Its a shame we can't use the two MG-42's I see stored in the tower beside the helmets, I guess their mainly there to ward off boarders in addition to the MP-40's on board as well as being used to board enemy vessels. As for the topic, if the merchant's crew generally sucks at aiming my deck gun crew makes short work of their weapons.

About time he put the hours into his job :yep:

You would more than likely be destroyed before you got close enough to be as accurate as required.

Once the vessel had all its hit points exhausted/destroyed all compartments act accordingly....including the weapons.

If a ship continues firing whist sinking there are still some hit points remaining.

Interesting - so presumably the only time an armed but sinking ship stops being a threat is after the "she's going down" message?

Or can you destroy their weapons by firing at same, thus taking those out of action, even though she's still got "hit points" left before the game deems her "sunk"?

I'm just wondering if there's any merit at all in having your gunner aim for the weapons, since that is an option when commanding the gun crew. If they're gonna remain operable until you've officially sunk her, no matter how many rounds you put into them, seems like there's not really much reason to single them out as a primary target.

Yep that's the case.

Yep

If you destroy the guns they'll stop firing so you've a choice I suppose but not a good one because as you well know, your sub is a shell magnet and it doesn't take many hits before it becomes a lead weight :DL

Too right, my response upon discovering that a merchant is armed is to submerge and finish her off with an eel if need be. I've never stayed up long enough in that situation to try and take out her guns.

Just wondered if there was any real merit to the "aim for the weapons" command since the question of doing so came up.

Another strategem to consider is to approach from dead astern, minimizing their ability to train their weapons on you. From dead astern you can still pump shells into her steerage area and possibly cripple her rudder and props, thus immobilizing it and then you pump holes below her waterline with the deck gun. As a rule, I avoid gunnery duels with armed targets. It's just not worth the chance of one lucky hit that will prevent you from diving. A sub that can't dive is a very vulnerable target.

Most ships have a really big gun on the aft deck on a raised platform that allows them to shoot almost straight down, and it will kill you before you can get close enough to knock it out, or do any damage to their props/steering gear.

Well there you go; I've never tried to tangle with an armed merchant. I always check a target over before I consider whether to make a gunnery attack. If I see guns, I submerge.

Last night I did this very thing. Again I thought I'd give the deck gun another go against a large merchant at night. I fired the first shot at him and then saw an orange flash on his deck structures. Great! I thought, hit him first time, but then I saw my shell land short of his boat with a splash, shortly followed by his shell whizzing over my head. So now I knew where the gun was (he only had the one able to fire on me). I fired a couple more shots only, and the second hit around the same area of his boat that the gun was positioned, causing one of those epic explosions with fountains of orange debris. After that he didn't return fire at all. Call it blind luck, but you definately can target those guns and put them out of action as I did. On a side note, one thing that really helped me in these recent gun battles I've been having is to head straight for his boat, in my case at a slow speed. You have to manually adjust your range constantly, but then so does he, and at least in these encounters he didn't seem too good at it- this is where I got the advantage I needed.

My favorite method for taking deck guns out of the picture (besides torpedoes), is to report in the target and wait for the Stukas to remove them for me. Then I can surface and send a few insults of my own their way! I love those guys! :DL

I was presuming that reporting contacts via the radio was more of a formality and actually had no effect on the gameplay. So the Luftwaffe turn up do they? Cool.This is news to me. Good news! I take it you need to be near a German base in order for this to happen?

Yes you do.:yep: I have had them show up when I take the Northern route out from Kiel, and get to the main shipping channel South of Norway.

I've only seen the vaunted Luftwaffe in the Med.

Most of the time, they've been a pain in the butt. Theyve either stolen a kill or caused a ship that I was stalking to start zigging all over the place. :down:

:)

Other than leaving the harbours and giving me the constant 'Aircraft spotted!' messages, I've yet to see them in action. I've only been in the med once though before being lost at sea!

My next career I've decided (up yours BdU!) that I'm heading around Norway instead of the Atlantic so maybe there... :)

If you ever live long enough to be transferred to Bergen in 44, look up to the skies for something circling the port that can't be seen anywhere else :03:

Jim says, of course, the beautiful harbor views,
 

http://imgur.com/PV7Yq.jpg

Fantastic recreation, air and alarm that sounds in the morning so no alarm clock is not needed