[Beery]

Originally Posted by jason210

...But before that they were used to finish off ships. If I'd torpedod a C2 and used two torpedos, but the ship refuses to go down, I should be able to finsih it off with just a few shots on the water line, but I tried this too, and it took about twenty shots to do it.

Originally Posted by Kola Run

...Some incidents I've found:

Topp in U-552 fired 126 rounds at a 10,000ton freighter and claimed a sinking but the ship was not destroyed.

Vogel in U-588 hit a 4,800 ton tanker with 2 torps and then spent 4 hours firing 200 rounds into it before claiming it sinking in flames - this ship also survived...

Schacht in U-507 tried to sink a 6,800ton ship by gunfire after the crew had abandoned it but finally gave up and had to use a torpedo.

Wurdemann in U-506 used his gun on 7,000ton tanker and claimed it sunk in flames but the ship survived.

Rasch in U-106 hit a 5,000ton ship with 2 torps and then finished it off with his gun but it took 193 rounds.

Mohlmann in U-571 hit a 9,800ton tanker with 2 torps and finished it off with 20 rounds (this is less than in the previous example but SH3 will often let you sink a ship with around 20 rounds without having to use 2 torps first).

Wiebe in U-516 sank a small 1,200ton coaster by gunfire - number of rounds is not given but it took him 20 minutes.

The examples where skippers wrongly assumed the ship was destroyed suggest that vessels were capable of sustaining a lot of "cosmetic" damage without being in danger of sinking. The difference with torps is of course that all the damage is potentially fatal ie below the waterline.

In short, there are no guarantees regarding how much ammo is needed to sink a ship.