How did you get into U-boats (everyone please post)

[torpcatcher]

When I was 5 years old my father took me to see DD ORP. Blyskawica(Lightning) in port town of Gdynia. The Polish destroyer served protecting convoys under British command during WWII (more info about the ORP. Blyskawica on Wiki).
Than after that we took the tour of the harbor and that’s when I saw it… it was the last of the Polish ORP Orzel submarines was tied to a pier and awaiting its doom. The decommissioned sub was being prepared for scrap.
The second I saw the sleek hull and coning tower an instant flame of curiosity burst in side of me. Since that day I always were interested in how the subs work. What makes them go under and what makes them surface and I so badly wanted to see how it looks inside. Since that day I became fascinated by submarines. When I became older my father got me Commodore 64 and with it I got Silent Service game. I remember spending hours playing that sub sim. Soon I upgraded to Commodore Amiga 600 and 1200 and than I laid my hands on Silent Service II, and Red Storm Rising. I was hooked on those games for weeks never ending playing them. And than became many other sub sims that I played and enjoyed. When SH3 came out and gave players the experience of war from the perspective of a German submarine commander. I fell in love with that game and I’ve been playing it ever since I got it.

[Shaffer4]

Probably stems from the fact that my dad was Supposed to have been a Submariner after he joined the navy in 1968 he was assigned to the USS. Guitarro and well, that assignment never came to pass. http://www.history.navy.mil/library/...l/guitarro.htm

So he wound up on the Carrier USS Midway ( Which is much cooler, in my eyes, being apart of the history of such an honored vessel. )

Other than that, I have always thought that Submarines where neat *shrug*

[RedHammer]

1994, got a DX50 with 16 mb ram, 4 mb v card(later upgraded to 8), 32 mb ram, 1 gig hard drive.
1995, came over Silent Service, which made me read through a game magazine and i found Das Boot(The game) which made me see the movie, which made me get Silent Hunter (didnt understand squat, and still not understanding squat of TDC, I developed a sense of getting just about any ship at any distance without using tdc) . Later on I found out about Aces of the Deep, and i found Silent Service 2 in some diskette.
and from there and on it just sparkled, U-571, Silent Hunter 2, and now Silent Hunter 3.

I just love the VII and IX uboats, their streamlined body and shark-like look beats the crap out of any atomic-junglybungly round ugly uboats today. My dream is to go to see the U-505 in Chicago and take pictures of absolutely evrything.

Silent Hunter 3 kicks ass, I wish I could say the same about IV, but its about american uboats so I dont think il like it much.


RH

[tycho102]

I played Silent Service I and II on several computers. I do have Silent Hunter 1, which I picked up in some kind of clearance pack back in 1999 or something, but the one time I tried it was nearly unplayable (I don't remember why).

At any rate, Silent Hunter 3 was just the latest and greatest, and based on forums (like Subsim), I just decided to give it a try. The German perspective is quite different, but all the principles that I learned on SS1/2 still apply.


I will definately be taking a hard look at SH4. If it looks like the game is near the same quality as SH3 (*cough*), I will likely pre-order it.

[Eichenlaub]

I have always loved military history of all ages and various cultures, with a particular preference for the World Wars. After those conflicts, my interest wanes. What I enjoy about the WW's is the balance between improving technology and man's influence upon performance in the field. After the Second World War, technology starts to get the upper hand in my view. I think military personnel are becoming operators instead of soldiers, but that is another discussion. The air and sea struggles during both WW's demonstrate the ascendancy of technology, but still required good men to function properly.

Anyway, I cannot remember what it was that drew me to the Second World War (I learned to appreciate the First World War only when I was a teenager), it has always been with me, from my earliest childhood onwards.

During my teen years I got introduced to the wonderful world of Commodore computers. First experiences came to me on a C64, later I purchased an Amiga 500 and later still, an Amiga 1200. The C64 didn't really help develop my love for history (except for a few games), but the Amiga scene was rife with historically inspired games. At first I played mostly flight sims (my first brush with flight sims was when I learned Spitfire '40 the hard way on a C64) and the real screamer for me back then was a game called Wings, by Cinemaware. Although horribly stereotyping WWI Germans as typical Nazis (I only realised that later), that game brought about an interest in some of Germany's early flying heroes like Oswald Boelcke and Max Immelmann. I got a book about flying aces from the library and it included sections on WWII aces as well - Allied and German.
At first (I was about 15 years old) I looked at these German flying fellows with the usual anti-German glasses I'd been taught to wear, but I couldn't help being very impressed by the military accomplishments of an Adolf Galland, an Erich Hartmann or a Hans-Joachim Marseille. I grew up in a very anti-German environment by the way, not because of my parents, but because of the general dispositions towards Germans in my region.
The Amiga didn't stop at supplying me with flight sims though: Silent Service II hit the Amiga scene around 1991 or 1992. The pirated version suffered from various bugs, including unreliable save games and random software failures. I still loved it to bits though. On at least one occasion I left the trusty A500 on for at least two nights as I dared not save my career - the computer stayed turned on until I got killed late in the war. I happily slept just a yard away while the game was set to "pause"...

I've always been into various aspects of the World Wars, but the aerial war was usually my number one priority. I'm usually inspired to read up on subjects by computer games. Ergo, flight sims caused me to read books on pilots and planes, while submarine sims drew my attention to navy books. Having shed my anti-German instincts by the time I had reached my early twenties', I took it upon myself to learn about the German war efforts in both WW's. This is reflected in my computer games in which I often elect to fly/sail as a German pilot/commander. It won't stop me from playing SHIV by the way.

I also played Das Boot on the A500, but as a game it wasn't very good in my opinion. There was no dynamic campaign and the missions didn't seem to be lively at all.
When I was finally forced to upgrade to pc, I purchased Silent Service II again but it just wasn't as good as the Amiga version I was accustomed to. Some months or a year later, I rummaged through a bargain bin at a local warehouse when I espied Command: Aces of the Deep. I had not heard of the title before but everything about it cried out "quality!" to me so I bought it. Unfortunately I barely played the game since my own pc couldn't really handle it and I only played it on my dad's pc. The main subsim I played on pc was Silent Hunter I which I purchased twice: once as part of a 4-game pack and once as a free add-on to Fighting Steel. I enjoyed Silent Hunter I even though I was never very good at it. I considered the Japanese ASW capabilities to be overly powerful considering their historical performance. Then again, the awesome Gato did make me cocky I suppose...

I got into Silent Hunter III when I stumbled upon it at a local store. Fell in love at first glance and still haven't tired of it. It has inspired me to purchase and read several books on naval warfare in WWII so far - the end is not near I must say!

The story of how I got into U-boote seems rather complex judging from the above, but that's just because I've tried to tie it into my computer hobby - the two are inexorably linked to each other. To me, as a lover of all forms of warfare, it was simply natural to add an interest in submarines to the one I had in airplanes. I enjoy surface ships as well, and tanks...

I'm glad to see so many others with healthy historical interests as well as veterans of the C64/Amiga gaming scene! I'm envious of the ones who have had contact with war veterans though, I wish I could meet some submariner or airman.

Kind regards,

Eichenlaub

[CptGrayWolf]

Originally Posted by FesterShinetop

I got into U-boats/submarines playing Silent Service on my Atari 800XL (long time ago...). In those days games (and especially sims) still had a real manual also containing lots of background info and stories. After playing and reading I read more books aboat subs (including Das Boot) and the interest was born
Now who ever said only bad things come from video games :P

Hey same for me! Silent Service on Atari 800xl.
And yes, bring the real manuals back!

[Lionclaw]

The first time I came in contact with submarines was with Silent Service II on the Amiga 500+, I was very young at the time so I only played for fun. // I have also played Attack Sub on the Sega Mega Drive, I got killed many times since I didn't know any tactics or how to do things. I managed to sink many friendly ships though. // Silent Hunter II was the next submarine game, I got more interested in U-boats because of this game. I remember one campaign mission where one has to sneak into Scapa Flow and sink some capital ships with the Type VII U-boat. I also remember the campaign mission where you had to pass the Gibraltar strait with the Type IX, very difficult mission. // I purchased Sub Command later on, very different from any other submarine games I've ever played. Very difficult and I had to learn a lot in order to survive, like not going to fast so it starts to cavitate and get counter detected. Also doing defensive manouvers when a torpedo has been launched towards me, I got killed many times. // Last submarine game was Silent Hunter III, I was impressed with the graphics and the 3D internal view. With this game I got really interested in U-boats and submarines. I have played with external camera turned off and It's more fun because it's more challenging.

Das Boot and Silent Hunter, i had a pirated copy of Silent Hunter way back then that i tried and thought "omg, what a crappy game!" but saw Das Boot several months or might even been a year later.
I then had to look thru every friggin disk (yes disk hehe) to try and find Silent Hunter but ended up buying it the next day instead... been hooked on and off ever since.
But only the old types... the new atomic nuclear subs doesent facinate me.

[robbierob2005]

Back in the 80's I came in contact with the subs. I watched the Das Boot series with my parents (yes! The let me see it!). About that same time Silent Service came out on the C64. Then my love for subs really began.
Also, my dad is in the Navy (office job) and because of that I've had many privet tours on dutch subs.
I am most interested in uboots. Don't know why but they are the most beautiful boats ever made. Think it has something to do with Das Boot!

[ecm747x]

My facination with first, the WW2 Navy came from my grandfather who was on the USS Enterprise durring WW2. He was on her when she sailed into Pearl after the attack on Dec 7th.
I then kept looking for computer sim games and most were sub sim and fell in love with them...
I also had two cousins who were on Boomers durring the cold war. There stories facinated me, even though they said it was99% of the time borring, the other 1 percent more than made up for it

[Finnbat]

Truly devoted old wargamer like me are interested only in real simulation games like this. But I must say there are not many games I have enjoyed like Silent Hunter series.

I look for total realism in my older days. And this give it with these excellent maded mods. GW is one of the best voluteer worked mods I know. All the thanks to you people who done it. And cant wait for the supermod soon coming out.

[Achtung Englander]

Das Boot

I was hooked from then on

[Grrbob25]

i came across silent-hunter iii while looking at the website for Lock On Modern Air Combat (another ubisoft game) and i saw sh3 in related games so i checked it out and then i was like "omfg a uboat sim!" I wasnt around for most of the real old ones, Aces of the Deep came out when I was two after i found sh3, i learned as much as i could about it, and i had a copy the same day (got it from gamestop for 39.99, but this was when it was new) had truble running it on my win98 pc, but managed to smooth all things out........now waiting for winxp so i can play GW! well after i started playing sh3, and then it was uboot.net, and now I have the history of the Ubootwaffe memorized

[Biggles]

I started my study on WW2 history in the 3rd grade, and I had a keen interest about everything that involed the war, which included U-boats.

SHIII, is however, my first (and ONLY) U-Boat sim, but I read somewhere it could be easy for the non-U-Boataholic so I bought it, and by jove, I loved it.

[DanBiddle]

I started getting interested in submarines when my cousin served in the Royal Navy. He served in resolution and Trafalgar class subs, and I wanted to know more about what he was doing, and it all started from there really. I found SH3 by typing Submarine sims into some search engine, and never looked back!