Sinking Neutrals in 1940 is ok

[kiwi_2005]

Im reading a book by Edwiin P. Hoyt called The Uboat wars, in it he mentions the following. the Germans entered 1940 with vigorous mine-laying campaign around Britain. Some small U-boats were used in this work, but most of it was done by surface vessels. From the beginning of January the Germans concentrated on neutral shipping. Doenitz does not mention this in his autobiography, but the evidence is overwhelming. Of the fifty-four ships sunk by submarines in January, forty-three were neutrals. The idea was obviously to put pressure on neutral shipping to stay away from Britain.

So in the game we shouldn't get penalised if we sink a neutral as according to this writer Doenitz ordered this to discourage neutrals that helped Britain. :hmm:

[magick]

yep, think you are right about that.

BdU

[U-104]

yep

[elanaiba]

I don't recall when Germany declared the seas around Britain as "war zone", but it happened early in the war. Any ship in those waters could expect to be attacked without any concern for neutrality.

So perhaps thats what you're "seeing"?

Dan

[iambecomelife]

Originally Posted by kiwi_2005

Im reading a book by Edwiin P. Hoyt called The Uboat wars, in it he mentions the following. the Germans entered 1940 with vigorous mine-laying campaign around Britain. Some small U-boats were used in this work, but most of it was done by surface vessels. From the beginning of January the Germans concentrated on neutral shipping. Doenitz does not mention this in his autobiography, but the evidence is overwhelming. Of the fifty-four ships sunk by submarines in January, forty-three were neutrals. The idea was obviously to put pressure on neutral shipping to stay away from Britain.

So in the game we shouldn't get penalised if we sink a neutral as according to this writer Doenitz ordered this to discourage neutrals that helped Britain. :hmm:

Take a look at the values in my basic.cfg:

[RENOWN]
RenownReachGridObjCompleted=50
RenownPatrolGridObjCompleted=50
CompletedPatrol=100
NEUTRAL=0.5
ALLIED=2.0
AXIS=-10
WrongShipSunk=-5000
FirstRankRenown=1000
SecondRankRenown=3500
EndCampaign=-5000

As you can see, I modded it to give positive renown for sinking neutral ships. I still have self-imposed rules like not sinking any American shipping until late 1941. What we really need is a country/date-specific renown system.

[kiwi_2005]

That skin download your advertising how much mbs is it, when i went to dl it, my downloader said its 11mbs so i dl it only for it to come up currupt when i go to unzip it using the 7z? Is it a very large file, cause my dialup seems to go weird if i try to dl anything over 80mbs.

[Woof1701]

Originally Posted by iambecomelife

As you can see, I modded it to give positive renown for sinking neutral ships. I still have self-imposed rules like not sinking any American shipping until late 1941. What we really need is a country/date-specific renown system.

I use changes similar to that as well. For sure attacking lone U.S. ships on the U.S. East Coast before December 1941 wouldn't be right, however, every ship that is protected by escorts are fair game, no matter where they come from!
After all a Norwegian or U.S. freighter in a HX convoy surely didn't join the convoy because it's skipper is feeling lonely, but because they're carrying material for the enemy's war effort. Therefore I will attack any neutral ships in enemy waters as well as any ship within a convoy. Period!

So what we need is not only a date-specific renown system, but one that can distinguish between protected and single merchants.

[Karl-Heinz Jaeger]

Neat topic, which brings up another question I've been wondering about-Why didn't Britain change all her flags to that of a neutral country?? Why didn't any of them?

I suppose after a while, the enemy would catch on to the ruse but at least it would have bought the Brits some time to effect a better convoy system if the Germans were playing hide and sink with neutrals.

Any thoughts/comments/educated guesses??!!

:|\ :|\

Because, even though they broke them on a fairly regular basis, they had rules they played by. If Britain flies various neutral flags, the Germans start sinking all neutrals and the Brits take the blame for messing with what's accepted. "It's just not cricket, old boy".

[iambecomelife]

Originally Posted by kiwi_2005

That skin download your advertising how much mbs is it, when i went to dl it, my downloader said its 11mbs so i dl it only for it to come up currupt when i go to unzip it using the 7z? Is it a very large file, cause my dialup seems to go weird if i try to dl anything over 80mbs.

It's about 11mb compressed, but much larger once it's unzipped. Try it again and let me know if it still ends up corrupted.

[kiwi_2005]

It dl 2nd time round perfectly. Brilliant. Thanks

[CptGrayWolf]

Beware of anything Ed P. Hoyt has to say. He is notoriously known for making factual mistakes.
I once bought a used Hoyt book, and whoever had it before corrected all of Hoyt's mistakes. I'm not kidding when I say that almost every page had a correction.

[Woof1701]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Because, even though they broke them on a fairly regular basis, they had rules they played by. If Britain flies various neutral flags, the Germans start sinking all neutrals and the Brits take the blame for messing with what's accepted. "It's just not cricket, old boy".

Right!

In addition at the beginning of the war supposedly neutral single ships were stopped by the uboats (as opposed to merchants in convoys who were always attacked no matter what nationality), and the ID was verified. If the ship was indeed neutral it was allowed to leave unharmed. So called "Prisenordnung". Later in the war this was no longer done, because it proved to be too dangerous since the Brits deployed heavy weaponry on small merchants running under neutral flags (under false pretense of course) but kept the guns hidden or disguised, so that any uboat that tried to stop them was immediatly attacked by several guns. Those were called the "U-Boot Fallen (uboat traps) Although I don't know if any uboat had ever been sunk by such a uboat trap, I'm fairly sure this led to abandoning the "Prisenordnung".

[kiwi_2005]

Beware of anything Ed P. Hoyt has to say. He is notoriously known for making factual mistakes.
I once bought a used Hoyt book, and whoever had it before corrected all of Hoyt's mistakes. I'm not kidding when I say that almost every page had a correction.

Yeah im begining to judge his writing as well i read this from his Uboat wars book: Quote: From a submariner's point of view it was better to sink a destroyer than a battleship, even better to sink a freighter. That was what the battleship men found hard to understand.

???... Surely a battleship going pass with a destroyer escort the uboat captain would take out the battleship and worry about the destroyer later. I know merchants was the main targets to uboats, but they would never let a Battleship go by.

Another is i found his chapter on the sinking of the Royal Oak by Prien way different compared to a lot of other versions ive read on the sinking. Ive read many uboat books and this one is a first where im begining to have doubts on the author

[Kpt. Lehmann]

Maybe the renown value for sinking neutral ships should be set at zero.