Seems like even mild waters is 'rough waters'. I can never man my deck gun because it is always rough waters. Am I doing something wrong?

No nothing you're doing wrong. By default you can only man the guns in a maximum 6 m/s wind.

Welp, that seems to be right. However, 2 questions. Is this realistic and is it ever less than 6 m/s other than near Wilhelmshaven? I'm in my first career in April 1940 and it seems like I never can use the deck gun. Wind speeds always 7 m/s.

Realistic? I don't know. My opinion is you should be able to man the flak guns in rougher seas than the deck gun, but how rough is too rough? Can't say. Maybe they could have made the cutoff point 7 or 8 m/s. There has to be a cutoff somewhere though, so I have no problem with it. I don't battle airplanes and I rarely use the deck gun so for me it's no big deal.

Yes, you will have gun weather at sea. It will happen, maybe not for a few patrols, just be patient. The weather is random, ya never know.

This exact question cooked up a hell-broth of controversy over at subsim when it first came but the general question was, yes, it is fairly realistic. U-boats as a gun platform are very unstable and prone to rolling in a way that noraml surface ships are not.

They are designed, afterall, to go under whereas ships go along and their characteristics reflect that. Using the gun was best in calm weather as any amount of pitching and rolling was magnified by the shape of the boats. That was part of it anyway. There were tonnes and tonnes of threads about it over there. I still get nightmares about it.

However, in one of the later patches the devs allowed the weather cut=off to be user adjusted. I'm not sure where because I was always quite happy with it. It may be in the config file.

Thanks for the info. I'd hate to bring up old memories Cicero, but does anyone know how to change the wind speed min for deck gun? I wouldn't mind increasing it to 7 m/s, even if it's 1 m/s unrealistic?

If I remember correctly there is a mod floating around that lets you use the gun in rough weather. You'll need to use common sense though as when not to use it as the mod doesn't differentiate between a slight swell and a squall

Sorry don't have a link for you.

SHIII/data/Submarine/your type of sub/cfg. Look for this line
StormConditions=11,0.1;max wind speed [m/s], max rain intensity [0,1]
Change the first number after the = sign and save. Mine is modded by one of the big mods which is why it is 11.

http://server3.realsimulation.com/u-boot/SH3Mods/
click on bad weather gun file
good luck