Very interesting.

i found really anoying don´t have any starshell in my ixb boat during my last drumbeat patrol.

I wanted to identify if the single ships have any deck gun without using external camera but unfortunatelly my crew forget the shells in port. :damn:

i think that modify the number of shells in 10 or 20 more could be possible in the real world.

i´ve just read a book about a british submarine, and they carry extra deck gun ammo because they expect a heavy gun action in his patrol zone. The ammo was stored and scattered in other places of the boat

While BDU might have mandated the configuration of UBoats, the captain's desires dictated what he wanted on board his boat. The captain also had to leeway to choose his own course to his designated patrol area. If a captain wanted a few star shells, believe me they would be on his boat.

In terms of what a boat or ship is designed for, and what a skipper carried, I don't think any game could model the variety in the real world.

My father served on Canadian River Class frigates. They would put to sea out of Halifax or St. John's with far more then the designed DC capacity called for. Basically, they would stow extra DC's anywhere onboard, as long as they were accessible to be manhandled into position for use (designed stowage was for about 200 DC's, but they would often sail out with convoys with as many as 300 or more DCs stuffed on board). An uncle of mine was on a Royal Navy minesweeper in the channel - they used to snag (steal is such an ugly word, so we won't use it) army BREN guns and .303 ammo to augment their AA fire.

It seems especially in small ships and subs, captains improvised as they could to augment their vessels fighting capacity.

I must admit, half a dozen Starshells could come in handy on the odd patrol. :hmm:

On the other hand, ammunition stowage on a sub is at a premium. Every starshell is one less real one when you need it.:dead:

Everybody is entitled to their opinion. Mine is that many of those premium rounds are wasted ranging the target on dark nights when a star shell will reduce those wasted rounds and get the kill faster.

Wasting shells 'ranging' the target on a dark night is also wasteful. Also identifying the target on a dark night is also not wastful.

As there are a few of these on the go, and with this being an older thread, I am going to shut this one down.