Merchant ships - how do you see flags at night?

[GoldenRivet]

Originally Posted by G.K.

Yes, but not so often. Either way you can simply recognize enemy from a neutral or ally by appaering ,,merchant spotted!" window with options - it appears only when the ship is enemy...

i have this window disabled

100% realism immersion = i have to look at the flag

[Red Heat]

Originally Posted by notanameleft

Hi everyone! I'm just getting back into this game having not played it for some time - incredible work you guys have done on GWX and the OLCE ubermod.

As GWX doesn't show on the map if a merchant is allied or enemy - could anyone tell me if i'm doing something wrong, I'm having difficulty when lining up an attack at night. I have to get pretty close to be able to see the flag at all but in particular I'm finding it difficult to tel the difference between Irish, French and Italian. In the daylight it would be easy but in the dark the colours don't show up - I torp'd an Irish merchant by mistake thinking it was french. As it was going down i surfaced right by its stern and still couldn't properly make out which flag it's mean to be. Almost feel like my watch crew could do with a torch - although i suppose that's not very stealth like!:rotfl:

Is this just one of those situations where the game is just being realistic? Or is there something I'm missing?

Thanks in advance for any feedback!!

We dont...we sniff the air serching for fresh blood, works all the time! :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

[Drakken]

Originally Posted by notanameleft

As GWX doesn't show on the map if a merchant is allied or enemy - could anyone tell me if i'm doing something wrong, I'm having difficulty when lining up an attack at night. I have to get pretty close to be able to see the flag at all but in particular I'm finding it difficult to tel the difference between Irish, French and Italian. In the daylight it would be easy but in the dark the colours don't show up - I torp'd an Irish merchant by mistake thinking it was french. As it was going down i surfaced right by its stern and still couldn't properly make out which flag it's mean to be. Almost feel like my watch crew could do with a torch - although i suppose that's not very stealth like!:rotfl:

Is this just one of those situations where the game is just being realistic? Or is there something I'm missing?

Thanks in advance for any feedback!!

It is realistic. And not all merchants had their true country flags. Use of false flags and lights in the night to hide the fact that the ship was an enemy merchantman was a real possibility. Unless you had updated ship registries inside your submarine to check the ship's identity, property and country of registration, you could never be sure if the ship was really neutral. But of course, in the game the ships always display their real country flags.

In the Buchheim's novel Das Boot, such a near-miss happened. On their way back to the Bay of Biscaye they stop a ship which seem a Spanish neutral. However the 1WO cannot find the ship in the Uboot's registry book, so Der Alte instructs the target to put a canoe on the water, or they will sink the ship. They do not act fast enough to his liking, so the sub shoots a torpedo to sink it. Fortunately, the eel is a dud, and the Spanish captain finally puts a canoe at sea to join the submarine.

In the end the Navigator finds the ship in the updates annexed to the registry, confirming that it was an old American ship that was bought by Spaniards fishermen, and thus really a neutral ship. Useless to say, the 1WO got severely reprimanded for his oversight. Just imagine the consequence if a German ship had sunk a Spanish vessel in Spanish waters.

However, it all depends on position. You always want to be abeam of your target.

a) Take marks and compute the target's course and speed as far as possible. Make sure the course line is dead center on the middle of the target ship's bow and stern. When you have the target's course, turn on the same course yourself a faster speed to place yourself abeam of the target. Take the time it takes to reach a position in front of the target to enter the target's speed in the TDC.

b) When in position, veer to place yourself in front of the target's course at a 90 degrees angle from the target's course, then go in periscope depth. Try to get within a very close range from the course line (800 to 1200m) and wait for the target to get closer following her course.

I usually use the compass to delimitate a "kill zone" with the center of the compass directly on the course line at a bearing I'd like to fire at. This zone is generally 1000m wide, and when the ship enters that zone it means I can fire at will if I ever identify it.

c) Compute the fire solution in case of positive identification, either at a point in advance or directly on target. You already have the speed and range (hopefully), and since the course is drawn you can calculate the AoB on the navigation map. You may even predict what the AoB the ship will be at a given point at if it continues on its predicted course. That is a killer if your data solution is made to fire at a preselected bearing.

d) Go to periscope to check from time to time if you may see the flag. Each time that you cannot see the flag, update the fire solution to be ready to fire anytime. Usually, you'll be able to see when the AoB becomes closer to 90 degrees, because the target should be getting closer from you.

e1) If you see it is a neutral, pull down the periscope and let is pass.
e2) If it is enemy, update the data one last time and shoot away.
e3) If you cannot see, take a decision. Either shoot anyway, or evade the target.

[notanameleft]

hey everyone, thanks for the response - i'm pleased to hear it's not just me and the general concensus is this is realistic, those uboat commanders would have been in the same situation

I didn't realise you can leg it out of the area before the ship goes down if you've got a bit trigger happy. I was delighted with myself a couple of weeks ago when i hit two big merchants and then realised they were Irish! Felt a bit monty-python-like, "sorry about that" etc

It took them a while to go down - if this were to happen again (!) and there's a chance of getting away before they sink... does anyone know how far away you have to get to save your renown?

[meduza]

Originally Posted by notanameleft

does anyone know how far away you have to get to save your renown?

32 km. That's the rendering radius, and the game doesn't keep track of the ship's damage once she goes beyond that. If you come back to the ship, you'll find it undamaged.

[Captain Nemo]

Originally Posted by meduza

You will lose some renown (the amount is equal to the amount you would get for sinking the same ship if it was enemy), and the nation whose ship you sank will be hostile to you for 24 hours.

Is this correct regarding the hostilities from the neutral nation you sunk for 24 hours? The reason I ask is because in my haste to sink a Passenger Cargo in June 1940 I didn't notice it was flying the US flag . In my defence, it was pitch black and she was blacked out and sailing towards the English coast. Anyway, since the sinking, on two separate occassions I have seen an Irish Hurricane and me thinking it was a neutral and I was quite safe was astonished to see it dive on me and open fire! Luckily I escaped both attacks without any serious problems, but if what meduza says is correct, I would expect it from a US aircraft/ship but not from the Irish (and I thought they were sympathetic towards the Germans during WWII ).

Nemo

[={FH}=Paddy]

Ahoy!
After a prolonged stint on terra firma (1 year) and having recently read "Iron Coffins" i have decided to take to the seas in my old “Wave Scythe”! From the sounds of it and from reading as many of these posts as i can, GWX is going to be a wonderful and exciting new challenge. Cracking job guys.
I plan on setting off to the murky depths tonight on a first mission and shall try and experience this issue with identifying ships at night and pray that I don’t send some poor unsuspecting Irish rust bucket to the bottom of the soup bowl in error! (Being Irish myself, that would not be a good thing nor start!) Thanks for all the great tips and hints here. Cheers, I’ll most certainly be back for more!!!
PS: "notanameleft", thanks for asking this question, even if you are sinking Irish ships!!!

[kylania]

Welcome to SubSim and SHIII Paddy!

[Red Heat]

Welcome to the wolfpack...

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Drakken

It is realistic. And not all merchants had their true country flags. Use of false flags and lights in the night to hide the fact that the ship was an enemy merchantman was a real possibility. Unless you had updated ship registries inside your submarine to check the ship's identity, property and country of registration, you could never be sure if the ship was really neutral. But of course, in the game the ships always display their real country flags.

Which is why they stopped neutral ships and examined cargoes and papers.

Just imagine the consequence if a German ship had sunk a Spanish vessel in Spanish waters.

Apparently not much of a consequense at all.
http://uboat.net/allies/merchants/1151.html
http://uboat.net/allies/merchants/1223.html
http://uboat.net/allies/merchants/266.html
http://uboat.net/allies/merchants/2854.html

[Kuckoo]

Quote:
Originally posted by Drakken:
Just imagine the consequence if a German ship had sunk a Spanish vessel in Spanish waters.

Steve,
I have previously seen the same information, and you have beaten me to it. It seems to me that, with the exception of American ships (of which there are only a few examples of sinkings), the BdU treated almost all neutral ships are fair game in almost any circumstances - and it appears they got away with it! Why they attacked so many neutral ships (Spanish, Swedish, Danish and especially Norwegian, plus many others) and how they got away with it, are things that genuinely puzzle me. I have tried to find explanations, but cannot find anything which deals with this issue.

Since sinking neutrals was evidently acceptable to BdU, I have amended the relevant .cfg file, as suggested in another thread. I then play to my own "house rules" to stop me doing anything crass.

[Drakken]

Originally Posted by Kuckoo

Steve,
I have previously seen the same information, and you have beaten me to it. It seems to me that, with the exception of American ships (of which there are only a few examples of sinkings), the BdU treated almost all neutral ships are fair game in almost any circumstances - and it appears they got away with it! Why they attacked so many neutral ships (Spanish, Swedish, Danish and especially Norwegian, plus many others) and how they got away with it, are things that genuinely puzzle me. I have tried to find explanations, but cannot find anything which deals with this issue.

Since sinking neutrals was evidently acceptable to BdU, I have amended the relevant .cfg file, as suggested in another thread. I then play to my own "house rules" to stop me doing anything crass.

Weren't the majority of neutral ships sunk while in convoy? If it is the case, there was no way to know if the ship was neutral or not.

[Jimbuna]

Welcome aboard Kaleun ={FH}=Paddy

[Kuckoo]

Quote:

Quote:
Originally posted by Drakken:
Just imagine the consequence if a German ship had sunk a Spanish vessel in Spanish waters.

Quote:

That might have been the case in later years - I really don't know. But a study of the Norwegian experience in the early months of the war shows something quite different. With reference to uboat.net, I identified thirty-five Norwegian merchants sunk by u-boats in the seven months before the German invasion of 9 April 1940: this, by the way, is more than one per week - clearly not all accidental. NONE of these ships are identified as having been "in convoy". Some were in the Western Approaches, but most were in the North Sea - some closer to Norway than to Britain. Some appear to have been stopped first, both most were attacked without warning, some going down with all hands. On 25 January 1940, the Norwegian steam merchant "Biarritz" was torpedoed by U14 only 36 miles of the coast of neurtral Holland: 21 survived, but 37 were killed.

It's all very strange. If you follow up the links provided by Sailor Steve, you will see that on 18 February 1940, a Spanish ship called the "Banderas" was torpedoed and sunk by U53 only eight miles off the north-west coast of Spain, killing twenty-two. Why??!!! Common sense tells us that, while Germany might not have had much reason to actively fear Franco's Spain, there was a potentially major benefit in persuading it to join the war on the Axis side. Sinking its ships and killing its sailors within sight of its own coast is not the best way to win friends and influence people, methinks. How Spain reated, I do not know.

Kuckoo

[Greystone]

I had been tracking a trawler the other night; it was too dark to make out the flag markings, but I noticed that the stealth meter was still green after I'd approached close enough for them to see me.. and it stayed green all the way up to where I was right alongside it.
Turns out it was Norwegian (1939). It appears that the stealth meter (noise meter) will stay green if the vessel in question is allied to Germany or neutral.
If you've disabled the stealth meter in the realism settings, you can still make out the nationality by turning up the brightness setting on your monitor, if it's available, which is what I did in the above example.