Does using SONAR..

[Torplexed]

Originally Posted by Ford Prefect

I played it for a while before I got SHIII, the massive expanses of absolute nothing dotted with sampans bored the hell out of me. When I did find a decent target it was always in the shallows (and there are alot stretching for miles!) so if there were escorts I got depth charged to bits. I never came across any decent targets in deep water where my boat was meant to be, so I gave in.

SH4 will always be a different animal than SH3 since the Pacific and Atlantic submarine wars were alike in only that they pitted submarines versus an ASW system and not a very effective one in Japan's case.

One statistic alone highlights the difference between the two campaigns, and that is: German U-Boats lost: 785 versus US Submarines lost: 52 ( 2 of which were lost in the Atlantic Ocean ) The Atlantic war obviously involved many more submarines and was the more intense conflict for it.

The sheer volume of ships sailing in convoys crossing the North Atlantic from West to East and vice versa provided the U- Boat Fleet with an enormous number of targets for their deadly torpedoes. The U-Boats hunted in packs, the first boat to sight a convoy would home in his mates until a sufficient number of boats were able to gather and then attack in numbers. With bases in occupied France they didn't have as far to go.

In contrast, US submarines were based in Hawaii and in Brisbane, and Fremantle in Australia. They had a very long haul to reach their killing fields. In the vaster Pacific Japanese traffic was more dispersed as their ships often sailed alone and there were far fewer of them as Japan didn't have the Allied shipbuilding muscle. In addition, Japanese ships sometimes pulled into shallow water or inlets along their route for the night. US subs tended to hunt alone, although sometimes they operated as a group of three boats. Aircraft reconnaissance was not available like in the North Atlantic, thus making the finding of a suitable target much more difficult.

Aircraft went from being a nuisance in the Atlantic to being the most powerful enemy of the U-Boats sinking almost 50% of the total lost. Japan never quite grasped the potential of ASW aircraft and only sank 2 US subs by air.

In order for a Pacific submarine campaign sim to be less dull and as 'intense' as the Atlantic it would have probably have to be heavily ahistorical.