fishing boats , trawlers?
 

lo all

was just reading an old wwII submarine book whilst crossing the vast ocean at *1060*....in it, theres a passage that reads..." the boat wasnt a week out when it had success.....sinking a fishing boat/trawler"...is it fair to attack even fishing vessels and trawlers? they obviously arent carrying cargo or troops...or is tonnage the most important thing? seems a bit outwith the conduct of war?

Trawlers and fishing boats are why Uncle Karl gave us flak guns.

You don't honestly use those things against planes, do you?

rykaird
 

yea good point mate....targets are targets...hope mr Donitz appreciates the rotten feeling and uneasy concience i'll be experiencing tonight lying on my captains bed...after the two fishing boats i just sent to the bottomo the birne didnt stand a chance:up:

Wast of ammo. :nope:

There are two types of ships:

SUBMARINES and TARGETS
:yep:

What else are you going to do with it?

Take on a plane that jumps on you and you no time to crash dive.

Think about how many soldiers a fising boat or a trawler can feed in a year. Now do you have a problem throwing 20mm at 'em? We are at war.

in the trial of Nuremberg only 1 skipper U-BOOT was condemned for
crime of war. the Germans made a clean naval war:sunny:

Is that the one they based that scene in U-571 on? (Blowing the survivors away with the flak)

Hehe, good argument.

you can read more about it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinz-Wilhelm_Eck

I am reading "Unrestricted Warfare", and it discusses U.S. Submariners attacking fishing boats along the coasts in the Pacific. It was considered an alternate target when no other was available, and it was rationalized that it depleted the local enemy of food resources.

Soft easy targets that can't fight back.....I prefer to fight planes with them. http://imgcash5.imageshack.us/img265...smilie2ik0.gif

There are two ways of looking at it.

1. it depleats the local enemy of a food source

2. its a waste of ammo

Personally, i dont attack civilian fishing vessels and yachts.

for starters submariners considered it bad luck to attack a boat that was rigged with a sail, and two... if they are able to radio in my position before i sink them the target wasnt worth the hassel of being located by an HK group or planes etc.