[Captain Vlad]

Originally Posted by Penelope_Grey

Basically I wonder would you be willing to share your thoughts on the S-Class submarines in SH4? These submarines from the few times I have played with them seem to take a tremendous amount of time to recharge their batteries. Though they seem to have much better underwater endurance at higher speed than the larger US subs do.

They're faster underwater than you'd expect from a sub of that era too. They were designed and built prior to the 'fleet boat' doctrine, and with the idea that underwater performance would be more important to a submarine. So perhaps the longer submerged endurance is accurate.

And in the main, why do you play as an S-class?

'Challenge' is an obvious answer, much like 'Why do you play in a Type II' in Silent Hunter III. Thing is though, there are things I really like about Sugar Boats. Though they lack the heavy firepower of the later fleet boats, they're very maneuverable, quick to dive (though their dive depth is lacking), have good underwater speed and good submerged endurance. Early in the war, their 'obsolete' Mark 10's are deadlier than the Mark 14's that are loaded onto fleet boats. They also have a 4-inch deck gun, while fleet boats start out with a 3 inch...a bit of a renown saver early in your career.

I don't know if their smaller size means they're harder to detect with active sonar or visually, but I do know being shrouded by even moderate waves makes me feel stealthier.

The final thing I've noticed is that if you've been playing SH III prior to SH IV, they feel a whole lot like a Type VII U-Boat with much less dive depth. I use them more like my old U-49 on SH III than like the fleet boats I get later...especially since, if you start in the Asiatic theater, much greater dive depth is often useless anyway. Shallow water in them parts.

Final question I have is where are the best areas in SH4 generally speaking... that is without taking mods into consideration... the player can go to see some action? And is there some kind of visual aid for this... similar to the pullout map in GWX which shows the convoy routs and areas of high naval traffic?

Depends on what year you're currently playing it, probably. If you start out in Manila, though, you're guaranteed to see more big nasty warships than you have torpedoes to sink. A little unrealistic (in scale, not theory...), yes, but it can certainly exciting.

After the initial Japanese conquests, I've found that the Solomon Islands are a hot spot in 1942 and 43. Cruising the Bismarck Sea netted me a 100,000 ton patrol with nary a warship on my kill list (hence the others comments about traffic needing looked at perhaps...lots of 10,000 tonners). If you're sailing out of Pearl, the southern coast of Japan is always nice.