Neutral Shipping

[RamsHeadFC]

Are there any disadvantages to sinking neutral ships? I've always given them a free pass, not knowing if sinking them would have bad consequences, such as drawing other nations into the war against the Reich, or a chewing out when I returned to port.

[Admiral Halsey]

Originally Posted by RamsHeadFC

Are there any disadvantages to sinking neutral ships? I've always given them a free pass, not knowing if sinking them would have bad consequences, such as drawing other nations into the war against the Reich, or a chewing out when I returned to port.

Sinking them causes you to lose renown if I remember right.

[BossMark]

Originally Posted by Admiral Halsey

Sinking them causes you to lose renown if I remember right.

Yes you lose renown which is needed to buy upgrades.

[Aras]

If you sink a neutral ship, you will lose renown. If you sink multiple neutral ships, there is a possibility that Kriegsmarine may hunt you down when you return to the port

Except that you cannot change the history of war. Sinking neutral ships won't cause some nations to declare war or sinking all the British or US tankers won't cause Great Britain to starve crude oil and lose the war.

If you are running GWX (I'm not sure if this option is also available for the stock game), you can press F1 and check which nations are at war with Germany from "Enemies of Germany"

[Jimbuna]

Sinking a neutral ships means the country of origin will consider you an enemy for the following 24 hours of game time.

[Aviv]

One problem I've been facing is how to identify the neutral ships. When they're lit up it's fine but they're not always. I'm worried about sinking one and losing renown. Is there something I can look for to have an idea about the nationality of a boat from a distance? Certain ships or areas that are mostly neutral? A way I've been "cheating" is to see if the CE is "exited" once the ship is spotted or if he just stands there normally. Which I find a bit dishonest. What do you guys do?

[RBCharger]

Personally, I go to external camera and fly through the air like superman to get a closer look at the flag. Any suggestions on a way that is more realistic would be helpful.

[BigWalleye]

Originally Posted by RBCharger

Personally, I go to external camera and fly through the air like superman to get a closer look at the flag. Any suggestions on a way that is more realistic would be helpful.

Use direct visual observation, aided by binoculars, periscope, or UZO. Take your boat as close to the target as necessary to make an unambiguous determination of what flag she is flying. If in doubt, do not attack. That is the realistic way to play. It is what the actual U-boat crews did.

If this realism bores or frustrates you, find the file Data/Cfg/Basic.cfg. Open it in Notepad, go to the section headed [RENOWN], and change the line NEUTRAL=-1 to NEUTRAL=0. Then you can sink anything but Axis ships with no penalty. Set NEUTRAL=1, and you'll even get credit for them.

It all depends on what you enjoy.

[maillemaker]

The other thing is that location matters, especially the farther into the war you go. If you are close to the coast of England odds are good that it's not a friendly ship. If you have a low-visibility situation but you are in Scapa Flow it's a pretty good bet that it is safe to shoot.

Steve

[desertstriker]

I play with JFO so anything in a certain areas is meeting a few criteria is assumed "hostile" but sunk with torpedos to "preserve the illusion" of a mine being struck. I also edited the basic.CFG so that the sinking of a nuetral does not penalize me.

[Raptor]

Sink 'em all!

Let God sort them out.

Caveat: Do not sink Axis vessels. Onkle Karl gets very mad if you do that. You could find yourself commanding a garbage scow at one of the Kriegsmarine's really nasty duty stations a long way from The Fatherland.

[GJO]

In real life neutral ships were frequently attacked and sunk by mistake - it is one of the risks of war

[BigWalleye]

Originally Posted by GJO

In real life neutral ships were frequently attacked and sunk by mistake - it is one of the risks of war

I agree, but "frequently" is kind of an open-ended term. Does anybody know of data on how often this actually occurred?

[GJO]

Originally Posted by BigWalleye

I agree, but "frequently" is kind of an open-ended term. Does anybody know of data on how often this actually occurred?

A typical scenario copied from U-Boat.net:

At 20.10 hours on 20 Jun, 1941, the unescorted and neutral Ganda was hit near the engine room by one of two torpedoes from U-123 off Casablanca. After the crew abandoned ship, she was hit by a coup de grâce at 20.19 hours. When the ship settled but did not sink, the U-boat surfaced and sank her by gunfire. As the Germans approached the lifeboats for questioning they noticed their mistake of sinking a neutral ship and left. After the patrol the war diary was altered upon order of the BdU.

Here are some statistics that I have compiled of neutral shipping sunk by German submarines during WWII:

Ireland: 6 ships sunk (14,403 tons).
Portugal: 6 ships sunk (12,495 tons) and 1 ship damaged (1,595 tons).
Spain: 8 ships sunk (14,570 tons) and 1 ship damaged (2,008 tons).
Sweden: 88 ships sunk (273,984 tons) and 1 ship damaged (1,999 tons).

What I haven't included above is ships sunk from neutral countries that were subsequently occupied (like Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Norway etc.) or subsequently joined the allies (Brazil, Mexico, USA etc.) but these countries also suffered losses whist neutral and, for example, Denmark lost 28 ships (63,892 tons) sunk by German submarines in 1939 and early 1940 prior to the occupation.

I would suggest that the numbers justify the term 'frequently' . . .

[Paulebaer1979]

Originally Posted by GJO

In real life neutral ships were frequently attacked and sunk by mistake - it is one of the risks of war

Yes. That´s one of the reason why i changed my basic.cfg. The main reason is that i attack every neutral ship in an enemy convoy. If a neutral ship is inside a britsh or american convoy it isn´t neutral and gets a torpedo.