Hi guys, this is my first post. Sorry for bumping this old thread but it's relevant to what I want to ask.

I'm playing GWX 3.0 and was following a merchant ship. I submerged, got close (around 1000m) and inspected the flag. Now, I'm 99% sure it was French. But when I torpedoed it, it showed up in green and was thus neutral.

So far my story's pretty similar to that expressed in the OP. However, in my game it's 20th September 1939, so the ship could NOT have belonged to Vichy France, since Vichy France does not exist yet.

Here are 3 screenshots of the neutral ship. The first two show the flag, the last one has the date on it.

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y24...1988/flag1.jpg
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y24...1988/flag2.jpg
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y24...s1988/date.jpg

Any ideas? My initial thought was that it could be a Belgian ship, and due to it being night its flag looks like a French flag. But I think that's pretty unlikely. You can clearly see that the flag is the colour of the French flag.

Any ideas?

Cant see clearly from your pics
Could be from Belgian looks very similar
What gives away its neutral status is the way its lit up like a christmas tree :yeah:

Yay.

Never attack shiny boats, your renown WILL get electrocuted.

It is Belgian, the center is clearly (well, "clearly") yellow (or at least too yellowish to be white) :know: The outer colours can fool though...

I whould say it was Belgian or an Irish Ship you sunk.

Could even be Romanian if one saw any hint of blue in the first vertical bar of the flag instead of black.

you hit either a Belgian or a Romanian

but its definitely not french as the center bar is yellow

EDIT

It IS romanian... i just isolated the first color in the flag and it is a near navy blue... not black.

I commend you for going to so much trouble to verify the nationality before attacking.

but i believe any board of inquiry would clear you of any wrong doing. The ship was darkened in a combat zone, and you did your due diligence in identifying the nationality of the craft.

such is war

Its lit up like New York

:rotfl:

What the bugger is a Romanian ship doing off the coast of France?

Oh hey look... It IS lit up. I guess I'm just used to the flags being hit with flood lights

Haha

Don't mention the lights to the board bro

And in the future it's a fair bet that anything with lights on is neutral.

As to why it's off France... I have seen almost every nationality in the game off the French coast... Including Japanese