Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Peer review/HMS Liverpool (C11)

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[edit] HMS Liverpool (C11)

I've chosen to submit this article for review to address whatever issues are identified as further expansion is unlikely right now. Per SoLando tradition, prose is choppy in parts and the post-war section is especially disjointed (there's a paucity of information on Liverpool's activities in the Med'). That lack of sources has really impeded the development of the post-war section. Woody kindly searched the Times Archive earlier this month without much joy. But I believe the article is proportionate to the availability of reliable sources and comprehensive. Apologies if I'm not prompt in my response; April has been a month of distraction ;-). SoLando (Talk) 08:03, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Nick Dowling

This is a pretty good article. My comments are:

  • As a general comment, much of the article is written in a passive voice, and the article would be more engaging if this was switched to an active voice.
  • As another general comment, the article only deals with the highlights and notable incidents during the ship's career. Were there any lowlights? (eg, accidents, bad captains, groundings, crew discontent at long deployments, war damage due to missjudgements, etc)
  • "Liverpool began to operate in September [1938] monitoring the Persian Gulf for potential Axis activity" this was before the Axis was formed (Sept 1940 according to Axis powers).
  • The bit on the boarding of Asama Maru is confusing - I suggest that you replace 'certain passengers' with '21 of the ship's passengers believed to be survivors of the scuttled German liner Columbus' in the first instance.
  • "escorted a convoy transporting ANZAC forces" - replace 'ANZAC force' with 'Australia and New Zealand forces': the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps of WW2 only existed for a few weeks during the Greek Campaign in 1941, and the Australian and NZ Armies were totally seperate apart from this.
  • The date was she torpedoed during Operation Harpoon should be added.
  • What happened to her during 1943 and 1944? Was she repaired and then laid up, laid up without being repaired or very slowly repaired? Also, why was she assigned a low priority for crewing? - did the RN have more cruisers than it needed by this stage of the war, or was there some flaw in her design that made her less effective than other ships?
  • On that topic, can you add an assessment of how this ship's design performed during the war? - did it prove successful? (I believe that it did, and from having toured HMS Belfast in London, it was certainly an impressive class of ships). --Nick Dowling (talk) 11:13, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
  • I've copyedited the article to try to address and reduce the passive. Has the prose been improved? It hasn't been entirely eliminated - some I've decided to retain as the alternatives caused repetition or just didn't sufficiently flow. Writing an article on a ship is always a challenge when consciously trying to minimise gender nouns (to no avail from the beginning) and diversify sentences. Not that I'm being defensive ;-).
  • Google hasn't yielded much more information than that present in the article right now. Certain tactics Liverpool employed during her operation in Japanese waters appear to have been "irregular" and potentially controversial. The first torpedo attack certainly was; however, these accounts are only supported by one website which doesn't attribute its material to any source.
  • Ugh, that is a fundamental error. Moving swiftly onto the next issue.
  • Revised for clarity
  • Addressed
  • Addressed
  • Information on the process of her repairs at Rosyth is almost non-existent. If I recall correctly, the newest construction usually had priority over damaged ships and assets whose value was in question (such as the battleship Rodney). That and the scarcity of available manpower for a crew-intensive cruiser like Liverpool appear to have been the reason. I'll add it later.
  • There's little information directly pertinent to the article. Certainly, the Towns were a highly regarded class although if I recall correctly it was the final batch (Edinburgh and Belfast) that was considered to be the RN's definitive wartime cruiser design.
Nick, thank you for reviewing the article. Are the revisions satisfactory? SoLando (Talk) 20:08, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes, that looks better. I agree that it can be hard to find detailed information on ships like this which weren't particularly remarkable. --Nick Dowling (talk) 12:04, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Ryan4314

Ok mate, I gave it a quick read through (only fair, you did it for me after all).

  • In the 2nd paragraph of the lead there's seems to be an almost comical amount of "twos" and "fours" (almost to the music of the 12 days of Christmas lol)
  • Can you put the link for Torpedo bombers earlier in the article, maybe by the first torpedo attack Ryan4314 (talk) 14:50, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Thank you. Haha, I hadn't noticed that. I assure you there was no ulterior numerical bias - just a cynical attempt to flesh out the intro' ;-). Both issues have been addressed. SoLando (Talk) 20:08, 29 April 2008 (UTC)