Japanese Subs

[DigitalAura]

I'm surprised that all the emphasis in the Silent Hunter series has been American and German only.... I actually expected SH5 to consider other countries (namely Japan) in gameplay. Any thoughts to why there was never any consideration for this? I've always loved the differences in German and American subs, and would be interested to see how the Japanese versions would play....

[Armistead]

No real drama with japanese subs to push that market, why you see many games with japanese surface ships.

Mod's will be your only hope for a sub.

[Torplexed]

To have an entertaining game with Japanese subs it would have to be somewhat ahistorical in nature. Overall, the large Japanese submarine fleet is credited with sinking 184 merchant ships of 907,000 GRT. That's pretty sad stacked up to the Germans (2,840 ships of 14.3 million GRT), the Americans (1,079 ships of 4.65 million tons), and the British (493 ships of 1.52 million tons) Japanese doctrine emphasized saving torpedoes for attacking warships, even if that meant letting a merchant pass and warships are a much rarer target. Then there was the whole dismal concept that evolved by early 1943 of using submarines as cargo ships to resupply by-passed Japanese garrisons...submarines without torpedoes to make room for supplies. That was the primary job of half the Japanese sub fleet by war's end.

Another problem is research. There are no surviving I-Boats and decent plans, photos and blueprints for the interiors are hard to find.

peabody and keltos01 are working on IJN subs and an entire japanese campaign mod for the game so check out their threads

[WIP] Japanese Campaign

[REL] I-Boat Damage Mod (IBDM) v 1.0

New Jyunsen B, Type AM, Kaidai and Kaichu mod version 3.7

[DigitalAura]

@ Torplexed... I see your point, and it makes good sense, however I don't think anyone's getting anything close to historic in any campaign even on hard mode. (concerning tonnage that is)

I would simply enjoy the unique play of a Japanese sub. I wouldn't really care about the authenticity of historical sub usage by the Japanese... I'd tend to see it as a "what-if" campaign. I'd even love to play as Russian and British forces!

@ WEBSTER.... suh-weeeet!

[kstanb]

Originally Posted by WEBSTER

peabody and keltos01 are working on IJN subs and an entire japanese campaign mod for the game so check out their threads

Which is probably the MOD I am most looking forward to hear about... even if it is ahistorical, it will definitively be fun

peabody said he could use some help guys so if you have skills or just time to do testing send him and keltos01 a PM and see what you can cintribute

[nikimcbee]

Originally Posted by Torplexed

To have an entertaining game with Japanese subs it would have to be somewhat ahistorical in nature. Overall, the large Japanese submarine fleet is credited with sinking 184 merchant ships of 907,000 GRT. That's pretty sad stacked up to the Germans (2,840 ships of 14.3 million GRT), the Americans (1,079 ships of 4.65 million tons), and the British (493 ships of 1.52 million tons) Japanese doctrine emphasized saving torpedoes for attacking warships, even if that meant letting a merchant pass and warships are a much rarer target. Then there was the whole dismal concept that evolved by early 1943 of using submarines as cargo ships to resupply by-passed Japanese garrisons...submarines without torpedoes to make room for supplies. That was the primary job of half the Japanese sub fleet by war's end.

Another problem is research. There are no surviving I-Boats and decent plans, photos and blueprints for the interiors are hard to find.

I think a limited 1942~43 campaign would be cool; IE Guadalcanal, Indian Ocean, US West coast. Another down side of playing Japanese subs is that they weren't that good to begin with. They were fast and had awesome endurance, but that's pretty much all of it. You would definatly be the underdog.

[DigitalAura]

fast + endurance... tell me again why they weren't that good?

Originally Posted by DigitalAura

fast + endurance... tell me again why they weren't that good?

i would guess he was refering to their survivability

i dont know about the subs but japans planes werent able to sustain much damage