Broken in half, the enemy Osa cruiser sinks to the bottom. In the background the hull of a container ship can be seen. I had to distinguish between these two targets during contact evaluation to avoid sinking a friendly. My 688 is highlighted by the yellow circle, heading for a shallower depth.

The 3-D viewer allows a picture of your boat, detached views of your weapons and the ensuing onslaught they deliver to your opponents. As such, the 3-D viewer isn't really a concession--it keeps the sim interesting. You cannot see or detect enemy ships with it, (until one of your weapons hits it) and it doesn't figure into the plotting or fire control situations. You can only see an enemy as your ordnance homes in for the kill, and it sure would be a shame to miss that after all the time you invested plotting the solution. Strangely enough, the graphics in the 3-D viewer are underwhelming; blocky, pixelated, and jerky. This is the sole area where Fast Attack, the other recent attack boat subsim, outshines 688(I). Fast Attack automatically cut away to the target as the weapon closed in, with a fairly decent graphic display.

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