How did you get into U-boats (everyone please post)

[Deamon]

Following the link below you can find some photos, Unfortunately the inside-pictures didn't turn out well; all brownish for all the rust, tha camera and my haste, as you are not supposed to take photos inside.
I hope you like them!


Have you maybe some more of the deck ?

Deamon

[Beery]

I can't really remember what sparked my interest in U-boat sims. All I can remember was that my first sub game was 'Sub Hunt' on the Intellivision. I must have been hooked because later I bought 'Gato' for the Macintosh. Then I got Silent Service, and then Aces of the Deep. After that I was well and truly hooked. I think a lot of the appeal for me comes from my interest in geometry - plotting courses is fun for me. The other thing that keeps me interested is the relative slow pace. My other interest is flight sims, and they are usually fast and frantic, so U-boats are a nice change of pace.

[Ula Jolly]

I got hooked to subs not long ago. This year, as a matter of fact.
Early this year, around winter, I was still playing the trusty Steel Panthers (SP Camo), eagerly awaiting the Windows compatible version. I'm a member of the yahoo mailing list for both MBT and WWII, so when a guy asked the question if "there are any games like this, but only with boats", I too started looking. Some mail members replied with links. Doing some searching on my own, I found both Harpoon II (hehehe! What great interface :up:) and Steel Tide, which is more of an arcade game.
After that, a few googlings found Dangerous Waters, from Sonalysts.
Downloaded the demo and fell deeply in love with the Kilo, whom I have already proposed to. I'm on my lappy right now, and I doubt DW will work as great here as SH does. Though I might try it out.
Immediately, I ordered the game (the deluxe version :smug:).
Arrived soon enough, with a manual the size of a bible! Turned out I'd need it. But the manual could be heckuwa lot bigger!
At times I'd play Civilization III, and DEFINITELY emphasized building submarines!
So now school is nearly upon me... I have to move out of town, to what the yanks would consider "high school" (but for ages 16-19), and got a laptop for that use. :arrgh!:
From visiting the DW forums, I know their relationship to SH, but as always I wasn't going to be less curious than to swip over after two months, to find some screens. The little I found (didn't doo too hefty a search) told me this was a really neat game, at least with outstanding graphics.
So... sitting there on 31st of July (exactly one week ago now! *bluurt!* (sound of trumpet)) I wondered if I should buy this game for the laptop or not.... 50 quid was all that was in my wallet, and the game costed 45 bloody pounds on the nearest store (I'm far away from everything; transportation seems to put its price on everything here). I'm sure most here got the game for something like 30. :damn:
Anyway... rushed to the store in a moment of need of satisfaction, and soon enough walked out of the same store kinda wiggly in my legs. Had I just spent 50 quid on crap? Time'd tell.

The first indication of that I had, came fifteen minutes later. WHERE IS THE CD KEY?! Well, that answer was answered on this forum. :up:
The second indication of that I had, came half an hour after that. The game was soooooo impossible to handle... for someone who's used to Dangerous Waters.
Struggling still (never bothered with Naval Academy! :doh:), I eventually created the career of Wilhelm Früder, a man who sunk an armed trawler and a destroyer on his first patrol in a U-IIA (I wasn't really too sure of how to use the torps. Kinda came lucky!). Of course, that also made me think less highly of destroyers than I should have, but to this date I haven't suffered more than 5% damage.
Needless perhaps to say, there is no doubt anymore. I love DW more than all that could be considered holy, but this game certainly gives some freedom and has a more play-aroundish feel to it. I'll be using this and some other games during school-time, but I have little doubts of that whenever I return to my stationary, I'll give my Kilo a deep kiss and a hug, and take her out to 300m. :yep:

[Capn Tucker]

Been fascinated with the Wehrmacht since I was a little kid. Models of Messerschmitts, Stukas, Tiger tanks, the Bismarck, and of course U-boats all graced the shelves of my room.
My first U-boat was the old Aurora U-156 kit, and I still remember how excited I was when the Revell U-47 with interior first came out. Read "Iron Coffins", "U-boat Commander" and any other U-boat book I get my hands on.
Always watched "The Enemy Below" whenever it came on. Eventually joined the navy, and (of course) went into the Submarine Service, because that was the closest I could come to actually being on a U-boat.
The reality of that was nothing like I thought; unending work and drudgery. Even so, the years have done nothing to dim my fascination with the U-boote. I greatly enjoy my Uncut Version of "Das Boot", and all the many excellent new books on U-boats out there.
Currently working on my new pride and joy, the 1/72 Revell Type VIIC. I think that one may put me in the poor house though; bought all the add-on interior kits, pressure hull, wood deck, photo-etched parts..somebody stop me! :P

[Bort]

My brother and my father were always into navy things and going to see different ships and subs, I guess I just picked up on it. :up:

[FesterShinetop]

I got into U-boats/submarines playing Silent Service on my Atari 800XL (long time ago...). In those days games (and especially sims) still had a real manual also containing lots of background info and stories. After playing and reading I read more books aboat subs (including Das Boot) and the interest was born :D
Now who ever said only bad things come from video games :P :lol:
:ping:

[U-1966]

A trip to the USS Cavalla, a Gato Class SUb, in Galveston, Texas when I was about 10 years old. Later in life I began playing those early sub sims: Silent Service II, Aces of the Deep, Silent Hunter. And playing the sims sparked my interest so I would read all I could about WWII Subs.

Funny my interest in subs has never left the WWII Era. The modern subs just do not appeal to me.

[HMCS]

My dad was in the RCNVR during the war. He served on two RCN Corvettes: the HMCS Moosejaw:

http://www.uboat.net/allies/warships/ship/828.html

and HMCS Saskatoon, as well as HMCS Huntsville (Castle Class F)

[don1reed]

1944 My parents took me see "Destination Tokyo" at the movies...The Movie house raffled dishes after the movie. :)
1954-"Victory at Sea." as seen on our B/W 9" screen Philco TV.

[Frank]

Back when I was a kid, watched the TV Series; "Voyage to the bottom of the Sea". In one of those episodes they were looking out of the Viewing windows and this German U-Boat was rising from the bottom and turning to point its bow tubes at the Seaview. (cant remember what happened or why) So I began trying to find out what that sub was, and more about it.

I used my first Sub Simulation in 1985 in Groton at Sub School. :)

Played my first Sub Game "Silent Service" in 1986-87.

Played my second in 1994 "Silent Hunter"

Always read books about WWII Subs, US & German. Still do. :)

Frank

[Abraham]

Was since childhood interested in the Royal Neth. Navy and visited a submarine during the yearly Navy Days.
Since early teens interested in everything that had to do with WWII. Read a few years later the Dutch translation of: 'Run Silent, Run Deep' by Comm. Edward Beach and was sold forever.
Later the movie 'Das Boot', then an Atari with Silent Service II and every subgame since...

[kiwi_2005]

I must of been about 7yrs old and was watching Television with my father, we were watching a black n white documentary called World at War and the episode was on the Atlantic. There for the first time i saw a Uboat and asked my father if he liked them he replied that he prefered battleships compared to submarines. But i fell in love with the submarine that day. It was hard back then in finding books on uboats, but over the years i now have a good collection of submarine novels
In the early 90's I saw a game in the computer shop called Aces of the Deep the cover of the big over size cd box was very tempting that i brought it on the spot. At the time i had a Pentium100, with 8mb of ram 2gb HD cdrom and sound blaster card, and a 1mb graphics Trident card, running the new windows95 the computer cost me nearly 4grand! I loved that game. Then moved onto faster sims, and tried Fast Attack, a nuclear sub game, then SH1 and 2, Sub command and now SH3 and Dangerous waters. :arrgh!:

[pampanito]

Watching 'Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea' (the SEAVIEW!) in TV probably started it... I remember very well both arcade games mentioned by PTHO and ReM...
But the thing that made me understand how serious a matter it was, was a film about US submarines in the Pacific (I don't remember which one, I think the sub was called SeaHawk), in a scene a sailor had forgotten to shut one of the internal doors closed, there was a depth-charge attack and concussion made the door close with a crash, severing the arm of the standing sailor. It was the most horrifying scene I had yet watched in TV, and must have really hit something inside me, because from that moment on I devoured everything I could lay my hands on, regarding WW2 US submarines.
Soon afterwards, I saw a magazine with photographs of the interior of a German U-boat during an actual depth-charge attack. The captions said the photos came from a camera retrieved from a U-boat wreck (I have never seen them again, and I am not sure if the history was true). The photos showed the bearded crewmen sitting quietly in half-light, looking upwards, while an officer counted with his fingers the seconds, waiting for the depth-charge explosions.
Thus my interest extended to German U-boats, and has not ceased to grow in the next 35 years...

[Skweetis]

I got interested from way back when I was playing Jane's 688i, I so badly wanted to run a Kilo or other desiel type of submarine. I then found out about subsim.com during the "Fix my 688i!" campaign... then through the forums I found out about SH1 and AoD...

At first I wasnt really interested in WW2 subs, but it was one of the only ways I could get the opportunity to run a deisel sub... but after playing those classics, I quickly fell in love.... I now prefer WW2 sub simming to modern day subsimming...

Eventually, I hope some developer decides to do a post WW2/early Cold War subsim to fill the gap...

[AlanSmithee]

I got interested in subs by playing Silent Service II in glorious 16 colors on my ancient Tandy. Back when it was possible to sink every single escort in a convoy with down-the-throat shots. :) From there switched over to Wolfpack, and then for some reason stopped playing subsims for, what, almost a decade?

In any case, it's great to be back in a boot again. :up:

[ShipperS7]

I was browsing through Best Buy and I saw Silent Hunter III and I was like, "WOOT THIS GAME LOOKS LIKE IT KICKS ASS" so I bought it. Not quite as sentimental as some of the other ones! :rotfl:

[toryu]

I got into Subsims only when I bought SH3. I'd always had a thing for the sea though. I suppose I was waiting for gaming technology to advance to a point where I'd have a game I'd be satisfied with. I always HATED the idea of playing a naval game and you're the only man onboard. That seemed incredibly unrealistic to me and always put me off. I briefly considered SH2, but said no for this reason.

I grew up by the sea, learned to sail when I was a kid. My Dad has always been interested in WW2, especially the planes and ships. He used to make wooden ship models when he had more time. But he always had lots of cool books on the shelves, and kids being kids, we would delve into them a lot. So I picked up most of his interests. He has a book of blueprints for the HMS Hood, which would enable you to make a model of it over 6ft in length, if you were insane enough. He has books solely on Royal Navy rigging. And he has a set of 2 books in a blue binder, called Allied and Axis Submarines. I thought then, and still do think, that the Type VIIC is one of the most striking and attractive designs for any vessel afloat in history.

So I always liked naval stuff. Buying SH3 was a done deal for me, when I read the blurb online for it. Apart from being about subs, I think it's a pretty good naval simulator. What I would like to see is a sim, maybe using the same engine, but set in the Napoleonic Wars, where you command a Frigate in the same way you command your U-boat. Crew & resource management, attacking enemy shipping, but instead of sinking the enemy ships, you try to capture them and stick a prize crew on board and send them back to your home port. And your renown is calculated like prize money. The more prize money you accumulate for the ship, the better the crew perform.

[SteamWake]

Janes I think it was... SSI

Then Silent Huter, Silent Hunter II, Harpoon too.

[Gunfighter34]

I was an Army guy, myself, and while there's no chance in hell I would've ever served in the Navy, I've always been fascinated by naval history. My main interest was always age of sail, and I have the old board game "Wooden Ships & Iron Men" and used to play a modified version of it tabletop with miniatures a long time ago when I was in a wargaming club at Ft. Hood. We also did a similar WWII game, and in a box somewhere I've still got a tiny micro-armor French battlegroup with Richelieu, Strasbourg, a couple of light cruisers, and several destroyers.

When I was a kid I got to visit the USS Drum at the USS Alabama memorial in Mobile, and I also got to go on a tour of an operational Sturgeon-class SSN here in Charleston once, and I found them both to be fascinating, though suffocatingly closed-in. :)

I think the thing I like most about submarines from a game perspective is that they're small enough to be believably controlled by one guy acting as the captain using an interface (as in SH3), but important enough naval units that they can have a substantial impact on the war. SH3 has become one of my favorite games, particularly as the modding community for it has blossomed, and I hope Ubi continues to expand the product line and the modding community stays interested!

[canimo]

1. Playing computer games since 1985 + -

2. No race games, nor sims, specially all kind of war games (from warcraft to JANE´S USAF).

3. Fanatic war movies and documentaries fan.

4. Dont like simply the arcade/action type. Any game where your brain has to be smarter then your hands

1+2+3+4 = SH3

I had to try it, it sure (for me) its among the best 5 games ever (regardless what year it came out, one of my best is Wizardry 1 that came out in 1983)

[Duncan Idaho]

4 words: "Run Silent, Run Deep".

[Abraham]

4 words: "Run Silent, Run Deep".
The book I hope...
(a naval classic)

[Carcassonne]

I've always been fascinated by the WWII generation. I admire all those who served on either side to be honest. Although I whole heartedly never agreed with Hitler and his Nazi party. I was impressed by those who served their country nonetheless. My heritage is rooted in Germany the family's name back in the Fatherland was Heindrich (a number of generations back)...of course when the ancestors landed on Ellis Island the only similarity to the family name today is an "H" an "e" and and "n".

I suppose you could say, my family tree pulled me into the fascination with the iron tombs.

edit: one spark that helped out in my journey was the classic board game Axis and Allies. I won my first game versus my cousin by dominating the Atlantic!

:rock:

[gdogghenrikson]

one of my friends

[donw]

Somewhere along the line of my early days of buying computer games, I ran across Janes 688I Hunter Killer. A short time later I ran into an online fleet called Seawolves that used 688 as their "platform" of online play.
As I had recently retired from the Military, I fit right in to their strict standards of protocol, and professional level of playmenship. rose thru the ranks to RDML...got pretty damned good at killing other subs, ( all online play) ...and the rest is history....
Bought and played every subsim thats hit the streets since, and feel SH3 is one of the best since then. (Still like 688 over them all)

[HundertzehnGustav]

Loved the SH3 Graphics, and 5 Years of learning Spitfires, Mustangs, Zerstoerers Dorniers Junkers and Yakovlevs- i needed a change and expand my horizon. :D

[Redbear]

I've been interested in WWII as sort of a hobby ever since I was a kid. I started WWII gaming with Avalon Hill board games like PanzerBlitz. I also studied German a bit in school, so I was able to understand WWII Germany a little better. While looking at a forum for, I can't remember whether it was IL2FB or CFS3, I noticed a post stating SH3 was being produced. I waited, watched and learned what I could about U-Boats (I even bought SH2 to 'train' on), and now I'm a proud Kaleun of a type VIIC boat! :up:

[stratege]

I used to serve in french navy onboard snle L'Indomptable.

I was bored by technology, so i decidedto give a try to ww2 submarine ...



Indomptable:

115 men aboard, lenght 127,8 meter, 11700kW, 4 tubes accepting f15 f17 eels and sm-39 exocet, 16 missiles m4.


http://www.strategie-fr.net/r/sub1.jpg

[Lost At Sea]

Lived in Taiwan for 14 years and saw a couple of times, believe it or not, an ex WW2 US Navy diesel sub sailing out to sea in 1992. It was at that time based in Kaoshiung, southern part of the island. That got me slightly hooked to subs and SH / SH2 did the rest. I still prefer WW2 flying machines tho... :oops:

Anyway, for those interested, I seem to remember that a Taiwanese friend who served in the ROC Navy during his military service told me that 2 or 3 of these were still operational in early 2000. Same class as the USS Pampanito anchored in SF.

Amazing what good care and love can do. I certainly hope they won't have to face any modern sub killer in the Taiwan Strait :dead:

[kholemann]

Avalon Hill Submarine, 1977

[Damo1977]

Well I was 11 or 12 and saw Das Boot on TV. So approx 16 year back. I still remember myself crying when the when the Captain died at the end. And I have been hooked on U-boats and WW2 ever since. Than I come across Leo Kesslers Submarine series book, and AOD which was a joyous day indeed for me. But I must say SH2 nearly turned me off u-boat games due to its set missions which after playing AOD were totally crap for me.

[The_Pharoah]

well for me, it was Aces of the Deep! However I stopped playing that years ago and got heavily into flight sims and FPSs (mainly AA, DoD and BF/BF2). The thing that got me was the graphics and then the gameplay of SHIII. So you can say I was actually lured by the game! (way to go Ubisoft!).

However I'm still an avid WW2 gamer. One of my most important games installed is IL2+FB+AEP+PF and I'm in an online squad (Wedge Tailed Eagles) where we fly every tues and thurs nights. We have an internal 'World At War' campaign where we re-fly all the major air battles of WW2, and man is it exciting.

Last night we recreated the Cologne 1000 raid ie. 1,000 brit bombers bombed the german city of Cologne into the stoneage and we recreated that. Its awesome trying to bomb whilst engaging night fighters and searchlights, etc.

Anyway, I digress.

[Sharkstooth]

I grew up going with my brother to visit the U505 at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. Later my brother joined the Navy and was on various nuclear subs, which we discussed when he would come home.

Even later yet, a friend had joined WPL, and i watched and read the forums regularly with much interest. Wasnt until the first wallpaper contest that I joined tho, and we all just waited "patiently" for SH2 to arrive.

The rest is history.

[JohnnyPotPie]

One birthday I got a U-boat model from a friend. Been hooked on subs ever since! :rock:

[gorilliamos]

I think maybe watching run silent run deep did it for me...... back in elementary school I think I checked out like 12 different books on submarines. After that starting trying to design my own... Then I played Silent Service II which I was addicted to..... Then I saw Das Boat which was awesome. Later Silent hunter II and sub command...


Then came the best sub game ever.


SH3

[misterpinna]

I was just a kid, and I had the AMIGA 500 game console... a friend gave me "silent service" and I spent a lot of time with it. Then I tried "wolfpack"... and then I think that I tried almost every sub simulation (I remember one named "das boot"). When I bought a PC, I continued with subsims: 688, Jane's 688(I) Hunter/Killer, silent hunter2 (yes, I missed silent hunter 1 :( ) , sub command, and now silent hunter 3. I also tried enigma "rising tide" but I don't like it (I think it's too "arcade") and I want to try "dangerous waters": I tried it 3 months ago but I think that it needs a lot of time to master all the game's feature... and now all my time is dedicated to sh3!

[Nopileo]

I loved Jules Verne's books when I was a kid, and 20,000 Leagues made a deep impression. Then again I love sci-fi in general... :P

But I've always liked simulations and strategy games, and I've been 'playing' flight sims and sub sims for as long as I can remember. My first sub sim was Silent Service, then I've played most ever since. And I also loved SH2, btw. I'm surprised to see so many saying it was so bad.

Sometimes I feel a bit 'guilty' when I play German sub sims, since my father was torpedoed twice by u-boats during WWII. He hardly ever talked about this, but he told me when I was quite young that both u-boats surfaced after the attacks and gave them food, clothes, medicines and directions to the closest harbour while they were in the lifeboats. I guess seamen are honorable to each other no matter the relationship between their countries/leaders.

This makes it a bit easier to play SH, but it still feels a bit strange sometimes. And I never sink a Norwegian ship on my patrols, strange as it may sound... :ping:

[Seminole]

In my past life I was a U-Boat crewman and the affinity carried forward to this present one.

[Woof1701]

For me it most likely started when I went to Bavaria Film Studios in Munich as a kid. The prop of "Das Boot" was displayed there (and still is) and it was an eerie feeling to walk through it, and I somehow found this experience both frightening and fascinating. Although I never forgot that experience my main focus remained on aircraft, probably since real aircraft are easier to come by in Munich than real uboats and real ships :) I also played a lot of FS4-FS2000 and always dreamt of making a pilots licence. Nevertheless I only saw the movie "Das Boot" several years after seeing the prop and then went immediately to playing Aces of the Deep (AOD) which I played more or less frequently over years. I had secretly hoped for a great SH2 and was pretty disappointed, but now I love SH3.

That's all :)

[CptGrayWolf]

Atari 800 xl, Silent Service! :rock: :rock: :rock:

Can you believe I sometimes still play it on an Atari emulator :88)

[Teufelschiff]

In '91, I was a Marine stationed in Capetown, SA and one of my mates had a sim - don't recall the title - and the graphics were just terrible. Yet the skill and tactics that it required intrigued me and I played on.

Literally just four days ago I was in Best Buy looking around and noticed Call of Duty 2 is coming out in a few months - which is fantastic.

Off to the side, and ironically, on the bottom was a copy of SHIII. I didn't buy it, but instead read review after review and immediately floored the pedal to the nearest BB.

I'm utterly speechless and my wife is about to lose it. A few very minor issues, but overall SHIII is absolutely up-all-night-no-sleep amazing. I am blown away.


p.s.
It's disappointing that there are no other ships and subs in my own harbor and docked at Wilhemshaven. Where's the traffic? I appreciate the upgraded buildings, but the port should be busy, at least have some ships stationed and tied up. Just my $0.02. Or am I missing something?

[Nopileo]

p.s.
It's disappointing that there are no other ships and subs in my own harbor and docked at Wilhemshaven. Where's the traffic? I appreciate the upgraded buildings, but the port should be busy, at least have some ships stationed and tied up. Just my $0.02. Or am I missing something?

Welcome, Teufelschiff! Yes, you are missing something... ;) There is a wonderful mod out there that will bring a lot of friendly traffic to the ports. Read about and get it here:

http://www.subsim.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=41646

[Farside]

I got into U-Boats when i saw an old film when i was about 8, it showed this big merchant ship and there were two streaks of white in the water and this huge explosions, i thought to myself, well , that looks fun. everytime i watch Das Boot it makes me want to play even more.

[1916]

I got interested after seeing Das Boot, and my friend from school serves on a sub. I actually ended up buying SHIII because of the beautiful sound and graphics (I'm really into sims as well) and now because of seeing what the naval battles were like (instead of watching hours and hours of depth charges being deployed without seeing a single Uboat) and I now have alot of respect for the Uboat crews and commanders.

[Kaleun]

I got my interest in Subs/the sea from my grandfather being a naval diver in WW2 and (whilst at college) working a summer job as a ferryman across the local inland tidal seariver (near my mum's house) and a winter job as a fisherman out in the Solent, seeing the RN coming and going out of Portsmouth.

Kaleun

[Abraham]

In '91, I was a Marine stationed in Capetown, SA and one of my mates had a sim - don't recall the title - and the graphics were just terrible. Yet the skill and tactics that it required intrigued me and I played on.

Literally just four days ago I was in Best Buy looking around and noticed Call of Duty 2 is coming out in a few months - which is fantastic.

Off to the side, and ironically, on the bottom was a copy of SHIII. I didn't buy it, but instead read review after review and immediately floored the pedal to the nearest BB.

I'm utterly speechless and my wife is about to lose it. A few very minor issues, but overall SHIII is absolutely up-all-night-no-sleep amazing. I am blown away.


p.s.
It's disappointing that there are no other ships and subs in my own harbor and docked at Wilhemshaven. Where's the traffic? I appreciate the upgraded buildings, but the port should be busy, at least have some ships stationed and tied up. Just my $0.02. Or am I missing something?
Welcome aboard, Teufelschiff!

[Ishmael]

Father & grandfather were merchant seamen in WW2 & WW1 respectively. Grew up watching Enemy Below & all sub movies. Joined USN in '72 trying to be a sub sonarman but they had too many of them & not enough tin-can sonarmen. Worked out for the best as I visited 23 countries on 4 continents, sailed 4 of the 5 oceans & 6 of the 7 seas. Made it around the world the hard way, going as far west as East Africa, then doing it again the opposite way. Served 6 years aboard 2 Destroyer Escorts, USS Schofield(DEG-3) & USS Elmer Montgomery(DE-1082). In 6 years found 7 confirmed Russian boats(2 Novembers, 2 Echo 2s, 2 Foxtrots & 1 Yankee Boomer). Actually had a guy from one of the Foxtrots I found tow my car home from Burbank airport to Pasadena some 23 years later.

Started with AOD & Silent Hunter 1 and have been playing ever since.

[Gargoyle]

Happy to make this thread my first post after months of lurking :D.

I've always been a flight sim fan and aviation nut, but I first got into subbing with the C64/128 Silent Service. Fast forward 15yrs or so and I bought Dangerous Waters for a bit of a change. I loved the strategy, planning, and well.... the brain work it took to engage targets and avoid detection while only using instruments; flying blind in essence :).

Saw that SH3 was out when I visited this site for some DW info and decided to grab it. Upon first loading it up I've been hooked and then some!

I never play without my Ti-83, notepad, ruler, compass, and protractor. Immersion is a dangerous drug :rock: .

Fin.

[Zie Chuckinator]

"How did you get into U-boats (everyone please post)"

start from main menu, press single player, saved career, load game 'before mission', click on the map, press continue, wait for it to load.

and thats how i get into my u-boat :-j

oh and my fifth grade teacher was a sonar man in a sub for the US navy in the Cold War.

[Abraham]

Welcome aboard, Gargoyle!
I hope you'll enjoy the game and this site.
:up:

[ICBM]

1. Saw Das Boot.
2. Bought Silent Hunter 1.

:|\

[DaNuke]

I rode three boats in the ought and seventies, 571 boat - Nautilus(SSN), 659 boat- Will Rogers and the 633 boat- Casimir Pulaski(SSBNs). Navy Nuke trained.
I have bought all sub games for the Mac since they came out, in fact, one of the first games for the old 'skinny' Mac of ought and 84 was a sub game.
It's sad that there has not been anything out for a long time now.
It's interestng to see how many folks got into it from watching Das Boot. The greatest Sub Flick of all time! It took me a time to find the German, with subtitles, version, but it is, in my opinion, much better than the dubbed version.
DaNuke

[Safe-Keeper]

How did you get into U-boats (everyone please post)See, there are these hatches:p...

How did I come to like u-boat games? No clue. I'm "just interested in them". I guess it's genetical, part of my maritime Norwegian genes;).

[stabiz]

Das Boot. I love all submarine movies, even the ****ty ones.

[chupacabras]

Folks bought a farmhouse in upstate NY in the mid 60's. 150 years old with all the furniture still in it. I must have been 7 or 8. I was small enough to crawl up into the attic and discovered a stack of old magazines....in German! They covered WWI and seemed to be written for Germans living in the US. You guessed it, they had many images of U-Boats and I couldn't stop looking at them. Still have the magazines. Dad told me about the USS Ling in New Jersey and I begged him to take me.

That's all it took...... anything to do with subs and U-Boats specifically was for me.

I'll have to find the magazines and scan a few of the pages.....it's good stuff and maybe somebody with more knowledge could let me know about the content.

Chupacabras

[Frenssen]

I have been interested in military history and models since my childhood and ships in particular. I guess it comes from hearing stories and seeing items from the battle of Narvik not far from where I live. The German surface fleet also was based in my area at one time and there were U-boat based here as well which raided the Murmansk convoys.
In 1996 I bought my first computer for my studies. At the same time I found a copy of Command: Aces of the Deep in the bargain bin. I passed my exams that year, but only because of intense reading the last couple of weeks:know:
Since then I have played the Silent Hunter series and the modern sonalysts sims.

[NIGHTFIGHTER]

Great grandfather was a traller skipper, then in WW1 they turned his ship into a mine layer, had three family members loose thier lives in a lifeboat disaster, loved SH2 so got SH3 you could say the sea is in the blood, so thats why i served 6 years in the air force.:damn:

[P_Funk]

I love military history in general so I'm always intrigued by new things that I haven't yet explored. My sub origin is much more mundane than most.

I was readingthrough my latest copy of PC Gamer and came accross a preview of a very interesting new subsim. It was called SH3 and I was intrigued to begin with.:rock: Then a month or two later there was the full on review and I imediately searched out the closest copy. I tend to trust PC gamer reviews and they gave SH3 a very very good review. So before I could scrape together the necessary funds to purchase the game ($70!!!) I went to the library and got every sub book I could find and just started reading. It just got out of hand from there.:|\\

[blue3golf]

I'm big into military history and theres something about combat at sea, I think it's the extremes of it. Seems as though every experience is different. Had an Uncle that was on a sub in the eighties.

[slow_n_ez]

Going to the mall arcade in late 60's and playing the quarter machine for hours... every 10 ships you sunk you got a free game .... you looked thru a periscope to target the ships ..... bad thing about then .. they didn't provide chairs so after about 2 or 3 hours standing there it was time to go .............

[bookworm_020]

Can to subs in a roundabout way. I was interested in ship wrecks (titanic was the main one, started by watching a night to remember when at sick a home one school day) I read a book about famous shipwrecks which the titanic was one. The next chapter was the Lusitania! The chapter also mentioned the exploties of the U9 sinking 3 cruisers in one afternoon, so I was hooked.:up:

My first subsim was called sub battles, which played on my old Mac plus. Many a long afternoon playing american and german sub commanders sinking entire merchant fleets, (my record was 300,000 tons as a German, 350,000 as American) Finnish off a battleship with my AA guns was par for the course.:arrgh!:

The mac got replaced with a newer one, so my next sub game was the forgettable wolfpack where you could be a sub, escort, or merchant(why the hell would you want to be one???)

Next sub game I could play on my computer (at work) was SHII, got SHIII when works computer got upgraded.

Now I moved to a new job, so have to install on a new computer.

I'm getting withdrawal pains....:doh:

[Hueywolf123]

I promised my elderly father to research the death of his uncle. Uncle Ronnie, the family knew, was in Coastal Command. They thought he was in a Sunderland, but this did not match with his sqadron, when I corralated the date posted missing against the squadron, I found he was shot down by U-343 off the Costa Del Sol, Spain.
I decided to research this U-boat, crew names, background etc and found myself hooked. This and the fact that RAF archives are still acting like it's all still official war secrets, and refuse to give out the names of the aircrew he died with. I found the Bundesarchiv to be of an enourmous help, even sending me the ships radio log from U-343 on the dates concerning his being shot down. All desribed etc.
This is when I purchased from the bargain bin, a copy of SHII. I loved that game, but when SHIII came out and now modded with Greywolves - wow.
Ayhow, thought I'd share that with you,
See you in the Nord See

[RAM]

Back in the 80s we got a computer at home, it was an Amstrad CPC. With the computer came several games: the typical alien-killing arcade (Galactic plague, it was called), educational software, etc


one of those games was called "admiral graf spee"...you were the famous german ship and had to hunt for merchants and avoid being killed by enemy warships, or running out of fuel...well,that got me hooked (I was some 7-8 years old at the time) and sparked my interest in naval sims as a whole, and WW2 in particular.


Not much later, my dad bought me an air simulator (We had a deal, if I came home with good enough califications from school, he'd buy me a computer game) called Spitfire 40. When I chose it from the shelve of the store (I had no idea of what it was, all I knew was that it was about planes and I thought playes were cool) my father looked at me and told me that the game was too complicated for a kid my age. I didn't care, and still got it.

It was hard as hell, but I got the basics fast. It was not long until I was killing Bf109s in my trusty spitfire ;).

That got me interested in air simulators...and WW2 air sims in particular.


Finally, in another "good califications game buy" I found a game called "hunter killer". It was about an "S" class boat hunting german u-boats near heligoland. I had no idea about what an "S" Class submarine was, where Heligoland is, but it was about subs. And subs were cool in my mind, so I chose it.

Again, dad looked at me: "This is TOO hard for you, believe me, choose something else" (He always was at loss at why would I buy those complicated things over the usual arcade games everyone else wanted to try). He was right, in my first tries I never understood why when when I fired the torpedo, the enemy sub would run at warpspeed from it...

Took some and many tries until I found out what was happening: if I pointed the periscope other way that 0º bearing ahead, it "straightened" itself after firing a torpedo. So I would just point the scope to the enemy sub, no matter the bearing, and fire a torpedo- it wasn't the enemy sub running away at warp speed, it was my scope returning to 0º bearing...and of course the torpedoes were launched at a 0º bearing!!! :D.

That made me think quite a bit about how to correctly use my weapons, and finally decided the best way was not turning the scope towards the enemy, but the whole sub (hey I was an 8 year old kid, what do you want!!! :D). Needless to say it worked and I was able to finally kill my preys, lol.

So...I also got interesnted about submarine simulators ;).


A couple years later ( I was roughly 10) I saw a huge book in a store near my home. It was called "War at sea 1939-1945" by John Hamilton, a big book covering the whole WW2 story from a naval point of view. I agreed with my dad that if I had good qualifications for the whole semester, he'd buy it to me instead of the games (It was quite expensive, more than 3 CPC games together). It was illustrated by the author drawings (and he was quite an artist). Up to that point I had read about WW2 and had played games about WW2 but I had never seen a picture or a drawing of the real action. THat book was quite a revelation for me about the naval side of WW2...
a side effect was -it was in english-...so I had quite a motivation to learn english FAST...to understand it ;).


Up to this point all I got was interest in WW2. I wasn't really hooked to any kind of game in particular...its just that that also included air and naval simulations (not really usual in a kid of that age)...if you can call a simulator to the very limited experience a very limited computer as the CPC could give you.



Finally some years later (when I was 14) we got a PC. The old agreement of "you get good qualifications-I buy you a game" ended at that point because my father thought I was spending too much time at the computer (he never really liked computers to be true), but I still purchased a game now and then with whatever money I saved.

One day I happened to be around in a shopping mall, computer zone and saw something called "Aces of the Deep". It was about subs, about the atlantic, and about WW2. The cover warned that the game could actually induce to seasickness, so I thought "hey, this must be REALLY good!". Immediately bought it.

It WAS really good. Rest is history.


(Something similar happened to me with Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe. Those two games turned me into a sub-sim and air-sim hardcore addict)

[TarJak]

My interest in all things naval came from my father. He was a keleck AE (Senior Rate Aircraft Engineer) in the RAN (Royal Australian Navy), back when it had a real Fleet Air Arm and an aircraft carrier of it's very own. (HMAS Melbourne), both now sadly long gone.

Somewhere along the line I got to visit one of the old Oberon class subs that the RAN used up until the early nineties. Whilst we didn't submerge (tied up to the wharf the hole time) as a young kid I could imagine it.

The sub sim thing started with an old arcarde slot video game which had a periscope and you fired a faster and faster moving targets that shot across a fairly flat mono screen. i progressed to Aces of the Deep and then the original SH. Didn't think much of SHII because of the other graphical advances that were happening at the time, but it was still a good improvement on the original. Blew my mind when I saw SHIII and had to have it. Currently running a campaign using GW after using RUB and some other mods for the past 6-7 months or so.

[Seaveins]

My grandfather (Danish resistance member) had stories of reporting German naval traffic to the UK around Lolland and Langeland, DK (saw the Bismarck!). I ended up getting into scuba diving and worked on a boat that had recently recovered artifacts on the U-? off North Carolina, USA. The propeller was salvaged and ended up in the dive shop's lounge. I would sit there looking at it and imagine the journey this object took. I guess I have always been into U-boats.
-Lars

[Hawk_308]

In 6th grade we had to read (periscope up) , I was hooked on subs and reading ever since. By the time I was in the 9th grade I was selling my sub drawings (mostly type VIIC) for 5 bucks a pop . I lot of times I would draw a VII attacking a AXIS ship just because I liked the look of them over the US subs :rotfl:.

[stabiz]

In 6th grade we had to read (periscope up) , I was hooked on subs and reading ever since. By the time I was in the 9th grade I was selling my sub drawings (mostly type VIIC) for 5 bucks a pop . I lot of times I would draw a VII attacking a AXIS ship just because I liked the look of them over the US subs :rotfl:.

Hello! Could we see some of these drawings?

[UnterSeeTub]

I opened the hatch and climbed in ;)

[Hawk_308]

In 6th grade we had to read (periscope up) , I was hooked on subs and reading ever since. By the time I was in the 9th grade I was selling my sub drawings (mostly type VIIC) for 5 bucks a pop . I lot of times I would draw a VII attacking a AXIS ship just because I liked the look of them over the US subs :rotfl:.
Hello! Could we see some of these drawings?

Next time I go back home to my parents house Ill dig though my old scetch pads and note pads and see if I could find any thing:ping: . 80% of my stuff I did was naval mostly WW2 area battle ships , subs, aircraft carriers then ships of the line from the 1800's.After that I did WW2 aircraft and then a few nature scenes.

I was over one of my old friends house about 2 years ago and he had a turkey hunting scene I did framed in his living room made me feel pretty good. I havnt done any pen and inks in over 11 years and oils in over 13 years :(.

[Magua]

Going to the mall arcade in late 60's and playing the quarter machine for hours... every 10 ships you sunk you got a free game .... you looked thru a periscope to target the ships ..... bad thing about then .. they didn't provide chairs so after about 2 or 3 hours standing there it was time to go .............


LOL...I remember that game. The torpedoes shot up from the bottom toward the ships cruising by on top. I think it was called Sea Wolf.

My interest first started after a trip to the USS Cavalla when I was 12. It then peaked with the game Silent Service II and then really peaked with Aces of the Deep. I still have those games now and even have the Aces of the Deep Grid Map on my wall today.

[vodkaphile]

I've been interested in most things German military since the middle ages/Holy Roman Empire days.

Das Boot and other sub movies have always been a favorite of mine plus one of the first games I played on PC was a game called "Wolfpack". I was hooked from there on out.

Pirates and Submarines are a great interest of mine, go figure. I guess they are similiar in a way.
:arrgh!:

[Slick Rick]

I grew up on the South side of Chicago...and we went on a field trip to the Museum of Science and Industry....and it was there that I first laid my eyes on U505....I have been back many times since and I always get excited every time I see her......I also never missed an episode of Voyage to the bottom of the Sea.....

[rcs929]

I have always enjoyed simulation games & have a great interest in WWII. I saw a friend play silent hunter I at a lan party so I watched him play a bit. He ended up giving it to me & about a year later I played it shortly- I have waaay too many games that I like so bounce around a lot. I liked the cat and mouse of it and the charting but it didn't really spark yet.

Later on I saw SHII so I bought that & played it a great deal more. The rolling seas, running smack dab into a convoy in heavy heavy fog & trying to escape hunter/killer groups got me hooked. Also I like the slow pace which I can choose to speed up or keep slow.

I got SH3 because the sub rolls with the sea & the crew. I didn't like manning a one man sub that never moved especially when my favorite feature in the game is the rolling seas. I must say the community here keeps me playing as well, I get to reading some patrol stories then I am inspired to go out on patrol :)

[spork542]

I took interest in world war two and its ships at a young age, and was given Silent Hunter II as a birthday present a long time ago, I think. Then I got really interested in U-boats. Several years later, SH3 gets released without my knowing, and I eventually got it.

[Wilko]

Read "Run Silent Run Deep" (which I have just had to rebuy after loosing it) then I bought SH, SH2, SH3 as well as Janes 688i with that lovely spiral bound manual, Sub Command, Dangerous Waters.

[Max Peck]

Silent Service on NES got me started with sub sims, Aces of the Deep showed me how amazing (at the time) they could look, Silent Hunter and Silent Hunter III actually made me learn targeting and tracking skills like a true submarine commander would have to use.

[SubConscious]

I've been interested in WWII history since early High School. I think what fascinated me most was how close Germany came to winning and how their defeat could be attributed to a few key strategic mistakes.

It was at this time that I was exposed to my first computer game - a multi-player Star Trek combat simulator written in BASIC written by two friends of mine. The game didn't have any graphics (so it was fast enough to have 6-8 players at that time), so we were flying around and plotting intercepts in 3D space using nothing but numbers. To put this in perspective, we were playing on 110 baud terminals. If you think a 56k modem is slow, try something 509 times slower. ;)

Several years later, I was visiting a friend who had Aces of the Deep on his PC. He was tired and sacked out, but I ended up playing that game until the wee hours - I was completely hooked. When PCs outpaced AotD and I couldn't get it to load anymore, I gave up on Sub Sims, vowing to wait until something that I thought was as good or better than AotD arrived. I think SH3 fits that bill.

Thanks for the trip down Memory Lane...

[Jusa_Finn]

Read all the war and navy books in the 60’s starting with Hornblower.
Started playing Silent Service 2 in about 1990
Played Silent Hunter 2 until I heard that SH3 is coming.

[Jager Kapitan]

I always loved researching WWII, then I learned my grandpa was in fact a radioman on destroyer, guarding the east coast from u-boats,:arrgh!:, thought that was the only person in my family to ever be in the navy, but it turns out I'm a distant relative of Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry (by marriage through my great uncle) And thats about all the naval tradtion in my family. (my 2 greatx3 grandfathers were in the Civil war, we still have one of their resignation letters)

[HunterICX]

:-? As an Kid I Always loved stuff about WW2,
had 100 - 200 of those small plastic soldiers...you know...those Green - American, Grey - Axis and yellow - Brits


and when I had an Computer I played
Panzer General the Classic one :up:
and a whole lotta more WW2 games
and after a while U-Boats start to blow my mind about how the germans did it in WW2.

Also my Grandpa, was an part of an dutch resistance...Sabotaging small things on the Airport of Gilze-Rijen . he almost got fusilized for that :nope: Geezzz...Grandpa...
well

here I am :|\\ sinking stuff

[Zero Niner]

I started off with MPS's Silent Service for the Apple ][, then Silent Service II & II when they were released.

But it was the first Silent Service that got me hooked.

Then it was (iirc) Aces of the Deep and the original Silent HUnter + add-ons.

Jane's Attack sub was cool, but lack of replayability doomed it to a short life on my hard drive.

Looking forward to SH IV - somehow patrolling a US boat in the Pacific is what still interests me.

[Mooncatt]

i got into u-boats from a game on the c-64 "silent service" wicked game

[Redbear]

WWII has always been an area of interest for me. It started a long time ago when I got the Avalon Hill board game Panzerblitz as a gift (in the 1970's). Since I played the German side, I wanted to learn more about the German armed forces in that war. One thing led to another, and soon I was playing flight simulators including the Combat Flight Simulator series and IL2-FB. On a combat flight forum I heard about SH3's development. That led me to investigate the SH series and buy SH2. Again, as I learned more and played more, I was hooked. Ever since SH3 came out, I play it almost exclusively.

[WilhelmSchulz.]

I saw the game and I said "Hmmm... Looks like a good game:hmm: "

Also before that I had red 1 U-Boat book.:yep:

[Inbred Pest]

When I was a young lad (round 7th grade) a class required us to read a book called "Deathwatch" by rob white. It was a story that had absolutely nothing to do with the military, but I was so enthralled with it that I searched the library for other books by the author. I found he was a wonderful WWII Naval fiction author penning such classics as "up pericsope", "the frogmen", "torpedo Run", etc. Reading those books started my passion for WWII navy things that then branched off to movies, other books, etc. Then that developed into a love for modern submarines as well, but WWII was and still is my favorite. It was also around that same age I got to take my first trip through the USS Torsk in Baltimore, MD. My first subsim was 688 attack sub for a sega game console. Even though as a sim, it was pretty lousy, especially by todays standards, I played that game for weeks on end. Finally, in my college years, I grabbed a copy of the great Aces Of the Deep that shifted my interest to German Uboats. I thought AOD was the greatest game ever made, despite its shortcomings. A few years back, when I upgraded to Windows XP, AOD would no longer work and there was no support for the game anymore. For a year or two after that, I had abandoned the notion of having a good UBoat sim. Finally I could take it no longer, and started searching the web hoping someone had independently made a patch for AOD to make it work again. That's how I stumbled onto this site. I couldn't believe there was a whole community of folks with my same passion. I had never even heard of most of the games on here, but the same night I found this site, I ran out and picked up SHIII which unbelievably was everythin I had ever wanted in a game. Been reading here and playing for many months, but finally decided to start posting. The only thing better than SHIII is this forum and knowing I'm not alone in the world.

[STEED]

WW2 is my main interest more so the eastern front, picked up SH1 for a nice cheap price back in the 1990's but had no real interest in subs until I bought SH2 which started me to start taking an interest in subs. And when SH3 came out I became more interested in reading up on the battle of the Atlantic. And I suspect when SH4 comes out I shall take more of an interest in the Pacific.

[bigboywooly]

Always been into WW2 mainly the navy side
Used to read a load of books by Douglas Reeman (?) when younger and that started me off
While in last years of school we had to make a database and one of the choices were uboat sinkings
That was me hooked on uboats and have never looked back :up:

[U-Bersnuber]

As many others, i have always been facinated by U-boats.
But the sim part was when i tried SH1.
Back then the graphics was stunning:o anyways:
Being able to lurk around those huge areas feeling completely alone was totally different from other games i had played.
But the thing that really got me hooked was when i got my first successful hit with a torpedo. NO game beats that feeling! :rock: :rock:

:ping: well, that's pretty much my experience regarding U-boats, nd now im trying to figure out the SH3 gameplay:ping:

[Ducimus]

I think the primary reason i got intrested in U-Boats, was due to a lack of sub sim's that had the same level of immersion, but in a US Fleet boat.

What got me into WW2 sub's in general? I have no idea. It's just something that happened. I suppose i saw some old black and white film as a kid. Infact, it may have been "Run Silent, Run deep". I really don't know.

I remember as a kid playing, "silent Service" on my NES. Later on in highschool i read a few books written by Edward Beach. (sp). Later on i started playing Aces of the deep, because there wasnt any sub games with American boats. Silent Hunter I was an utter dissapointment to me. Too cut and dry, didnt have the feel like AOD did.

Later on while overseas, i read a few more of Beach's books and some other books on US subs. I read the tales about the Wahoo, harder, Seawolf, Tang, Toutog, Trigger, the list goes on.

Then oneday i read about Sh3. Looked really cool, shame it wasn't with US fleet boats, but i figured i wasnt about to let that stop me from enjoying a good WW2 diesal electric sub sim. After playing SH3 awhile, i grew to want to know more about the German Uboats and their crews, and started reading books about them as well.

Now i feel i know about as much about Uboats as i do Fleet Boats, although i think im probably still more familiar with the Gato then i am with the type VII or type IX. I toured a Gato once, and i sort of knew where everything was before i ever set foot onboard. Once onboard, i wasn't lost, and knew exactly where i was, and had a damn good idea what i was looking at. Talk about a geek. I can't say that about German Uboats, but then again, ive never gotten the chance to see one either.

[IronOutlaw]

I have always had a passion for the German Navy, and to a lesser degree the Royal Navy, of the 20th century, mostly focusing on the battle fleets of WW I and the capital ships of WW II.

However, a few years ago I got to meet, and subsequently becomes friends with, the II WO from U-1105, Heinz Sonnenrein and his lovely wife Ursula. Heinz and Ursula both died back in 1999, within 10 days of each other, but my interest had been fired up.

As a consequence of meeting Heinz, I immediately began, through letters, and later the net, making friends in Germany who also shared the U-boat interest. One friend actually works on U-995. When I visited in 2000, he took me to Laboe and showed me around U-995. We later went to Bremerhaven where we saw U-2540, and also to Wilhelmshaven where we had lunch on board the frigate Emden. Also visited the Peter Tamm collection in Hamburg, the U-boot Archiv in Cuxhaven-Altenbruch, and later I went to Freiburg im Bresgau to visit the Navy Archives where I spent far too much money on photocopying.

Another friend is currently a Kapitänleutnant in the Deutsches Marine.

Last year I discovered a U-boat veteran, Herman Meyer, living very close by who was a torpedo mechanic on U-409, and survived her sinking. He has been able to help me with some technical stuff about the Torpedo Firing Report, so that I can complement my SH III KTB's with the correct forms for any targets I engage. Unfortunately, Herman is not so good these days, but I still see him from time to time.

Then there was SH II, and by the time SH III came out, it was too late, I was addicted to U-boats, and beyond help. Maybe there is an SH III Anonymous group out there for guys who are so afflicted and may be able to help me kick the habit, but I doubt it! I bet there is a Partners of SH III Addicts group though!

Anyone interested to see how bad the addiction is, let me know as a recent patrol finished and the KTB, FTB and Shooting Report are nearly ready, and I can send you a copy.

[torpcatcher]

When I was 5 years old my father took me to see DD ORP. Blyskawica(Lightning) in port town of Gdynia. The Polish destroyer served protecting convoys under British command during WWII (more info about the ORP. Blyskawica on Wiki).
Than after that we took the tour of the harbor and that’s when I saw it… it was the last of the Polish ORP Orzel submarines was tied to a pier and awaiting its doom. The decommissioned sub was being prepared for scrap.
The second I saw the sleek hull and coning tower an instant flame of curiosity burst in side of me. Since that day I always were interested in how the subs work. What makes them go under and what makes them surface and I so badly wanted to see how it looks inside. Since that day I became fascinated by submarines. When I became older my father got me Commodore 64 and with it I got Silent Service game. I remember spending hours playing that sub sim. Soon I upgraded to Commodore Amiga 600 and 1200 and than I laid my hands on Silent Service II, and Red Storm Rising. I was hooked on those games for weeks never ending playing them. And than became many other sub sims that I played and enjoyed. When SH3 came out and gave players the experience of war from the perspective of a German submarine commander. I fell in love with that game and I’ve been playing it ever since I got it.

[Shaffer4]

Probably stems from the fact that my dad was Supposed to have been a Submariner after he joined the navy in 1968 he was assigned to the USS. Guitarro and well, that assignment never came to pass. http://www.history.navy.mil/library/special/guitarro.htm

So he wound up on the Carrier USS Midway ( Which is much cooler, in my eyes, being apart of the history of such an honored vessel. )

Other than that, I have always thought that Submarines where neat *shrug*

[RedHammer]

1994, got a DX50 with 16 mb ram, 4 mb v card(later upgraded to 8), 32 mb ram, 1 gig hard drive.
1995, came over Silent Service, which made me read through a game magazine and i found Das Boot(The game) which made me see the movie, which made me get Silent Hunter (didnt understand squat, and still not understanding squat of TDC, I developed a sense of getting just about any ship at any distance without using tdc) . Later on I found out about Aces of the Deep, and i found Silent Service 2 in some diskette.
and from there and on it just sparkled, U-571, Silent Hunter 2, and now Silent Hunter 3.

I just love the VII and IX uboats, their streamlined body and shark-like look beats the crap out of any atomic-junglybungly round ugly uboats today. My dream is to go to see the U-505 in Chicago and take pictures of absolutely evrything.

Silent Hunter 3 kicks ass, I wish I could say the same about IV, but its about american uboats so I dont think il like it much.


RH

[tycho102]

I played Silent Service I and II on several computers. I do have Silent Hunter 1, which I picked up in some kind of clearance pack back in 1999 or something, but the one time I tried it was nearly unplayable (I don't remember why).

At any rate, Silent Hunter 3 was just the latest and greatest, and based on forums (like Subsim), I just decided to give it a try. The German perspective is quite different, but all the principles that I learned on SS1/2 still apply.


I will definately be taking a hard look at SH4. If it looks like the game is near the same quality as SH3 (*cough*), I will likely pre-order it.

[Eichenlaub]

I have always loved military history of all ages and various cultures, with a particular preference for the World Wars. After those conflicts, my interest wanes. What I enjoy about the WW's is the balance between improving technology and man's influence upon performance in the field. After the Second World War, technology starts to get the upper hand in my view. I think military personnel are becoming operators instead of soldiers, but that is another discussion. The air and sea struggles during both WW's demonstrate the ascendancy of technology, but still required good men to function properly.:rock:

Anyway, I cannot remember what it was that drew me to the Second World War (I learned to appreciate the First World War only when I was a teenager), it has always been with me, from my earliest childhood onwards.

During my teen years I got introduced to the wonderful world of Commodore computers. First experiences came to me on a C64, later I purchased an Amiga 500 and later still, an Amiga 1200. The C64 didn't really help develop my love for history (except for a few games), but the Amiga scene was rife with historically inspired games. At first I played mostly flight sims (my first brush with flight sims was when I learned Spitfire '40 the hard way on a C64) and the real screamer for me back then was a game called Wings, by Cinemaware. Although horribly stereotyping WWI Germans as typical Nazis (I only realised that later), that game brought about an interest in some of Germany's early flying heroes like Oswald Boelcke and Max Immelmann. I got a book about flying aces from the library and it included sections on WWII aces as well - Allied and German.
At first (I was about 15 years old) I looked at these German flying fellows with the usual anti-German glasses I'd been taught to wear, but I couldn't help being very impressed by the military accomplishments of an Adolf Galland, an Erich Hartmann or a Hans-Joachim Marseille. I grew up in a very anti-German environment by the way, not because of my parents, but because of the general dispositions towards Germans in my region.:nope:
The Amiga didn't stop at supplying me with flight sims though: Silent Service II hit the Amiga scene around 1991 or 1992. The pirated version suffered from various bugs, including unreliable save games and random software failures. I still loved it to bits though. On at least one occasion I left the trusty A500 on for at least two nights as I dared not save my career - the computer stayed turned on until I got killed late in the war. I happily slept just a yard away while the game was set to "pause"...:rock:

I've always been into various aspects of the World Wars, but the aerial war was usually my number one priority. I'm usually inspired to read up on subjects by computer games. Ergo, flight sims caused me to read books on pilots and planes, while submarine sims drew my attention to navy books. Having shed my anti-German instincts by the time I had reached my early twenties', I took it upon myself to learn about the German war efforts in both WW's. This is reflected in my computer games in which I often elect to fly/sail as a German pilot/commander. It won't stop me from playing SHIV by the way.:up:

I also played Das Boot on the A500, but as a game it wasn't very good in my opinion. There was no dynamic campaign and the missions didn't seem to be lively at all.:damn:
When I was finally forced to upgrade to pc, I purchased Silent Service II again but it just wasn't as good as the Amiga version I was accustomed to. Some months or a year later, I rummaged through a bargain bin at a local warehouse when I espied Command: Aces of the Deep. I had not heard of the title before but everything about it cried out "quality!" to me so I bought it. Unfortunately I barely played the game since my own pc couldn't really handle it and I only played it on my dad's pc. The main subsim I played on pc was Silent Hunter I which I purchased twice: once as part of a 4-game pack and once as a free add-on to Fighting Steel. I enjoyed Silent Hunter I even though I was never very good at it. I considered the Japanese ASW capabilities to be overly powerful considering their historical performance. Then again, the awesome Gato did make me cocky I suppose...

I got into Silent Hunter III when I stumbled upon it at a local store. Fell in love at first glance and still haven't tired of it. It has inspired me to purchase and read several books on naval warfare in WWII so far - the end is not near I must say!

The story of how I got into U-boote seems rather complex judging from the above, but that's just because I've tried to tie it into my computer hobby - the two are inexorably linked to each other. To me, as a lover of all forms of warfare, it was simply natural to add an interest in submarines to the one I had in airplanes. I enjoy surface ships as well, and tanks...:o

I'm glad to see so many others with healthy historical interests as well as veterans of the C64/Amiga gaming scene! I'm envious of the ones who have had contact with war veterans though, I wish I could meet some submariner or airman.

Kind regards,

Eichenlaub

[CptGrayWolf]

I got into U-boats/submarines playing Silent Service on my Atari 800XL (long time ago...). In those days games (and especially sims) still had a real manual also containing lots of background info and stories. After playing and reading I read more books aboat subs (including Das Boot) and the interest was born :D
Now who ever said only bad things come from video games :P :lol:
:ping:

Hey same for me! Silent Service on Atari 800xl. :up:
And yes, bring the real manuals back!

[Lionclaw]

The first time I came in contact with submarines was with Silent Service II on the Amiga 500+, I was very young at the time so I only played for fun. // I have also played Attack Sub on the Sega Mega Drive, I got killed many times since I didn't know any tactics or how to do things. I managed to sink many friendly ships though. // Silent Hunter II was the next submarine game, I got more interested in U-boats because of this game. I remember one campaign mission where one has to sneak into Scapa Flow and sink some capital ships with the Type VII U-boat. I also remember the campaign mission where you had to pass the Gibraltar strait with the Type IX, very difficult mission. // I purchased Sub Command later on, very different from any other submarine games I've ever played. Very difficult and I had to learn a lot in order to survive, like not going to fast so it starts to cavitate and get counter detected. Also doing defensive manouvers when a torpedo has been launched towards me, I got killed many times. // Last submarine game was Silent Hunter III, I was impressed with the graphics and the 3D internal view. With this game I got really interested in U-boats and submarines. I have played with external camera turned off and It's more fun because it's more challenging.

[Brewtality]

Das Boot and Silent Hunter, i had a pirated copy of Silent Hunter way back then that i tried and thought "omg, what a crappy game!" but saw Das Boot several months or might even been a year later.
I then had to look thru every friggin disk (yes disk hehe) to try and find Silent Hunter but ended up buying it the next day instead... been hooked on and off ever since.
But only the old types... the new atomic nuclear subs doesent facinate me.

[robbierob2005]

Back in the 80's I came in contact with the subs. I watched the Das Boot series with my parents (yes! The let me see it!). About that same time Silent Service came out on the C64. Then my love for subs really began.
Also, my dad is in the Navy (office job) and because of that I've had many privet tours on dutch subs.
I am most interested in uboots. Don't know why but they are the most beautiful boats ever made. Think it has something to do with Das Boot!:D

[ecm747x]

My facination with first, the WW2 Navy came from my grandfather who was on the USS Enterprise durring WW2. He was on her when she sailed into Pearl after the attack on Dec 7th.
I then kept looking for computer sim games and most were sub sim and fell in love with them...
I also had two cousins who were on Boomers durring the cold war. There stories facinated me, even though they said it was99% of the time borring, the other 1 percent more than made up for it

[Finnbat]

Truly devoted old wargamer like me are interested only in real simulation games like this. But I must say there are not many games I have enjoyed like Silent Hunter series.

I look for total realism in my older days. And this give it with these excellent maded mods. GW is one of the best voluteer worked mods I know. All the thanks to you people who done it. And cant wait for the supermod soon coming out.

[Achtung Englander]

Das Boot

I was hooked from then on

[Grrbob25]

i came across silent-hunter iii while looking at the website for Lock On Modern Air Combat (another ubisoft game) and i saw sh3 in related games so i checked it out and then i was like "omfg a uboat sim!" I wasnt around for most of the real old ones, Aces of the Deep came out when I was two ;) after i found sh3, i learned as much as i could about it, and i had a copy the same day (got it from gamestop for 39.99, but this was when it was new) had truble running it on my win98 pc, but managed to smooth all things out........now waiting for winxp so i can play GW! well after i started playing sh3, and then it was uboot.net, and now I have the history of the Ubootwaffe memorized

[Biggles]

I started my study on WW2 history in the 3rd grade, and I had a keen interest about everything that involed the war, which included U-boats.

SHIII, is however, my first (and ONLY) U-Boat sim, but I read somewhere it could be easy for the non-U-Boataholic so I bought it, and by jove, I loved it.:up:

[DanBiddle]

I started getting interested in submarines when my cousin served in the Royal Navy. He served in resolution and Trafalgar class subs, and I wanted to know more about what he was doing, and it all started from there really. I found SH3 by typing Submarine sims into some search engine, and never looked back!

[WilhelmSchulz.]

I bought the Game and I was hooked. :roll:

[Mauser KAR98K]

Hunt For the Red October did it for me. Then came the forth grade. I bought a small submarine book and loved the look of the German U-Boat. I also grabbed what the school library had for sub books, but mostly modern ones. Checked out "Run Silent, Run Deep" and was hooked! Then my dad brought home Red Storm Rising for computer. I sat in class memorizing the different Russian Sub Classes. I loved the Seawolf. Sometime later he brought home Silent Service II. That got fun using "straight shot" Torpedoes. I was used to working with homing torpedoes with safety systems from RSR. Then Later Das Boot, and U-571. Pirated off SHII from Mourphous and haven't looked back since. I was floored when I saw SHIII and made a note to grab it. Now I want to find novels and probably get into R/C boats now. Amazing what a game will do to you.

[Crawlerz]

my first experience w/sub games was when i saw AOTD in BJ's about 11 years ago. at that time i had $40 in my pocket and couldn't part with the necessary 20. but got it later (and now there is an ancient computer my brother plays it on) obviously i play SH3 on my brand-spankin'-new DELL. not really it's 2 yy old. but 3.0GHz fast. (my only bottleneck is the video card - 128mb only:shifty: )

[THE_MASK]

Through the hatch usually:rotfl:

[IronOutlaw]

I met the II WO from U-1105, Heinz Sonnenrein, about 10 years ago after a friend of a friend knew I was interested in German Naval history.

Heinz, and his wonderful wife Ursula, and I became good friends, and with a friend I have in the modern German Navy, I was able to help heal a few old wounds. I did begin to understand the dreadful stress that all WW II German veterans had to endure, being a Vietnam vet helped.

As I grew to know Heinz, my passion for battleships gradually slipped into second place behind U-boats. Now it has become an obsession about all submarines as I had the good fortune to take some Navy cadets on a sea ride aboard HMAS Sheean in February 3 years ago.

I have visited U-505, U-995, U-2540, and worked as a volunteer guide on board HMAS Onslow, as well as getting quite close to U-1 at the Deutsches Museum in Munich. I have spent far too much money on photocopies of U-boat KTB's whilst visiting Germany.

Back in 2003 I attended a U-boat Veteran's Association meeting in Munich and met one of the crew from U577, and the guy who wrote the book on U-boat emblems.

Like I said, it's an obession!!!

Recently I discovered a veteran from U-409 who lives near me. He was a torpedo mechanic.