Prize rules
 

Does anyone knows any mod, or how to simulate this ingame? I mean the stopping and boarding of neutral ships to check cargo and decide if they are eligible for sinking. Thanks in advance!

Prize Rules are included with Rudewarriors great mod "Just Following Orders".

You can get it here :

https://www.mediafire.com/file/wjz03...d_v2.1.7z/file

Good hunting,
FUBAR295

FUBAR295 listed my mod, which, AFAIK, is the only one that simulates it. However, I would like to point out that it does so poorly, as there is no mechanism in game to "stop and board.":nope:

Basically, there was a procedure for stopping and boarding in the U-Boat Commander's Handbook. Although the book was produced in late 1942, the "stop and board" procedure was in effect from the early days of the war. In summary, it said that you should inspect the ship via periscope. Then wait until the ship passes and gets to a range greater than 4km. Then surface and approach the ship at high speed.

IRL, the surface ship captain would have to make a decision, submit to being searched for contraband or try to outrun the surfaced sub. If they submit, then the uboat boards and looks for contraband, e.g. cargo that is destined for an enemy port. If none is found, the ship is allowed to continue on its way. If contraband is found, the ship was allowed to be taken in prize if a prize crew could be formed. If not, then it could be sunk. Very quickly, sinking the ship became the norm, as reducing your uboat crew would hamper operational readiness. Then the prize rules were abrogated as the war went on.

As a side note, if it started shooting at the sub at all, it was, of course, eligible to be sunk.

However, in SH3, once you surface and charge the ship, if it is enemy, it inevitably tries to run by slowing down :o and weaving.

So I do the inspection, let it get out to 4km, surface, and charge the ship. If it doesn't weave, I pull up close to it and eventually continue on my way. If it weaves, I sink it, requiring myself to hit it with one torpedo if its tonnage is greater than 3kt before I use my deck gun. This is a "realism" decision based on my research for the mod.

Outside of that, I don't know if anything else simulates it.

Rudewarrior, by 1942 were u-boat crews even bothering with boarding attempts ?
I was under the impression that stopping/boarding was strictly a very early war only scenario due to various reasons.

If someone is interested in adding something like this, he should ask iambecomelife. He is implementing something similar for his [WIP] SH4 mod Wolves of the Kaiser.

Check his answer to question number 2 in this post:

https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/sho...postcount=2003

I do not know if there are any documented attempts; however, here are the conditions under which it would happen in late 1942:

1. The surface ship would have to be outside the blockade zone, which essentially encompassed the British Isles and Iceland.
2. It could not be a British merchant ship (exception: if it was an unarmed/unescorted passenger ship it could not engaged at will).
3. It could not be an armed French/Norwegian/Dutch/Belgian ship.
4. It could not be darkened.

This was the directive, as of 16 May 1941. Part of the Prize Rules said that you could engage any armed merchant as well.

I would assume any American merchant ship would be eligible for attack once war had been declared as well. No source to officially declare this change of stance, but seems reasonable given the political situation by that point. By late '42 the vast majority of American ships carried some sort of armament. Most merchants were armed as well.

So you can see the conditions for that happening would be pretty rare. However, I got the impression that convoys would form at certain staging areas, then go to Britain or points in the Med. Prior to that ships would be coming in small escorted convoys, like the 3 merchant + 1 escort convoys you would see in the game. Then at lower security you would see an armed merchant paired with an unarmed merchant. Then you might see the single ship who went with "the big ocean theory" hoping to not get spotted. I suspect you might see things like this off the coast of southern Africa as they were coming up to assemble at Freetown.

Removing the deck gun ramped up toward that time as well, with it really becoming a serious thing in the beginning of '43.

Also, german uboat doctrine seemed to be forced into operating further out to try and get these ships. The closer the ships got to England, the bigger and more heavily protected (including air cover) the convoys got. So command seemed to think that uboats had to get out further than that to be truly effective, especially with the Type IXs.

So, as you can see, the conditions exist, but they would be pretty rare. However, I do think a uboat Kaleun would prefer to use the deck gun in order to spare torpedoes, but, by that time, I figure they would be pretty cautious (or dead).

FWIW, I use Rudewarrior's simulated stopping the same way he pointed out and make the determination to sink or not according to the target's behavior.

This mod is a must for immersion IMHO.

Thanks for the great info. rudewarrior ! Yes, I was thinking more in terms of u-boat safety; as you know I'm sure, one of the main reasons they quit stopping, etc. ships was because of the ships firing on them, signaling their location, etc., all of which the ships started doing fairly early on.
I'm surprised it's even mentioned in the handbook, at that stage of the war.

Maybe like most handbooks, there was the book way and there was the real life way. :)

Just to give complete info:

My understanding is that the book was compiled by successful uboat commanders. Well, if you look at the timing, it was much easier to be successful before 1943. I suspect all of the commanders involved had now finished their combat careers, so they had been out of action for a period of time. Once you finished going to sea and got promoted, you generally started working administratively, which includes training. I suspect they collectively decided it would be a beneficial training aid. So all of the info in the book would apply had the war continued on as it was. However, as we all know now, things shifted dramatically in the beginning of 1943. The tactics become useless pretty quickly after that.

I will say that, for any SH3 aficionado, the book is worth reading. It is pretty short, could probably read it in 1/2 hour or so. Gives good insight into what they were thinking at the time. Kind of informs your gameplay as well if you are looking for immersion.

Yes, I got a copy of it many years ago. :up:

Yes, I've just read that today : https://www.uboat.net/allies/merchants/ship/1910.html

But probably not a general case...

This is from U-96's KTB 7. Unternahmung on stopping a Spanish Steamer from U-boat Archieve web site. It appears some U-boat Captains preferred to have the ships papers brought over to them than to risk sending personnel over to look at them and examine the merchantman.

This is also part of the book Das Boot.




3.12.41
On course 0°T. 04.00 CG 5761 NEbyN 2, Sea 2, 3/10, Vis. good, Swell 2 05.38 Steamer in sight bearing 240°. Closed, [steamer is] steering SE-course. Passenger superstructure. Spanish markings. Brightly lit. Size and course made him appear suspicious. Used searchlight in order to request him to stop. Gives name "CABO DE HORNOS". Requested to send papers in English and Spanish language. Steamer acknowledges. It remains stopped, nothing happens. 06.52 Radio message to B.d.U. transmitted: Is not received by administration and is acknowledged only at 08.12 hours. "Large passenger steamer "CABO DE HORNOS" Spanish markings, steering SE, question reported status. CG 5467." After approximately one hour nothing happened, with renewed demand he answered with international signal groups "forziere pp". Morsed in Spanish that if the boat is not launched within 10-minutes, torpedoing will take place. 05.43 - 08.00 Various courses. 07.37 After 15-minute stern shot fired on stopped ship. It fails, likely an effect of the bombs. Before the second shot boat is in the water. Papers aboard at 08.00 hours. Are correct. On the way from Buenos Aires http://www.uboatarchive.net/U-505TableMargin.gif http://www.uboatarchive.net/U-505TableMargin.gif http://www.uboatarchive.net/U-505TableMargin.gif http://www.uboatarchive.net/U-505TableMargin.gif http://www.uboatarchive.net/U-505TableMargin.gif http://www.uboatarchive.net/U-505TableMargin.gif http://www.uboatarchive.net/FlagGermany.jpg Sun and Moon Data 02.12.41 Sun and Moon Data 03.12.41 03.12.41 to Bilbao by way of Lisbon. 08.00 CG 5731 W NE 2, Sea 2, 7/10, Vis. good, Swell 1 09.05 Radio message transmitted: "Papers examined. Enroute Bilbao." 09.26 Radio message from B.d.U.: Let pass. 08.30 hours Continued on course 0°T.

Thanks ! I wonder if that u-boat captain would have done that with a (potenially more dangerous) ship in the North Atlantic.

Well, if the ship is armed, she's not neutral... :arrgh!:

:up: Right, but most of the time they couldn't tell.

I knew about the U-96 incident from reading Das Boot. Didn't know about the Nicholas Cuneo. Always good to read about those individual stories.

The Germans were pretty much looking for any excuse to get to unrestricted warfare. However, the political situation created fluidity and openings.

I looked back through some of my notes and research. As far as Prize Rules abrogation goes, originally, ships eligible to be attacked without warning were escorted ships, those that refuse inspection, and troop/military transports. Of course, naval ships were always eligible for attack.

In the first hours of the war there was some confusion. War was declared and the uboats didn't know for 1-1/2 hours, since it wasn't communicated to them. Then there was an assumption that the war/political situation was reversible, and there was a question of whether they had to wait to be engaged before they could act.

Although prize crews are great because you get a free ship and some contraband, it would cause uboats to become operationally ineffective all the time as you had to offboard crew over operational time. In addition, during the stoppage, uboats were vulnerable on the surface.

From here, they started stripping parts away. Ships that fired on the uboat could be sunk (no brainer). This was a result of regular merchants who had small caliber defenses firing on the uboat and Q-ships. Ships that notified enemy of the uboat presence could be sunk, because enemy were showing up during the inspection boarding process. This also included small private vessels tooling around the British coast.

Somewhere in there they decided any ship that endangered a uboat, e.g. ramming, was eligible.

Any issue that created an issue with uboat safety created an opening to abrogate.

About 3 days before they declared a blockade around Britain, they announced they were abandoning the Prize Rules in the North Sea. Then they declared the blockade around Britain saying anything darkened was eligible for attack. In the middle of Oct 1939, they stopped boarding the ships and just examined the papers. Turns out there is no provision for armed merchants in the Prize rules and they declared them eligible around this time as well.

The lettered zones were a bit curious. Basically, they were trying to make the enemy believe that mines were sinking the ships. This is speculation, but I think the idea was make it a plausible idea that mine deployment was resulting in merchant ships being sunk. I think they were trying to achieve a few different things with this. One was immediate tactics and making the British think that it was a mine at that particular instant vs. a uboat, so the uboats would have some cover/distraction in shallow waters. I think they were also trying to create a political situation that had a couple of pieces to it. I think they were trying to embarrass the British by pointing to their mines as being unsafe for themselves, but also any merchants that would be coming in the area. This would supposedly help deter individual merchants from coming to this war zone, thus helping to strangle supply. Also, it would theoretically start deterring the British from using mines for the same reason. They used this system for the first 8 months of 1940 then replaced it with a blanket blockade. Once the French coast opened up, tactics shifted from the North Sea to the North Atlantic, specifically west of the British Isles. The blockade eventually extended west to encompass Iceland and the coast of Greenland. This was because there was a strategic advantage to attacking convoys in the Atlantic vs. operating in shallow waters around Britain with mines floating in the water and aircraft buzzing around.

At this point, it didn't change very much until the end of the war. They were taking over more countries and the conditions I previously posted were pretty much the norm.

The whole concept of stopping ships for inspection pretty much came to an end with the Laconia incident in September '42. Basically, uboats that were clearly assisting in a rescue operation were attacked by B-24 Liberators. By this point, it was pretty hard to justify not firing on a ship that looked suspicious, and the conditions that justified surfacing and inspecting the ships records were pretty restrictive.

Then they just started losing, and were pretty much fighting from a defensive crouch the remainder of the war.

The only caveat to this is how passenger ships were treated. They were in a separate category depending on whether they were armed, in a convoy, or a certain size. This was due to the sinking of the SS Athenia.

A lot of info, and I haven't bored you too much with this post.

Amazing isn't it; "It's Tuesday, what are rules today Captain ?" "I'm not sure, but let me consult the book (heavy thud sound)" Need a crewmember just to keep track of all that.

John,

Aren't you glad I turned you on to this mod! :yeah:

Rudewarrior,

I just love the confusion of orders that can occur with you mod. :up: Makes everything more immersive.

:haha: Nah, mod is one my favorites ! But I would have torn my hair out trying to keep it all straight in real life. :doh:

:k_rofl: