Your First NWS?

[darksythe]

What was your first Naval Warfare Simulation

Mine was Silent Service on the Nintendo

I remember lots of tonnage in that game!!

[Ghost Dog]

The year was 1988. It was Sublogic's Up Periscope! on my Commodore 64C. I had a blast reliving the exlpoits of Mush Morton's USS Wahoo in the pacific.

The real hook for me though was 1989, Red Storm Rising on my ubiquitous little C-64. I became the armchair bubblehead I am today. My first campaign was spent commanding the USS Dace through the Norwegien Sea theatre in the 1988 campaign. My next command was the USS Key West, this time spending my time further north in the Barents Sea in 1992 campaign launching tomahawks at Murmansk and eventually sinking the Kremlin and Kirov!

I'll never forget my most memorable sub battle. It was off the coast of Norway, I was intercepting a wolfpack of Soviet subs. My intelligence said it was composed of diesel boats hugging the coast to get into the North Sea and ravage the shippings lanes. The Orion patrols picked the group up rounding the Nordkapp, but lost thier trail as they headed south. I had to sprint and drift around near Bergen till I found them. As I closed with the group, I found 2 Kilos, 1 Tango and 1 Juliet class. Given the shallow water, it became a real knife-fight. I ran aground and damaged the bow sonar trying to dodge the many torps. I managed to sink all but one Kilo, who escaped. I had to limp back to Falsane for repairs. Truly memorable.

[darksythe]

very nice i love hearing after action reports even if they are 17 years old

[Bill Nichols]

Mine was the one I wrote myself in Basic for the Apple II, way back when computers had only 48 kB of memory

My program was eventually published by Simulations Canada as 'Grey Seas, Grey Skies'.

[darksythe]

hey thats pretty cool that you designed your own sim.

by the way im sure you hear this all the time but i thank you for your contributions to the Naval sim community. I have been a frequent visitor to your site for years now.

And am patiently awaiting your Red Storm Rising Campaign.

[LuftWolf]

"Gato" for the old Apple IIE, and then "688" (the one where you could play an Alfa or 688 with the start page being the LA breeching the surface on an emergency surface).

I still remember my dad yelling at me for turning left when he commanded hard to starboard. :rotfl:

[Sea Demon]

Jane's/Sonalysts 688(I) Hunter Killer.

Sea Demon

[Syxx_Killer]

My first was Command: Aces of the Deep. I loved that game. Having a dynamic campaign was simply amazing. It's funny, when I first started I had no idea about subs. Being there was no wake modeled in the game it took me quite a while to figure out which way was forward. Still have the game with box and all the books and maps in excellent condition. I'd love to get it going again, but I doubt it would work on WinXP with SP2. I remember back in the day thinking 21MB for a full install was alot. :rotfl: My biggest gripe with the game, though, probably would be the bugs. That thing was like crash city. I never knew when I would get the old "This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down." Man, those were the days. :rotfl: Another prominent bug was when I would try and use FAT and LUT torpedoes. If I tried to set them, I would get the blue screen of death. Never failed.

Shortly after, I picked up Silent Service for the NES at a clearance type of sale at a rental shop. Still have that as well with box and book. I loved sinking Jap tonnage. I still can't get that title music out of my head.

I actually don't remember when I started playing this one, but it was 688 Attack Sub for Sega Genesis. I never did actually figure out how to attack under water. I always did it the "old fashioned" way and used the periscope. Sometimes I didn't live, sometimes I did. I was always greatful for the times I did. Commanding the Russian sub was quite interesting.

One thing that always kind of bugged me with the console sub games were their inaccurate artwork. 688 Attack Sub had a destroyer sinking by the bow with the stern way up in the air. In the actualy game, however, the ships always sank while level. Same for Silent Service. That was one reason I liked Command: Aces of the Deep better at the time. I liked watching the ships sink.

After those sims I came across 688(i) Hunter/Killer at Wal*Mart in the bargain bin. It was a CD-Rom Classics. I picked it up. Fell in love with it. I never thought I would be able to get the game because of how technical it was. I guess it was because of the ships that I stuck with it. I don't like complex flight sims, but I do like complex subsims. After 688(i) Hunter/Killer, I got Sub Command. Today it is Dangerous Waters and Silent Hunter III that take up my time. Both are just amazing. The thing that I like about Silent Hunter III the best, is that it is a lot like Command: Aces of the Deep. It is like a blast to the past. With the addition of surface vessels to Dangerous Waters and the wide array of sub-surface vessels, it is always a different experience.

But looking back to the subsims of old, it just seems like there is an aura about them that modern subsims lack. The experience of Command: Aces of the Deep was top notch. Going on patrol in Silent Service and coming across the enemy was something. I always liked the sound of torpedoes launching. 688 Attack Sub just had a different atmosphere to it. I got to know the death scenes quite well with both the American and Russian sub. 688(i) Hunter/Killer had good music, and it set the stage while hunting down the enemy. I loved how the ships broke in two. Which they would on Sub Command and Dangerous Waters. I was very mad, when the computer at the time had the CD-Rom drive go out. The tech that came out installed a trayless CD-Rom drive. After that, 688(i) was never recognised again. I was so mad, because it would work on other computers. It wasn't until that computer was replaced about 2 years later that I could get it running again. By that time, Sub Command had arrived on the shelves and I started playing that. Haven't touched 688(i) H/K in ages.

Phew! That's a lot of rambling. Sorry about that. Hope you could stay awake.

[Bellman]

688 Atack sub and Aces on the Amiga 1200.

With 688 I liked the 3D external 'sonar' views which allowed stealth navigation into interesting topography.

Stalking and avoidance were great fun which was lost in the later issued EA SNN Seawolf.

[goldorak]

Originally Posted by darksythe

What was your first Naval Warfare Simulation

Mine was Silent Service on the Nintendo

I remember lots of tonnage in that game!!

My first Naval Warfare Simulation ?

Not much of a choice (I've been playing exclusively with flight sims since 1987); so Dangerous Waters is my first naval sim.

[Molon Labe]

Fleet Command. I was working at a library and saw it; decided to try it, then decided I wanted to buy it. It came with F/A-18 and 688I....688I hooked me on subsims....

[Sea Demon]

Originally Posted by Molon Labe

Fleet Command. I was working at a library and saw it; decided to try it, then decided I wanted to buy it. It came with F/A-18 and 688I....688I hooked me on subsims....

Fleet Command is one great sim also. That one was my second. As a matter of fact, I have never removed it from my machine since I got it years ago. I manage to play a scenario or two at least once every couple of weeks.

Sea Demon

[Smaragdadler]

Originally Posted by Bill Nichols

Mine was the one I wrote myself in Basic for the Apple II, way back when computers had only 48 kB of memory

My program was eventually published by Simulations Canada as 'Grey Seas, Grey Skies'.

This may be of interest:
http://eager.back2roots.org/PROG/N/NICHOLSW.HTML#GEN
http://www.virtualapple.com/greyseasgreyskiesdisk.html

[magick]

Originally Posted by darksythe

What was your first Naval Warfare Simulation

Mine was Silent Service on the Nintendo

I remember lots of tonnage in that game!!

My first naval subsim was "Silent Service" on C64, great game! But the second game I played on C64 was even better: Red Storm Rising, I still play it today Red Storm Rising was very advanced for a game from 1988 with very good sonar and weapons stations, even the "new" seawolf and typhoon class subs were available (in real life they where still under construction I think). Had many "dogfights" in my L.A. class sub against modern sierra's And many times I had russian "udaloy" dd's on my tail Oh those were fine day's

[Hellcat]

Silent Service on the NES, yep thats right I had it on the good old original :|\ Had a great time stalking ships in front of the TV. For its time it had everything a kid could want. Even before that I was playing the Grandest Fleet on my old PI-60MHz oh how I miss those days...