Greek Merchant Marine in WWII and RuB

[joea]

Ok, sorry the other thread got a bit emotional. I went and dug up some facts.

Let us state the problem, people who use RuB are surprised if they sink Greek merchant ships and are penalised as if they sunk an Axis ship after April 1941, when Greece was invaded and occupied. This in spite of the fact Norwegian and Dutch ships are treated as Allied after those two countries are occupied. Yugoslavia is also treated as Axis like Greece, but in that case, some Yugoslav republics like Croatia were in fact full Axis partners...I don't knwo how much shipping they had in WWII and if it is in the game anyway.

First of all some information about the Greek merchant marine in WWII, the official site of the Hellenic Chamber of Shipping
http://www.nee.gr/htm/history.htm

Please note this

The Chamber convened its first general assembly on March 18, 1937... At that time, the Greek merchant fleet numbered 599 steamers aggregating 1.8 million gt, and 714 sailing ships of 55.5 thousand gt.
... The Greek shipping suffered heavy casualties from the war. As a result of attacks of German submarines to innocent merchant ships, more than 2,000 national seafarers lost their lives and about 2,500 became invalid for life from injuries. The war cost the fleet two thirds of its strength. Thus, when the war ended, the Greek merchant fleet numbered only 154 ships totalling 532,000 gt.

Putting aside the "innocent" quote, as Greek ships in convoys were certainly helping the Allied cause, shows the Greek merchant marine did not seem to benefit from any protection.

Next site...a staff member at the University college of Cork wrote on this pages on history...for WWIII using his main source the Oxford Companion to the Second World War (1995) by R. Clogg

Here:
http://www.ucc.ie/staff/jprodr/maced...elmodww2e.html

MERCHANT MARINE

At the outbreak of war the substantial Greek Merchant Marine consisted of 557 ships, totalling 1,837,315 tons.

Of these 334 were sunk through Axis action, 32 were seized by the Axis powers, and 63 were lost for other reasons. Total tonnage lost amounted to 1,346,502, 71% of the total.

Two thousand seamen lost their lives and a further 2,500 were wounded, losses which had a disproportionate impact on the relatively small number of Aegean islands from which crews were recruited.

A slight disagreement with the first site...557 as opposed to 599, perhaps between 1937 and 1940 some ships were sold, scrapped, lost in storms etc.


U-boat net, a trustworthy site used by both sides in the RuB deck gun debate , lists 118 ships sunk (520.069 tons) and 4 ships damaged (18.569 tons) by u-boats alone. If you look here

http://www.uboat.net/allies/merchants/search.php

and enter "Greek" in the search form without time or place you get the full list. All sunk throught the war, I see a considerable in 42 and 43...and many in convoy. the map shows them all sunk in the N. and S. Atlantic, a few in the Indian, and a handful near Egypt. Of course none near Greece, but other than fishing boats or the odd ferry (not many were running, I did my Masters in the Greek Civil War as catalyst for the Cold War and know about the occupation) there was hardly substiantial Greek maritime traffic in Greek waters. The occupation was so harsh I doubt that ships sunk in the North Atlantic would inflame the situation more than it was.

http://www.ucc.ie/staff/jprodr/maced...elmodww2a.html

From the outset of the occupation Greece was systematically plundered of its economic resources, principally foodstuffs and raw materials, which were shipped off to Germany. The requisitioning of food led to immediate shortages....The economy was shattered: food was in short supply; disease was rife and the distribution of relief was made additionally difficult by the disruption of communications.

Last URL,

http://members.tripod.com/~merchants...entribute.html

It states, as in all the sea histories I've read, that Greek merchant sailors were considered part of the Allied forces.

Other European countries like Poland, Greece and Norway, which came under German occupation, or Asian nations like the Philippines which was overrun by Japan, were also participants.

Therefore, making Greek ships count as Axis in the game doesn't make sense. It would mean BdU disapproved if their commanders sunk Greek ships. The stats above show that is not the case, or that BdU didn't care. Why only Greece and not the Netherlands or Norway?

Really I say again, Norway is counted as allied, they were under occupation, and had local traffic on the coast (fishing boats and passenger ships, all watched I assume) and Greece was in the same situation. If not worse. U-boats did not patrol the fjords nor the Greek islands. Yet you have us virtual commanders get postive renown for sinking Norwegian ships elsewhere, and negative for sinking Greek...given the destruction of most of the Grek merchant marine, someone in Berlin would have been rather behind the ball to let this go on.

If you all recall there was clear warning in mid 1941 to avoid attacking US ships if possible, has anybody in the RuB team Beery or others found specific orders to avoid targeting Greek ships? Does the game have Greek ships as coastal traffic near Greece post mid-1941 and could we change them to another flag?

Thank you for your time and please read and consider the links I posted.

[oRGy]

Strange coinicdence - the university I'm in at the moment is University College Cork!

I guess I could wander over to the History department and ask the lecturer involved if people were that bothered.

[Beery]

The problem is, you have to show that a significant number of Greek ships were sunk AFTER the invasion of Greece and BEFORE the liberation of Greece. I'm more than willing to change it, but I have to be sure about WHEN the Axis sank those ships. I'm sure a great many Greek ships were sunk by U-boats, but the key question is WHEN? If Greek ship sinkings by U-boats carried on at relatively the same rate from late 1941, 1942, 1943 through October 1944 as they did before the occupation, then I'll gladly adjust the file. If, on the other hand, the number of sinkings dropped significantly, that suggests that the Germans were not sinking Greek ships during the occupation, or that not enough Greek ships (to warrant a change) escaped to serve with the Allies. The number of Greek ships serving with the Allies has to exceed the number of Greek ships serving under the occupation. If it doesn't and we change the Greek ships to be Allied during this time, that would be a move away from realism. Currently, all I know is that Greece was occupied at a time when the Meditteranean was basically a German lake. It seems unlikely that a majority of Greek ships could have escaped to join the Allies at this time. I'm sure many ships were sunk while trying during the Spring of 1941, but that's a different matter.

Note that in being conservative about this I am not attacking the Greek merchant marine. I know for certain that the Greeks hated Naziism more than most in Europe. The problem is that this is a matter of numbers, not depth of feeling.

Another question is flags. Did Greek ships under the occupation continue to fly the Greek flag? If so, that argues against Greece being Allied at that time. If not, then that's an argument for change.

Plus, there's the question of the campaign files - if you have Greek (Allied) ships sailing in Greek waters it's not going to be much of a problem for Germans to sink them - you just sail down to Greece and it's open season. I'm not sure what's in the campaign files - it's not my area of expertise - but it's something to be considered.

I'm more than willing to change it, but I have to be sure about WHEN the Axis sank those ships.

How about Greeks navy, which presents in the game it should not be axis ally at all.

[Beery]

Frstly, no one ever said that Greek ships were allied to the Axis. I was very clear on that in the other thread (although the careful words I used were misreported).

Secondly, you have to understand that, although I'm able to change this stuff, I had nothing to do with putting it in. These are Ops mod issues. If you tell me what needs changing, I can usually change it. But I need proof for the merchants. For the Greek Navy I'll need to figure out if there's a separate routine for deciding the status of ships. If not, clearly the Greeks have to be Allied, since the Greek Navy did work with the Allies.

[Beery]

Looking at the files, clearly there's no distinction between Greek merchants and warships. Therefore I've made the necessary changes for RUb 1.44. We cannot have the Greek Navy on the Axis side, even if it means that the merchants may be targeted by U-boats when in reality they may not have been.

[joea]

Beery, Well I see you’ve changed it. I agree with it for the reasons I’ve outlined and will elaborate further, I just want to ask some questions to you.
1) Did you read the information I posted, specifically the uboat.net link? Do you consider them a good resource? I printed out the list of the 118 ships sunk and 4 damaged…by u-boats only and did some manual counting. So of the ships attacked:
1939-6
1940-39
1941-17
1942-38
1943-15
1944-5
If you want them by month, go to the u-boat net site and search it yourself
So from 42 to 44, 58 ships were attacked, about half those attacked by u-boats during the war. You seem to question how many Greek ships got out, if you would have looked at the link the map shows most of those were outside the Med. My understanding is the Greek merchant fleet was one of the largest tramp fleets between the wars…so most of those would be outside the Med anyway and just not return to Greece. The whole flag problem in the game is pertinent, as I found it odd in Rubini’s HT mod to see fishing boats with swastikas in French and Norwegian ports...but then the AI might attack them otherwise I suppose.

You said:

even if it means that the merchants may be targeted by U-boats when in reality they may not have been.

2) Why did you change it in the first place? I like RuB as a whole…whenever you changed something in the stock game it was for a result that was unhistorical. I followed the deck gun discussion at length, as well as the AA guns, and we all agree the stock game lets you have unhistorical results. For AA guns it is true that the effective range was further than 300m, I think, but the stock game also has eagle eyed uboot crew AI, and paper mache planes. So you and the community made some changes to get historical results back, like with the gun. I see you paid close attention to number of rounds fired / total time in several engagements (regardless of the quibbles)…what evidence made you want to change the Greek merchant side. Just curious.

[Beery]

I haven't been able to access Uboat.net recently (possibly because I've been trying to access it in the early morning during its downtime?), so I missed it.

As for why I changed it, as I've said before, I didn't touch it. This was part of the Ops mod (which I don't work on). The first time I heard it had been changed was when this subject first came up (I think) last week. The Ops mod was added to RUb as a package. Some of it is incomplete as Ops is a work in progress, but this is just an example of the wrong info getting in, probably due to a too-literal interpretation of the historical dates.

Although I assemble RUb, it's not really 'my' mod. As I've always noted, most of it is composed of other people's work. I check what I can before plugging a mod in, but many of the mods include files I'm not familiar with and even areas of history I'm not familiar with. This applies especially to the Ops mod and the Improved Convoys mod. RUb is always checked extensively for crash-causing bugs, but usually I rely on the modmakers themselves for historical accuracy when it comes to files and historical details I'm not familiar with. For example, if Improved Convoys mistakenly included 6 carriers with every convoy I wouldn't know about it until I came across it in the game, or until a player told me about it.

In a situation like this I usually assume the individual modmakers get it right until it's shown to be wrong. So sue me.

If something is wrong, and I'm defending it, you will find my initial reaction is to put up a strong defence. If you find the info proving it's wrong I will be persuaded, but I have to see the evidence first. I'm just not the type of guy to be persuaded by someone's depth of belief - and that was what I felt I was seeing in the other thread.

[joea]

No hard feelings then. How can I get in touch with the Ops mod people? They might want this info. I guess I missed who changed it, please accept my apologies. At the least we learned something.

[Beery]

No need to apologize. You knew your info was right, I assumed it was wrong. I'm the one who should apologize for giving you such a hard time. The Ops mod folks are on this forum. A post with the subject 'Ops Mod' should get their attention. I think the guys working on it are Nico71, Egan, CCIP and Observer - and maybe Jasonb885.