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I also posted this at SimHQ, but thought I would put it here as well.

Recently got back in to Silent Hunter after many years away, and because I recently re-read Silent Victory for the nth time I chose to go with SH4. I played one career with point-and-shoot targeting but after sinking half a million tons in 7 patrols I knew I needed to mod up to get a proper challenge.

Had a look about and decided to give Trigger Maru 2.5 a go. It is a fantastic mod, I like it very much, but the player detection is too much for me. Don't get me wrong, I love a stiff challenge, I'm the sort of player who loves spending hours evading at depth without externals, staring at the gauges and sweeping with the hydrophones, working the plot, calculating speeds, course, AoB -- essentially attempting to re-create the role of a sub skipper (and tracking party) as closely as I can. But I found it virtually impossible to avoid detection by 1944. For example I was assigned a patrol in the Bismarck Sea. Picked up a convoy -- 6 freighters with 3 escorts just northeast of Wewak. I was detected at about 4500 yards, submerged, silent, brief periscope exposures. OK. In two separate attacks I was able to eliminate the escorts, one sub chaser with a Cutie, one weaving, charging destroyer with a down the throat mag shot, and after pulling off and doing an end around, sunk the last escort a few hours later, leaving the convoy shorn of protection.

Did another end around and after a few hours I submerged 6 miles ahead to lay in wait. The convoy eventually hove in to view, and when they got to within about 4000 yards (2 miles!) the convoy detected me and began evading to the south. It's a bit much for me. Again, I don't mind a challenge, in fact I look for it. But the ability of the ships, and not just escorts, to detect my boat is greater than what I would expect, or want.

So that brings me to RFB 2.0. I installed it, along with RSRDC and several minor mods. Now, I've only done my first patrol for the Asiatic Force following Pearl Harbor, in Spearfish, assigned to patrol off Camrahn Bay. Made just one contact (still no surface search radar of course, or SD yet), a 5-ship convoy in column, with a leading and trailing destroyer escort, likely heading for Lingayen Gulf. I attempted to end around, keeping the convoy hull down, but it was bright daylight, no wind, just a blue bird day and we were spotted by the escorts at about 9000 yards as we made the surface dash to get ahead for a periscope attack.

Quickly pulled the plug and turned in on the convoy. The escorts closed the spot we submerged and began a search, but the time it took them to close, and our 7 knots submerged meant they were unable to detect me due to the distance we had moved from the point of submergence. It seemed perfectly realistic. In TMO these DDs would have been on me in no time.

With a bit of breathing room we closed the convoy's track. Due to all the above I was only able to get in position to have a crack at the last ship in line, a big 7000 ton 4-mast freighter. We had tracked them at 12 knots before being sighted, and now that they were zigging mildly we re-tracked them at 8.5. Got within 500 yards and fired all four bow tubes, for one hit, two duds, and not sure what happened to the other torpedo. Luckily, the one hit was critical, and the ship caught fire from bow to stern.

All this time the two escorts has given up looking for me and were closing the convoy. When the fish hit, they started pinging and found me. One of the 'realism/role playing' things I do in Silent Hunter is make trim dives. Of course it isn't necessary in the sim, but I do it anyway, mostly to keep track of the thermal layer. I knew it was at 150 feet. What I failed to do is take a sounding and promptly stuck my nose in the mud.

120 feet of water isn't much and they hounded me, taking turns making runs and dropping strings. Took some moderate damage which we were eventually able to repair, but that precluded silent running and we sought deeper water. With the map/chart I had to work with I had no idea where that would be, but reckoned my best bet was to head east. After a 3 hour evasion I finally found 180 feet of water, dropped below that layer and after a while they returned to their escort stations. One thing I noticed was toward the end of the evasion, the escorts had stopped dropping. They still made runs, but no cans fell. That is wonderful if the escorts can actually run out of DCs in a reasonable time. Is that a RFB thing? If so, great job!

After making repairs and surfacing I set course for Lingayen Gulf as I knew the Japanese would be making their landing on or about the 18th of December and I hoped to get in on it. But as we approached Manila, a message came in changing base to Java, and with just 1/3 of my bunkers still full of oil, I reluctantly turned for Surabaya and made it with just a bit to spare.

Overall it was a 2 week patrol that resulted in 4 torpedos fired, one big freighter sunk and a long, difficult evasion (brought on mainly due to my lack of awareness of the depth of water we were attacking in). But the overall sense of realism, of challenge and of authenticity was as good as any sub sim experience I have had, and I've played them all and for many years. Granted, it's a small sample of a single patrol and my view may shift, but I was very pleased with my first experience. I know Luke hangs out here and I just would like to say thanks and great work to all involved! I especially like the sinking mechanics.

One note, I noticed my first two patrol locations in Spearfish were historically accurate (patrol 2 to Makassar Strait), the same as the real Spearfish was assigned. Has SH4 always been this way, is it a RFB thing, or is it cosmic coincidence?

If anyone else here is, or was, using RFB 2.0, which compatible mods do you use or recommend? (and now that I reposted at Subsim I know the answer is yes, people here are using it!)