemens per tesla or some strange thing like that. This is more clutter, more useless nonsense to have to try to figure out, thrown on top of already cluttered usage of three overly precise numbers to express one measurement.
   • Note particularly that in the form you used for convert, the "abbr=" parameter is broken. You didn't tell it to abbreviate it when you used {{convert|19281|t|LT ST|lk=on}}, but you got 19,281 tonnes (18,976 long tons; 21,254 short tons) with abbreviations nonetheless. Had you instead used {{convert|19281|t|LT|lk=on}}, you could have avoided confusing, non-standardized abbreviations by getting "19,281 tonnes (18,976 long tons)". In the running text usages especially, that is the best choice; space concerns might make even non-standard symbols acceptable in the infobox. However, in your case, you'd be gaining back the space used for the short-tons clutter, so even if you spelled them out it would take less space than the nonsense there now. Or you could use {{convert|19281|MT|LT|lk=on}} to get 19,281 metric tons (18,976 long tons).
6. When it comes to ships, we already have to deal with a ton of tons. Not only do we have the ones used here which are measurements of mass, but there are also a bunch of measurements of volume such as gross register tons used for various cargo and passenger ships. What that means is that throwing in useless clutter of short tons on top of the pile greatly exacerbates this problem.

There are a likely a few more objections as well, but that's enough for now. In summary, let me just say that using short tons in any way, shape, or form in this context does not ""exemplif[y] our very best work. Gene Nygaard (talk) 15:20, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I'll provide a full response as soon as I can, which isn't now. ;) —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 22:19, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Alright, now we have a discussion! :) You have a point that it is rare to see ships measured in short tons outside of Wikipedia, but I feel that it is important to include them in the article in case someone can tell the difference between 21,254 and 21,524 tons. What I meant by standard practice is in ship FAs like SMS Von der Tann, although that only contains a t -> ST conversion. The abbr= parameter isn't broken, it's just wrong in the article. I think that it needs to be set to abbr=off to show all conversions, which can be easily rectified here.

How about a compromise? We'll remove the ST conversions in the article prose, but in the infobox—where the most detailed statistics are kept—we will keep it. Regards, —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 03:25, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

T+43 hours and counting.

Big deal! I already knew that the people at Featured Article review are largely innumerate. No surprise there. That's just the nonsense I'd expect, that they'd pass through one even worse than this one, one with totally inappropriate conversions—converting to short tons which are never used, and not even mentioning the longs tons which are and long have been actually used by much of the world for this purpose.

Fortunately, articles with more sensible editors can also sometimes make it through FA review. See, e.g., USS Connecticut (BB-18). The FA people simply don't know enough about numbers and measurements to keep from wrecking much of what they touch, but I doubt that they are intentionally trying to mess them all up. Gene Nygaard (talk) 19:15, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Oops! Big boo-boo on my part. I retract everything I said about the editors of USS Connecticut (BB-18), after seeing this:

• The Board's favored design would result in a ship weighing 15,560 tons (14,120 tonnes) displacement.

Just more nonsense that slipped by the innumerate Featured Article reviewers unnoticed. ~~

Von der Tann was written by Parsecboy (talk · contribs), someone who is writing their dissertation on Germany's High Seas Fleet of the First World War; I don't think that he is very innumerate.

Hmm, that's interesting, I wrote that about a year ago. I'm not sure whether to take the above as a compliment or insult. That entire section needs a little help actually, as hyphens are needed between things like 3-inch. I'd like to know why you think this article is bad aside from the conversions, because I can't imagine that any amount of extra conversions could completely ruin an article. —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 19:32, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Did you realize with this edit that the tons you changed were actually long tons? —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 19:43, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Flag

Would it be more appropriate to display the 1889-1960 Brazilian flag instead of the current one in the infobox? Brand[t] 09:36, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Given that articles on U.S. ships use different versions of the flag based on when the ship was active (see USS Nevada (BB-36) vs. USS New Jersey (BB-62), for example), I'd say yes. 195.225.189.243 (talk)

A very good article, and a question about main battery layout

Well done to all, a very good read about a ship I'd heard of but knew nothing about. Before today, if pressed, I'd have said she was one of the vessels handed over to one of the Great Powers on the outbreak of war.

I'm not about to mess with a Featured Article, so I won't change this myself, but something I didn't notice about this ship until I Googled for more photos of her was the configuration of her turrets. From reading the article, I came away with the impression that her twelve main guns were in four turrets. It appears, however, that she actually had six, with two wing turrets placed abaft one another in a cross shape (versus eg the lozenge shape of the Westfalens or the T-shape of Dreadnought). I wonder if this feature is worth mentioning? Besides being something of a recognition feature for early dreadnoughts, this layout meant that only six to ten guns of her main battery would have been trainable on the same target, depending where it was. This makes her somewhat less powerful than the raw figures imply, and close, rather than superior, in net capability to her British and German contemporaries.

Also, the first external link is broken. I wonder if it was meant to be this one - http://www.areamilitar.net/DIRECTORIO/NAV.aspx?NN=17? Tirailleur (talk) 13:30, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Interesting points. The article does imply the arrangement was six twin-gun turrets by saying the design was based on other six-turret designs, though if you feel that isn't clear enough we could certainly mention it explicitly (assuming a reliable source can be provided, of course!) I agree the weight of broadside - for want of a better term - probably wasn't significantly bigger than other designs though, and possibly less than you mention as it's unlikely the wing turrets could have fired directly forward without stripping bits off the superstructure (or worse; see the fate of the Chinese admiral Ding Ruchang at the Battle of the Yalu River (1894)). Again though, we'd need a source to include that in the article. EyeSerene^talk 22:00, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, you are correct re the turrets. It 'implies it, but doesn't explicitly say it. Do these two edits help? I didn't mean that link, but I added it. :) —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 22:19, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Looks good :) EyeSerene^talk 20:10, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

That works for me. Re wing turrets, yes, they had quite poor firing arcs. Those able to fire across the deck rarely did so, because it inflicted so much damage on the firing ship itself. With her turret layout, MG's maximum broadside against any single target would have been ten tubes, falling to six if the target moved forward or aft, and finally to four if the target was within 30 degrees or so of dead ahead or dead astern. Paying for twelve guns and only being able to train four was not good business and hence was designed out of new dreadnoughts by 1915.Tirailleur (talk) 11:34, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Hi all, didn't check the article's history but it includes a front view picture where the wing turrets can be clearly seen, guns trained transversally. Regards, DPdH (talk) 02:19, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Cost?

How many million reais did Brazil waste on her? Sca (talk) 17:56, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure; the only figures I could find were in dollars. —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 22:19, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I doubt they were reais then. Looking at this, they should be réis, in fact. In it goes? Eccomi 23:25, 17 April 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Eccomi (talk • contribs)

Were guns ever fired?

Were the guns ever fired other than in testing or practice rounds? I can't see any mention of that in the article at present. Seems worthy of mention, if the taxpayers of Brazil built this ship, and maintained it for 47 years, and it never actually fired a gun at an opponent. T-bonham (talk) 05:19, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

"de" versus "da"

The correct naming of the revolt is as we see in the article, "Revolta da Chibata". However -- in Wikipedia's main entrance page, today (5 Jan 2010) Battleship Minas Geraes appears as a featured article. In the featured-article summary, we see the revolt named as "Revolta de Chibata", with a "de" instead of the appropriate "da". In fact, I came to correct this slip in the main article when I suddenly found that it was already correct. I had surmised that the featured-article summaries were taken verbatim (and automatically) from the start of the articles themselves. So, in short -- how come? And -- how can we correct the summary? SrAtoz (talk) 21:11, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I've fixed the summary. I realized last night that "de" was wrong, so I changed it throughout the article, but I forgot about the piece which goes on the main page. Apologies, —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 22:19, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Launch cards

Today in Commons two elements of the Shipyard launch card were uploaded. The links are [1] and [2]. As I tried to get my head around things I found myself working on Charles de Lacy. I then find myself wondering whether a Skype editathon appeals to any of you? Charles de Lacy is a notable British marine artist and he paints Minas Geraes in 1908 commissioned by the yard. The Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums service has the results in two accessions. 450/1 in the archives and 1994.69 in the museum service. Both being the same, a print in the launch ephemera, one disbound and one bound. The archives one is bound in a volume headed Admirale Duarte Huet De Bacellar. If you look at this cemetery record it would appear that the Admiral is buried in a Durham Churchyard. Open the document enter Huet in find and you read a Portugese (?) inscription. What does that say in English? Additionally there is uncertainly about when de Lacy dies, whether his second name is John or James, and whether to use de Lacey or de Lacy. Out there on the web as now the de Lacy Wiki article tries to show there is plenty about de Lacy but did anyone realise before the last little while he had painted Minas Geraes? If the interest is there I am willing to try to organise a Skype editathon with the bound volume of the Admiral's to camera.TWAMWIR (talk) 15:02, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Cigarette card

I found an image for a Will's cigarette card on commons: (while browsing for something completely different). I've not added it to the article as this is outside my range of knowledge, but use it if you think it fits somewhere. Robevans123 (talk) 13:29, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

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Two Minas Geraes battleships articles?

There seems to be another article that talks about the same ships at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minas_Geraes-class_battleship, not sure which came first or if they should be merged, just thought I should bring it to your attention. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.11.112.22 (talk) 18:48, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, anon! This article deals with Minas Geraes the ship, while Minas Geraes-class battleship deals with the ship class. :-) Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 19:13, 15 November 2016 (UTC)