Justified Sinking?

[Kaptlt.Endrass]

So, hello fellow captains! Long time since I've posted here, but it's kind of nice to be back.

Down to business, however...

It's June 1941, and I'm out patrolling the mid-Atlantic, around Grid BE46. It's been a fairly unsuccessful patrol, with only a single large freighter to our name. There's been several ships that we've seen, mostly neutral, others not worth catching up to to engage.

Finally, the 23rd of the month, one of the men spots a merchant ship headed towards us. Closer inspection reveals it to be an American tanker, and I almost give up on it.

However, continued observation makes me suspicious, and I run some measurements to see that the tanker is moving at a speedy 17 knots; much more than any other neutral ship we've encountered so far. Believing the ship to be making an attempt to run the blockade around England, we set up to engage with the deck gun, sinking her with somewhere in the range of 25 shots.

Now, I know that the Americans were still neutral at the time, and typically try to avoid hitting their ships until they enter the war (which makes convoy attacks a pain). But would you say that there was enough justification to sink the tanker, given the circumstances?

[CaptBones]

Legally, not justifiable. Even though sailing at an unusually high speed, she was not in the declared blockade zone, she wasn't zig-zagging (was she?), wasn't armed and didn't resist, wasn't travelling in convoy or under escort and wasn't darkened at night. Still very much a "neutral" merchant vessel, despite Lend-Lease, the US "security zone" extended out to 22 deg W and USN escorting convoys as far east as Iceland.

At that time, the U-Boats were forbidden to attack American vessels and they were instructed to avoid any incidents with the United States. Your success was 3 days after the U-203 unsuccessfully attacked the USS TEXAS (BB-35), mistaken for a RN dreadnaught, which resulted in a further order to the U-Boat force to "positively identify" any vessel as hostile before making an attack...practically impossible to do without being detected.

But then, it's a game and when boredom sets in, just "sink 'em all!"

[Aktungbby]

Kindly remove the pertinent log page from your logbook for the time being" (to B restored after hostilities begin in formal earnest) Fear Nothing Kaleun: the tonnage will B put toward your coveted 'itchy neck syndrôme' RitterKreuz. I have interceded on your aß's overeager behalf with the Führer; and he admits he was an eager young corporal once himself...and expects more but in a 'timely' fashion.' - Döenitz

[Sailor Steve]

One of the problems is that the game doesn't work the same way as real life. In the actual war the appropriate move would be to stop the suspected ship and check her papers. Being a tanker it's impossible to judge whether the oil on board is "war material", and if it proved to indeed be American and not cheating with a false flag then it would likely be allowed to proceed.

The game, on the other hand, only distinguishes between Enemy, Friendly and Neutral. Sinking a neutral ship will result in a loss of renown equal to what the ship is worth if it were an enemy, and there is nothing that can change that. We can justify our actions to ourselves all we want, but the game will still add or remove renown depending on that criterion alone.

It's something we're stuck with.

[fumo30]

^Luckily we can also easily tweak the basic cfg. file when needed.

[Kaptlt.Endrass]

Originally Posted by CaptBones

she was not in the declared blockade zone, she wasn't zig-zagging (was she?),

I believe she may have been at the time, which may have been what aroused my further suspicions.

Going off of what Steve said, it would be nice if there weren't any limitations in the game, but...well, there's only so much a developer can do.

Thank you for your opinions, mates! I'll try to apply this information in later patrols!