SH4 like backwards

[TDK1044]

Hi WAVE SKIPPER,

I respect your views, but the only reason Ubisoft developed Silent Hunter 4 at all is to make money by selling an entertaining game where the player is a submarine Captain in a US sub in the Pacific between 1941 to 1945. Historical accuray will be taken into account, but it certainly won't be the only factor involved.

Members of Forums such as this total less than 3 percent of total sales based on the SH3 figures, and most of the other 97 percent wouldn't know the difference between a U Boat and a US sub if you took the identifying markings off the subs.

That doesn't mean that you don't strive for accuracy, it just means that there is a balance to strike.

Games are made for a wide range of people and to make money. Obviously the average world consumer does not want to play realistic sims.

My views are not my views. They are just history:

http://www.lookoutnewspaper.com/arch...060619/4.shtml

"Despit was beside himself with anger; the tanker, although damaged, was still seaworthy. The Japanese tanker had survived 11 MK 14 torpedoes fired from the Tinosa.
The Department of Ordinance conducted more tests and discovered the MK 14 torpedo had defective firing pins, hence no explosion on contact. Once these pins were replaced, the MK 14 torpedoes became the deadly armament they were intended to be. (my note: but not in magnetic attacks)
Nearly two years after Pearl Harbor, with torpedo troubles behind them, U.S. submarines in the Pacific began to take a deadly toll of Japanese shipping. But just as American submarines had improved, so had Japanese sub attack vessels. Submarines could now be subjected to relentless depth charge attacks"

i.e. the war really starts for subs in 43...

its just history.

I spent most of the last year either making SH3 mods or away from such games. But as SH4 gets ever nearer I thought I should begin to reread old books I had read and read some new ones - to see what amount of modding will be required to make the game truly ready for historical buffs. Just like modders wanted realistic smoke from burning oil, realistic harbor life, sub nets, mines, better convoy traffic, sub skins, and a host of other mods too numerous to name. A few quacks accused modders of wasting their time and treating SH3 badly. Not many, but such goof balls exist everywhere. I know the history buffs will want to move SH4 toward realistic parameters too. It will be a mess at first, but after half a year the game should start fleshing out.

I plan to even make another V-Mod add on: if the Germans win their side of the war, I will see to it that the Japanese win in the Pacific. If possible - if I can mod a Japanese sub force. I mean obviously I like fiction too. And I will try my hand at fiction after I tire of playing the Americans - from 43 on.

[TDK1044]

I admire your commitment to historical accuracy, and it's great that modders like yourself are around.

A little off point, but when I played SH3 at 100 percent realism, I found it challenging but less entertaining than playing at around 70 percent realism. Therefore, for me anyway, I'm happy to discard some level of realism in order to enjoy the game more. I accept that others would have a very different view and I respect that.

[AJ!]

im 50/50 on this one. I do love realism in a WW game but i also value gameplay just as much. I think SH3 had a great balance of gameplay and historical accuracy. Plus the realism option made the game alot more flexible to the history buffs and the casual players

[Finback]

There has been some mention in these posts which "seem" to indicate the American submariners had it easy. Yes the losses they incurred were less than the Germans or Japanese sub forces suffered. But leat's not forget this...

20% of American WWII submariners are still on patrol. This was the highest mortality rate of branch of the service.

Japanese ASW was not up to snuff with that of the Allies. By-and-large, this is true. But when they were sweating out a prolonged dc attack by one of the exceptions (and the Japanese had some very dedicated ASW units as the war progressed), the submariners on the receiving end of the attack weren't thinking about how "easy" they had it.

War is hell and the sub vets of any nationality know why.

[Fat Bhoy Tim]

Originally Posted by Wave Skipper

we will all be U-boat captains using American subs with none of the screwy American sub doctrines and lousy command system (no Donitz) and we will be using torpedoes likely only 1/3 as bad as real and going up against Japanese who will likely perform like Brits and Yank DDs and escorts. A Total fairy tale. And if we mod it to where it is realistic it will just be plain dull.

I wonder if there would be a way to mod the American subs into Empire subs and set the American DDs and escorts as the AI enemy......hmmmm


You know that may be easy. Since there are no boggymen flags, like the nazi flag that sends europeans into fits, likely the SH4 will allow subs to fly a flag FOR ONCE. So, even though most of Asia still hates the Japanese flag, those WILL be allowed, and so one could place Japanese flags on American subs and it could be do-able. Mod in new starting bases, put in all the heavy American shipping (I got some practice at that in my SH3 V-mod) and turn the game into something more true to history.

I think you'll find it's just the German laws that preclude swastikas in games. We beat them 60 years ago, and we're still having to put up with them

[Nightmare]

As the war progressed the Japanese started routing their shipping to hug the coastlines (source: “Clear the Bridge” by Richard O’Kane). This put US submarines in the position to have to go into shallow waters to have any chances of hitting anything. Everybody knows that a submarine in shallow water can quickly become a dead submarine. The Pacific may be the deepest ocean, but a lot of it is relatively shallow. USS Tang only sits in 180 feet of water in the Formosa Strait.

[Subnuts]

Man, I though the original post was gonna be a joke of some sort.

"Hey, why did the Japanese lose the war?"

"I don't know, why?"

"Because their ASW forces were so poorly trained our submarines sailed to Japan backwards, and we told them we were leaving!" :rotfl:

[Zero Niner]

Originally Posted by Nightmare

As the war progressed the Japanese started routing their shipping to hug the coastlines (source: “Clear the Bridge” by Richard O’Kane). This put US submarines in the position to have to go into shallow waters to have any chances of hitting anything. Everybody knows that a submarine in shallow water can quickly become a dead submarine. The Pacific may be the deepest ocean, but a lot of it is relatively shallow. USS Tang only sits in 180 feet of water in the Formosa Strait.

That's true, according to what I read in "Red Scorpion", which dealt with the war patrols of the USS Rasher. The author's father served aboard that boat from construction & commissioning right up to the end of the war.
In her first few war patrols she was assigned to patrol the Borneo/Sulawesi/Celebes area. The skipper found that many ships would hug the coast as close as they could, and find shelter (if any could be found) in a harbour during the night.

[Iron Budokan]

1. Yes, the game will be fun.

2. No, the game won't be absolutely 100% historically accurate.

3. Yes, modders will eventually work to bring different levels of enjoyment to the game from all perspectives (just like they did in SHIII).

4. Yes, the game will be fun.

[jimmie]

I haven't read the whole thread but picked up handful of comments, but I understand what Wave Skipper says.

One of the reasons for why SH4 does not feature Japanese side for player is I think lack of information about everything. There aren't much information about Japanese submarines (especially inside of them) like Uboot or American subs. Not only machines but operation as well.

And if you find information, if it's written in Japanese (which is also different from written Japanese language today - even the direction they write is opposite), it won't be easy to find enough people who can read (not just read, you know what i mean) and translate into English - yes, there are people who can do but it's not like German-English or Russian-English. And generally speaking, this kind of gerne or even entire PC game is not as popluar in Japan as in US and Europe. This fact contribues to difficulty about finding enough resorce about Japanese force.

This is just my speculation but I think it's true - at least I'm saying this as a native Japanese, so figure.

Yeah, it'll be really frustrated if you know 70% of your torp will not work beforehand. Being DCed won't be scary if you know just going deep and wait for 20 min they're gone. And his point (remember I haven't read all the thread, sorry) is that's the result of realistic game which we'd be likely modding - in this way. The difference of reality and us is we already know too many things.

But anyway what we ourselves are not developing SH4 we'll get what'll be given. And we'll see if it'll be a dull game by making things histrical as possible. Personally, I'm very much looking forward to SH4. And the chances are that I think it's moddable for Atlantic which I prefer at the moment - my guess is that even Dev teams would want to mod SH4 to Uboot sim. So let's not be too pesimistic.

[Torcher]

Originally Posted by Wave Skipper

...

This was true until very late 43 when a big mouth congressman named May, revealed to reporters that the Japanese were missing our subs because they set their depth charges to explode too shallow.

...

I guess politicians were aholes back then, too. This guy should have been taken out back and shot along with the editor(s) who allowed the info to be printed.

No commentary on his politics but I see he was convicted and served time for bribes. At least they threw their bad apples into prison back then.

MAY, Andrew Jackson, a Representative from Kentucky; born on Beaver Creek, near Langley, Floyd County, Ky., June 24, 1875; attended the public schools; taught in the schools of Floyd and Magoffin Counties, Ky., for five years; was graduated from Southern Normal University Law School, Huntingdon, Tenn. (later Union College, Jackson, Tenn.), in 1898; was admitted to the bar the same year and commenced practice in Prestonsburg, Ky.; county attorney of Floyd County 1901-1909; special judge of the circuit court of Johnson and Martin Counties in 1925 and 1926; also engaged in agricultural pursuits, coal mining, and banking; elected as a Democrat to the Seventy-second and to the seven succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1931-January 3, 1947); chairman, Committee on Military Affairs (Seventy-sixth through Seventy-ninth Congresses); unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1946 to the Eightieth Congress; convicted on July 3, 1947, on charges of accepting bribes for his influence in the award of munitions contracts during the Second World War; served nine months in prison during 1950 and received a full pardon from President Truman in 1952; resumed the practice of law; died in Prestonsburg, Ky., September 6, 1959; interment in Mayo Cemetery.

[dean_acheson]

I would say that alot of dead U.S. sailors would say that the Japanese had decent ASW capabilities. Just ask Mush Morton.

[heartc]

I just don't get it, Wave Skipper. Now, I'm not an expert on US submarine warfare in WWII, but I've read a few sources including "Submarine!" by the late Capt. Edward L. Beach, and all the points you and a few others keep coming up with I'm already aware of. Yet, I don't see the logic in this hassle. Is it only legitimate to recreate a military force in a simulation when its historical usage ended up in a complete suicidal fashion, as was the case with the German subforce? Does this mean for flightsims that you should also rather fly Japanese N1K1 on Kamikaze missions - sorry, cut the plural - than Corsairs in Late War?

Did you ever play Silent Hunter I? This game was quite challenging, in fact more than SHIII, even in moded form (though haven't tried GWX yet, only NYGM - which is excellent, btw). Now, arguably the Jap ASW force in that game might have been "too aggressive too regularely", however in real life there were numerous tough sub - ASW vessel encounters which did not just end after 5 minutes with the sub just going away, like you make it sound. For many crews, this was part of the experience, and for those who did not return, it might have been all they knew.
In fact, in Capt. Beach's book he describes several encounters where the following depth charge attack would last several hours.

As for the torpedoes: Another reason for the high dud rate, which you did not specifically mention, was the torps running lower than their set depth, similar to the German ones. Now, it took them some time to figure that out as well, but when skippers set the running depth to zero or one feet, voila, they achieved more success. The question in historical simulations has always been "what do you do when you have the advantage of hindsight?" Will you repeate the mistakes deliberately for the sake of historical accuracy? Will you set your torpedo to 10 feet running depth, knowing it will in all probability run at 20?

BTW: The idea to conduct submerged sonar/hydrophone aided attacks on surface targets without ever seeing them has QUICKLY been laid to rest after the war started, relived only in the Cold War when technology was up for it.

The fact that the Japs set their depth charges too shallow in the earlier part of the war is negated somewhat by the fact that it takes a while for a sub to
- sink to a specific depth
- Japanese depth charges had MORE of a punch than the Allied ones from all I've heard
- and shallow water operations which were a more regular occurance in the PTO than the Atlantic U-Boat war.

Also it seems to me from reading patrol logs and Beach that there were at least SOME very aggressive US skippers underway in the Pacific, going after destroyers at PD, after ports, and making attack runs on carrier groups moving at 30+ knots, at PD all the while having planes patroling overhead - I think this IS a challenge. If you feel SHIV will be too boring, then recreate *this*, i.e. why not take what you feel will be poor ASW into the equation and as a result increase your aggressiveness? See how far you can push it. That's what many skippers did in the PTO, and many are still on patrol now.

In closing, I just don't see the logic of your complaint that US subs in the PTO would be boring unless ahistorical, yet you demand sailing Jap subs in a - sub campaign that never existed in the first place. And I don't recognize the demand a subsim has to involve going on suicide missions with 90% loss rate for the force. That would indeed only leave the German U-Bootwaffe as a choice. And THAT would be boring, in my opinion.

[BH]

The U.S. submarines were so successful because they received excellent training.