Liars! (False Flags)
 

Hello subsimmers.


Dealing with neutral vessels is a bit of a pain. There is little information on what to look for and it seems you never find anything suspicious. There are things though that make you go HMMM. I would like to start a discussion based on how we can tell and what to look for. Have you sunk a newt and found out later it was really a newt? I want your experience.

I was watching a video by Lite_ly Salted called "Liars!" wherein his crew found nothing suspicious either. He sunk the ship based on other things and low and behold the life boats where red. (A good watch if you haven't seen it.)

So I started a new career to mess around with, found a couple of newts and sank them both. Here is what I have found.




Incident 1


I found a C3, heavily armed flying a flag of Portugal. The captain used Portuguese to speak. He was heading for Lisbon with medical supplies. The name was "Melange I".


-> They were located just south of Ireland and heading towards the UK.
-> Challenged the documents, claimed they where fake. He says no and the game claims he seems to be right. (I have never not had this outcome.)
-> Searched cargo hold. Found nothing suspicious. (I have never not had this outcome.)
-> Looked at what they are hauling. It was medical supplies and high caliber ammo.
-> Ordered the evacuation and sank the ship with deck gun.
-> The icon was newt gray and so where the lifeboats.


** Outcome **
BDU found they where a US ship under false flag.


** Notes **
-Unlike in the Lite_ly Salted video, you can't tell by the colour of the lifeboats after they evacuate.
-I sank the ship based on location, direction, (wrong for Lisbon) and the fact that it had high caliber ammo. Everything else checked out.


*Edit - It occurs to me the ship was really a newt, it was US, so maybe that is why everything was still newt gray after it sank. I still got the credit, I think because it was a false flag.





Incident 2


I found a tanker not far south of Ireland. Ship was flying a Spanish flag but heading for UK. Its name was "Dinsdale".


-> You can't interact with a tanker.
-> This ship sent a message spotting the plume of the C3 from incident 1.
-> When I got close, it sent a message stating it was under attack. I had not yet shot at it.
-> Sank it with deck gun.
-> Wreckage marker was red.


** Outcome **
BDU found they where a UK ship under false flag. (Might have been Canadian, I forget now.)


** Notes **
-I sank the ship based on the name, (Dinsdale for Spain?), Location and direction, and because it sent an under attack message when I hadn't fired a shot. I was just there.
-I didn't notice the lifeboats, the wreckage marker was red.

an excellent discussion, and i'll tell you this, im pretty impressed with how accurately UBoat deals with prize regulations, and it helps to be familiar with them. (here is a link to a great, and old, subsim thread about them https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/sho...d.php?t=219074)

so lets discuss incident 1:

refer to the prize regulations "Article VIII: banned goods"

"number 1: weapons of any kind" on the deck - the neutral merchant was armed and thus a viable target in my opinion.

"number 24: Medicines intended for use by the enemey." It is my interpretation as to the location and course of the ship, and the fact that it is heavily laden with medical supplies that the commander of the uboat would be safe to assume these medicines are in fact bound for an enemy port and thus the ship is a legitimate target.

refer to "Article IX: Banned goods considered for exemption" specifically where it states "Consideration should be given by the U-boat commander to the on board papers, logs, shipping labels or itinerary etc of the vessel. Attack, prizing, or confiscation should be considered if:

1. The vessel carrying such banned goods has clearly deviated from its route without justifiable reason for doing so
2. If there is evidence that the papers presented to the boarding party have been falsified so as to conceal the materials kept aboard, or conceal the intended destination etc"

the ship is clearly not on a course for it's stated destination, and again, this makes her viable as a target

---

regarding incident 2

refer to "Article VIII: Banned Goods"

Number 22. Fuel oil, crude oil, lubricating oil, aviation gasoline are considered banned goods and for this reason, this dinsdale is a legitimate target

refer to "Article XI: attacks without warning"

"Number 4: Vessels which convey to the enemy the position of the U-boat may be attacked without warning", by broadcasting on radio that it was under attack by a U-boat, this vessel becomes a legitimate target for this reason.

------

it helps to have someone aboard on the boarding party who has the skill - i forget what it is - but the skill where they know wat goods are transported to what ports (symbol for this skill is money i think) - if you have them in the boarding party and push that the papers are false, most of the time the neutral captain will crack and confess that the ship is false flagged or something to that extent.

My Kalun had the merchant skill and he was on the away team. Perhaps I should re-evaluate the choices I make when I investigate.

Good citation of the prize rules. I knew them in vague terms but you have actual text.

Though I don't know how closely the game models the prize rules. A ship with medical supplies bound for Liverpool for example is flagged as not being a part of the war effort. I don't know how seriously to take that.

Also I am not sure about merchantmen being armed makes them legitimate. US Ships traveling alone are not valid targets. Doesn't matter if they are armed. Pissed off a lot of Kaluns during the war.

Curious of your thoughts.

Some of the prize regulations were specifically modified by Hitler.

he had some pretty specific orders to leave the American ships alone... however, i have sent several US ships to the bottom traveling in convoy with enemy escorts and considered those valid targets without any consequences

I can confirm that. I just sank a rare unescorted convoy. 3 US ships and 2 GB ships. All ships showed as red in the map.


It seems US ships with false flags or in convoy are fair game.

Thanks for the shoutout!

This is very interesting. I had no idea this game had this level of detail, nor this type of content. I have will have to consider getting it more closely.

Having officers in the boarding party with the Linguist, Merchant & Navigator skills is important but even than i've found they don't always pick up on suspicious ships.

I've picked up the merchant ''Rio Iguazu'' under Argentinian flag heading North East in AM97. Clearly on course for an English port like Liverpool but when questioned their destination was said to be the port of Rotterdam. My officer with the Navigator skill unbelievably somehow agreed this appeared to be correct. The documents were checked, it was found not to be unusual to have HE shells and spare parts go to Rotterdam. Being that close to the Welsh coast i didn't buy it and contrary to all indications given i decided to sink the ship. I was wondering if the game was going to penalize me but was quickly reassured when the lifeboats where showing an English flag on the map.

My other unusual example was the merchant ''Monte Nuria'' under Portugese flag in AM56, so on approach to the straight between Northern Ireland & Scotland. Said to be heading to the port of Lisbon which did not make a lot of sense to me out there but was cleared as correct. I don't recall exactly the kind of cargo being carried but there was also nothing suspicious about it. Since he was taking a rather long detour to Lisbon i did not trust it and decided to sink the ship. Turns out this one too was actually an English freighter.

So maybe the game has those moments where you can't really find hard proof of irregularities and are ultimately left to go with your gut feeling ? Had i picked them up elsewhere i would probably have let them go.

I did appreciate having to worry about the consequences of my decision as i'm sure in real life there would have been situations where you couldn't be completely sure too :up:

I too like that you can't always be sure.


One of the things with SH3, I played perhaps 2K hours with that game. Maybe more. No steam client to count them, but played it a lot. I made test missions and timed dives and explored crush depth behavior, torpedo behavior, ship weak spots, you name it. It was all systematic, scientific, and rigorous.


It made me a very good player.


In some ways it made me appreciate the ship operation model. For example, I don't know if very many people noticed, but when you surface the boat in SH3 it runs low in the water while the engine exhaust fills in the ballast tanks. Real U-Boats did this to save on compressed air. In SH3 if you wanted peak performance when surfacing without any delay you had to blow the tanks.



It also ruined the game a bit for me. Because under the hood, that game was very deterministic. Without mods, the ship escorts regardless of difficulty give up after 15 minutes of no contact. Exactly 15 minutes. To the second. This made the decoys useless, it just made the escorts stick around longer. (Also the decoys didn't last long enough.) Eventually I would time my attacks and where I would wipe out up to 5 ships of the front row of a convoy with simultaneous detonations. (Actually about 4 or 5 seconds from first torpedo to last. It is easier than you might think.) Afterwards I would dive and evade. Exactly 15 minutes later I would move to the surface and silent speed. Then end run the convoy, rinse repeat. Routinely sank the whole convoy except the neutrals. No damage, no missed torpedoes, never detected even by the escorts until the late game.


This might sound awesome cool. Like I am an awesome U-Boat commander. But the reality is that I just understood the game under the hood so much that the predictability of the game became impossible not to take advantage of. It ruined the immersion.



U-Boat on the other hand, is much less transparent under the hood. Crush depth is not so predictable, neutral ships are not so predictable and more. Though I have been purposely avoiding the kind of experiments I did for SH3, lest I find the same predictability under the hood.


I just wish U-Boat used a curved map with great circle routes instead of the flat map it uses. Ahh well.

The one thing that irks me is when you send over a navigator, who's got the option on pressing them about their current course vs. their 'intended destination'.

Pulling a Freighter over just 20nm to the south of Ireland on a course ENE which claimed it was bound for Vigo, and the vesels Master will act like this is a totally legitimate route, is very frustrating.

Welcome back!
 

Many thanks Aktung, long time no see as well (I've been lurking of late until the last couple of years)

I might have to go restart the Type II club for Silent Hunter III...