Anyone kill a friendly? I almost did...

[sharkbit]

Had some time to kill before dinner last night to start my fifth patrol in my good ole VIIB U-48 out of Wilhelmshaven.
I'm a little over a day out when I get a ship sighting mid-morning. I'm in good position, submerge to P-depth. The large freighter gets in range, perfect set up and...bummer, he's a neutral. I let him go. My son(5 y.o) is watching and full of questions and wants to see me "Shoot a ship."

So I continue on. That night, I sight another ship and identify her as a ore carrier. Hmmm...haven't seen one of those alone before. Course is taking her toward Denmark. Probably neutral but she is unlit. All the neutrals I've seen up to now have been lit up. Little bell going off in my head.
Well, I'll make the approach, id the nationality, and whack him if I can.

I get in perfect position-about 1000m off his track and perpindicular to it, decks awash, and slow speed. I finally can start making out his flag and it is definitely not English. I'm telling my son I might not be able to shoot him as well but we'll wait and make sure.
Of course my son is saying to shoot and asking if I can shine a light on him("Searchlight on the U-boat" mod anyone?:p ) or wait till morning.

I start seeing some white on the flag and it almost looks like it is the tri-colors of the French flag. Hmmm.....maybe I will be able to get this guy, but the little warning bell is still going off in my head. I still got a little time before he is in position for me to shoot. I just want to make sure.
All I have to do his open doors and...LOS! My nose is like 3 inches from the screen trying to identify the flag :stare: -damn these old eyes!

Time is running out and just as I'm gettting ready to shoot, I see the flag is all red with a white circle in the center and some lines in the circle. Damn...he's German. Of course, a German ore carrier hauling iron ore from Norway. (GWX is awesome!!) :up:
He probably had no idea how close he came to being blown out of the water and causing me to lose a lot of renown. :oops:

Moral of the story:
Always make sure of your targets.

Anyone ever kill a friendly? C'mon...admit it. :D

[seafarer]

Me, no, never, no sirree, not me, not my boat :|\\

Now, up north during the Norwegian campaign, I heard, just heard, stray talk and all mind you - of one of our supply ships going down from a torpeding, and there was no intell of any Tommy boats in the area, just our boats. But me and my crew were, uhh, far away. That's it, we were far away - I could tell you where, but then I'd have to kill you, and we don't want that. So just take my word for it, IT WAS NOT US, really :oops: and it was reallly realy dark, black as pitch and all, and anyway, we weren't there so....

[Ivan Putski]

I have`nt yet, but came close to nailing a Japanese vessel off the coast of Spain once, I`m pretty carefull about my targeting, hope I never hit a friendly.

[predavolk]

No, I'm very careful with that sort of thing. I've definitely stalked some friendly and neutral boats, but I always check the flag first. The closest I came was, I think, shooting at a Brazilian boat near the Med mistakenly thinking they had gone Ally at that point (1940). But I double-checked before firing and discovered my error.

[Kipparikalle]

I kill friendlies when I have nothing else to do, its quite entertaining tho'

So yeah, I have killed. A lot. And I enjoy it

[Slateford-5]

By far the two most tricky flags to tell apart at night: Romania and France.

[irish1958]

John Wayne: "Sink them all and let the Lord sort it out."

[Red Heat]

I try to not sunk allied or friendly ships...but accidents happen, special at night or with poor visibility! :roll:

[Sailor Steve]

John Wayne: "Sink them all and let the Lord sort it out."
You know of course those words are usually attributed to a slightly earlier source:
http://www.languedoc-france.info/120502_arnaud.htm

[rifleman13]

During the first time I played SH3 in a Type II, I sighted a fishing boat north of the East Frisian Islands.

I didn't know the geography of the area and it flies a red flag with a white circle. So I sunk it with a torpedo. When I looked into the Nav Map, it was blue. Blue??? What does it stand for I thought. Then continuing on to the British coast, I sighted a Small Merchant and sunk it with the remaining torpedoes I have. When I checked the Nav Map, it was red! Red??? Then I deduced the red city names and the blue city names on the map are the owners of the ships I sunk. Doh!:damn::damn::damn:

That first patrol haunted me for the rest of that career!:dead:

[Brag]

I entered a harbour in the Canaries and found British tanker there. Since it was a dark night. I decided to gun it down and blame the incident on dissafected Portuguese fishermen.

After pumping a bunch of rounds into the tanker, the Brit sank.
That's when things got ugly. My gun crew opened up on a Partuguese patrol boat watching the proceedings. The Portuguese sank with the first shot.

All hell broke loose as shore batteries opened up.

We dove and exited the harbour leaving a message in a bottle.

You filthy ingles you leave our sardinas without oil in tanker.

[irish1958]

John Wayne: "Sink them all and let the Lord sort it out." You know of course those words are usually attributed to a slightly earlier source:
http://www.languedoc-france.info/120502_arnaud.htm

SS
Good source. Here, all the time I thought it was St. John Wayne. Live and learn!

[Blacklight]

Bernard has gotten overexcited and torpedoed MANY friendlies on me. :nope:

[KeptinCranky]

Repeatedly, but mitigated by the fact that I was testing GWX

as for the one's in "for real" games, those were all Italian and at night, and it was foggy, and it was entirely accidental....:-? and I made up for it by sinking 3 4-stacker troopships/passenger liners the same patrol....

why are you looking at me like that?.....:huh:

:D

[Jimbuna]

Repeatedly, but mitigated by the fact that I was testing GWX

as for the one's in "for real" games, those were all Italian and at night, and it was foggy, and it was entirely accidental....:-? and I made up for it by sinking 3 4-stacker troopships/passenger liners the same patrol....

why are you looking at me like that?.....:huh:

:D

http://www.smileygenerator.us/community/uploads/1182400429.CR.balamm-Judge.gif

http://imgcash3.imageshack.us/img517/5279/hangedxe6.gif http://imgcash5.imageshack.us/img517/4871/executedyl7.gif

[Red Heat]

I entered a harbour in the Canaries and found British tanker there. Since it was a dark night. I decided to gun it down and blame the incident on dissafected Portuguese fishermen.

After pumping a bunch of rounds into the tanker, the Brit sank.
That's when things got ugly. My gun crew opened up on a Partuguese patrol boat watching the proceedings. The Portuguese sank with the first shot.

All hell broke loose as shore batteries opened up.

We dove and exited the harbour leaving a message in a bottle.

You filthy ingles you leave our sardinas without oil in tanker.

A Portuguese patrol boat in Canarias Islands!?
Quite strange in did... :o

[FIREWALL]

I've NEVER accidently sunk a friendly.



http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll316/NO1TOPGUN/pinocchio-smile.gif

[Frank0001]

Me, no, never, no sirree, not me, not my boat :|\\

Now, up north during the Norwegian campaign, I heard, just heard, stray talk and all mind you - of one of our supply ships going down from a torpeding, and there was no intell of any Tommy boats in the area, just our boats. But me and my crew were, uhh, far away. That's it, we were far away - I could tell you where, but then I'd have to kill you, and we don't want that. So just take my word for it, IT WAS NOT US, really :oops: and it was reallly realy dark, black as pitch and all, and anyway, we weren't there so....

:rotfl: LOL:rotfl:
That really made my day, just hilarious! :rotfl:

I haven't sunk a friendly ship on purpose before, but I was trigger-happy a few times with the American vessels. When I see one, I immediately think 'USA.....Germany.....lifelong enemies'
So WHAM! there goes another...

...only afterwards realising we were not at war yet :shifty:

[Brag]

A Portuguese patrol boat in Canarias Islands!?
Quite strange in did... :o[/quote]

Azores :oops:

Anyway, you've seen an island you've seen the all. A naval officer knows how to differenciate an island from a continent. It takes longer to circumnavigate a continent. Are you trying to question the integrety of a U-boat commander? How dare you.

Anyway, there's a good song: Islas Canarias.

As to the Azores incident it happened in Sao Tome.

IF you can make heads or tails of this posting--congratz!

[seafarer]

I haven't sunk a friendly ship on purpose before, but I was trigger-happy a few times with the American vessels. When I see one, I immediately think 'USA.....Germany.....lifelong enemies'
So WHAM! there goes another...

...only afterwards realising we were not at war yet :shifty:


We understaaand, really we do. You're confined in a dank steel tube, spending weeks and weeks at sea. Those grey seas, those grey skies. The endless storms and foul weather, the monotony of it all! The dull food, the dreary, monotonous days, watch after watch after watch, with nothing to relieve the mind-numbing dullness. You hardly know whether it's a.m. or p.m., lunch or dinner. One can hardly expect you to know what dang day it is, let alone the month or year. :roll:

Memo to BdU - we REALLY need to tighten up our selection protocols for command rank. Two notes re: requirements for command - (a) only people with enough sense to know that humans cannot see in complete darkness and hence, in zero visibilty conditions, should perhaps refrain from firing torpedoes at anything on the surface that moves, and (b) those with sufficient mental faculty to remember to look at a calendar at least once every 12 months :damn:

[Frank0001]

Memo to BdU - we REALLY need to tighten up our selection protocols for command rank. Two notes re: requirements for command - (a) only people with enough sense to know that humans cannot see in complete darkness and hence, in zero visibilty conditions, should perhaps refrain from firing torpedoes at anything on the surface that moves, and (b) those with sufficient mental faculty to remember to look at a calendar at least once every 12 months

Haha nicely put :rotfl: And totally right too...

..But!

I was only off by a couple of months :dead:

[seafarer]

Sure, sure. As I said, we veterans understaaand these things. And that whole Norwegian campaing thing, I sure, err, that other boat, must have just had a malfunction. A short circuit or something, that just happened to cause a tube (or, perhaps two) to flood, open its outer doors and fire the eel. I'm sure that kind of thing happens more then we care to admit, right?

certainly more then I'm ever going to admit, that's for sure

[Frank0001]

Bad luck I say! Wrong place at the wrong time. How could they blaim us for a so-called 'friendly kill'? Sure, we all sometimes pretend to attack a friendly vessel, get a solution, flood the tubes....perhaps launching one just ahead of her. I knew the captain, it's a game we play. But I never did hit her. It struck a mine, nothing to do with me, no sir. And I certainly wouldn't fire at it with the 88 when she won't go down. Nope, not me.
Did anyone notice the flags all look alike? In the heat of combat, it's often a thing to forget to check. Not that I would be in combat with a friendly vessel... The ship was probably a spy, and needed to be sunk. Not saying I sunk it, like I said, it struck a mine....

[richardphat]

First day i try sh3, i sank almost every axis ship because. i didnt know they were our friends......... and yet i cannon them with my deck gun shell:nope:

[Frank0001]

First day i try sh3, i sank almost every axis ship because. i didnt know they were our friends......... and yet i cannon them with my deck gun shell:nope:

Haha nice one :D
Anything that doesn't shoot at you, is either friendly or neutral!
Or can't find you

[richardphat]

What?!?!? There is nothing wrong for noob who start playing a new game:shifty:

[UnderseaLcpl]

1st day of GWX 2.0, September 39' and also my first day playing sh3. The radio comms are getting on my nerves as I try to TC to my patrol area in grid BF so I just start clicking past them figuring "I'll read 'em later it's all just fluff anyway"
Sailing through the channel I happily help a half dozen small to middling size french merchants scuttle their ships early, to save them the trouble later.
Popping to the surface to reload from the external tubes I go to work assigning sailors to the bow tubes when that damn beeping starts again and I get a new radiogram.
"Might as well go through them now, I've got a small book going here." I think, opening the newest one.....
The content, a forceful reiteration of a directive to NOT sink French ships, catches me by surprise.
"What the hell is this? Nobody ever said anything about....." My eyes turn to the dozen or so mildewing radiograms stacked in the corner.
"Oh Bloody hell."

[Frank0001]

Hahaha good show :rotfl:

I actually saved a neutral freighter from being hit once.
Decided to do a long shot, so couldn't quite tell the flag. Fired one away and went in Godmode to watch the torpedo hit. In doing so, I noticed it was a neutral! So I blew ballast and fired a few rounds at it (some hit). That made it zig-zag and avoid the incoming eel.

I was so glad! And I'm sure the captain and his crew was too :up:

[Kapt Z]

One of my first careers in stock I sank a American that was traveling in a convoy. I was charging in on the surface on a dark night and didn't bother to close enough to make out any flags. Probably carrying contraband anyway. :nope:

Since then I have come close with a lone American and a lone Italian. The Italian especially was a REAL lucky bugger.

[sharkbit]

I hit an inbound convoy a couiple of weeks ago near the end of a patrol. Visibility was moderate at night so I didn't want to get too close. Picked my targets. Almost got gun shy-remembered a few posts about neutrals in a convoy.
Then my agression factor said "NO, NO, NO-SHOOT THE BASTARDS!" :arrgh!:
Any neutral sailing blacked out in a blacked out convoy heading for England is fair game, loss of renown be damned.

Sank an ore carrier and got a hit on another ship(didn't see the hit-was on my way down with a destroyer charging in on me. I managed to evade after an hour, came back up, made an end around from the other side of the convoy and sank a whale factory ship (biggest ship I've sunk so far:D) and a medium tanker. Slunk away on the surface this time-the escort had no clue where I was, just a bunch of searchlights and star shells off in the distance as I made my way from the convoy with all my eels expended and home.

Even after a slight hesitation about neutrals in a convoy, none of the ships I got were neutral. Next time, I won't even pause before I shoot a ship in a convoy.
:)

[seafarer]

I was so glad! And I'm sure the captain and his crew was too :up:

:lol: I like that, although I'm guessing they were less then pleased once your boat was gone out of sight, and they had to then clean the poop out of their pants!

[Huncowboy]

I got to this thread in my search about renown and sinking unlit ships.

I was off the east coast of GB and saw an unlit medium cargo. Sweeeet. It is moving 10kts and I am in a good position. I cut ahead and fire two torps and they both hit. While it is going down it turns on its search lights and suddenly I see it is Norwegian. This is still pre invasion October 1939.

So there goes the renown for my patrol. This was the 3rd ship going down on this patrol and I eded up with -58 renown. I will never get a type VII at this rate. How is this my fault? Aren't they supposed to lit themself if neutral? I want my renown for it. Arghhh... no medals either after this one.

[Sailor Steve]

Hi, Huncowboy, and if I didn't catch you before, WELCOME ABOARD!:sunny:

One of the things you can do is go into the Data/Cfg/Basic folder. Right at the top is the renown rewarded for different situations. I changed my neutrals to '0', on the grounds that very few, if any, kaleuns were punished for sinking neutral ships, especially in convoys. You can actually make it a positive, but I don't think I should be actively awarded for sinking them either, so '0' suits me fine.

[Huncowboy]

Steve,

Good idea. Thanks I will try that. It is realistic too IMHO. They were not supposed to be unlit, and guess if they were coming from the GB they were helping GB's war effort.... can you say "rationalization"? :D

[Sailor Steve]

:rotfl:

Yes I can, and very eloquently. Something else I did recently was change my 'Friendly' sinking value from '-10' to '-1'. In my ship names research I've come across several cases of u-boats sinking friendly ship, and the captain being let go with a mild reprimand, because in every case the merchant was either disguised as Allied or where he wasn't supposed to be.

I've played tabletop wargames for more than thirty years now, and I've observed that 90% of all gamers just want an advantage or an excuse, and will give you all kinds of reasons why some thing or the other was 'historical'. For that reason I'm usually leary of talking about renown reduction, because it might give some an excuse to just go sink everything. On the other hand there have been many discussions about the realism of the renown system itself. Not aimed at you, but just my general experience.

Take that as you wish, and have fun putting down the Tommies.

[Etienne]

Historically speaking, wasn't there an order issued at some point that anything travelling in a convoy was fair game?

Or am I misremembering again?

[mookiemookie]

Historically speaking, wasn't there an order issued at some point that anything travelling in a convoy was fair game?

Or am I misremembering again?


Ships of neutral nations traveling in convoy were not in and of themselves considered fair game.

However, ships of neutral nations that were sailing in convoys escorted by ships of belligerent nations were violating neutrality laws. They would have been considered fair game.

[andym]

Yes,last night i came upon a US vessel,so went along side to have a closer look and the schwein opened fire on me!Put a bloody great hole in my Starboard saddle tank!So i sank him!

[goggles]

never sank a friendly

killed a few neutrals...including a neutral ocean liner (lusitania anyone?)

i always seem to accidently sink american ships before dec 1941

american flag is hard to distinguish from a distance all the stars and bars blur toghter into a red/whit/blueish mess

[Otto Heinzmeir]

I sank the German trawler that is just ahead of you when you leave Wilhelmshaven on purpose once. I just started a game to see if I installed the waterstream mod ok and was bored so I just lined it up and fired. As soon as the torp hit sirens went off. It was hilarious.

[FIREWALL]

John Wayne: "Sink them all and let the Lord sort it out."

Or ... When in doubt... SHOOT :haha:

http://img300.imageshack.us/img300/6971/6637big.jpg
By no1topgun (http://profile.imageshack.us/user/no1topgun) at 2009-03-27

[rubenandthejets]

I'm playing OM, I don't run into many neutrals. I was sinking Swedish ships 200 miles off Kiel and getting pats on the back for it. I sank a US ship off Portugal last night (Sept 1940), a bunch of Portugese fishing boats and got an Iron Cross. I came close to whacking a few friendlies off Norway in April '40 but as my torps were utter pieces of poop I was spared the indignity of fronting Uncle Karl and explaining. Made up for it with a 110% ID'd BRITISH troop transport shortly afterwards, closed to 500 yards and shelled it.

[Oneshot/Onekill]

:rotfl:

Yes I can, and very eloquently. Something else I did recently was change my 'Friendly' sinking value from '-10' to '-1'. In my ship names research I've come across several cases of u-boats sinking friendly ship, and the captain being let go with a mild reprimand, because in every case the merchant was either disguised as Allied or where he wasn't supposed to be.

I've played tabletop wargames for more than thirty years now, and I've observed that 90% of all gamers just want an advantage or an excuse, and will give you all kinds of reasons why some thing or the other was 'historical'. For that reason I'm usually leary of talking about renown reduction, because it might give some an excuse to just go sink everything. On the other hand there have been many discussions about the realism of the renown system itself. Not aimed at you, but just my general experience.

Take that as you wish, and have fun putting down the Tommies.


I have to agree with you on this Sailor Steve, except I change my neutral value to a 1 only on the basis that I shoot neutrals if they are escorted in convoy by countries i'm at war with. Or that are blatantly supporting enemy operations such as neutrals with visible war materials on board that belong to a country I am at war with, or troop ships that are supporting enemy actions. I try to be as judicial as possible, just as you stated, it easliy becomes nothing more than a turkey shoot.

I like that you turn your friendly ration down also, I was thinking I might drop it to a -2 or -3 myself.:up:

[BasilY]

I almost sunk the Scharnhorst (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_battlecruiser_Scharnhorst) during the Norwegian Campaign. Fire a spread of 4 torpedoes at 2 fast moving ships. hit the leading ship with 2 eels. She was stopped. When I move closer to administer a coup-de-grace, I realize what a big mistake I made.:doh:

On a un-related note, I don't see any reason to change the renown for neutral/friendly ship sinkings. Why?

[Laughing Swordfish]

By far the two most tricky flags to tell apart at night: Romania and France.

If you even suspect it might be French, blow it out of the water. Better to be safe than sorry. And no Brit has ever been sorry about sinking frenchies!

LS

[NicholasJamesBoyd]

I destroyed a fellow sub once. I felt so bad, knowing the crew surely was a total loss.:wah: But then I realized that boat didn't exist yet. So clearly it wasn't my fault it had to be a halucination. I blame the long patrol :03: (on a return trip). But how could BDU ever know I did it, there was no time to radio... Remember Kids: torps kill! Be careful with them...

It lost hundreds of renown...
RIP: VIIC of april 1940... how you existed I don't know...

[nfitzsimmons]

I've NEVER accidently sunk a friendly.



http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll316/NO1TOPGUN/pinocchio-smile.gif

And I've never ACCIDENTALLY sunk a friendly. :D

[Sailor Steve]

On a un-related note, I don't see any reason to change the renown for neutral/friendly ship sinkings. Why?
As has been said, neutrals travelling in an enemy convoy were considered fair game. Also, neutrals travelling alone and unlit were sunk from time-to-time, and no acrimony was attached to the kaleun in question. As for friendlies, a court-martial was held when it happened, and the captain was usually exonerated.

It works for me, but I'm not a really a gamer and I certainly don't use it as a justification to rack up tonnage for free.

I'm not arguing for it - it's just the way I see it for myself.

[Wintahs]

Well since I'm an 18% pussyboy cheating with the free view,I have never gotten a friendly fire incident :]

[Sailor Steve]

:rotfl::rock:







@ NicholasJamesBoyd: WELCOME ABOARD!:sunny:

[Oneshot/Onekill]

Welcome to the wonderful world of OZ.....Oh I mean SUBSIM.:DL

[SeaWolf U-57]

Yes I nearly sunk a friendly ….my first officer shouted CONTACT on port side.:cool:
So I sunk the dam sub But it wasn’t Contact it was a British sub ..Dam next time:nope:

:har: