Dutch convoy

[Becker]

So, on my way to my patrol grid around a month prior to Weseruebung, I did a routine dive in the middle of the North Sea. Immediately my hydrophonics guy started going crazy, reporting contact after contact after contact - clearly a convoy, but one much bigger than I've ever stumbled across before!

I shadowed them until nightfall, then pulled into visual range to line up an attack. What I found was what must be a 40-50ship convoy... but they all seem to be Norwegian!? They're certainly escorted by the Royal Navy, but all the flags on the merchants that I can make out are Norwegian.

Is this a scripted convoy for mission to Norway I didn't know about (playing GWX Gold, no other mods)? It's early in the morning (around 3:00am) on March 6th 1940, with the convoy steaming in the rough direction of Bergen, around 40km from the right-hand edge of AN27.

Slightly frustrating to see all these juicy targets rolling on by and not being able to shoot at them without taking a renown hit!

:/\\!!

<EDIT: seems like the flag was NORWEGIAN rather than Dutch (makes more sense; teach me to try and guess at flags from several KM away in the dark!), so have changed post to reflect>

[RConch]

I too have seen this convoy rarely in my "past" lives and yes it is very juicy.
Leave it alone, unless you could pop-off an escort.

No one needs the loss of renown.

[Soviet Creeper]

I thought you were allowed to engage any merchants escorted by a warship?

[RConch]

I play GWX and have thought the same. Royal Navy escorts and Norge ships-some really nice ones.
Fired and hit a large merchant and some other one-both go down. Pops up as "green sunk" on the chart.

[Becker]

In the end I left it alone. There was what I'm pretty sure was a Southampton-class in the middle of it, but there was no way I was going to hit it given the surrounding area was thick with ships.

Moving away from the convoy I counted 45 ships including escorts, but not sure I could see them all through the periscope. Was very upset not to be able to shoot at them! :down:

[Raptor]

Give yourself the option:

Open basic.cfg

scroll down to [RENOWN] and change the negative 1 for NEUTRAL to a positive 1.

[RENOWN]
RenownReachGridObjCompleted=0
RenownPatrolGridObjCompleted=0
CompletedPatrol=0
NEUTRAL=1
ALLIED=1
AXIS=-10


You will no longer be penalized for sinking any neutral vessel. Take advantage of this to sink neutrals that sail in convoy with or are escorted by allied warships.

Note that you can now also sink neutrals anywhere, anytime without penalty. Not very realistic, but it lets you rack up huge tonnage along the US east coast or off Trinidad prior to Dec 7, 1941.

[Sailor Steve]

I set the value for neutrals to '0'. I don't get penalized for sinking them, but I don't get rewarded either. I also reset the value for Axis to -1. Several u-boats sank friendly ships and in ever case the court martial revealed that the sunken ship was outside his assigned route and was usually disguised as an Allied ship.

[RConch]

Just ask "Ali" Cremer how well it went.