Most bizarre ship in GWX...

[CapZap1970]

:rotfl: :rotfl:
After attacking a convoy, this was floating around...
If I am not mistaken, it's half an "Empire Freighter"...

http://www.beyond-the-shadows.org/capzap1970/screenshots/Half.jpg

CapZap

[melnibonian]

To tell the truth there are quite a few accounts from U-Boats about parts of ships floating for days. They used to hit them and sink them as well. Nevertheless it must be either a very weird bug or an one-off thing. Funny though ;)

[Brag]

GWX is complex enough where a lot of unintended events and results happen. A bit like RL.

[Dowly]

ROFL! See, the crew have built a new bow to it! :rotfl:

[3Jane]

I once saw half a destroyer floating in Calais harbour as I passed by. Couldn't see the rest of it.
In Lothar-Gunther Buchheims book u-boat war, I think I remember there is a picture of half a tanker left floating after thjeir torpedo atack.

[Jimbuna]

That must have been one huge shark :o

[Biggles]

"You gonna need a bigger boat...":|\\

[Hanomag]

Kaluens,

Speaking of...

I saw this pass me by on the way into Lorient as I am not familiar with the VII class I didnt know it was a glitch or not? Having the quad AA in front of the conning tower... as well as behind? I guess these guys never had to evade aircraft, just Stand and Deliver! :arrgh!:

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c93/MakoStreak/VIIcAA.jpg

[seafarer]

The U-flak boats were converted VIIC's. They were not at all very successful, as the Allied planes would fly and attack in groups, and easily overwhelm their relatively minor (despite the appearance) firepower. In fact, according to www.uboat.net, the four U-flak boats only actually shot down 2 aircraft.

[Konovalov]

The U-flak boats were converted VIIC's. They were not at all very successful, as the Allied planes would fly and attack in groups, and easily overwhelm their relatively minor (despite the appearance) firepower. In fact, according to www.boat.net (http://www.boat.net), the four U-flak boats only actually shot down 2 aircraft.

Yep. :yep: Didn't they re-convert them from U-flak boats having discovered what a waste of time and resources they were? :-?

[Hanomag]

:o GASP!!

[TomcatMVD]

U-flak, turned out to be a useless experiment didn´t it?

[Jimbuna]

U-621

http://img113.imageshack.us/img113/7231/u621uflackabv1db6.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
http://img505.imageshack.us/img505/1997/u621uflackbhs9xi7.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
http://img505.imageshack.us/img505/8469/u621uflackbhs10ox4.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

[seafarer]

U-flak, turned out to be a useless experiment didn´t it?

Not only were the U-flak boats, but the whole idea of ordering u-boats to cross the Bay of Biscay on the surface and in groups was horribly flawed. Relying on their perceived AA capabilities was a huge mistake, as the allied Beaufighters and other aircraft usually patrolled and attacked in groups of 3 or more aircraft. And the aircraft often had support from surface units that they could then vector onto the surfaced boats.

The U-flak U-441 was attacked by several Beaufighters on her second patrol, and ended up with several men and most of the officers killed or wounded. In fact, while U-441 did shoot down 2 allied planes, she was severly damaged by aircraft on each of her first 3 patrols.

[Jimbuna]

http://uboat.net/types/u-flak.htm

[seafarer]

Also have a look at this map - http://uboat.net/maps/biscay.htm

This was the U-flak's operational area :o

[Pablo]

Kaluens,

Speaking of...

I saw this pass me by on the way into Lorient as I am not familiar with the VII class I didnt know it was a glitch or not? Having the quad AA in front of the conning tower... as well as behind? I guess these guys never had to evade aircraft, just Stand and Deliver! :arrgh!:


Hi!

It's a U-flak. They're discussed on page 331 of the GWX Manual in their own section under German AI-controlled U-boats.

Pablo

[siber]

We all sound fairly critical of the u-flak idea, but don't forget that we're benefiting from hindsight.

If you can imagine, the Germans must have simply sent out u-boats from their pens and, two or three days later, realise that they weren't answering radio calls anymore. I suppose (educated guesswork - no source for this) that they had to run u-flak before they even realised that the allies were patrolling with two or more aircraft together. I guess that when a solitary u-boat was found, attacked and sunk, the crew had more pressing things to do than radio out detailing how many aircraft were actually doing the attacking; especially when such messages required Enigma encryption.

If the Axis were under the impression that allied aircraft patrolled individually to cover more ocean, u-flak escorts probably didn't seem like such a bad idea. Remember also that the boats would have been converted/ordered well before the first saw combat.

Just a 'devil's advocat' point! ;)

[seafarer]

Perhaps, but the U-flak concept was a directly initiated due to aircraft damage. The first boat to start conversion was one heavily damaged by air attack. Even when successfully attacking single planes (eg. U-441's first patrol and kill), they tended to take heavy damage in the engagement.

While hindsight may certainly color our interpretation, from what I've read, I think the U-flak concept was flawed from the very beginning. It strikes me as one of those kinds of things where senior administrative officers completely failed to show any appreciation for the actual operational/tactical situation and bulllheaded their idea through.

Sort of like operation Barbarossa, or Dieppe.

[Jimbuna]

Read Clay Blairs second volume and you may be suprised to find out just how many Kaleuns didn't strictly adhere to the 'stay on the surface and fight' order when travelling in 2's and 3's thereby leaving one sub alone on the surface to bear the brunt of the ariel onslaught http://img255.imageshack.us/img255/621/thinkbigsw1.gif

[NealT]

I got to tell you the truth...

I don't think I would have stayed on the surface either...

Choice 1 - stay on surface, run risk of getting shot at/bombed and killed.

Choice 2 - dive well below surface, run risk of bomb from A/C not going off until it hits you, let someone else be the visible target.

:hmm:

I think my choice would have been fairly simple...

[iambecomelife]

:rotfl: :rotfl:
After attacking a convoy, this was floating around...
If I am not mistaken, it's half an "Empire Freighter"...

http://www.beyond-the-shadows.org/capzap1970/screenshots/Half.jpg

CapZap

For the life of me I don't know why modded ships' halves keep sinking in the wrong direction. The broken end should sink towards the broken area that is open to the sea - not the ther way around. :shifty:

[Graf Paper]

It's obvious the merchies only had half a load to ship so they used an Impire Freighter!
:p

[Jimbuna]

It's obvious the merchies only had half a load to ship so they used an Impire Freighter!
:p

....and the aft holds were loaded with cork http://www.psionguild.org/forums/images/smilies/wolfsmilies/ROFLMAO.gif

[ABBAFAN]

the containers on the deck of that thing look too modern.

is this buisness of modded ships sinking wrongly commonplace?

[iambecomelife]

the containers on the deck of that thing look too modern.

is this buisness of modded ships sinking wrongly commonplace?

The broken halves sometimes sink wrongly but an entire ship will sink correctly about 95% of the time. If you torpedo a modded ship's bow it will sink with the stern in the air. If you hit it to starboard then it will list and capsize to starboard, especially if you raise the center of gravity with SH3 Commander.

Right this minute I am building a modern tanker, and it so happens that the ship halves DO sink correctly. It seems completely random, if they work right or not.

And yes, the modern-looking containers are a little annoying. They also tend to get in the way of cranes & deck fixtures - I usually disable them on my installation by setting them to NULL in the Cargodef.cfg file.