Deck Gun problems.

[Captain Hook]

Hi everyone, i just purchased my copy of Silent Hunter III like 2 weeks ago, i'm extremely new to the Silent Hunter series, i have never played I & II before.

I have a problem with the Deck Guns.

Q: Is there any way i can let the Deck Gun crew fire at will towards the enemy ship or merchant automatically without me manually over-riding the Deck Gun controls or going down to the Deck Guns itself?

I mean we are the U-boat commander, isn't it our job to give out orders rather than we ourselves as the commanders go down to the Deck Gun manually and fire at the enemy?

Also when i clicked onto the Watch Officer to reccomend a target, he keeps saying "Cannot reccomend target!"

Can anyone out there help me out with this issue?

[slow_n_ez]

Welcome to the fleet captain....... To get the deck gun crew to work.. you have to tell your watch officer to man the deck gun...( he picks the crew that he feels best suited to fire it ) .. then in his menu is the choices to tell them to fire at will , hold fire , fire at short , medium , long ranges ,,, plus you can have them taget merchants or warships or whatever ..... at long range I believe they won't shoot until you are within like 4000 meters or something like that... but they will miss alot.. best to get about 1500 meters or less and tell watch officer to fire at will .........They will keep firing until ship is sunk.. then automatically choose another target if avaible .........

[Captain Hook]

It still doesn't work, i still have to go down to the Deck Guns and manually shoot at the merchant ships targets. I am playing the Naval Academy missions, Naval Artillery, there are 2 Watchman officers, one is a Sub-Lieutenant & the other a Warrant Officer.
The Lieutenant's picture cannot be dragged and placed onto the Deck Guns, only back into the Bow Quarters to rest, however the Warrant Officer who has experiences as he holds the Watchman logo, i can drag him and put him at the Deck Guns, but when i just click to the Lieutenant Watchman, asking him to Choose Nearest Visual Ship, he gives me a merchant ship 1000m ahead, i then proceed to the Fire At Will option, click it, but nothing happens... :( :(

[JScones]

Doesn't the deck gun only auto-engage *enemy* ships? That is, neutral ships (like those in the academy) must be shot at manually?

[Captain Hook]

I tried all kinds of means to get the Deck Guns auto-target shoot the merchant ships down in the Naval Academy, nothing really happens. I as the U-boat commander lol have to go down to the Deck Guns manually and Boom! Boom! merchant ships myself. Kinda hard to configure how to get them to work automatically.

[Khayman]

Occasionally my crew do the same. I order the deck gun manned then target the ship in my binoculars. If they are set to hold fire then they normally start shooting after the last step. Sometimes they don't though, and don't even start even though they are set to fire at will.

With a curse I hop down and man the damn thing myself. Once you fire one shot to give them an idea of what a "Fire on that ship" order actually means, you can go back to doing other things. They'll start blasting away and doing what they should have done earlier.

Have you tried shooting once then seeing what they do when you leave?

[Captain Hook]

Hmm i might just try that, never tried it but, i'll follow your steps, thank you all for your advice and tips on the Deck Gun issues.

[slow_n_ez]

Hummm weird .... I think JScones might be right however .. its been so long since I did the navel academy that I forgot if YOU are suspose to fire the gun to learn how to ... I do know that you have to physically man the flak gun to shoot down the planes as the flak gunnerrs won't do anything.. might be same with deck gun too..

Try loading a single mission from the menu and run up and see if the crew will fire on a destoyer .. mission will over before you know it but at least you'll know if the crew follows your orders :lol:

[Saukko]

Doesn't the deck gun only auto-engage *enemy* ships? That is, neutral ships (like those in the academy) must be shot at manually?
I have seen my deck gun firing at any target, including friendly vessels! This has happened many times during single missions, somehow the deck gun crew targets the nearest vessel, no matter who it is.

Once they fired at BISMARCK, instead of enemy! Lucky that she didn't fired at us, she was only about a 1000 meters from us. And no, she wasn't our line of fire, the enemy ship was on the other side.

[Sailor Steve]

I never tell the Watch Officer to open fire until I have targetted the ship I want and hit the space bar. Then they only fire at the ship *I* tell them to.

As for them not firing in the Academy, I don't remember if that happened to me or not. The latest time I reloaded the game I didn't go-500 renown was enough as far as I'm concerned.