I was in California on my honeymoon. We were in San Francisco and I noticed that one of the tourist attractions was the USS Pampanito, a WW2 sub. I was really torn as I'm claustrophic as hell and thinking about those cramped spaces freaked me out but really wanted to see it so we went early in the morning when it would be as empty as possible.

It was just amazing wandering round an old sub and I really enjoyed it, not a hint of claustropobia as there was so much to look at. This started an interest in subs but it didn't take off until more recently when SH3 was voted the best sim. I'd heard of it but never played it so I bought it and then I was seriously hooked. I then read Das Boot and the rest is history :-)

Das Boot TV series when I was a kid.

Like Sailor Steve I grew up in the 50s-60s and saw all the old Sub Movies and TV shows. When I was about 10-12 my parents took us to Chicago to the Museum of Science and Industry and we toured the U-505. After that I was hooked on Subs and WWI and WWII in general, built all the models from Biplanes to Battleships.

When the computer came along with games like 688 Attack Sub, Silent Service, AOD, Red Baron, Silent Hunter I was there buying and playing. Been at it ever since, about 85% of the almost 200 games I have are WWI or WWII sims.

played silent service for nintendo when i was a kid, i've always like world war 2 games of all genres, so the silent hunter series was an obvious buy

688 attack sub, i miss that game :(

my naval games order:

up periscope!
wolfpack
silent hunter
seawolf
taskforce 1942
P.T.O.II
Great naval battles of the north atlantic 1&2
Harpoon
Jutland
Janes fleet command
sub command
silent hunter II
destroyer command
dangerous waters
Navyfleld...
silent hunter III

My feelings are with everything with steel that floats, sadly most of those games belong to my freak sim friends ... someday ill test the pacific aces campaign to sh2 thats my next objective.

- Visited 'Vesikko' the type II U-boat in 1985
- After that there was the Das Boot Miniseries in TV.
- Played my first sims with commodore 64s & amigas (can't remember all the early titles anymore)
- Really started getting involved with Pc games 688I Hunter Killer & Silent Hunter I & II.

Family tradition in my case... :)
My grandpa was a submariner on a IX/D2 (U-859), torpedoed a few miles before reaching Penang by a british sub.
My dad never got to know him and over the years became a little obsessed with him (still keeping his EK II and uniform knobs) and subs in general and I guess that was inherited upon me.
Besides that, most of the mentioned above: Das Boot movie, and some of the american sub movies, early sub games like Sub Battle Simulator, Silent Service and so on...
and reading books of course.

Stay silent...
joerd

Same here 688i, which led me to buy SHII. I read some books earlier mostly on WWII US Pacfleet subs. Wasn't until SHII peaked my interest enough that I started buying books on WWII battle for the Atlantic.