Talk:SMS Möwe (1914)

(First comment)

In 1916, the Canadian (Canadian Pacific Lines) ship Mount Temple was carrying two specimens and other fossils from today's Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta, Canada to Britain. It was sunk by the German surface raider SMS Möwe, sending its 75 million year old cargo to the bottom of the North Atlantic, where it rests to this day. [1] — Preceding unsigned comment added by Maxrossomachin (talk • contribs) 11:50, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Picture in the Infobox

One should look at the picture in the infobox. That´s not the auxiliary cruiser, but the survey vessel with the same name, built in 1906, charateristic with her clipper bow.

--Gerd Wiechmann (talk) 20:05, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

So nobody answered, I removed the false picture

--Gerd Wiechmann (talk) 14:42, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

Merging

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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There was no consensus for this proposal, and no further comment in twelve months, so I've taken the liberty of closing this. If anyone has anything new to add, they can always re-list it. Xyl 54 (talk) 13:22, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

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The two individual actions described are minor and not notable of themselves but as part of the Mowe's wartime career. Material is duplicated across the three articles and it would be better to bring it all together here. GraemeLeggett (talk) 13:01, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

I disagree, the specific details of the actions are to minor to be included into an article on a ship with such a distinguished career as that as Mowe. They are better left in their own articles.XavierGreen (talk) 00:14, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

The two actions you are referring to (I presume) are the fights with Clan McTavish (action of 16 January 1916) and with Otaki (action of 10 March 1917).

I would oppose a merger; this article is currently 7 Kb; the Clan MacTavish action page is 5 Kb and the Otaki article 6 Kb, so merging the here would create a big imbalance (as seen, for example, here,now). And this article currently deals with them in one sentence, and two sentences respectively, so I don’t agree that overlap is an issue. As for notability, the skipper of Otaki won the VC in that action; it does not lack notability.

Also (as I may have said elsewhere) if we can find things to say about a subject, it seems encyclopaedic to use them.Xyl 54 (talk) 03:54, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

On my reading of notability its about whether the actions receive enough significant coverage in their own right, as opposed to say a book dealing generally on the subject of auxiliary cruisers or the Atlantic war. And that doesn't seem to be the case at the moment. Regarding imbalance, many articles go through imbalance in the course of development. And on the subject of development, at the moment though there is a narrative in each action article, it's not supported by the reference given. GraemeLeggett (talk) 06:57, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

I don’t know what sources the original author for the "Action of..." articles used; I imagine it was Hoyt’s and/or Dohna-Schlodien's book. I wrote this article (and to my considerable embarrassment now, didn’t put the references in); I used Hoyt and Schmalenbach at the time. IIRC Hoyt’s "The Elusive Seagull" devoted at least a page to each sinking, so the detail on the action of pages looks about right. I've added it there as further reading, until some more references turn up. Has anyone invited the editor, BTW? Xyl 54 (talk) 12:57, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Given that there are no strong indications that the 'actions' were notable (only one reliable source is cited for the two articles), a merge seems to be in order. Raiders attacking individual merchant ships are the small change of naval warfare, and we can cover these engagements in this article. Nick-D (talk) 22:55, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

I strongly oppose, especially the action involving Otaki, which is one of only a handful of naval actions involving New Zealand and produced a Victoria Cross. Those two characteristics alone warrant its existance as a stand alone article.XavierGreen (talk) 03:57, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Ive also added three more sources, Halpern finds it notable enough to mention it in his naval history of world war one.XavierGreen (talk) 04:55, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

What sources claim that this is notable as it "is one of only a handful of naval actions involving New Zealand"? New Zealand has actually been involved in lots of naval battles (NZ sailors manned quite a few RN ships in both world wars as well as merchant ships that sailed, and were attacked, all over the world). Nick-D (talk) 02:04, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Name ten naval battles involving new zealand that involved New Zealand flagged ships, i personally can name only four. This action is the only one fought by New Zealand in world war one under her own colours, all other actions were fought with New Zealanders under the UK flag. You should also note that it was extremely rare for a merchant ship to try to fight off a surface raider in WWI, if you read any detailed account of german raiders you'll see how rare an occurance it actually is.XavierGreen (talk) 17:03, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

I had presumed the colours she was flying would be the NZ version of the Red Duster. If she had a naval ensign (which I doubt) it would have been the RN one. But haven't found mention of which colours she was actually flying. GraemeLeggett (talk) 17:40, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

reading some of the online stuff, both Appam and Clan Mctavish were prepared to fight - what makes Otakis case different is that she was able to do significant damage to the raider. Though given the Moewe was only a cargo ship and neither armoured nor built to naval standards perhaps its not surprising that a 4.7 inch gun - the calibre used on destroyers - could do a lot of damage to her.GraemeLeggett (talk) 18:16, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, most merchentmen that resisted raider attacks were sunk or struck upon being severly damaged before they even had a chance to fire their weapons. There were very few actual battles between merchentmen and raiders.XavierGreen (talk) 18:52, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Should I take your response to my comment to mean that you're not aware of any sources that say that this was an important engagement due to the NZ angle as you claim? Nick-D (talk) 05:17, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

(od) There wasn't any agreement on this, and there's been no further comments for the last year or so; that being the case I've removed the tags as a no consensus conclusion. I trust that is OK with everyone. Xyl 54 (talk) 13:18, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.