Sunk neutral with no loss of reknown
 

Hi,


0200 hours on the surface about 8 hours out of Kiel my watch officer spotted a ship. I went on deck to take a look and observed it was A Trawler running withoput lights. Weather was calm and clear but darker then Hell. On most friendlys they have their flag lit. I did not know if it was armed and I didnt want my position radioed in so I approached to 300 m and fired a deck shot accross their bow to evoke a response. All I got was a bright search light in my eyes which ticked me off so I sank her with 8 rounds from the deck, After she went down I checked my chart and the sinking icon was green. My first thought was that I didnt have a lot of reknown to began with without loseing more. I continued patrol and sank a Ammo ship and a medium merchant. When I returned to base I found out that I did not lose any thing and got reknown for the netural. Is there something in GWX that will forgive you if the ship is not lighted. I would rather shoot first them have her shoot first

Nope, but maybe it's because a trawler is quite a small vessel.

The vessel was acting like a hostile: 1) no lights 2) using searchlight on you. That qualifies him as enemy combatant. My first GWX sinking was a supposedly neutral American munitions ship. It displayed no lights so I sent him to the bottom (11,000 tons :sunny:), which helped me get a VIIB :rotfl: :rotfl:

what i would like to know is that during the war at night when everything is pitch black how the hell did they I.D the targets?????

I think that was done by:
1. Logic and the intelligence reports,
2. Strict BdU orders as what is and what is not a valid target,
3. Shadowing the target for a long time,
4. Radio listening,
5. Ship's shape and noise.

But I can only imagine, how they did it, as I don't have any sources for what I just wrote. What makes me quite sure that I'm not much mistaken is the fact, that they actually sunk quite many of neutral ships "by accident". :)

As the war progressed, real neutrals painted great big flags on their hulls and had them spotlighted. GWX does a pretty good job with the spot lights on the flag. If the ship doesn't show lights, sink it!!