Silent Hunter 3

[Puzz3D]

So it is much like the ancient Silent Service 2? How I loved that game.

It's like Aces of the Deep. Silent Hunter III has now gotten a fourth and final patch, and the game is in good shape at this point. I use a mod called Real U-boat which makes a lot of changes and enhances the realism a great deal. It models crew fatigue as long term battle fatigue which can't be recovered until you return to base, and it also cuts down on the number of single ship encounters. It's pretty difficult to maintain the pace in tonnage and ships sunk of the better real life U-boat commanders.

[Puzz3D]

GWX released on Dec 16 is a major upgrade of the Grey Wolves Mod for Silent Hunter 3. There is also an update for it released on Dec 23. A link to the mod is here, and a link to the manual is here.

Lots of improvements have been made in this version, but the most important one for me is the more realistic damage model for ships making them more vulnerable than they were in the earlier version of this mod. The danger to the U-boat from enemy aircraft and escorts early in the war also seems to have been increased. So far I've had rather bad luck finding enemy merchants, and on 100% realism have only accumulated 24k tons after 3 patrols in a type VII C. On the 4th patrol, I was closing to firing distance on a British 12k ton merchant off Norway when the Luftwaffe arrived and sank it. My crew started cheering.

[Rodion Romanovich]

I think I'll buy this game, it sounds interesting!

[TB666]

SHIII is easily the best subsim ever made.
Mainly because of the fact that you actually feel like a submarine captain. The fact that there are actually "people" in the sub helps create this.
In all subsims I have played you never felt like a captain mainly because you never are one.
You keep going back and forth between the stations which is something a captain doesn't do.
In SHIII however if you go to the sonar station, you don't sit down and control the sonar like in all the other games instead you go to the guy that handles the sonar and you give him orders(you can control the sonar too if you want but the guy that operates it already is good).
You don't make the sub go down to a certain depth, you order it and others will make it happen.
Also love how as the war progresses things will get alot harder.
At the start(1939 if you wanna start then) you will see alot of single merchants that are ripe for picking.
But as the years go by you notice that not only do the merchants get guns, they rarely travel alone and allied air cover gets better as well.

Only thing that is bad with the game is the fact that there are no wolfpacks and that it would be nice to have more communication with HQ about special targets that are close.
Also it is infected by Starforce

Other then that a fantastic game that is well worth the money

[Kekvit Irae]

I lost my interest in submarine games when I tried (keyword: tried) to figure out how to play 688i: Hunter Killer. The instruction booklet was thicker than the bible, I had to calculate simple arithmetic on the fly, I was required to have a pen and paper to use the radar... UGH!

How is Silent Hunter 3 for the more submarine-challenged folks (read: newbies)?

[TB666]

How is Silent Hunter 3 for the more submarine-challenged folks (read: newbies)?

You can set the realism level yourself so if there is one thing that bothers you can turn it off.
I for example can never manually set the torpedoes so I have the computer do it so I just pick a target and press fire when the computer has calculated the solution.
The tutorial in the game is good too.

I got my realism level set on 71% I think it was.
One thing I strongly recommend people to turn off is external view.
When you are underwater and hear from the sonar guy that there are depth charges in the water puts you on the edge of your seat.
And being forced to see it from the eyes of the captain(you) makes it even more scary.
You don't know where it is gonna hit or when, all you see is your crewmembers and they are scared too.
Also can point out the sound in this game is superb.

[Puzz3D]

I lost my interest in submarine games when I tried (keyword: tried) to figure out how to play 688i: Hunter Killer. The instruction booklet was thicker than the bible, I had to calculate simple arithmetic on the fly, I was required to have a pen and paper to use the radar... UGH!

How is Silent Hunter 3 for the more submarine-challenged folks (read: newbies)?

You don't need pen and paper to play even on 100% realism. The navigation map has all the instruments you need to plot a course, and it's very easy to do. The only numerical calculation I make is to convert knots to km/hour when I am plotting an intercept to a map contact that came in by radio. I use 1 knot = 2 km/hour (it's actually 1.8 km/hour) because you don't know the exact speed of the enemy contact anyway. The difficulty is that the enemy's speed and course are estimates in these radio reports, and the enemy may change course. So, there is considerable uncertainty in making a long range (200 km or more) intercept.

The U-boat has a TDC which calculates the firing solution for torpedoes based on 3 measurements that you make using the periscope (submerged attack) or UZO (surface attack). After identifying the ship type, you get the range to the target by measuring the mast height. Using the mouse, you do that by aligning the water level on the hull with the horizontal graticule of your scope, and then aligning a movable horizontal graticule with the top of the mast. When you have the alignment you want, you press the mouse button and the game calculates the range to the target. It's easy to do in calm conditions and very hard to do in rough seas.

Next you visually estimate the angle on the bow which is the angle off the bow that the enemy would observe the U-boat. This setting isn't critical when the angle is close to port 90 degrees or starboard 90 degrees except the direction is critical because it determines whether the target is moving left to right or right to left. It's best to plan to fire when the torpedoes will impact the target when the angle on the bow is close to 90 degrees and the target dead ahead.

You can then measure the speed of the target using the stopwatch. You don't have to plot anything on the chart because the game will calculate the speed based on the starting and ending bearings. The important thing is that the bearing change by several degrees during the measuring interval. When the target is far away, you have to measure for a longer time than when it's close to get an accurate measurement.

If you've positioned the U-boat perpendicular to the path of the target, you can estimate that the target will pass your U-boat at half the distance of the 60 degree range and .7 of the 45 degree range. Adjust the speed of the U-boat so that it will be less than 1500 meters from the target when it passes by. You can hit large ships reliably from twice this distance especially if they are moving slowly, but I would say get within 1500 if possible. You can do that on the surface at night with the GWX mod. While you are waiting for the target to get closer, go to the TDC and set the depth, speed and detonator of the torpedoes, and open the torpedo tube doors. Early in the war, torpedoes run 2 meters deeper than their setting.

When the target is at 30 degrees, make the final range, angle on the bow, and speed measurements. Make sure you are shooting at an enemy ship and not a friendly or neutral by identifying the flag. When the target is at about 10 or 15 degrees, check the range quickly and fire. For fast targets, you probably won't have time for this last second range check. For smaller freighters, I unlock from the target and shoot at the bow because there is about a 2 second delay between the order to fire and when the torpedo leaves the tube. I'll fire two torpedoes at a small freighter (2k tons) and three or four at a large ship. If you aren't confident of you're firing solution, you can fire a spread. If for some reason, you miss your opportunity to shoot, don't take a bad shot. You'll most likely miss.

The thing about this game is that it's very time consuming to search for targets and then get into position to shoot at them. There are no wolfpacks in the campaign, so it's just you alone out there. The campaign is dynamic so you go where you want to and stay out until you run low on fuel or run out of torpedoes. You get to upgrade your U-boat and crew when back in port, and these upgrades do make a difference. There is a screen which allows you to compare your tonnage sunk against the historical U-boat commanders. Various technologies for the Allies and the U-boats come in at the historical times. Sun, moon and constellations are all astronomically accurate for the time and place down to the minute as far as I can tell. The physics of the U-boat appears to be quite realistic. You cannot enter all the compartments of the U-boat in first person mode. You're limited to the control room, sonar and radio rooms, captain's quarters, conning tower and bridge. All the gauges in these rooms work.

The game has good online community support. The GWX mod is very impressive. Be aware that GWX requires 1 GB of memory to work properly.