The primary objective of the scenario is to intercept and sink any British capital ship. This proves to be too easy in that the player begins the mission less than 1,000 meters from several British battleships, so close that there is a mad scramble at the very beginning to configure the torpedoes and fire a shot before the lead vessel escapes an optimal firing solution.
The end result is a rapid fire mission that is over is less than four minutes. Personally I would have preferred that the scenario designer crafted this mission with the player as one of the U-Boats racing to join the fight. I went back and reloaded the scenario to determine if this was just a quirk of a random spawn but sadly it was not as I started the mission in the same location each time.
For this outing I am taking a 1941 VIIC U-Boat at 49%
realism (the default normal setting is 29% realism: I disable a few more things
to heighten the challenge).
I begin the scenario in grid BE-38 with British warships
operating directly off my port side. The orange circle in the water indicates
the orientation of my submerged vessel. I order a 40 degree turn to the port
side in order to have some chance against these targets.
The Bismarck is off in the distance yet quite visual, and
all warships are firing off multiple rounds at each other.
The mighty German warship is not going down without a fight
and is landing several shells on the British fleet.
My first attempt to fire is on the lead ship, a Nelson class
battleship which is less than 500 meters away. The torpedo was hastily
configured at a 3 meter depth, but I most likely was in such a rush I didn’t check
to see if it was at a magnetic or impact pistol.
The angle on bow was not drastic enough to cause the fish to
glance off the side of the hull, however here it is falling to the depths most
likely due to an improper pistol setting. The explosions on the starboard side
of the British ship are more hits being landed by the Bismarck.
With a better approach angle on the second warship I take
the time to properly configure the next torpedoes to a 3 meter depth and an
impact pistol setting so that they detonate on impact with the hull.
With tubes two, three, and four setup for the short range
engagement I begin firing sequences at different parts of the vessel in order
to spread the damage the length of the keel.
At less than 600 meters I fire the last fish towards the bow
of the battleship aiming directly between the two forward gun emplacements.
These result in catastrophic damage to the vessel, thus
achieving the primary objective of the scenario.
Two scenarios in a row, two battleships sent below the
surface.
There are a couple of mods out that enhance the data
reporting aspect of the game (such as telling you the name of the actual vessel
destroyed), however I am running Silent Hunter III stock with no mods at the
moment so all I get credit for is a 35,900 ton “King George V Battleship”.
After-action Report
As mentioned in the first post of the series, the “U-Boat
lost” message in the top left is a technical error as I successfully completed
the mission, took no damage, and all crew ended the mission in good health.
Post Mortem
It is sad to see governments maintain laws that are
effectively no longer relevant, such as those that are still enforced in
Germany where the display of the equilateral cross symbol is illegal. This causes
game developers who want to make a sale in those countries to suppress
potentially offensive imagery from video games, such as the removal of the
swastika from the decks of the Bismarck.
Can you imagine the poor sap that had to climb this mast to
apply white-out to the flag?
Calm down people...it is just a video game.
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