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!