Talk:SMS Scharnhorst

Intro

The lead paragraph is rather confusing; I'd delete the first mention of Gneisenau as it is easy to think that the latter was the lead ship of the class. Just move the link to the next mention of Gneisenau.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 23:07, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

I reworded it slightly, is it more clear now? Parsecboy (talk) 02:16, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

It's fine now.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 04:10, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Were there survivors or not?

In the Outcome section of the Battle of the Falkland Islands, it states:

Out of the 765 officers and men from the Scharnhorst, only 7 survived.

Which clearly conflicts with this article and the DYK mention out front. Who's right? --Cantthinkofausername 07:24, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

First, the figure of 765 officers and men is wrong; that figure is roughly the standard crew of a Scharnhorst class cruiser (38 officers and 726 enlisted men). As the squadron flagship, Scharnhorst carried an additional 80-odd officers and crew for the command staff. Second, that claim isn't sourced in the other article, and it is here (to quote Gröner: "All crew lost"). Parsecboy (talk) 13:17, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Dreadnought?

Pardon the ignorance, but was this ship a Dreadnought? The article doesn't say, and the evidence is a little unclear... --Piledhigheranddeeper (talk) 18:21, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

No, dreadnoughts were "all-big-gun" warships (as a general rule of thumb, anything under 10 inches is categorized as medium caliber for warships). Parsecboy (talk) 19:02, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

False ship

"A squall prevented the Germans from discovering Monmouth, but she eventually capsized and sank at 20:18"

I think it was the Good Hope which sank undetected. Monmouth capsized at 21:58, after being shelled by Nürnberg. --Andreas (talk) 10:37, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

"The two ships left Devonport on 10 November and while en route to the Falkland Islands, they were joined by the armored cruisers Carnarvon, Kent, and Cornwall, the light cruisers Bristol and Glasgow, and Otranto."

Macedonia was the auxiliary cruiser, that has reached the Falklands with Sturdee, not the demoralized Otranto.--Andreas (talk) 11:29, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

visit to Siam

It currently claims that Scharnhorst visited "southwest asia", apparently in 1913, and the admiral met Chulalongkorn, the King of Siam. He died in 1910, so this part of the chronology would seem to be out of sequence or just plain wrong.Lathamibird (talk) 12:24, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

The "southwest" bit was a typo - but I'll have to check Hildebrand later when I have it in front of me. Presumably they have the wrong name. Parsecboy (talk) 12:39, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

Corrected - thanks for bringing this up. Parsecboy (talk) 19:46, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

language?

Why is this article about a German ship in the South Atlantic written in US English? Dondervogel 2 (talk) 17:45, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

As opposed to...German English? Parsecboy (talk) 18:12, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with the concept of German English, but no one spells "metre" as "meter" outside the USA. In all other English speaking countries (Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, New Zealand ...) the spelling "metre" is preferred. For this reason, US English is normally reserved for articles with a strong connection with the USA. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 23:54, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

I think you need to read WP:ENGVAR again. (Hohum ^@) 00:01, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

Indeed. For someone who's been around as long as Dondervogel has, it's surprising that they seem to think this is the British Wikipedia. Parsecboy (talk) 01:42, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

I never mentioned British English. The article consistently uses US English so I see no need to change and am not proposing a change. For the reasons stated I was curious about the reason for the choice. (And yes, I could have worded my previous post more carefully). Dondervogel 2 (talk) 11:49, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

It was implicit in your post. If you did not think American English was "wrong", or that British English should be the default, why'd you bring it up? Parsecboy (talk) 13:22, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

• US English seemed (to me) a strange choice in this context. It still does. I was curious about the reason for the choice so I asked. End of story.
• I don't understand why you keep bringing up British English. It is used in only 1 of the 4 countries I named, and I have not mentioned it any of my posts except to explain to you (twice now) that I have not mentioned British English (that makes it 3 times).
• Dondervogel 2 (talk) 18:00, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Are you saying you'd have preferred the article written in German? We have one of those. Is British, Canadian, or Australian English any more rational of a choice? Look, I'll be blunt - you're either playing dumb or you haven't bothered to think through the implications of the question you asked (or bothered to familiarize yourself with the policies that cover this particular issue, which Hohum helpfully linked above). Either is a waste of our time - let's find something better to do.

Oh, and as for why I keep mentioning British English, I've never yet seen an arrogant Canadian or Australian seeking to impose their spellings on articles in the thirteen-odd years I've been writing here, but the English have a peculiar fanaticism - there was, if you noticed, one here a few hours ago. And guess where he's from?Parsecboy (talk) 18:22, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Check it out, we got another one! Parsecboy (talk) 18:40, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

• This is an interesting concept, first of all like WP:ENGVAR told us we are only allowed to use nationally related English styles in case of a strong national connexion. If not (mostly for non-English speaking countries) the editor has the right whether it writes in British, American, Australian et Cetra style. Unless a dispute or a lap of two kinds of English styles like a good example is the 1958 US–UK Mutual Defence Agreement which is about the US and the UK but it's written by an Australian. In this situation, the editor has the right to write it in American or British but mostly they choose the most used style in the sources. If a conflict can be a raised then we need to discuss it to standardise and solve the conflict not fight each other. Of course, because this is an English encyclopaedia we need to write it in English, not the native language because that would be chaotic. In this example about German English, there isn't really a standardised version of English, all styles of English are correct in most cases the non-English reader who learnt English at school learn both styles American and British. I think this discussion is a little bit pointless. Cheers. CPA-5 (talk) 21:13, 17 December 2019 (UTC)
• Personally I like British English more than American but as an editor, we should be neutral at Wikipedia to avoid situations like this and respect the editor's choice which is really important here. Cheers. CPA-5 (talk) 21:17, 17 December 2019 (UTC)