Shallow Water Sailor
06-04-15, 08:02 PM
Hello all! Sorry it has taken me so long to post. Just as I joined the forum, things started springing leaks all over the place and I had to batten them all down. Here are my thoughts, observations and comments about Crash Dive, which I play almost daily on my Android tablet.
ABOUT ME:
I’ve been studying 20th century naval history nearly all of my life (I turn 69 this year). In elementary school in the 1950s, my favorite books and movies dealt with submarine warfare. These included Commander Edward L. Beach’s novel Run Silent, Run Deep and the Clark Gable movie of the same name, plus his non-fiction work called Submarine!. I must have watched the movie The Enemy Below (Robert Mitchum, Curt Jurgens) at least fifty times. In my teens and early twenties my favorite novels were The Cruel Sea and Three Corvettes (Nicolas Monsarrat), The Good Shepherd (C. S. Forester) and HMS Ulysses (Alastair MacLean),all of which were about the North Atlantic, Russian, and Mediterranean/Malta convoys. I played my first naval simulation game – Jutland by Avalon Hill – in my early twenties.
As a young adult, my best friend and I designed and played our own naval war game, set in the mid-1940s. The premise was that the Axis Pact won WWII, and that Germany and Japan were fighting for control of the Pacific. We took pains to research the capabilities and foibles of the vessels comprising our respective navies. Obviously, most of the play was done on maps. Air-to-air, air-to-ground and air-to-ship battles were handled with dice. When any ship-to-ship action took place, we used 1/700 waterline models that we either purchased, or crafted from balsa wood. Because the scale we used for ship-to-ship maneuvering and ranging was five feet to the nautical mile, we needed ROOM. Major surface engagements were fought on weekends, using a back parking lot at the local university as our ocean. Fortunately nearly all of our numerous sub-versus-escort battles would fit on the living room or garage floor.
Long story short, I’ve developed more than a little knowledge about WWII submarine warfare.
FEEDBACK -- First, the good things.
I have really enjoyed playing the game for many reasons. It is well-thought-out and well-structured. Most of it is quite realistic and true to the time period. The graphic depiction of the surface vessels is nothing short of outstanding. I also really like the automatic targeting feature, as it is realistic enough to allow me, the captain, to “delegate” that to my cyber-crew.
Also quite true-to-form, the Fletcher-class destroyers provide challenging targets, but they can be torpedoed. (It generally takes two hits to sink ‘em.) Flower-class corvettes can usually be sunk with a single torpedo, IF you can hit them at all. This is an extremely difficult task at best and, once they’ve gone to battle stations, it becomes nearly impossible. They are quite nimble, another most-realistic trait. When it comes to dealing with corvettes, therefore, I generally choose discretion over valor.
Next, the not-so-good things.
The biggest problem is that the escorts routinely move directly through other vessels, including each other. Obviously this is a physical impossibility. There is a closely-related point – escorts routinely operate in very close proximity to each other, and to other surface vessels. In reality they always maintained a safe distance between themselves and other vessels. To be clear, I understand that issues of scale are involved, but what I've been seeing goes beyond scale issues. Such things would not, and could not, happen in the “real world.”
Next, and also a major issue, is that escorts deploy depth charges so that they detonate very near to, sometimes directly beneath, other surface vessels. Were that to happen in the real world, the charges would sink said vessels – or at least cause severe damage.
Third, the sonar is much too precise for World War II. For example it can detect a U-boat that is directly beneath another surface vessel, and even directly beneath the searching escort. It can also detect a submerged U-boat on the opposite side of a surface vessel. In reality, none of these could happen. I can provide greater detail if requested.
Fourth, the game gives Flower-class corvettes the capability of moving at thirty knots. The actual ships had a maximum speed of 16 knots. BTW, the U-boats have a surface speed about 1.5 knots faster than their real-world counterparts, but I’m inclined to overlook that one. :03:
Though I don’t have the precise data on this, it appears that the game allows escorts to speed up and slow down much more rapidly than could their real-world counterparts.
Once again, Crash Dive is a great game that I play almost daily. These words are intended only as one man's suggestions about how it can be made better.
-- Shallow Water Sailor
ABOUT ME:
I’ve been studying 20th century naval history nearly all of my life (I turn 69 this year). In elementary school in the 1950s, my favorite books and movies dealt with submarine warfare. These included Commander Edward L. Beach’s novel Run Silent, Run Deep and the Clark Gable movie of the same name, plus his non-fiction work called Submarine!. I must have watched the movie The Enemy Below (Robert Mitchum, Curt Jurgens) at least fifty times. In my teens and early twenties my favorite novels were The Cruel Sea and Three Corvettes (Nicolas Monsarrat), The Good Shepherd (C. S. Forester) and HMS Ulysses (Alastair MacLean),all of which were about the North Atlantic, Russian, and Mediterranean/Malta convoys. I played my first naval simulation game – Jutland by Avalon Hill – in my early twenties.
As a young adult, my best friend and I designed and played our own naval war game, set in the mid-1940s. The premise was that the Axis Pact won WWII, and that Germany and Japan were fighting for control of the Pacific. We took pains to research the capabilities and foibles of the vessels comprising our respective navies. Obviously, most of the play was done on maps. Air-to-air, air-to-ground and air-to-ship battles were handled with dice. When any ship-to-ship action took place, we used 1/700 waterline models that we either purchased, or crafted from balsa wood. Because the scale we used for ship-to-ship maneuvering and ranging was five feet to the nautical mile, we needed ROOM. Major surface engagements were fought on weekends, using a back parking lot at the local university as our ocean. Fortunately nearly all of our numerous sub-versus-escort battles would fit on the living room or garage floor.
Long story short, I’ve developed more than a little knowledge about WWII submarine warfare.
FEEDBACK -- First, the good things.
I have really enjoyed playing the game for many reasons. It is well-thought-out and well-structured. Most of it is quite realistic and true to the time period. The graphic depiction of the surface vessels is nothing short of outstanding. I also really like the automatic targeting feature, as it is realistic enough to allow me, the captain, to “delegate” that to my cyber-crew.
Also quite true-to-form, the Fletcher-class destroyers provide challenging targets, but they can be torpedoed. (It generally takes two hits to sink ‘em.) Flower-class corvettes can usually be sunk with a single torpedo, IF you can hit them at all. This is an extremely difficult task at best and, once they’ve gone to battle stations, it becomes nearly impossible. They are quite nimble, another most-realistic trait. When it comes to dealing with corvettes, therefore, I generally choose discretion over valor.
Next, the not-so-good things.
The biggest problem is that the escorts routinely move directly through other vessels, including each other. Obviously this is a physical impossibility. There is a closely-related point – escorts routinely operate in very close proximity to each other, and to other surface vessels. In reality they always maintained a safe distance between themselves and other vessels. To be clear, I understand that issues of scale are involved, but what I've been seeing goes beyond scale issues. Such things would not, and could not, happen in the “real world.”
Next, and also a major issue, is that escorts deploy depth charges so that they detonate very near to, sometimes directly beneath, other surface vessels. Were that to happen in the real world, the charges would sink said vessels – or at least cause severe damage.
Third, the sonar is much too precise for World War II. For example it can detect a U-boat that is directly beneath another surface vessel, and even directly beneath the searching escort. It can also detect a submerged U-boat on the opposite side of a surface vessel. In reality, none of these could happen. I can provide greater detail if requested.
Fourth, the game gives Flower-class corvettes the capability of moving at thirty knots. The actual ships had a maximum speed of 16 knots. BTW, the U-boats have a surface speed about 1.5 knots faster than their real-world counterparts, but I’m inclined to overlook that one. :03:
Though I don’t have the precise data on this, it appears that the game allows escorts to speed up and slow down much more rapidly than could their real-world counterparts.
Once again, Crash Dive is a great game that I play almost daily. These words are intended only as one man's suggestions about how it can be made better.
-- Shallow Water Sailor