[REL] Trigger Maru 1.7.6 (Updated 24Jan08)

[Kapteeni Rantala]

In naval terms, a 3.5 inch gun, is a pea shooter!

True, then again, merchant vessels are unarmored - which is why there was no need to mount specially large guns on submarines.

The deck gun is not the boats primary armament, its torpedoes are. If you're using TM and NSM the deck gun is relagated to being a secondary weapon as in RL.

Mate, I know what the deck gun is for, and belive me, I do not regard it as the submarine's main weapon - I regard it as a weapon that can and SHOULD be used when wasting a torpedo (on unescorted merchant vessel - as long as it is not massive) seems like a waste of munitions.

You could shoot all of the superstructure off the ship and it would still not sink. The only way it would sink is if you flooded it and 3-4 inch shell holes are pretty small so it would take a long while to sink days possibly.

I have to disagree partly. Flooding would not be only trouble of merchant ship under deck gun's shelling. The shells would sooner or later create fires inside the ship, and belive me, fires around a merchantmen (especially tanker) can have very nasty results (I remember how you could sink merchant ships in Silent Hunter III with relatively few shells, simulating what happens when shells hit on right place and set something on fire that should not be set on fire - thank you GWX)

Can't Silent Hunter 4 simulate the use of deck gun in the same way as Silent Hunter III (Having played heavily modded Silent Hunter III - the almighty GWX, I must say that the effect of the deck guns seems to be more realistic in it, and flooding is simulated too)?

US deck guns were not used to any great effect sinking ships over 1000 tons. There was ONE confirmed sinking of a ship over 2000 tons during the entire war with a deck gun.

Conserning that German 88mm and 105mm deck guns were used with good effect by U-boat skippers to sink a large number of merchant ships which displaced more than 2000 tons (even on American waters) that seems odd.

This is not a pea shooter, people - literally. There certainly were guns of far greater caliber in naval use, but against unarmored merchantmen even 3.5-4.5 inch guns are effective.