# Talk:HMS Spiteful (1899)

I have added this PhD source per this in the archive at WP:RSN. This PhD is well-sourced and uses quotations from official records. I note that the WP:RSN discussion, while seeming to favour PhDs as reliable sources, is inconclusive. If you object to the use of this source here, this would be the place to say so and, please, explain why. Nortonius (talk) 14:13, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

Hi 7&6=thirteen, about these edits, the only thing that's bothering me is that I haven't seen the 1979 book, whereas I have a copy of the 1961 original, which I've used as a source: can you confirm that the page numbers are the same between the different books, for example? Other than guessing that the 1979 book is merely a reprint of the one from 1961, supported by snippets of other books seen via a Google Books search, I'm completely in the dark. If neither of us knows, in this sort of situation I would always think it best to rely on a source that's actually been seen. Cheers, let me know what you think, and thanks for your involvement over the last couple of days. Nortonius (talk) 12:55, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

I took your word that it was a reprint.  While I may be able to find one of these books at my local library, I would guess that finding both editions will be unlikely.  Do what you feel comfortable with.  It's not a deal breaker for me.
I would also note that your heading presents a False dilemma.  It is 1961 and 1979. The information coexists. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 12:59, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
Lol...! Only if "1979=reprint" were true, for which we only had indirect evidence; and we do have to choose betw the two years in the article, sooo... But guess what I just found – this ebay listing just happens to include a photo of the reverse of the title page and the contents page of the 1979 book, where it states, ahem, that the 1979 book is a "facsimile edition" of the 1961 book, and yes indeed the page numbers are the same! So 1979 it is. I have to say I much prefer the 1961 dust jacket, that 1970s graphic style hasn't aged well... Nortonius (talk) 13:13, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
Good job!  7&6=thirteen (☎) 13:22, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

User:Nortonius reckons it's style (to quote the edit summary "A matter of style IMHO – a comparison of two, but e.g. there was much riding on it & "won" is the sense but wld be wrong."), I reckon it's correct grammar. When two ships compete, is the winner "better" or "best"? Grammar says the winner is "better" [1]
Ewen (talk) 20:30, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Clearly I do think style trumps grammar here, and for a number of reasons. Overall, I think it's the "best" way to express a situation for which "better" is inadequate. Regarding the issue of "sense" that I touched on in the edit summary that you quote, in the "comparative trials" Peterel was selected to run against Spiteful because the ships were identical except in the manner of raising steam. However, Peterel represented "how things are done now", which might otherwise be expressed as "all other 30-knotter torpedo boat destroyers", or indeed "the vast majority of active warships in the Royal Navy". Here I might turn to The Shorter OED's first definition of "best" as "excelling all others in quality". In these circumstances I think it would be a bit silly to limit "all others" to Peterel. Spiteful, fired using only oil, was in a group of one, but remained in the groups "30-knotters" and "active warships in the Royal Navy", and its manner of raising steam represented an option for "how things might be done in the future". Further, in the sentence that followed "best", four parameters are noted, in three of which Spiteful out-performed Peterel by far. Against this background, "better" sounds weak to me, whereas the results were outstanding and the implications momentous; and it seems to me that "best" carries this sense most neatly, in a single word. For example, whether or not you are persuaded by the foregoing, if you were to insist on "better", then I should be minded to change that part of the sentence to something like "better by far in most respects". To me, that's unnecessarily wordy. Nortonius (talk) 22:02, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
User:Nortonius has a point.  We can avoid this by using a better word.  Superlative?  Superior?   Or we can try our thesaurus.  This is a chasm easily bridged.  7&6=thirteen (☎) 22:10, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
(ec) Yes, I'm sure it is, 7&6=thirteen! BTW, I noticed that my suggested wording above needed tweaking, so be aware! Nortonius (talk) 22:22, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
Thank you, Nortonius, for your detailed comments. It is a trivial matter, of course, and not worth spending much time over. Thanks for leaving my wording as it is although I can tell you're not convinced. The ships' competition was to decide between coal and oil; Which fuel was better? Ewen (talk) 06:16, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
You're very welcome, Ewen. I left your wording intact as it seemed the polite thing to do – I don't insist on politeness, but I am highly averse to drama! Thanks for explaining your thinking, I understand your position better now. The trouble is, it wasn't really a decision between coal and oil – the advantages of oil were already well understood, and the Admiralty was already anticipating its use. For example, as is stated in a footnote, Spiteful and other ships built for the Navy around the same time already incorporated "[a]rrangements ... for burning oil only or oil and coal together." (Lyon 2005, pp. 24–5) In the source, the only example stated is of oil-tight bulkheads, but I would struggle to believe that they were the only "arrangement" incorporated. Rather, the "decision" was based on a test of readiness, and on the actual outcomes. Technological competition was as intense then as it is now – as may be obvious, I don't mean to insult your intelligence – and the trials were really a demonstration for the Admiralty's benefit of whether its oil-burning system was worth more than the paper on which its secret patent was printed, along with all the other ramifications that I've already suggested and more. For example, we're still living with the effects of the Sykes–Picot Agreement, which is highly relevant, given the contemporary gulf between oil's usefulness and its availability to the Royal Navy: this issue too is raised in a footnote in the article. BTW, I'm much more interested in explaining my reasoning than "winning" an argument. I'm happy with 7&6=thirteen's suggestion that we might try to find a different way of expressing this, I only wonder if words like "superlative" are encyclopedic, since the sources are generally much too dry to use them. Perhaps "outstanding" might do it, as I think it's supported by the parameters in the following sentence. Nortonius (talk) 12:33, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
While the use of other adjectives and adverbs is very nice, they would have more meaning if the basis for the admiralty's decision were elucidated.  This would give meaning to the bare words.  7&6=thirteen (☎) 12:38, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
Isn't the elucidation provided by the rest of the section? But using the word "decision" is a bit misleading here I think, which is why I put it in quotation marks, since it makes sense only in this discussion – this section of the article deals only with the trials, the outcomes of which were (and are) not in dispute. The Royal Navy's decision to use fuel oil instead of coal – or indeed the British government's decision to use foreign policy to acquire sources of oil – are highly relevant but not really material for this article. Nortonius (talk) 12:49, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
Sorry, I meant to ping! Nortonius (talk) 14:55, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
I am trying to mediate an agreement here.  I do think that the trial and its consequences are relevant.  I that limited sense I disagree with Nortonius.  I think we should err on the side of too much of the irrelevant (to provide context) rather than too little of the relevant.  But I'll leave it to you all to work out.  7&6=thirteen (☎) 15:09, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
Fair enough, 7&6=thirteen, I don't mean to be difficult! I think a problem for me is that I haven't found an article that might usefully be linked here. If I had, I think a sentence or two on this might have flowed naturally. However there's something in a footnote that might be broken out into the body, I'll start working on that now, to see if it helps. Cheers. Nortonius (talk) 15:33, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
I wasn't even thinking you were being "difficult."  Collaboration is hard work.  And sometimes having more collaborators compounds the problem.  The meme that a 'camel is a horse designed by a committee' exists for a reason.  I was just trying to get out of the way, and empower y'all to work it through.  Making the pie  bigger may help.  Putting in supplemental infromation in a note might too.  Cheers.  7&6=thirteen (☎) 16:04, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
N.B., I apologize to camels who are unfairly maligned in the foregoing.  So if they or their adherents or interpreters (that includes you, Doctor Doolittle) can read the insult, they should also read the apology.  7&6=thirteen (☎) 16:51, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
I believe Joanna Lumley's a fan of camels too! :o) They are pretty amazing creatures ... p.s. How does this look? Nortonius (talk) 17:35, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
Ewen, what do you think of this as a compromise? "Significantly" is not in any of the sources, but I think it is supported by the parameters laid out in the following sentence, which obviously are in the sources. Nortonius (talk) 13:08, 9 December 2017 (UTC)
That looks good to me. Thanks for your efforts - I didn't mean to make so much work for everyone! I think "significant" is a fair summary of the trial - the implications were significant enough to perform the trial and the findings were significant enough to influence subsequent policy. The word "significant" might not be in the original sources but it's a good word to choose. Ewen (talk) 09:54, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Looking at the two pictures (one being the model which shows three stacks, but opines that the actual ship had four) and the picture of the ship (which seems to show three stacks -- although the middle one may be a double) I am concerned about the accuracy of the caption.  7&6=thirteen (☎) 22:19, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Per the article and the relevant source, "whereas the Star-class ships had three funnels, of which the middle one was more substantial, Spiteful had four, of which the central two were narrower and grouped together." So yes, in the photo of the ship it does look like there are two thin funnels and a fat one in the middle; but notice that you can only see smoke issuing from the stern funnel and the "back half" of the "fat one"! Either the rear pair of boilers had just received a fresh dump of coal, or only they were in use. There are a couple of other ways of answering this question in the article too, e.g. in footnote ("Fn") 13, but best of all via the links to the ship's plan of 1905 – it's not reproduced there at anything like the best resolution, but it does clearly show four funnels. Especially if you zoom in on your browser page ... BTW that image only exists because I asked for it, but they wouldn't release it for use here, dammit! BTW no. 2, I'm making lots of typing errors too, which is always a sign for me to knock off for the day! Cheers all, speak later. Nortonius (talk) 22:39, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for the clarification.  Sometimes a picture is not what it seems.  7&6=thirteen (☎) 22:54, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

Two stokers in cowl of HMS Spiteful 1901.tif
Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 07:39, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

In his 1908 book Oil Fuel and the Empire the British historian James Dodds Henry states that the eight ships of the Russian Navy's Caspian sea fleet were converted to oil burning in the 1870s - see page 45 (Snippet view available in Google Books).  The claim that the Caspian Sea fleet was converted from Coal to Oil in the 1870s is likely given that merchant ships starting with the SS Constantine and SS Iran converted in this time period. Henry was a respected historian and his works (including his statement regarding the Caspian fleet) are referenced by multiple later authors. Given the weight of evidence, I suspect the 1904 Scientific American Magazine article where this claim is originally given was simply wrong. Stivushka (talk) 08:53, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
Excerpt from "Oil Fuel and the Empire", James Dodds Henry, 1908 - Page 45
In 1874, the Russian Government, deciding to use it [Oil] in the Caspian fleet, gradually equipped the following vessels, and I give the list because they formed the first oil-fired fleet of warships in the world
1874 - Khivenets 60 h.p, 1874 - Araxes 40 h.p, 1875 - Nasr-Eddin Shah 160 h.p, 1876 - Sekeera 70 h.p, 1878 Ural - 100 h.p, 1878 - Persianin 60 h.p, 1878 - Lotsman 22 h.p, 1879 - Griboyadoff, Pestchal and Legki 
I will proceed and remove the claim that the Spiteful was the first oil powered warship based on this citation. 
Stivushka (talk) 16:09, 8 October 2021 (UTC)