Officers -> Radioman

Originally Posted by Tessa

Early in the war I use the deckgun whenever possible. Rather expend shells than torpedos to sink the small fry (and sometimes even the medium sized ships). What the qualification does do is help with the reload times. If the officer has the qualification or a PO manning the deck gun it will increase the efficiency bar, eventually when it maxes out the reload times can become very fast.

Agreed. The deckgun is excellent for small-medium targets until they're defended with guns. Heck, even then all you have to do is calculate the range, and fire from 3-4k out until you take out their deck gun. (Assuming just one on the back.) The faster reload time is worth it, as it only takes one petty officer to improve it greatly, and he can do labour the rest of the time.

[K-61]

I should clarify my post. I actually do use the deck gun on small fry, but try to play more historically by using it on bigger targets after I have hit them with at least one torpedo. However, I did encounter two unescorted merchantmen during my trip back to Willy after having expended all of my torpedoes. I still had about 65 deck gun rounds [88 mm] and proceeded to fire at the water line of the smaller target first, then the larger target, my rationale being that if I attacked the big target first, I may run out of ammo and both would get away. In any event, both sank. It was too good an opportunity to pass by, even though I would have preferred to have made a torpedo attack first. You have to make the most of any opportunities you encounter.

On small stuff I go for the deck gun; sometimes I employ only the flak gun if the target is small enough. If the target is armed, I do not risk it. One lucky hit can leave me unable to dive and no target is valuable enough for me to risk that!