Das other 'ship sim': Silent Hunter 3

[Paul K]

Just thought I'd post a few shots of this great U-boat simulator. I'm in the Wolves At War virtual campaign, operating with the 29th Flotilla in the Mediterranean.


Dawn, December 1st 1943...and U-132, the scourge of the Mediterranean, sets sail from her base in Toulon!





Later that day, as I lie on my bunk , I notice the radio operator receiving a message about a convoy.





Under the cover of darkness, we intercept the hapless merchants and the attack begins





A burning freighter is administered the coup de grace...





A liberty ship founders, while in the background, the Grey Funnel Line flounders...






Daylight arrives, and the remnants of the convoy sail on..





..and under a cloudless sky, U-132 moves away to run ahead and reload her forward tubes for another attack.





If you've ever watched Das Boot, you will love this sim.

[Vulcan_to_the_Sky!]

Im a big fan of the silent hunter series, have been playing it for years. For me Silent Hunter 3 is the best one, even better then the newer version. My only gripe with it is that the missions take forever, for me its only fun when Im playing on the quick combat mode. Its quite a thrill tracking convoys, following them at close range, and then striking.

[jonesey2k]

Anybody here in the 100,000 tonne club?

I know its not very nice sinking "our" ships but it is really satisfying when you run into a convoy on a patrol. I had a cracking one once where I sunk loads of T3 tanker but got hit by a couple of hedgehogs... electric engines damaged, flooding and I'm sinking towards crush depth....

I have also managed to sink myself once. Fired an acoustic torpedo from the stern tubes at a Destroyer who was trying to depth charge me and the bloody thing hit me instead!

[Paul K]

James, I agree with you about SH3 looking nicer than SH4, but I've bought the latter anyway, along with the Pacific U-Boats expansion. Wolves at War is going to be doing a 'Monsun' campaign next year, and I'll be taking my Type IX/D2 out east to places like Penang and Singapore.

Jonesy, I'm almost a member of the 300,000 ton club now; about 21,000 to go. WaW3 Patrol 19 ( my 13th in the campaign) should see me reach that, and gain the Ritterkreuz at the same time.

Nice to see others in here enjoy this game.

[hobby]

Does anyone know of a game based on MTBs/MGbs or in modern parlance FPBs/Hydrofoils? That is apart from Harpoon which I 'played' when it was a boardgame before the days of computers.

[Pringle]

SH3 is a fantastic game. I used to love to sit and read the likes of 'Das Boot' whilst chugging along in an old Type II towards the east coast of England. This laptop struggles with WaW and unfortunately put me off playing it as the load times became too high.

Maybe I should crack her open again and get sinking!

[Vulcan_to_the_Sky!]

Does anyone know of a game based on MTBs/MGbs or in modern parlance FPBs/Hydrofoils? That is apart from Harpoon which I 'played' when it was a boardgame before the days of computers.

No, but I would also be interested in such a game, I have a great interest in WW2 History, especially in the Small Boats Campaign. On a slightly related note, I'd recommend "Motor Gunboat 658" for a read until a game like this is found, its an excellent read.

I have silent hunter 2, 3, and 4 and have played all three, but somehow, silent hunter 4 while being on the American Side, didn't have the same feel to it or finished appearance.

After reading this post I may well have to go and re-install SH3, If I can find the disk!!

[Tarasdad]

My single best SH3 mission was just a shade over 100,000 tons (109k and change, IIRC). Hit the jackpot with a large convoy loaded with large tankers, huge cargo ships and a couple of troop transports. Unloaded bow and stern tubes, one shot each to slow them down or in some cases break their backs and sink them outright - gotta love under-the-keel magnetic detonations. Went deep, went silent, got my tubes reloaded while evading the escorts then went up and finished off the wounded with my deck gun. Then it was off to the races to get ahead of them again and repeat the performance. Used up the full load of torps from a Mk.IXc and all my deck gun ammo on that single convoy. I even survived to make it home!