SH2 / DC: Best subsim experience of my life!!!

[Nemo66]

Hi mates,

back in the days when SH2 and DC were brandnew i played some missions online against REAL DC-CAPTAINS


THIS WAS SO MUCH FUN - I DEFINITELY HAVE TO TELL YOU ABOUT IT


"SINK THE BATTLESHIPS IN SCAPA FLOW" was the mission, designed by UBI, and i had to fight alone versus 3 experienced Destroyer Captains, which were situated at the 3 main entrances of the bay. (NW,W and SW i think)

It was my first online game ever, and it was daaark night

History Lessons had been telling me that Prien choose a FOURTH WAY into Scapa, but i could not find it in the map. (they didn't see it either and were no experts for WW2 history what i soon should find out playing against them )
I choose the highest zoom level and scanned the whole coastline - and there it was - on the south-eastern side of the bay, right as it had been in real life!!! (Cooool mission design THX UBI )

Above Water, with electric engines on, I sneaked through a narrow and very shallow channel into Scapa and made my way through the large, dark and calm bay.

(E-Engine above water while still at the bridge was possible in SH2, i hate that they didn't realize this in SH3 )

The destroyers still patroled at the other entrances and already started wondering where i was. Via ingame-chat they asked each other, if i was already in the game or if there was a malfunction, when i fired all my front tubes towards the 2 Battlecruisers at the northern shore of the bay. As they were docked with zero speed i could shoot my eels with only 30 knots from 4300m distance, giving me enough time to turn around 180 degrees and be already on my way back home, when all the torpedos hit and blew the target vessels with a a large blast up in the air.

NOW they finally knew that i was ingame, but they had no clue where i was. All 3 cruised around planlessly or sailed at highspeed to the sinking ships heading northeast while i very patiently escaped at the cozy speed of 7 knots heading southeast. This took several minutes but being an icecold U-Boat KaLeu i stayed calm and silent - and undetected
When i was outside Scapa again I stopped the game, no one had even had contact with me.

But the 3 guys in the lobby were out for revenge and "forced" me to play the same mission over and over again.

3 more times i did just the same, with the same outcome. Now they became really bloodthirsty and aggressive but still couldn't find the smallest trace of me.

But as i did it a fourth time, one of the DCs had enough and crossed the bay with highspeed to the south-eastern sector where they never had searched before. He had no proof that i was there, it was only good guessing i think. He just gave it a try after 4 times getting no contact at any of the other 3 entrances, and all target ships sunk every single time, without any idea how this could have happened.

Half way to the exit of the bay, still a few minutes to go, i realize with upcoming panic that this Destroyer now seems to follow me somehow. I suppress my burning wish for flank speed with the diesels because i know i have no chance at all. He would shell me to the ground before i even reached the exit. I also know i can't dive because he pings with his asdic without a break.
Water depth only 17m, actually no wind or waves at all, best underwater detection possibilities. The dark night and my whispering electric engines are my only friends.
I keep him in the Goggles to find out if he really detected me, or if he just is heading the same direction by chance. I still sail with nervewrecking 7 knots speed, still above water, but steadily as a clock he comes closer and closer at changing speeds from 14-21 knots. As he still doesn't attack i decide that he might have found the fourth way somehow in the map, and just tries to find out if i am somewhere in the area. This should calm me down a bit,
but just like a sniffing bloodhound searching for the trace of his prey he does some lazy zigzaging, coming up closer and closer behind me, pinging with his asdic all the time.
As i am not underwater he gets no asdic contact but he kind of knows/feels that i must be pretty close. After 2 more sweaty minutes that felt like hours (!!!), i finally reach the south-eastern end of the bay. I must pass again through this long, too-shallow-to-dive and very narrow channel, and i need all my skills for navigating, but the bloody DC now is only 600-700m behind me. I pray to Poseidon, Neptune and all gods of the seven seas that he might loose interest on this course, but like a dog on a leash he follows me instinctively into the channel, although he might have only a cup of water under the keel. He has still no idea that i am right in front of him, only 400m away now in the middle of the channel.

I know I am more than vulnerable in this situation, a small channel with no manouvering space and no depth to dive and a Destroyer in bloody revenge mode right on my back.

I estimate the time i would need to get through the channel and realize, that i could never be through before he finally will see me and shell me to pieces, or luckily sinks me by ramming my stern with his bow just by chance. So i go to the UZO and take him in the crosshairs. 300 m now. I fire my stern torpedo and hit him in seconds right under the bow. Totally unexpected by its Captain the tincan bursts into a real hell of explosions and fire in a split second !!!

GAME OVER

This was so cool because they NEVER had me on the screen, not for a single second, and i always managed to accomplish the mission completely.
They only knew that i was there, but they never got a glimpse where, in 5 games with the same mission! I managed to do more or less the same attack as Prien did with U-47, which was kind of cool too. And as one of them finally was about to realize what was going on, he was blown away in the very moment the idea came to his mind.

Keeping cool even in the most dangerous and intense moments felt so *****ing realistic mates, the hair on my back was standing upwards as i had the DC in my back, couldn't escape, and had to hold on to my course for minutes at this ridiculous, slow speed! This was the most intense subsimming experience of my life, and i spent years on the subsimming-seas, believe me!

What made it even more funny to me was that they all were Brits and they knew that i was german !!!

( History repeating )

Maybe the 3 still have nightmares about unattended ships exploding unexpectedly in their patrol area



Hope you liked the story mates, i had to tell it to somebody !

[tmccarthy]

Great story! I really hope a WW2 Destroyer/ Submarine multi player sim gets made again. Experiences like this prove it would be the most interesting and challenging kind of naval simulation.

[Onkel Neal]

Great story, Nemo, thanks for sharing. Posted on Subsim News

Played DC/SH2 once in MP and it was one of the most awesome MP experiences I ever had up to this day.

Chances to get something like that again are slim, but you'll never know...

[INWI]

Maybe we will just host some games on hamachi? back to the past... As I know nobody plays now SH2/DC or even DW games over net... once the gamespy died... It would be nice to play these games online like old times...

[foz]

Oorah

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by tmccarthy

Great story! I really hope a WW2 Destroyer/ Submarine multi player sim gets made again. Experiences like this prove it would be the most interesting and challenging kind of naval simulation.

I'd be in! I'm still playing SHII and DC! on my old win98.

[FAdmiral]

I played many games with SH2/DC, both as the DD and the sub.
The ones I remember the most are the 4 vs. 4 we played in the
Gibraltar Straits when the subs tried to make it past the DDs.
Every ships was player operated. Actually, the game crashed
far less than anyone would have thought. GREAT DAYS !!!!!!
We need for someone to develop a new version of that playability.

[Nemo66]

YESSS Baby, that's what i'm talking about!


Ooh my god, how i would love to play this Gibraltar mission! Sounds so exciting man! Have you heard about the new online place called "Tunngle" ?
I have registered (for free) there yesterday, and they had an SH 2 channel too. I did not get the site to work properly but i think i was too stupid. I will give it another try the next few days to come. Maybe we can play SH2 / DC missions there, but as far as i remember there was no mission editor with SH2/DC? So it might be a problem to create Sub vs DC missions....
If we are really unlucky, only UBI has the missions we would need, oh my god, what a thougt...
I only played SH2/DC at UBI i think, but maybe the missions were ingame, i don't really remember, it's 10 years or more ago..

BUT I WILL NEVER FORGET THE FUN I HAD

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by FAdmiral

Actually, the game crashed
far less than anyone would have thought. GREAT DAYS !!!!!!
We need for someone to develop a new version of that playability.

That was due mainly to the Messerwetzer Interop patches. They are available here at Subsim Downloads.

Originally Posted by Nemo66

as far as i remember there was no mission editor with SH2/DC? So it might be a problem to create Sub vs DC missions....

Most of the missions we played were created by Subsim members. I don't recall ever playing an official UBIsoft mission. We used an IRC channel set up by either a member or Neal himself. We also had some great online parties in the main chat room.

I find SHII and DC to be severely lacking in the realism department, but that is mainly due to the mission-based campaign structure and has nothing to do with multiplayer. If things were to get properly organized I would certainly be willing to play again.

[tmccarthy]

Originally Posted by Nemo66

Ooh my god, how i would love to play this Gibraltar mission!

Mission text from Gibraltar Mission:

(Interop) Gibraltar
This is a Destroyer vs. U-boat Scenario for up to three players on each side.
U-BOAT COMMANDERS:
Your mission is to navigate at least one of your ships to the objective point on the Mediterranean side of the Straits of Gibraltar. When a U-Boat reaches this point, your side wins the game.
DESTROYER COMMANDERS:
Your mission is to prevent the U-Boats from reaching the objective point. You must sink all U-boats in order to win the game.
The Blue team consists of Bagley-class destroyers.
The Red team consists of Type VIIC/41 U-boats.

Good luck!

I would be down to play a Destroyer Captain.

[moose1am]

Originally Posted by Aktungbby

I'd be in! I'm still playing SHII and DC! on my old win98.

I unplugged my old HP Computer that has Windows 95 on it and that is what I use to play Destroyer Command and Sub games on.

It's just sitting on the floor in my front bedrooms (computer room) with all my other old software games sitting in a book cabinet gathering dust.

I did enjoy playing the sub games and was really hoping that DC/SH would work together over the internet. I did manage to play a couple of games online and got killed so fast it was suspicious. So I figured they had a hack of some kind that showed where I was every time and stopped playing online. I mean the guy went straight for me every time and knew exactly where my sub was located when I was submerged, deep and moving slow. And they found me without pinging with sonar too. Actually I was more than out of sonar range when they bee lined straight to me and dropped depth charges. I did play the game a few other times online and didn't have that same type of experience. That pretty much did it in for me for playing online with strangers on those old servers. But I still enjoyed playing solo missions for a while. I was at the time taking a break from another online WWII flight sim game and looking for a slower paced game. But Submarine games were much slower that flight sim WWII multiplayer air combat games that I had been playing and I missed the faster pace.

I had another game that I was hoping I could play against others online back in the 1994 time era. That was Pacific Air Wars but I never did manage to get that game to play online with anyone else. I didn't know anyone that played that game. The internet was not really that well know back at that time. It was more peer to peer type connections and I never did figure out how to connect my phone modem up to the game to play with others back in those days.

My first online internet gaming experience came on or with the Microsoft Internet Gaming Zone and Fighter Ace 1.0. That was always my favorite flight game and I played that game online and off line for well about 10 years.

[Aktungbby]

[black dog]

commanders from sh2/dc heyday that I remember.

das dargo oldman u48 gstew hawkeye horntrasp kptcrunch jake pal duval indy hornet anaconda u19 steed kalk flank blindpugh luki rogerrabit m7 xanthal xswarm tower hieb? val

manymore I don't remember just now

[JconradH]

Great story, and attacks!! Thank you for sharing this with us.

Jeff

Originally Posted by Nemo66

Hi mates,

back in the days when SH2 and DC were brandnew i played some missions online against REAL DC-CAPTAINS


THIS WAS SO MUCH FUN - I DEFINITELY HAVE TO TELL YOU ABOUT IT


"SINK THE BATTLESHIPS IN SCAPA FLOW" was the mission, designed by UBI, and i had to fight alone versus 3 experienced Destroyer Captains, which were situated at the 3 main entrances of the bay. (NW,W and SW i think)

It was my first online game ever, and it was daaark night

History Lessons had been telling me that Prien choose a FOURTH WAY into Scapa, but i could not find it in the map. (they didn't see it either and were no experts for WW2 history what i soon should find out playing against them )
I choose the highest zoom level and scanned the whole coastline - and there it was - on the south-eastern side of the bay, right as it had been in real life!!! (Cooool mission design THX UBI )

Above Water, with electric engines on, I sneaked through a narrow and very shallow channel into Scapa and made my way through the large, dark and calm bay.

(E-Engine above water while still at the bridge was possible in SH2, i hate that they didn't realize this in SH3 )

The destroyers still patroled at the other entrances and already started wondering where i was. Via ingame-chat they asked each other, if i was already in the game or if there was a malfunction, when i fired all my front tubes towards the 2 Battlecruisers at the northern shore of the bay. As they were docked with zero speed i could shoot my eels with only 30 knots from 4300m distance, giving me enough time to turn around 180 degrees and be already on my way back home, when all the torpedos hit and blew the target vessels with a a large blast up in the air.

NOW they finally knew that i was ingame, but they had no clue where i was. All 3 cruised around planlessly or sailed at highspeed to the sinking ships heading northeast while i very patiently escaped at the cozy speed of 7 knots heading southeast. This took several minutes but being an icecold U-Boat KaLeu i stayed calm and silent - and undetected
When i was outside Scapa again I stopped the game, no one had even had contact with me.

But the 3 guys in the lobby were out for revenge and "forced" me to play the same mission over and over again.

3 more times i did just the same, with the same outcome. Now they became really bloodthirsty and aggressive but still couldn't find the smallest trace of me.

But as i did it a fourth time, one of the DCs had enough and crossed the bay with highspeed to the south-eastern sector where they never had searched before. He had no proof that i was there, it was only good guessing i think. He just gave it a try after 4 times getting no contact at any of the other 3 entrances, and all target ships sunk every single time, without any idea how this could have happened.

Half way to the exit of the bay, still a few minutes to go, i realize with upcoming panic that this Destroyer now seems to follow me somehow. I suppress my burning wish for flank speed with the diesels because i know i have no chance at all. He would shell me to the ground before i even reached the exit. I also know i can't dive because he pings with his asdic without a break.
Water depth only 17m, actually no wind or waves at all, best underwater detection possibilities. The dark night and my whispering electric engines are my only friends.
I keep him in the Goggles to find out if he really detected me, or if he just is heading the same direction by chance. I still sail with nervewrecking 7 knots speed, still above water, but steadily as a clock he comes closer and closer at changing speeds from 14-21 knots. As he still doesn't attack i decide that he might have found the fourth way somehow in the map, and just tries to find out if i am somewhere in the area. This should calm me down a bit,
but just like a sniffing bloodhound searching for the trace of his prey he does some lazy zigzaging, coming up closer and closer behind me, pinging with his asdic all the time.
As i am not underwater he gets no asdic contact but he kind of knows/feels that i must be pretty close. After 2 more sweaty minutes that felt like hours (!!!), i finally reach the south-eastern end of the bay. I must pass again through this long, too-shallow-to-dive and very narrow channel, and i need all my skills for navigating, but the bloody DC now is only 600-700m behind me. I pray to Poseidon, Neptune and all gods of the seven seas that he might loose interest on this course, but like a dog on a leash he follows me instinctively into the channel, although he might have only a cup of water under the keel. He has still no idea that i am right in front of him, only 400m away now in the middle of the channel.

I know I am more than vulnerable in this situation, a small channel with no manouvering space and no depth to dive and a Destroyer in bloody revenge mode right on my back.

I estimate the time i would need to get through the channel and realize, that i could never be through before he finally will see me and shell me to pieces, or luckily sinks me by ramming my stern with his bow just by chance. So i go to the UZO and take him in the crosshairs. 300 m now. I fire my stern torpedo and hit him in seconds right under the bow. Totally unexpected by its Captain the tincan bursts into a real hell of explosions and fire in a split second !!!

GAME OVER

This was so cool because they NEVER had me on the screen, not for a single second, and i always managed to accomplish the mission completely.
They only knew that i was there, but they never got a glimpse where, in 5 games with the same mission! I managed to do more or less the same attack as Prien did with U-47, which was kind of cool too. And as one of them finally was about to realize what was going on, he was blown away in the very moment the idea came to his mind.

Keeping cool even in the most dangerous and intense moments felt so *****ing realistic mates, the hair on my back was standing upwards as i had the DC in my back, couldn't escape, and had to hold on to my course for minutes at this ridiculous, slow speed! This was the most intense subsimming experience of my life, and i spent years on the subsimming-seas, believe me!

What made it even more funny to me was that they all were Brits and they knew that i was german !!!

( History repeating )

Maybe the 3 still have nightmares about unattended ships exploding unexpectedly in their patrol area



Hope you liked the story mates, i had to tell it to somebody !