# Talk:HMS Achilles (1863)

When was she reduced to 3 masts? Drutt (talk) 06:05, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

A minor issue, to be sure, but Wheeler says the launch date was Dec 24, not the 23rd, and is a more nearly contemporaneous source than Conway or Parkes.  Not being at all informed on the topic, though, there might be a difference between "launch date" and "float date" of which I'm unaware. 
(Wheeler, William A., and Charles G. Wheeler. Familiar Allusions A Handbook of Miscellaneous Information. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin, and Company The Riverside Press, Cambridge, 1881. Print.)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Shelby Davis (talk • contribs) 18:02, 9 January 2010 (UTC) 

This review is transcluded from Talk:HMS Achilles (1863)/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.
Reviewer: Tomobe03 (talk · contribs) 20:46, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
I'll review this article shortly.--Tomobe03 (talk) 20:46, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

External links - all clear (no action required)
No DAB links (no action required)
No duplicate links (no action required)
Image used in the article has an appropriate licence (no action required)
MOS and prose:

Units of measurement should be separated from the preceding figures by a non-breaking space per WP:NBSP. I noticed this at just one instance: 6,121 bm
Fixed.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 18:10, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
I'm not so sure this goes against any MOS policy, but you use 7-inch guns and seven-inch guns (and similarly so for 9-inch ones) to describe guns. Perhaps it would be good to use the spelled out form or figure consistently. This is no dealbreaker here, though.
As per MOS, I've generally spelled out numbers below 10, but when converting them, the template required that they be written as numbers.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 18:10, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
There's {{Convert/spell}} if you need to spell the quantity out. I applied one in the article now for ex. Note that there is a space between the /spell and the first pipe though.--Tomobe03 (talk) 18:35, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
While I live and learn! I did not know that; guess we both learned something today.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 18:44, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
Went in and cleaned up most of these, but I forgot to mention the one legitimate exception of when you have a quantity of something of a size that should be spelled out. If you spell everything out, it's hard for the reader so you leave one or the other as numbers to make things easier for the reader. Forex 7 seven-inch guns.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 18:51, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
Of course.
It seems to me that the first paragraph of the "Service" section would be better off as a part of the now very short first paragraph of the "Design and description" section - especially because it speaks nothing on the service of the ship, but on its construction - a topic somehow preceding armament and armour issues.
I've renamed the section Construction and service as they seem inextricably linked to me.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 18:10, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
And that is a very fine course of action.--Tomobe03 (talk) 18:37, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
I also made a few copyedits, and you might want to review those as well. Nice article.--Tomobe03 (talk) 09:43, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

A minor point, but cannon is one of those weird words that is both singular and plural. Thanks for the review.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 18:10, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
Ha! I did not know that - I stand corrected and a bit wiser for it!--Tomobe03 (talk) 18:37, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
All clear now. Passing GAN!--Tomobe03 (talk) 18:55, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Apparently the ironclad frigates were designed to be frigates in purpose, first and foremost, but were forced into service as  battleships because they were so expensive?
This isn't right and I don't know what misreading is going on here. The attempts to build seagoing armoured warships at the end of the 1850s settled on the armoured frigate concept because the idea of building an armoured vessel with more than one full-length gundeck any useful height above w/l was immediately foreseen to present stability issues associated with topweight & centre of gravity. (Note that the French did indeed construct a pair of two-decker ironclads as part of their first programme, and recorded these ships as being adequate seaboats, but they were deemed inferior to the single-deckers in this regard and featured very low main gundecks - and were not repeated.)
These vessels were armed with the most powerful guns of the day and were intended very much to both withstand battleship fire (something which a traditional wooden 4th- or 5th-rate frigate would never attempt to undertake in its designed role) - especially in the context of shell-firing guns - and to destroy enemy ships of the line, which they could do as designed thanks to their huge resilience, which the armour was specifically included to impart.
The notion that these heavy, somewhat sluggishly-manoeuvring ships were intended as long-range independent trade protection and patrol vessels, or as repeating ships for the wooden line of battle is entirely at odds with the well-established history of the type.
Which source said this of the type and what was the exact phrasing, please? 2A00:23C7:3119:AD01:6CEE:9B79:5D9A:6432 (talk) 21:12, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

Our article states that "she was the only British warship ever to have four masts". I find that somewhat misleading - maybe the source uses "British" in contrast to "English" to refer to ships in use after the Act of Union 1707? Four masts were fairly standard for large galleons, and Henry Grace à Dieu, for example, certainly had four masts. Can someone with access to the source try to clarify this? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:36, 21 February 2024 (UTC)