Quote:
Originally Posted by Randomizer
There is no right way to play. Obviously it's a personal issue how one wishes to treat neutrals but to advocate for the status quo, that is a renown loss for sinking non-belligerents, consider this:
Even towards the end of the war the Reich Foriegn Office was trying very hard to keep additions from the list of Germany's enemies. Sinking neutral shipping was no help in this at all and indeed, attacks on neutrals frequently resulted in the victim's country taking some sort of diplomatic action against Germany over the long run or in a manner not to Germany's advantage. Spain's Franco certainly exploited the loss of Spanish ships to U-Boats to the Nazi's detriment as did Portugal, Brazil and before December 10 1941, the biggest neutral of them all, the USA.
So if the flotilla commander or even BdU signed off on sinking a neutral ship, it is unlikely you would be making many friends in high places.
In the late war one seldom has the luxury to actually identify the nationality of the target. If I get home and learn that I sank a Swede or Mexican, I have no issue with taking the renown hit imposed by GWX3.
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Sinking US ships was the most heinous thing one could even think prior to their entry to the war. Germany tried their best to keep them out of the war, or at least prolong their entry as they knew (as Yamamato said) that attacking them would wake the sleeping beast. What really become a hot potatoe was when the US occupied Iceland and put a fleet there, and several times had used their warships as escorts in situations were they were unquestionably acting as allied belligerents. It infuriated skippers that they couldn't sink these ships that were clearly breaking the rules of neutrality in order to keep the US out of the war at the time.
As you mention, sinking neutrals didn't make you any friends; though I don't think any single captain ever sank more than 1 neutral ship in their career? During the campaign off the East Coast of the US/Carribean was when the largest number of neutrals were sunk. Once the US had entered the war the entire continent became fair game, unfortunately a lot of neutrals got caught in the process.
Mexico switched to the allies side after an accidental sinking of one of their tankers off the East Coast, Brazil wasn't very happy as they had a fair number sunk off the East Coast as well. Save the times when the US were acting on the side of the allies (while still claiming to be neutral) was the main time when sinking of (what then were) neutral US ships would have been perfectly within the rules of engagement. Since Germany wanted to keep the US out of the war captains did make a concerted effort to avoid US ships.