Silent War

So I picked up Silent War and finally got a chance to play a couple turns last night. It is a pretty fun game although I normally don't like solitaire games since I can generally do the same thing on the computer. Since the computer industry hasn't released a decent sub game in a long time, this will have to do. It does a pretty good job of capturing the submarine war in the pacific though. There is definately the frustration factor as your torpedos suck at the beginning of the game.

One of these years, I will set up the campaign.

Have you played Silent Hunter 3?

I heard good things about that game for the PC.

I have wanted Silent War for some time. I bought a copy on ebay, but the seller never sent the damn game, and by the time i finished that mess out I couldn't find a copy (early last year).

I'll probably pick it up at some point.

Lagduf wrote:

Have you played Silent Hunter 3?

I heard good things about that game for the PC.

I have wanted Silent War for some time. I bought a copy on ebay, but the seller never sent the damn game, and by the time i finished that mess out I couldn't find a copy (early last year).

I'll probably pick it up at some point.

They have it at wargame depot.

I saw it at Best Buy am tempted to pick it up. But many modern sub sims bug me because they took out the fun and left all the rest. I just like to approach a convoy and shoot it up. Maybe something like an end around or whatever.

In "Pacific Theater of Operations 2" for the SNES you could wipe out whole task forces with one or two submarines.

That's how I won the last scenario, where Japan only still holds some of the Mariana islands and pieces of the south-east asian mainland. With only 7 subs I sank about 20 or so aircraft carriers.

Schweig! wrote:

In "Pacific Theater of Operations 2" for the SNES you could wipe out whole task forces with one or two submarines.

That's how I won the last scenario, where Japan only still holds some of the Mariana islands and pieces of the south-east asian mainland. With only 7 subs I sank about 20 or so aircraft carriers.

I liked Silent Service myself. It was pretty good. Seemed to have a decent model at the harder levels and you didn't have to worry about all the nitpicky little details.

Ha ha, Silent Service was forbidden in Germany until 1990, because of its "war glorifying" content.

Schweig! wrote:

Ha ha, Silent Service was forbidden in Germany until 1990, because of its "war glorifying" content.

You have got to be shitting me?

I was thinking of picking this up but will wait for the Atlantic version.

I'm not really interested in Steel Wolves.

I'd rather play as those Bloody Yanks!

Unless of course Steel Wolves gets rave reviews...then i might reconsider.

I'm such a fickle, compulsive, easily swayed consumer.

I just bought this game.

Why?

I wanted it. ( and have ever since I heard about it, and tried to buy it way back in November of 2006 on eBay where I was promptly ripped off).

These days though, gaming friends are few and far between with most interested in lighter fare like Descent. I've got my moneys worth out of that game for sure though, and I can't wait to start a campaign once the summer starts (and the game arrives)...

But in the meantime, I needed something to play, a boardgame to play, and I didn't feel like starting up on my Ambush! campaign again (though my squad is kicking ass).

I toured the US Pampanito this last summer. Being inside a real WW2 submarine really struck home with me, boy those things were cramped and just like i'd always imagined. Made me realize I needed this game...I'm glad Compass went and did a reprint.

I also own Silent War (preordered 2nd printing), but didn't play it yet. (That has nothing to do with its quality!)

I think the major difference between Silent War and Steel Wolfes is that the Pacific Campaign is climatic (you start bad and things get better) and the Atlantic one is anti-climatic (you start good but thiings get worse). Personally I think I might like Steel Wolves better, but there is no use in buying it unless I played Silent War first.

Schweig! wrote:

I also own Silent War (preordered 2nd printing), but didn't play it yet. (That has nothing to do with its quality!)

I think the major difference between Silent War and Steel Wolfes is that the Pacific Campaign is climatic (you start bad and things get better) and the Atlantic one is anti-climatic (you start good but thiings get worse). Personally I think I might like Steel Wolves better, but there is no use in buying it unless I played Silent War first.

US Submarines started using some of the German tactics. The Gato and Balao boats were at least a good as the Type VII and Type IX U-boats that were prevelant during the war. Japanese ASW technology never quite reached the level of Allied ASW technology.

After the frustration of playing my first game with the early war submarines, I wanted to have the fun of mowing through a convoy with the Seawolf since they were kind enough to include it. I basically gave it an endurance rating of 7 (since that also represents torpedos) and went from there. Anywho....

This is from a file in the secret Government Warehouse. It is marked Extra Top Secret. It was filed next to the Philadelphia Incident Report. This is the Captain's Log.

Date: January 20, 2008
USS Seawolf

Captain Moore

We are in a routine patrol in the sea of Japan. Nothing much going on, as usual. We had sporadic contact with a couple of whales and the Chinese Destroyer that became our best friend for a while. I heard that there was going to be an eclipse tonight, so decided to surface so that we could see it from the bridge.

As we reached the surface, we noticed a large tubelike thing that kept remaining in front of us. We tried to turn to avoid it and it kept staying in front of us, I didn't know what it was, so I ordered a crash dive. We dove quickly and the ship shuddered. There were all kinds of strange colors as the ship dove. It lasted for about a minute and the ship was calm again. I decided to head back up to the surface to see if there was any appreciable damage.

We did a sweep of the area and didn't even find our Chinese friends around us. They must have saw the weather anamoly and decided to head back home. As we kept doing a sweep of the area, we noticed a group of ships on the horizon. So I had the crew go down and we dove to periscope depth and approached the ships.

As we got closer, they appeared to be in a convoy. Circling the edge was a Destroyer, I turned the periscope towards it and noticed that it had the Rising Sun. One of the men had a World War II ship book and we looked it up and saw that it was an Imperial Japanese Destroyer. Apparently, the weather anomoly took us back in time.

Since we were American and techically at war, we decided to test the combat systems of our submarine figuring that it should be no problem for us to take these folks on. As we closed in closer to the group of ships, we noticed that there was a Battleship. Seeing how not many battleships survived the war, I decided it would be no harm in sinking her. We closed in for a shot and managed to pop a Mark 48 in her. The Convoy didn't know what hit them as they didn't counterattack (the ASW attack was below 0). We set up for another attack and picked off a couple more ships (this got me Super Skipper +1).

We continued our patrol and stumbled across a Yamato Class Battleship. It was a little more trouble as we had to take two runs to sink it. We managed to sink a few more ships and a submarine before the weather anomoly took us back to the present. (This got me Super Skipper +2).

I don't know what happened or how we got back to World War II but I do know that if we had a couple more of us, the war wouldn't have lasted 4 years.

---

I had fun but the Seawolf made it way too easy. The worst shot I had was on the Yamato at 2. With the +3 from the rules, whatever I hit was pretty much sunk. This is a pretty fun game and I can't wait to tear into the campaign.

I like those scenarios.

Other examples are a Nimitz carrier (and jet planes) in "Carrier" (Battle of the Coral Sea).

Leopard and T-72 tanks in "Panzer Command" (WWII tank combat in South Russia).

Sgt. RockandRoll in "Sniper!" (man-to-man combat).

Silent War just arrived in the mail today...

Oh boy.

I've got the whole thing setup and am going to work on some Patrols first.

I had no idea they included a Seawolf class sub, that's awesome as well as the inclusion of the speculative S-5 Leviathan (what a beast that would have been) for the speculative campaign.

Can't wait to start the campaign once I get the combat and what not under control.