There is no right way to play. Obviously it's a personal issue how one wishes to treat neutrals but to advocate for the status quo, that is a renown loss for sinking non-belligerents, consider this:

Even towards the end of the war the Reich Foriegn Office was trying very hard to keep additions from the list of Germany's enemies. Sinking neutral shipping was no help in this at all and indeed, attacks on neutrals frequently resulted in the victim's country taking some sort of diplomatic action against Germany over the long run or in a manner not to Germany's advantage. Spain's Franco certainly exploited the loss of Spanish ships to U-Boats to the Nazi's detriment as did Portugal, Brazil and before December 10 1941, the biggest neutral of them all, the USA.

So if the flotilla commander or even BdU signed off on sinking a neutral ship, it is unlikely you would be making many friends in high places.

In the late war one seldom has the luxury to actually identify the nationality of the target. If I get home and learn that I sank a Swede or Mexican, I have no issue with taking the renown hit imposed by GWX3.

Sinking US ships was the most heinous thing one could even think prior to their entry to the war. Germany tried their best to keep them out of the war, or at least prolong their entry as they knew (as Yamamato said) that attacking them would wake the sleeping beast. What really become a hot potatoe was when the US occupied Iceland and put a fleet there, and several times had used their warships as escorts in situations were they were unquestionably acting as allied belligerents. It infuriated skippers that they couldn't sink these ships that were clearly breaking the rules of neutrality in order to keep the US out of the war at the time.

As you mention, sinking neutrals didn't make you any friends; though I don't think any single captain ever sank more than 1 neutral ship in their career? During the campaign off the East Coast of the US/Carribean was when the largest number of neutrals were sunk. Once the US had entered the war the entire continent became fair game, unfortunately a lot of neutrals got caught in the process.

Mexico switched to the allies side after an accidental sinking of one of their tankers off the East Coast, Brazil wasn't very happy as they had a fair number sunk off the East Coast as well. Save the times when the US were acting on the side of the allies (while still claiming to be neutral) was the main time when sinking of (what then were) neutral US ships would have been perfectly within the rules of engagement. Since Germany wanted to keep the US out of the war captains did make a concerted effort to avoid US ships.

I attacked an "enemy convoy" yesterday. Playing GWX in November 1939. In the middle column I sank one ship that was Danish, did not even look for flags as it was an escorted convoy. I believe you still get credit for the tonnage, just a renown minus. I was a bit perplexed at first, but just chalked it up to how the politics of the time are reflected in game play.

It's funny, most times I see hospital ships they're already run aground or smoking. I just don't get why.

They of all ships should know that smoking is bad for you.


(Sorry, just the visual I had after all the Xmas eve cocktails I've consumed)

I know that in the Great War, especially towards the end alot of UK hospital ships were deliberately sunk by submarines, but does anyone have the stats to hand on WWII

Meet Captain Harald Grosse, last commander of U-53:

http://www.uboat.net/men/commanders/388.html

He managed to sink 5 ships - all of them neutral. And he wasn't even that special - even famous aces like Schepke or Kretschmer are credited with several neutral ships.

I was surprised to see how many Swedish ship were sunk - these poor guys have been neutral all the time and yet they've lost more ships to the U-Boats then Canada or France.

There is an old saying, "Fly with the crows, get shot with the crows". I recently attacked a well defended convoy from Gibraltar in early 1941 and although I fired at a couple of large British merchants the only thing that got sunk was some neutral small merchant. If you're in the middle of a British convoy sailing from a British colony to Britain under a British escort, I'd say you just gave up the whole 'neutral' defence.