A Humble Sub Captain's Influence On History
 

I was wondering how much influence on the campaign (ie history) you can have in vanilla and assorted mods.

Will my heroic sinking of three huge European liners off Borneo be taken into account and actually delay the invasion? Will I really buy time for the gallant defenders of Corregidor by sinking supply ships in the Luzon Straits? What if I manage to sink four carriers off Midway? Will I run into a ressurected "Akagi"?

On a less dramatic note, will frequent raiding of a certain port influence the air patrols, fortifications and assignment of escorts? If subs are scoring lots of kills in a certain area how does the AI respond-I know the short term responses but how about over the coming weeks and months?

I'm wondering how or if the AI scipts and keeps track of these events and how accurately it models the effects of little old me into a campaign game.

None at all. That is the way I read "dynamic campaign." SH4 does not allow for this. In fact, you can sink Yamato, and her sister, and none the less see a third (nonexistent in RL) Yamato Class.

Would be a neat addition in the Silent Hunter Series going forward :yep:

Altering the course of the war would be way way beyond the scope of SH, IMO. That said, it would be very nice tohave the names in the Roster mean something.

For Yamato, unit 1 is Yamato, Unit 2 is Musashi. When 1 is sunk, the next seen in the campaign is the other. When that is sunk, no more spawn, period. Have a dummy unit type that you can set Name=Recurring or something if you want them to never run out.

Guess I'll just imagine that I'm making a difference then. It would be an awesome if it could be incorporated somehow.

I know this discussion has come up in the SH3 forums. Keyboard U-Boat captains who want to claim that sinking that one vital shipment of Sherman tanks cost the Allies the battle in Normandy and therefore they single-handedly won World War 2 for Germany. ;)

Japan's shipping is a lot more fragile than the Allies, but to really gauge what effect you have on the war you would almost have to have some vast sub-routine running the entire Pacific War...for both sides. After all you have to calculate the effect of not just the ships you have sunk, but what those 100 odd other US and Allied subs are doing too. Not mention the surface ships, planes, Marine brigades, etc on your side as well. For example, if you sink the Shokaku prior to the Port Moresby operation does that mean the Coral Sea battle is called off and so is Midway? Are the carriers marked for the Midway operation directed to the South Pacific instead? Does it logically amend the war to take in effect what you and other factors cause?

Yes, I am afraid in the Silent Hunter Universe you are a mere meaningless cog in a mindless and all-encompassing war which you can not avoid, influence or affect in any way.

[quote=Torplexed]I know this discussion has come up in the SH3 forums. Keyboard U-Boat captains who want to claim that sinking that one vital shipment of Sherman tanks cost the Allies the battle in Normandy and therefore they single-handedly won World War 2 for Germany. ;)

Sinking one ship can have a huge impact-the sub captain who took out the Shinano also sent hundreds of suicide torpedos (kaiten) to the bottom instead of to Kyushu bases for example.

So, as it's pretty much a fully scripted rerun of WWII, that means I can stake out certain locations because I know a Japanese task force will arrive at a set time and place, but that doesn't really matter because history will run it's course even if I sink the entire Midway carrier strike force......got it.

Sadly, yes.

And that is only if you run RSRD, since the stock campaign is tripe.

Midway would still have gone ahead if the Shokaku went down, it went ahaed with Zuikaku in port and Kure without an airgroup (It didn't seem to have occured to the Japs to transfer the airgroup from Zuikaku, together with the Instructors from the flying school onto Kure).
The closest times a single sub has come to affecting the outcome of a war are (in chronological order):
The sinking of the Luisitania, bringing American opinion against Germany.
Damaging Tirpitz (Technically not a single sub, but a single mission) reducing the surface threat to the Arctic Convoys.
The sinking of Ark Royal, potentially lengthening the battle in the Med.
The sinking of USS Indianapolis, if it had happened on the way out.
The Sinking of the Belgrano.

That's of an entire war though. Individual submarines certainly did have an effect on several individual battles in the Pacific.

Being a tiny cog can make a big difference-the divebombers at Midway arrived at the supposed location of the IJN carrier taskforce and found nothing. They soon spotted a single destroyer racing back to rejoin the TF and followed it, found the carriers and the rest is history.

The tardy DD had been depth charging a US sub, which, even though it failed to hit any of the enemy ships with a torpedo, provided the opportunity for the dive bombers to find the carriers!

Interesting. There was a similar thread about cause and effect sinkings in the SH3 forum yesterday.

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=147152