Armed Merchant ships
 

Last night I attacked a large merchant just off the spanish coast- as the weather conditions permitted, I thought I would save some torps and take it out with the deck gun. Very quickly I realised that the ship in question was firing back at me, fortunately I managed to deal with him before he caused me any serious damage.
Having not played the game long enough yet to have encountered many different types of merchant ships, I was wondering how many of them are likely to be equipped with guns? Are there certain types of ship that are more likely to be armed? It turned out that this ship was carrying military vehicles so perhaps it has something to do with it's cargo- or do particular types of merchant ships carry guns regardless?

what year?

As Timmy mentioned, it depends on what year you are playing in. In the the early stages of the war, it was rare to have an armed merchant.

As the war progressed, merchant ships on both sides saw the rising threat of enemy suface ships, submarines and u-boats and had to defend themselves.

As the war progresses, it will be the rare merchant that isn't armed.

Good point- I love the depth of this game!
August 1941, and I'm running GWX gold.

My career is at March of '41 and Merchants are armed, well all the ones I ran into which means no more fun speedboat style charges with a torpedo lob :down:

39 into 40 it's fill your boots with the deck gun By 41 armed merchies are fairly common, by 43 everything is armed

Righto then. Thanks guys, learning a new thing every day!

Very true:yep:

It has been my experience that any time after December 1940 all large and medium ships are armed.
By mid 1941 all are armed.

After 43' the only things that don't have a gun on them is the sail boats and other micro ships!

Hehe, look out pleasure sailors and fishermen and anyone else in a dinghy!
U-527 coming to a grid ref. near you soon!

Beware-many of the gun crews on merchants are pretty eagle eyed and are quite accurate.

I try to avoid gunning it out with merchants anymore late war. In fact, I usually unbolt my deck gun and chuck it over the side to remove that temptation.

:)

Can you specifically target the gun on the merchant and take it out first? Or does it carry on firing?

(newbie question I know)

You can try, if you get it then it will stop, but first you do have to get it! :nope: