Hospital ships
 

I was out on patrol in a Type IX in mid Atlantic last night. I had missed a convoy and had wasted precious fuel searching for it when out of the mist came a hosptial ship...

A moral dilema started,

- It was unarmed
- Clearly marked
- Alone

What should I do? I even asked my No.1 (the missus) and she said let it go, but it was under the British flag....

I sank it with 4 torps but to make matters worse it took ages to go down so the whole time I felt bad...

My reasoning was it is war and Germany is being bombed with 1000 bomber raids causing firestorms etc.

What would you have done?

What I would've done? Not sunk it. Hospital ships are protected by the Geneva convention (or to be more precise, the "Adaptation to Maritime War of the Principles of the Geneva Convention", aka Hague X convention).

To sink an unarmed, clearly marked hospital ship is IMO on the same level as machine-gunning sailors in their lifeboats.

I had a similar dilemma recently, but maybe a bit easier - a hospital ship within a military convoy - along with a cruiser, and a PL, and two DDs. I wasn't sure what to do so I sunk the cruiser and the PL (which was clearly transporting troops). I had a real problem with the hospital ship though - i felt like wounded soldiers should get a free ticket out. I 'radioed BdU' and found out that I should spend my last torp on the HS. Reluctantly, I did so. I didn't sink her. Furthermore, call me superstitious, I don't think it's a coincidence that it was my last patrol; the escorts did me in. What goes around comes around.

Kb

Hospital ships are off limits for me (along with fishing boats).

And yet again we ponder the strangeness of war...

Killing is forbidden, but during wartime it is encouraged.

It is OK to starve an enemy by setting up a naval blockade of U-boats, but it is not OK to starve him by sinking helpless fishing boats.

It is Ok to kill perfectly healthy young soldiers, but not OK to kill them if they are wounded in a hospital area/ship.

I am not saying any off these things ought to make sense. I am basically a pacifist – and yet I enjoy playing wargames and FPS games.

Life is full of inconsistencies.

Just a word of warning...

It is set in the game that if you sink that hospital ship you will loose 10,000 renown points and wont gain anything.So I would think long and hard about it.

So be lucky that ship did not sink Keelbuster.

This is from the Hospital Ships config file..

[Unit]
ClassName=NHOS
UnitType=103
MaxSpeed=18
Length=167
Width=12.3
Mast=37
Draft=7.5
Displacement=12000
RenownAwarded=-10000

Notice the -10,000 renown..

Arg - i had read something about that. But I thought that was a special hospital ship (going from Halifax to england or something), and that others are fair game (especially in convoy). NHOS (neutral hospital?) - maybe there are other types?

Anyway, attacking it was bad enough - the hand of moral revenge was swift and ruthless.

Also, wonder how that translates into tonnage war values - do I lose 10000 tonnes?

Kb

You should wind up losing 10,000 renown points...

and after the war I suggest staying well clear of Nuremberg.

It is my understanding that the sinking or attacking of a clearly marked hospital ship (the white ships, with red crosses and the green line) is concidered a war crime punishable by court martial, and death. It is also a war crime to use such a ship as trasport for militarial material, or healthy (operational) soldiers.

Those big white ships were off limits, period.

The Japanese imperial naval staff, along with their other war crimes, were held convicted of destroying a clearly marked hospital ship.

Now, if it a troop ship not marked, then that is fair game. Converted liners are the same deal, but, if they have the red crosses, and green stripe, they are a no go for your fish.

I sank two of them and recieved 6,000 reknown each time.

I've reinstalled GW since then.

Herr Karl, Would you PM me if this happens again? (If you receive positive renown that is...) you should get minus 10,000 renown for sinking one.

Afterwards... please stop blowing up the hospital ships!

Feel free to surface next to them and scare the hell out of them... but Nuremburg awaits you if you sink them!

Shame shame shame :nope:

With this anomaly, and your "not enough crew" problem, are you sure you have correctly installed GW? :hmm: Just seems strange, that's all.

Isn´t it so that all hospital ships are neutral? I´ve checked the RND and SCR layers, the NHOS ships were Side=0. Defside.cfg also says that Redcross ships are neutral from 1936-47. The modifier for sinking a neutral ship is -1, so when you sink a hospital ship with a RenownAwarded of -10000 then you would get positive renown.

Yeah, I wondered that when I first saw the values. -10000 renown x -1 neutral ship multiplier = +10000 renown. I think renown should be 10000...but then, I don't know these files as well as the ship builders do so thought no more of it (assuming others would have raised it as an issue by now if it was wrong)...

EDIT: Actually, logically I *know* the RenownAwarded value should be +10000. What about ships that change/share nationalities? Their RenownAwarded values are all positive but are driven by the multiplier effect.

Anyway, for someone's consideration or testing...

I also had once an encounter with a lone hospital Ship far away in the atlantic. Had a Type IX then, it was 1941 I think. I gave him a shot from the deckgun in front of his bow, and went alongside to him. I did that, because I wanted to inspect the ship if it´s really a hospital ship. So I stayed one hour alongside him, I guess that´s the time my boarding party need´s to check it up.

If my boarding party wouldn´t return - what they did of coourse :) or he would send a radio message for help, he would end up as fish food. Nothing bad happend, so I wished him a safe trip home, and sailed a away to continue my patrol.

To put it in other words. I NEVER sink hospital ships.