[Foxendown]

I wasn't expecting a lot for the price, perhaps a fun playable game which was on the light side as far as realism went and which I would grow tired of fairly quickly but what I have found instead is a convincing, full-blooded naval sim with an absorbing campaign and the best ship models I've ever seen. I spend time just looking at them. I really like the gunnery in surface actions. I was bad at it to start with so I started to play the missions with player 2 ON so I could fire from both sides. I really improved quickly and I still like playing both sides rather than the AI (pity that doesn't work in the campaign). The other excellent feature is the ability to disengage which really enhances realism.

My only problem is with the way the subs work. After years of Silent Hunter my inclination is to creep in slowly and stealthily, quickly sink some merchants then dive to avoid the escorts. In AF tactics that would quickly kill you seem to work. You can come in at flank speed, sink the escorts then the rest of the convoy. Escorts approaching from the front quarter are dead. Within 2000 yards torpedoes seem to be more like missiles and can't be avoided because you are stationery between turns. In SH escorts' high speed, shallow draft and irregular course makes then extremely dangerous to engage at periscope depth and that seems as it should be to me.

I've played 9 hours so far mainly on my desktop but a bit on my Linx8 tablet (another big plus point, that it works on such diverse hardware) and my first thought was we need Pacific Fleet updated to run on PC. Not so sure now though; if realism is the objective I can't see how you could shift the focus to long range carrier battles without significant adaptation of the game's format. Midway for example would be a series of scenarios with all aircraft on one side and all ships on the other. Mediterranean Fleet though, that could work.