Neutral ships or not?

[Raf1394]

I encountered a weird situation.

I was patrolling in Jan 1945 around north of Ireland, I received a radio message from a U-boat that a small convoy was spotted. (in the message it says, free to attack the ships)

I go to intercept the convoy, two freighters, no destroyers. I go to periscope depth, calculating a torpedo attack with the TDC, right before I wanted to launch the torpedo's, I see that one ship carries the Argentinian flag and the other the Switzerland flag.

Wait a second those are neutral countries, so to be sure I surfaced, the Argentinian was armed but did not fire at me, they also send a distress signal that they are attacked because they spotted me, I inspect the Argentinian ship, its heading to the Port of Vigo and it has ammunition on the cargo, I sank the Argentinian ship for the following reasons.

- convoy location send by uboat
- Argentinian ship was armed
- Argentinian ship transported arms
- documents saying "heading to Vigo" while it was on course to Liverpool
- distress call has been sent from the Argentinan ship before I attacked
- I ordered evacuation and the life boats were Canadian.


The Switzerland ship was unarmed and carried medical supplies also heading to Vigo, while it was going to Liverpool, but I did not sink it, because no distress call, i'm not sure if it's neutral or not.

[Thahat]

they say they are going to X but going to Y? sink it.
smuggling ammo? sink it.
no reason at all to mistrust them? still shout at them in an authorative voice in case they arent smuggling NOW but they may have done in the past.

[VipreRX]

ANY ship headed to Great Britain is/should be fair game regardless of country per the blockade. The island is simply a no-go zone, so Swiss was valid target also.
Neutral ships in-game may be armed at times and carrying ammo for the guns only, possibly a result of limited models/scripting. Ammo transports carry a full ammo only cargo.

Of your points the following were valid reasons;
- convoy location send by uboat
- documents saying "heading to Vigo" while it was on course to Liverpool
- distress call has been sent from the Argentinan ship before I attacked

This one confirmed after the fact you made the right call:
- I ordered evacuation and the life boats were Canadian.
Ship was flying a false flag.

[RimmerA]

Under prize rules, any ship heading to a blockaded (i.e. British) port is a fair prize.

Neutrals are legal targets if:
1) They're sailing in a convoy that's escorted by enemy warships.
2) They radio your position (The distress call counts-there's no reason they'd put out a distress call if they're neutral)
3) You inspect them and determine that they are smuggling goods for the enemy.
4) They're clearly heading to a blockaded port. So if they're going North East in the Celtic Sea, you don't need to bother with an inspection. Just sink them.

[VipreRX]

You know that'd make a good edit to the "paper" map overlays. Adding hatchmarks outlining the blockade zone.
We sort of all know there is one but nothing in-game spells out its extents so "draw it out" on the map then we'll be able to see at a glance when most ships are hosed.