I encountered a large fleet in bad weather with only 2 destroyer escorts. Merchants were UNARMED. I took out the escorts, sunk a few merchants. Saved and closed the game.
Loaded the game. SH5 gave me the remaining 20 merchants, only this time every last was FULLY ARMED with cannon, both fore and aft. The surface attack I originally had planned was now impossible with my one deck gun versus 40.
Unarmed fleets should not be able to
spontaneously arm themselves between a game save and a game load. The save/load discrepancies in SH5 are a source of considerable frustration.