Armistead;
I think the term "online campaign" is a bit misleading. The Wolves at War online campaign for example is a well-organized website which gives orders/missions to individual U-boat commanders who conduct their missions offline and then report back results. The various skippers' results are collated and an overall war progress report is posted etc. Records and log books are entered/updated and war status reports etc. It is well done and adds some realism/immersion in that you are receiving your orders and reporting back. Appropriate custom missions are created by the team and downloaded by skippers etc. There is no actual online play (i.e. people meeting online and conducting a mission). I'm assuming the Pacific Thunder runs the same way (I just signed up so am not sure at the moment).
Personally I think that is the way it should be as the sub does work on its own for all intents and purposes (wolfpack tactics notwithstanding). Once you submerge you are on your own so to speak. I tried online with SH3 a long time ago but found it;
a. obviously quite slow, and
b. completely unrealistic, as you are chatting away with other subs while they are technically submerged which obviously wouldn't have been possible in real life.
I completely agree that it would be great to be able to play online with crewing the different positions on a submarine (I'd love to just play the sonar operator). Dangerous Waters does this but it is modern era not WWII (is there a Dangerous Waters WWII mod?). I thought Destroyer Command back in the day was supposed to meld Silent Hunter and permit, at least, online surface vs sub-surface combat but apparently that all fell through.
IMHO, any company that is looking to make yet another WWII naval simulation should seriously look at incorporating surface vs sub-surface online play. Destroyer Command et al may have failed due to software/technology limitations back then but there's no excuse now.
My two cents!
