So we can walk around the boat, but did real Kaleuns do that?
 

As a continuation of another thread, I'm curious to hear from guys who have served aboard submarines or other small warships (That's for you Steve:haha:, in case you missed it) about where the captain was and went in the ship. Of course at battlestations he would be almost exclusively at the CIC/Control Room or Conning Tower/Bridge, and I suppose he ocasionally went around the ship in ordinary conditions, but really how often? Did he inspect himself minor details? Were there places a captain would normally never go to? How frequent was for a machinist to meet the captain suddenly in the machine room?

Not that I'm against this feature in SH5, which is of course very wellcomed, but I got curious :up:

I assume that given certain conditions the kaleun would go anywere...

Imagine if most (read: almost all) torpedoes were faulty, I'd personally go along with the chief engineer and the weapons officer to the bow torpedo room to see what's wrong. I guess i'd go to the engine room if something serious had happened (u-505 coff coff) to assess the damage myself.


ps:

just because they didn't doesn't mean they couldn't :88)

i served on a german small warship and i am sure, the captain never entered the machine room. if there were problems, he asked the chief...

It really depends upon the Captain. Some like to utilize the Chain of Command a bit more than others, some are quite personable and chat briefly with you. On my boat both CO's I had could be found in the Engine Room quite a bit, but spent most of their time in the Forward Compartment. The Radio Room was a hot spot for the Captain as well. But an Ohio is a big boat, can't be everywhere the Captain is all the time.

Ours did. He liked to pay the ocassional courtesy visit to every department on the ship. Of course the operative word here is 'ocassional'. Yes, the captain could, and sometimes did, visit any compartment he wanted. It's his boat after all - he's the king. On the other hand none of that is necessary to the operation of a ship, so, like external views, it has a 'coolness' factor, but unlike that other function is actually realistic.

Plus: I think having it is a great idea, mainly because of all the people who asked for it. And it will be cool to look at.

Neutral: I played SH1 for years, and AOD a little less. Those games had no compartments to visit, and no crew to look at, and no 3D views at all, and yet they are still talked about today as a high point for others to aim at.

Minus: How much time has been spent to make this happen, at the expense of what else? Still no wolfpacks? Is the AI vastly improved? Are the major bugs of the two previous versions fixed? If all those have happened then great. Add the cool stuff. If not, fix the problems first.

That makes sense. I'm assuming all captains do this (except maybe aircraft carrier captains lol), simply to keep moral up with alot of 'way to go men, keep it up boys' etc...
Hey maybe if we don't visit the compartments in SH5, the crew moral gradually drops :hmmm:

With regard to the AI.. it would be good to know if the devs have read all the books available on WW2 Sub warfare, as the books I've read give a great deal of insight into the tactics used.
:)

You know what would be awsome is if say you visited the fore torpedo room and find everyone napping.

You could chew them out and redress them :cool:

Never mind the fact you left them at battle stations for 18 hours straight. :haha:

:DL, how bout opening the hatch and finding a dancing crew member with lipstick and dangling oranges. I smell a mod in the making...

It'll be the navy dude without the hat.

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/imag...ks/old_man.jpg

To the girls restrooms :har:

During my time in the german navy I had a captain who came down to our accommodation deck, just for drinking a beer with me ...it was on my 25. birthday in Cadiz:yeah:

If I took the movie "das Boot" as a reference, I'd say the captain went everywhere when the trouble was on. F.x. bottomed at Gibraltar. In normal duty, he stood in his "Zentrale" or better command room to keep an eye and ear to the Hydrophone, to the Radio and to the conning tower with the watch crew to make his decisions quickly, if needed.

And honestly, who would stay longer as necessary in the diesel room with all that infernal noise, that stinking mixture of oil and grease and stuff.

And, running an attack, I think most of that hatches were close to ensure water tightness as far as possible...

danasan

i think it comes down to the very basic question of having a good reason to be there

im sure the captain would go check things out if there was a serious problem and he wasnt needed elsewhere but other than that i think everyone stayed in their own "zone" where they worked or slept since there wasnt room to move around much anyway.

i would think being out of your asigned area wasnt done often but im sure during slow times it wasnt strictly frowned upon either

heck if you squat in front of the hatch you can shout to any compartment except the engine room and have a direct conversation from where you were

I don't think there were any limitations in RL (says he who only served in the merchant navy...and not for long at that).

If nothing else it would serve to keep the morale of the crew high but in the main I think he'd leave each compartment to it's own chief/expert.

Id think the kapitan would visit the engine room ocationaly... I mean, a uboat is a small place... :hmmm:

The uboat isnt that big so i guess he can cross it from bow to stern in a minute and not even in a hurry.My personal experience with comercial ships is that i almost never saw the captain.
In the two weeks i was on board of a fery(crossing black sea few times) i saw him twice.Once in his underwear on the bridge with the first and second mate , the second time i dont even remeber.He ate with the officers before us and as far as i know he was most of the time in his quaters filling paperwork.
There is a catch however.As far as i can tell unless you eat toghether or you have the same watches as someone else you dont see others too often.I eather was on watch, eating in the messhall or sleeping.Only at night if not on watch you can meet most of the crewmembers where mostly gathered for a talk or to watch something if in port.

I dont really know about navy vessels though.

Any story that starts out with the Captain on the bridge in his underwear with the first and second mate is worth telling. :yeah:

Well - what if I want to walk around the sub anyway? maybe i dont care wheather real kaluens did it or not.
Real Kaluens didnt work out torpedo solutions, enter data in to the TDC, or man the flak and deck guns either.... yet no one complained about being able to do those things in SH3.

If you want to what a real kaluen did, you would just be deligating most of the time - that would make a boring ass game for sure. (Silent Hunter meets The Sims)

Lest we forget, everyone and his dog begged for fully explorable Uboat since Sh3.
Now we finally get one and it is scrutinized to hell... :doh:

I played Silent Service, SS2, Aces Of The Deep and Silent Hunter 1. None of those games let you wander anywhere and none of them was in the least boring. Actually, going to every compartment and watching every crew member is more like the sims.
Not everyone and his dog. In fact, not that many. Just a few gamers who were more concerned about the eye candy than the way the game plays.

I said my captain visited everyone. Once. I can remembering him visiting the radio room twice in three months on station in Vietnam. One of the best things about SH4 is the clipboard when you get a message. That's what I did - carry radio messages to the bridge, or to the Captain's cabin if the OOD directed me too.

For Platapus: At one point during our tour the air conditioning went out in the entire forward part of the ship. We were allowed to wear t-shirts in lieu of regulation chambrays. We had to keep our pants on, though. One night when I had the midwatch we recieved a message for the bridge. I carried it up, and there was the captain in his captain's chair, wearing skivvies (boxer shorts and t-shirt) and his official baseball cap with the ships' name on it. When I handed him the message he had me read it to him (he didn't have his glasses) and loan him my pen so he could sign it.

Is that good enough?

I think you might have misunderstood me, I wasn't saying it is boring without a fully explorable interior, I was merely pointing out that if SH consisted of REALISTIC captain duties only, we'd just be giving orders 90% of the time and it would be far less involved in terms of action - and more like a managment sim. (hence my examples of gun and TDC control etc - the captain didn't touch that stuff in RL)

True, I was exadurating, but clearly enough people asked for it, or they surley would not have gone down that road. (majority rule) Anyway I have seen it requested many, many times over the past few years.