Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Trident Missile System

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Trident Missile System[edit]

External and cross sectional views of a Trident II D5 nuclear missile system including the outer dimensions. The Trident system is a strategic nuclear deterrent used by the USA and UK. It is a submarine launched inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of carrying multiple nuclear warheads up to 8000km. Trident missiles are carried by fourteen active US Navy Ohio class submarines and, with British warheads, four Royal Navy Vanguard class submarines.
Reason
The diagram clearly and (I hope) aesthetically shows the various stages which make up the trident II D5 ICBM, one of the most important and powerful pieces of modern military hardware. It highlights just how enormous these devices are, something which is so often lost with pictures of them airborne or being launched. It is drawn precisely to scale. The diagram deliberately avoids technical detail as a technical drawing of a Nuclear warhead loaded ICBM on Wikipedia amid the worlds present political climate would not be appropriate. Instead it aims more from an educational point of view to illustrate the various stages of the rocket motor and show how the three rocket fuel tanks are arranged inside the missile. It is drawn at 3000x2000 pixels (high enough for any modern monitor) and can be printed comfortably with a high DPI at A4 or A3 size giving a wonderfully sharp and professional looking printed diagram. It avoids the SVG format as a result of the shading which is important in illustrating the cylindrical shape of the device. ;Articles this image appears in:Trident missile, UK Trident program, ICBM, SLBM HE HE HE HE
Creator
User:WikipedianProlific
  • Nominator — WikipedianProlific(Talk) 22:40, 13 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - I'm a bit puzzled about a lot of your reasoning. What do you mean about technical detail being inappropriate in the present political climate? It's not like you're going to expedite the nuclear ambitions of Iran or whoever with a diagram based on public-domain information. Shading is perfectly possible (indeed, being vector-based, it's actually better) in SVG than PNG and printing resolution isn't the only reason to prefer vector graphics: there's also the ability to edit the text (e.g. for translations) which would be particularly difficult with this image because it's on a gradient background. As far as illustrating the scale, I don't find it particularly informative as the length in metres is pretty meaningless without a suitable reference (e.g. a to-scale person standing alongside). It's reasonably aesthetic but next to a lot of your other contributions, it doesn't really stand out. Some parts are pretty unclear, like the "Electrical equipment" section which points to an apparently empty region occupied by a rocket nozzle. Sometimes simpler isn't necessarily better. --YFB ¿ 23:04, 13 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - I don't want to be rough but the 1st of April was two weeks ago. According to the nominator, the illustration "aesthetically shows the various stages which make up the trident II D5 ICBM, one of the most important and powerful pieces of modern military hardware". Because aesthetics is the only "appropriate" way to illustrate the subject given the present polytical climate. Why do I feel I am being fooled? Alvesgaspar 00:03, 14 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose – It's not a very good picture. It would definitely be better as an SVG, but it still doesn't seem very professional. — The Storm Surfer 00:54, 14 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Per YFB. 8thstar 01:20, 14 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Too simplified to be enc. --Janke | Talk 04:54, 14 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment, can you add the sources for this drawing so it can be verified as being accurate? I also think the blue line used to indicate height looks ugly when it comes down to the left of the nose spike... it just looks off center. I think I'd give weak support if it weren't for those two issues. It's definitely a good image. And I know your opinion on SVG, but I think the translation and editing issues are important for diagrams, but I won't oppose on those grounds since this is the English language Wikipedia. gren グレン 07:55, 14 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. YFB summed it up. And there is Image:Wikiman_1m80.svg which is propoes as a general scale comparison. --Dschwen 09:05, 14 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I find the diagram eye-catching, the thumbnail made me want to look at it. But I agree with gren and was about to ask for the sources. I did a little search on google and found a few diagrams (which may or not be accurate) and some of them seem to differ from yours. http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/systems/images/d5_04.gif looks pretty much like yours but http://www.military.cz/usa/navy/weapons/trident/miss_devel1.gif and the one at the bottom of http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military_law/4203874.html?page=2 seem to not have same proportions. Blieusong 10:40, 14 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose, per YFB. I don't see any reason for the SVG or the vagaries in terms of content. I don't want to pimp my own work but compare this one with something like this, which contains substantially more information while also including information about use, etc., and can be scaled to any size. I don't think the shading does much on the nominated image, certainly is not worth using PNG instead of SVG for. (SVG is valuable not only because it can be scaled, but because it can be easily edited, re-used, etc. all of the good things we really like in free content). In any case I don't think the line/fill work is very good, when zoomed in you can see all sorts of mis-aligned and overlapping bits. --Fastfission 23:05, 19 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Not promoted MER-C 05:01, 20 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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