Talk:SMS Von der Tann

message: Wilhemine Kriegsmarine gun nomenclature is usually given as caliber (in cm) SK (for Schiffskanone) then the length in calibers. Thus 11 cm SKL/45. 11 cm L/45 SK reads very oddly although I understand that the editor might have wanted to emphasize the gun's length.Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 23:15, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: You are correct, I must've been temporarily dyslexic when I was reading the source. Thanks for pointing that out. Parsecboy (talk) 23:30, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gun nomenclature 

message: There seems a little confusion over when the ship was asked to sail during the british raid on heligo bight. I'm not sure why anyone would have ordered her to sail earlier in the day if it was impossible because of low water. If she could not have left harbour at 10.15, then she wasnt exactly ready to sail in the sense implied. Either she had to wait for Moltke, or she had to wait for tide. (well, presumably one came first, but logically she would have waited for the later obstacle to disappear). My impression from Massie's description in 'Castles' is that all the ships were sent out as soon as it was physically possible without waiting for any others. He argued this was one of the things the Germans did wrong, and which they realised after the raid was a mistake not to be repeated. He stated that Hipper was not informed of an attack by cruisers untill 2PM, when he was told about the british battlecruisers. Thus some carelessness in sending his cruisers out alone against  presumed destroyers.Sandpiper (talk) 11:33, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  heligoland bight raid 

message: The article says:Like all the German battlecruisers that would follow her, she was considerably faster than her design speed of 24 kn 
Immediately reading this it occurs to me as something of a non-sequiter, that Germany could keep building ships which accidentally exceeded their design speed. Surely, they would have cut back on over-engineering in later ships. Or, if they were entirely happy building ship which did 27 instead of 24 and knew this would be the case in advance, then they did not 'exceed the design speed', because they got the speed they were expecting. It might just be, considering Turpitz aim to produce good ships, that he considered a design speed of 24 to equate to a ship which could do 27 under optimal conditions? Sandpiper (talk) 18:31, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: From what I' understand, the 24 knots was the minimum speed required in the design specs from the RMA bigwigs, if the ships were faster and still met size/weight/etc. requirements, all the better. Also, your last point is probably correct; these speeds were really only possible under optimal conditions (chief among these was access to high-quality coal, something the BCs almost never had during the war, see the various complaints by VdT's captains, etc.) Perhaps a slight rewording is in order. Parsecboy (talk) 20:11, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, I noticed that the article mentioned the ship's speed twice in the design section, so I merged them, and that sentence ended up being dropped. Parsecboy (talk) 20:15, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Design speed 

message: "Neither Derfflinger, due to battle damage, nor Von der Tann, due to the dirtiness of her boiler fires, could steam at more than 18 knots."
What do you mean by "dirtiness of her boiler fires"? —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 20:52, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The boilers were getting very dirty from protracted use and extra crew couldn't be spared to clean them. Why this reduced the speed I'm not sure, but I'd guess that the grime and soot from the low-quality coal was building up on the ducts that carried the steam from the boilers to the turbines, reducing efficiency. Who knows though, that's just a guess, and Tarrant's book isn't more specific. Parsecboy (talk) 21:15, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Query from skim reading 

message: :Following the end of the war in 1918, Von der Tann, along with most of the High Seas Fleet, was interned at Scapa Flow pending a decision by the Allies as to the fate of the fleet. The ship met her end when the fleet was scuttled in 1919 to prevent them falling into British hands
I guess it might just be me, but when it said it was interned at Scapa Flow it makes it sound as if the fleet was already in British hands. Maybe if the first sentence said something along the lines of "was interned at Scapa Flow, along with the remaining crew, at Scapa Flow...". Is this correct, or am I still not understanding what went on? I presume some of the crew must have been left on board (for a year?) or they wouldn't have had chance to scuttle it. --86.139.65.151 (talk) 00:19, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The ships were still held by their German crews (all just skeleton crews); the fear was that the British would seize the ships and either put them into Royal Navy service or give them to the navies of other Allied powers. Does that make more sense? Parsecboy (talk) 04:32, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Slightly confused me 

message: The company name is not "Blohm and Voss" as this article had it. It was originally "Blohm & Voss", which could be rendered "Blohm und Voss" in German, and is now "Blohm + Voss". (See the WP article Blohm + Voss and its own website.) The "&" was changed to a "+" in 1955, after SMS Von der Tann was built, so maybe that is the issue? But what is the point of a partly-translated name when that is not the company name either! Please justify here before changing. Laughing Jean Genome (talk) 10:20, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: That's supposed to be an *issue*?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.46.23.52 (talk) 14:08, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Shouldn't the name be "Blohm & Voss" then so because this article is referring to something that was around before 1955? —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 20:56, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Blohm + Voss]] 

message: "A month later, the German Revolution had begun, which toppled the monarchy and led to the Armistice that ended the war." This sentence reflects the infamous Dolchstosslegende, which was a key argument in the propaganda against the Weimar Republic. In fact, it was the call of the german military - seeing that the war was being lost - for negotiations , which led to the armistice of 1918. --85.3.240.180 (talk) 16:21, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fate