Wave Skipper

Every game that comes out dealing with war always has a bevy of 'realism nazis' that hang around to dog the feet of the common player. I admit to being one myself. Before Sh4 came out I was quite strident about how I thought the thing ought to shape up to be. But the truth is most realism nazis gripe about many gnats while swallowing huge camels by the mouth fulls. Take the issue about opening the torpedo room hatches to bring in the outer store of torpedoes. Yes, there was a time when I would not allow that on my boat if the waves were over the deck. Let's face it, it would take a super jet engine bilge pump to make that work. But it would likely suck your crew out with the water. Had Ubi added an animation of the job being done - most of everyone would quickly see the silliness of allowing that action in heavy storms. And as I recall that was early complained about in 2005.

But the trouble is realism nazis always take themselves too seriously and image in their heads that they have attained some level of realism with games like SH3, when it is nearly impossible to do so. They cry about minor flaws and seem to be oblivious to the major flaws. The largest flaw in SH3 - one that taints every combat situation and the outcome of almost every career is the inertia issue. I recall being shocked when I tried out my first Type VII and Type IX and found that they maneuvered at sea like a top notch speed boat!! Look up the tonage of a Type IX - it weighs as much as a short frieght train - and ask your self how long it would take to get a small freight train to go from 15 knots forward to say 5 knots in reverse. Actually the train with steel on steel traction would have more control over its inertia than a couple of screws hacking at the water.

Sh2 was much more realistic and I can remember many a time I would be going along at 2 knots when a sudden DD coming in would force me to rev up my engines to flank speed. And I recall waiting an endless amount of time for my sub to CREEP up to full speed - it caused a lot of excitment and kept you on your toes. But in SH3 the subs blast off like small PT boats. You've hopefully have seen the old Youtube clip about the SH3 sub mimicking the Das Boat intro. It looks great and sounds great right up until the captain gives the order to move forward and suddenly you see the U-boat jumping out of the subpen like a race horse out of a racing gate! The mood is shattered for anyone with the slightest understanding of physics. This flaw was highlighted in 2005 almost from the get go by many modders - but to my knowledge nothing was ever done or could be.

The point is that this flaw is 1000 times worse than the loading outer torpedoes in heavy seas flaw. It is because it falsely colors all your combats with victories and survivals that should not happen - the old "I can't understand how we sink 100,000 tons per mission'" gripe. Having dancing and prancing U-boats mainly explains all that. But the ships dance and prance too. No U-boat ever missed that aimed correctly at a heavily laden Oil tanker that was 800 meters away - even if the tanker captain was aware of his danger. You simply don't suddenly scoot your thousands of tons tanker a bit faster here or make sudden screaching halts to avoid a torpedo at that range!!! But in SH3 if the captain of the tanker is a veteran or even just average he can do just that! I have seen it happen. The DDs also dance around and make sudden stops when ever they please. In fact I have seen them reverse direction so fast I always imagine sailors in its hull flying in mid air across their cabins.

The inertia is a total JOKE and it makes all the combat into a cartoon.

Now I actually did try to fix this during my realism nazi period. I used to slowly rev up my sub to full speed even when suddenly attacked by a DD. I would slowly cycle through the higher speeds to bring my sub to full speed slowly. How many of you modern 'realism nazis' do that?

Another major flaw in SH3 is the forever Flank speed ability. In real life flank speed was not something you could use for days at a time - you'd burn out your diesels. In Sh2 if you tried that silly trick your engines would break down. In fact in real life subs did have normal engine trouble on long missions and SH2 (perhaps too much) accounted for that too. SH3 has none of that.

Here is a question for the so-called realism priests - when your engines are damaged do you sit on the bottom not moving while your engineers work HOURS to repair them??? In Sh2 I recall waiting hours to fix serious damage. In sh3 my repair crew can repair everything in less than 3 minutes average!!

Now you wimps call other people chicken who don't follow your small gnat sized realisms. But if you don't follow JUST the ones I list above you are chicken too. Chicken - chicken - chickens! See I can name call too - be just as nasty as you.

Anyone who has read real U-boat war accounts knows that even small break downs could take hours to fix. Major ones might take a day or more.

These are just a FEW of the things about SH3 that are unrealistic and cannot be fixed. Trying to be a realism nazi in SH3 IS like trying to be a nun in a whore house. I have seen guys who would rant and rave about realism in Red Orchestra - again about the tiny things - who didn't understand that in WWII soldiers did not have 1990s com-links and that they could not realistically talk to one another when they were out of shouting range or in different buildings!! One guy thought he was so totally cool and realistic in his play - even though he did not know that in real life a Tiger driver could not back up his tiger while turning without throwing a tread (see the book by Otto Carius).

My basic motto now is play the game I have and not the game I wish I had.