Ships keep sinking

[KGB]

Who can explain, what are the messages "TB 213 is sunk", "DD blah-blah is sunk", etc are ?
These messages keep coming after I've sent my U-Boats in area patrol.
Are these the results of automated sub attacks?

And if they are, than why don't make things same ways with merchants?

I am completely sick of clicking "End battle" button 90% of my time, spent in Jutland, with every merchant battle. I'm the commader of Battle Fleets, I don't care and must not take any care of any and all single merchants in the North Sea!

[Zakalwe]

yup,

these are mostly losses from subs. Very seldom from mines `cause there have to be own forces in visual range to get reports.

As for the merchant "battles" you are right, they can be boring. OTOH I sometimes got good RECON from these battles when my merchants sailed into GF or BCF.

And we shouldn`t forget, "Jutland" started with a merchant being investigated, you never know what`s just behind the horizon.

Z.

[KGB]

Merchants with radio in WW1? I doubt that every merchant got radio, so they just have no opportunity to send bad news to anyone. Except, maybe, the situation when merchants were spotted by the enemy with any battle ship of mine around.

[NR61]

I dont see why merchant ships from WW1 would not have radio's. Passenger ships (example Titanic) from a few years before the war had one.

Morse code has been around since the late 18 hundreds.

I'm prepared to be wrong on this but I think a Japanese Auxillary vesel was able to radio the position of the Russian fleet during the Russo Japanese war

[HMSWarspite]

You are joking aren't you? Titanic is a premium liner, and offered the radio as a service to passengers. It was run by operators from the Marconi company. Your average merchant did (less passengers) not have radio. Some of them didn't have engines! (Sailing coasters were still common)

[Bullethead]

You are joking aren't you? Titanic is a premium liner, and offered the radio as a service to passengers. It was run by operators from the Marconi company. Your average merchant did (less passengers) not have radio. Some of them didn't have engines! (Sailing coasters were still common)

This is an interesting topic, because war acclerates things. Before WW1, it's true, most merchants didn't have wireless, but during the war nearly all of them got one, so they could report attacks. In addition, by 1918, almost every self-propelled merchant carried 1 or more guns with naval personnel to man them. Both fittings had started occurring pretty early in the war, and were major contributing factors (along with Q-ships and other such ruses) to the break-down of prize law and the advent of unrestricted submarine warfare.

And remember, the Germans got so fed up with the British cheating on prize law that they 1st tried unrestricted submarine warfare in 1915. A large reason why was the commonality of the wireless. Reporting being attacked before surrendering was seen by the Germans as violating prize rules warfare, because it called down prompt retribution on the U-boat and hadn't been part of the whole concept previously. Sure, the forces of retribution were quite unlikely to sink the U-boat, but they could keep it from being effective until it spent days leaving that area and going elsewere.

[bill44]

I sent 4 old dreadnoughts on a bombardment mission to dover, part way there a battle spawned, and it was a British sub, I opened fire on it with all of my ships, some time after I noticed two of my ships had yellow status indicators, so I checked on them one had 50% hull damage, the other 30%.
There were no mine fields, so it had to have been that sub :mad:, this is the first time I've had this happen.
I also see messages, saying DD sunk ect, but cannot recall if I had subs out at the time, so it could have been my mines.

[Bullethead]

IThere were no mine fields, so it had to have been that sub :mad:, this is the first time I've had this happen

Usually, you don't see enemy minefields until you find them the hard way. But yeah, it could have been the sub, too.

[bill44]

Usually, you don't see enemy minefields until you find them the hard way. But yeah, it could have been the sub, too.
Really ?, I'm sure that I see the British mine fields on the campain map, they are around the entrance to London, the area I was sailing through was clear.

[Bullethead]

Really ?, I'm sure that I see the British mine fields on the campain map, they are around the entrance to London, the area I was sailing through was clear.

You see the mine symbol on all naval base icons--everybody knows those are defended. What you don't see are enemy mines elsewhere on the map until you discover them.

[Sunflare]

Not true....I see all mines all the time. When ever the AI places a new mine field it always pops up on the map right away. Makes it easy to sail around them.

[bill44]

Here's the proof.
Oopps, sorry about the Helgoland, silly me. But as you can see, the British mines are indeed displayed, when you put the cursor over them.

[Bullethead]

Oopps, sorry about the Helgoland, silly me. But as you can see, the British mines are indeed displayed, when you put the cursor over them.

My condolences about Helgoland, too. She seems in a rather bad way :laugh:

But as to the minefields, surely you had some ship in the area at some point? A submarine, a DD on patrol, a merchant? Just because perhaps you lost nothing there doesn't mean one of your passing ships didn't see a stray mine floating by, or spot the enemy laying the field.