Were deck guns really this powerful?

[Otto Heinzmeir]

I never used deck guns on my first 5 missions or so because I thought they were meant as a last resort if you could,'t dive or something. Apologies for my ignorance.
Once I started used them with a qualified gunner my tonnage average per mission more than doubled. From 25 tons to 51 tons per mission in the stock game.

Oddly I don't find the missions as much fun. Because whenever I use 2 torps to sink a ship I feel like I wasted the torps when I probably could have sunk it with 12 rounds of HE. I was surprised when I was able to sink a C2 with 10 to 12 rounds. I sunk a small merchant with 1 round. Possible bug perhaps. I hit it once in its a** and it went down in like 10 seconds.

Most of my strategy changed once I started using guns. Instead of lining up 500 to 700m off the targets track for a Fast 90, instead I line up as close to his track as I can figure. Staying submerged and pointing so as soon as he passed I can surface and angle a bit off to one side or the other. I have my gunner finish him in maybe 6-9 rounds for small merchant and 12-24 for a C2.

This can't be a historical type of attack. Plus the tonnage totals must be too high as well per mission compared to history and its just too dam easy to be fun. Yet I have problems not using them either because why are they there if not to be used.

For one thing they just seem to have too many rounds. I find myself asking why an early U -boot would carry torps at all if guns were this effective. Why not forgo the torps to make more room for HE rounds?

Then in GWX I was at first delighted that you could use guns in seas that were not calm, so I figured they would be less effective because of the roll of the sub in waves. Will for firing it myself it is less effective. But the gun crew is deadly again at 500 meters.

This really makes me want to use a TypeII for the entire war only I can't stand only having 5 torps after awhile.

Is this how effective deck guns were in which case I'll just use as they are but if they are over powered is there a cfg file that can be tweaked to tone down the damage or limit the rounds?

Post is a bit longer than I thought