[heartc]

I just don't get it, Wave Skipper. Now, I'm not an expert on US submarine warfare in WWII, but I've read a few sources including "Submarine!" by the late Capt. Edward L. Beach, and all the points you and a few others keep coming up with I'm already aware of. Yet, I don't see the logic in this hassle. Is it only legitimate to recreate a military force in a simulation when its historical usage ended up in a complete suicidal fashion, as was the case with the German subforce? Does this mean for flightsims that you should also rather fly Japanese N1K1 on Kamikaze missions - sorry, cut the plural - than Corsairs in Late War?

Did you ever play Silent Hunter I? This game was quite challenging, in fact more than SHIII, even in moded form (though haven't tried GWX yet, only NYGM - which is excellent, btw). Now, arguably the Jap ASW force in that game might have been "too aggressive too regularely", however in real life there were numerous tough sub - ASW vessel encounters which did not just end after 5 minutes with the sub just going away, like you make it sound. For many crews, this was part of the experience, and for those who did not return, it might have been all they knew.
In fact, in Capt. Beach's book he describes several encounters where the following depth charge attack would last several hours.

As for the torpedoes: Another reason for the high dud rate, which you did not specifically mention, was the torps running lower than their set depth, similar to the German ones. Now, it took them some time to figure that out as well, but when skippers set the running depth to zero or one feet, voila, they achieved more success. The question in historical simulations has always been "what do you do when you have the advantage of hindsight?" Will you repeate the mistakes deliberately for the sake of historical accuracy? Will you set your torpedo to 10 feet running depth, knowing it will in all probability run at 20?

BTW: The idea to conduct submerged sonar/hydrophone aided attacks on surface targets without ever seeing them has QUICKLY been laid to rest after the war started, relived only in the Cold War when technology was up for it.

The fact that the Japs set their depth charges too shallow in the earlier part of the war is negated somewhat by the fact that it takes a while for a sub to
- sink to a specific depth
- Japanese depth charges had MORE of a punch than the Allied ones from all I've heard
- and shallow water operations which were a more regular occurance in the PTO than the Atlantic U-Boat war.

Also it seems to me from reading patrol logs and Beach that there were at least SOME very aggressive US skippers underway in the Pacific, going after destroyers at PD, after ports, and making attack runs on carrier groups moving at 30+ knots, at PD all the while having planes patroling overhead - I think this IS a challenge. If you feel SHIV will be too boring, then recreate *this*, i.e. why not take what you feel will be poor ASW into the equation and as a result increase your aggressiveness? See how far you can push it. That's what many skippers did in the PTO, and many are still on patrol now.

In closing, I just don't see the logic of your complaint that US subs in the PTO would be boring unless ahistorical, yet you demand sailing Jap subs in a - sub campaign that never existed in the first place. And I don't recognize the demand a subsim has to involve going on suicide missions with 90% loss rate for the force. That would indeed only leave the German U-Bootwaffe as a choice. And THAT would be boring, in my opinion.