Manning the deck gun

[VacantName]

I have stumbled across a lone, unarmed, seemingly unaware British merchant in the dead of night in calm waters off the coast of Yorkshire. In short, I have the perfect target to make my first kill as commander.

I don't want to waste torpedoes on a small merchant like this one (In my experience with SH 3 & 4 torpedoes have an annoying habit of missing anyway) so I've told the XO to send everyone to battlestations, and told the WO to man the deck gun.

Nobody has moved from where they were before. I wondered why my deck gun wasn't firing, and found my gunner stood in the aft torpedo compartment. What good is that?

How do I get my crew to actually do what I tell them? Failing that, is there any way I can man the deck gun myself? (I was always a better shot than my crew in SH4 anyway).

[orangehat44]

I havent been able to get my crew to man it by ordering. But if you go to the back of the conning tower you can walk down the ladder to the deck, walk up to the gun click it. and after you are on the gun, crew will magically teleport to it ( i dunno but whatever). I dont if they are self sufficient, because Ive only manned it myself and shot the target myself. I havent manned it till they pop there then get off and tell them to shoot to see if they will. Ive only stumbled across one ship and had the time to pop it with a torp and finish it with deck gun. But im sure there will be a time when i want to be able to do other things and need the crew to man the gun by them selfs. So if anyone can figure out how to get the crew to be alittle more self sufficient im all ears lol.

[Conrad von Kaiser]

Did you look through the binoculars and designate that target for the deck gun to engage? (Space bar when looking at it)

Sometimes that jump-starts them into firing, other times you'll have to go and manually jump on the gun to get the crew to appear on it.

Designating a target does work from time to time though. Accidentally designated a target on my way out of Kiel... German Merchant. They happily fired away even though we weren't in battle station's or anything lol

Took me 5 frantic minutes of searching for a cease fire command before I had to go to Periscope depth to get them to stop :ping:

[Viper114]

What I've usually done is I tell the spotter to man the deck gun, then I jump in the gunner seat. About 5 seconds later the other two show up for the gun to start moving.

[funkster319]

Watch Officer has the dialogue to man /Secure the Deck Gun / Flak. However you need to ensure he has morale to do this...

Simply enough if you have a cook making special meals :up:

[Fivepast]

Watch Officer has the dialogue to man /Secure the Deck Gun / Flak. However you need to ensure he has morale to do this...

Simply enough if you have a cook making special meals :up:

More of a problem if you've just loaded a saved game and the entire crew has no morale. :down:

[Mooncatt]

here is what i do...
order my WO to man the deck gun, in upper right corner of the screen a little icon will appear. sometimes when the crew simply cant be assed to man said deck gun i click on this little icon and after a few seconds they appear......as if by magic :o

use binoculas to lock target and crew start firing away......or should do anyways :D

[funkster319]

More of a problem if you've just loaded a saved game and the entire crew has no morale. :down:

Get the Special Meal Ability for the Cook ASAP - that way you just make them a meal (or rather he does) and instant morale :yeah:

[SteamWake]

"I'm not gonna fire that gun untill you give me something to eat !" :haha:

Frickin ridiculous.

[Fivepast]

Get the Special Meal Ability for the Cook ASAP - that way you just make them a meal (or rather he does) and instant morale :yeah:

I was under the impression that the cook's special ability doesn't work if he has no morale himself.

[funkster319]

More of a problem if you've just loaded a saved game and the entire crew has no morale. :down:

"I'm not gonna fire that gun untill you give me something to eat !" :haha:

Frickin ridiculous.

Well some decent food does pick you up so not that crazy a concept IMO. Besides it just adds to the fun.

Chatting also bring the moral up , plus kills etc.

[SteamWake]

I was under the impression that the cook's special ability doesn't work if he has no morale himself.

From what I've seen you can spam the special meal ability with no morale points.

What I dont know is if the morale points 'stick' after the meal timer counts down.

[pythos]

I had the opposite problem. My gun crew merrily fired away.

BUT THEY FORGOT ABOUT THE CEASE FIRE BUTTON!!!!

I could not stop them from going from target to target.

Even having the WO "secure the deck gun" it continued to fire!!!

WTF!!!!??

[LeonTheNorse]

Have had the same problem Pythos.

Seems they get trigger happy after you tell them to open fire on a ship they just seem to think you want them to fire at will at all targets.

Only solution is to dive, one time they kept firing even after i dived. I mean they never unmanned the deck gun. Gotta love their determination.:haha: