Naval Wargaming - Warship Mod 3.0 For Silent Hunter 3

Starting screen of Warship mod

  

Silent Hunter 3 Warship mod 3.0 is a modification for Silent Hunter 3, where you can take control of some of the ships in the game (you could say it's a free battleship simulator game). It was developed by Chinese U-47, if you want, you can check out his other work at the Subsim forum. If you’re looking for something new to do with your copy of Silent Hunter 3, this is definitely something you should do.

 

The mod has 3 packs and in each pack there are 3 different ships, I’m quite sure they are all German ships. Some examples of the ships you can use are: the aircraft carrier ‘Graf Zeppelin’, the light cruiser ‘Leipzig’, just to name a few. I’ve been playing around a bit with one pack, and can really say that this modification is pretty fun and different! The interface of the game stays the same as in the ‘normal’ Silent Hunter version (aka when playing without the mod). Commanding the ship is really easy, just choose your speed and adjust your rudder, just like you would do normally. When you click on the periscope icon on the left, you go directly to the view you would get when you would be playing without the mod, so even if you’re sailing with a ship, the same interface will always appear. The only thing that has changed is that when you click on the bridge icon, you actually end up on the bridge of your ship, with a sailor behind you steering the ship and the binoculars in front of you. Most of the commands on the left are practically unusable, pretty logic because I don’t think you want to go diving with your ship (although it sometimes happened that I could).

Shooting at those nasty destroyers

NOTE: If you just installed the mod and you’re asking yourself why the guns aren’t moving be sure to put some men on the deck gun in the crew interface.

I’ve played the career mode with this mod and came to the conclusion that the aim of some of the enemy ships is really really bad. Only when they came close enough (say between 500 and 1000 meters) were the destroyers able to hit me, but at the time they got close enough they were already burning and ready to sink. The only time I was actually worried is after having raided Hartlepool with ease, I went to Firth of Forth that was right next to it. While entering the bay didn’t find too much resistance, maybe two destroyers, but then I saw the coastal batteries, thinking they would also shoot to the stars (it was night time) I went straight ahead in direction of the port. Boy was I wrong, I really took a beating there, everything was flooded fortunately the crew could repair the damage. When advancing further into the bay I saw another line of coastal batteries, so I decided it was best to turn back as fast as possible. There wasn’t anything special in the port except for some lousy merchants that were not worth my time. Came out of the bay safe and sound, saved the game first, and headed straight back to Wilhelmshaven put the time accelerator on 1024 and was going home. Unfortunately my plotting skills were a bit rusty and I ran ashore not far from the harbour. To my surprise I couldn’t load up my save game! All I can say is that it was fun until it lasted!

Majestically sailing to Hell

Little tutorial on how to install the warship mod 3.0:

1.      Have Silent Hunter 3 patched to version 1.4b

2.       Download WSM3.0SH3V1.4 to your desktop, there’s also a version if you have GWX installed

3.       Copy everything that’s inside WSM3.0SH3V1.4 (JGSME.exe, readme, MODS) to your Silent Hunter directory

4.       Start JGSME.exe, normally you should see WSM3.0 activate it, by putting it to the right, close JGSME.exe

5.       Reopen JGSME.exe and you should see Ge I, Ge II and Ge III, enable only one of these three and start the game enjoy!

 (didn't have any problems installing this mod, but be careful for your save games!)


Feel free to like, share and leave comments about other mods/naval games you found worth playing!

Very deadly encounter

 

Submarine Simulator Game - Silent Hunter 3

One of the most popular submarine simulator games that you can find on the market, must be the Silent Hunter series. Personally, I think Silent Hunter 3 is one of the best games in the list of Silent Hunter games. Man, I spent a lot of hours on that game!

Basically, Silent Hunter 3 puts you in command of a World War II German sub (U-boat). It’s your mission to sink as many enemy merchants as possible, this way no supplies can reach the Allies, consequently this makes it easier for the German army to be victorious over the Allies. Of course this mission is not without peril, most merchants will be escorted by destroyers, or will be organised in large convoys. For everyone who’s not familiar with the Silent Hunter games, there are several tutorials available. These tutorials, help you to get familiar with the different aspects of the game (controls, map, attacking). There are also some standard tactical mission (historical and non-historical).

In the campaign mode of Silent Hunter, you’ll be able to choose in which period you want to start the game. You could say that each period has it’s own difficulty level. The sooner you start, the easier it will be. For example the 1940-41 are referred to as the ‘Happy Times’ for German submarines, in this period the German U-boats sunk a considerable amount of enemy vessels. The technology for hunting submarines wasn’t up to date and British warships had a hard time detecting subs. This is also reflected in the game, you will not find too many destroyers in the beginning. But when the campaign moves on, merchants will be organised in heavily defended convoys, merchants will be equipped with guns...

As the campaign moves on, you’ll also be able to acquire new technology for your sub, this also depends on the tonnage you sink on your missions. Each time you sink a ship, you’ll get renown (practically points) and with these points, you can acquire different items: from a new engine, to a new deck gun. There is also the possibility to enlist new crew members, to promote them, you can upgrade their skill levels (for example making them better at shooting down planes) and so on. When starting your campaign, you also have the possibility to change to realism level. You can change every aspect to your liking, or you could go hardcore full realism in this submarine simulator game (no game speed up, no automatic aiming, ...). Setting the voices of your crew to German is also really cool.

You’re pretty much free to do what you want on the campaign missions. You can sail everywhere you want: United States, Mediterranean, but you need to keep a close eye on your fuel level, or you can set it to unlimited fuel, in the realism options. If you want a real challenge try to sail through the Strait Of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean, and try to intercept some convoys trying to get to Malta. I tell you, you’ll need a lot of patience and skill to get past the Strait, the amount of enemy warships is just crazy (at least in my game). If you want to see the British aircraft carriers, try to sneak through the port Scapa Flow (I think). But watch out, most of the time, these ports are heavily guarded with destroyers and anti-submarine nets.

Silent Hunter 3, is one of the best submarine simulator games I’ve ever played. You get totally immersed by the game, and after some time you get really attached to your crew and sub. It’s definitely still worth a play and must have for every gamer who’s interested in naval warfare during World War II.

Free Download Naval War Game - World Of Warships

Wargaming.net is a rather popular development studio, that is based in Belarus. They are most known for their real-time strategy game named Order of War which was released back in 2009. They then went on to develop Massive multiplayer online games, like World Of Tanks and later on World of Warplanes. Both MMO's were received with open arms by the internet community. World of Tanks even broke a Guinness World Record, having the most players online simultaneously.

Now, what does this have to do with naval simulation games? Well, wargaming.net is developing a new free download naval! war game, which is called World Of Warships. The game is still in development, but it really sounds promising.

The game immerses, the player in 20th century naval warfare. You'll get to command various types of vessels: carriers, destroyers, battlecruisers. It will probably be like in the previous MMO's, with each ship having their own strengths and weaknesses (like in real life). The developers are talking about joining the three MMO's together. This means that you'll be able to transfer your economies between each game. There will also be a global map which will gather tank men, mariners and airmen fighting for world domination.

Naval Simulation Game: Enigma Rising Tide

Enigma Rising Tide The next game I want talk about is a game, that has been released back in August 2003 and was developed by Tesseraction. The game is called Enigma: Rising Tide. It’s a naval simulation game, where you get to control a destroyer, a sub, a corvette or a PT-boat. You can man all the stations on the vessels, from the AA-guns to the deck guns. Enigma: Rising Tide looks like it’s set in World War II, but actually the game is following an alternative storyline. World War I has been won by Imperial Germany. France and Great Britain have been occupied by Germany. The United States never intervened, because in this storyline the Germans never sunk the Lusitania. The remainder of the British Fleet sails to Hong Kong, together with its Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

There are three major factions. First off, you have the United States. They never entered World War I, this is why their navy is so strong in the game, at least if you compare them to the British fleet. The US fleet has some carriers and a lot of destroyers. Fun fact is that the US, isn’t led by Roosevelt, but instead it’s being led by Truman. The small cut scenes, will make clear what’s happening in the world around you.

The second faction is the Imperial German fleet, with Kaiser Wilhelm at its command. Their fleet mainly consists out of submarines, with battleships under construction (available in the Gold Edition).

Last, but not least, you have the League of Nations, with two important members namely the Japanese Imperial fleet and the Royal British fleet in exile. The British fleet suffered some losses, mainly because of her defeat in World War I. The main goal of the British fleet, is to reconquer the British islands, at all costs.

Enigma: Rising Tide, doesn’t have a tutorial. So in the beginning, it’s all about getting used to the commands, once you’ve mastered those you’ll be ready to send the enemy to the bottom of the sea. The shooting mechanism in the game isn’t too advanced, ultimately it’s really a game of hit and miss. If you’re not satisfied with AI’s shooting accuracy, you can always jump in and do it yourself. There are also a lot of submarines in the game, which are rather difficult to sink when they are submerged.

Little tutorial: You need to react fast when you see a submarine heading towards you. You first have to dodge the torpedoes, once the submarine has launched all of its torpedoes, you need to set up an attack run. When you’re right on top of the submarine, and you see it on your radar then it’s time to launch the depth charges and hope it hits the submarine underneath.

Conclusion, Enigma: Rising Tide was quite innovating when released, back in 2003. It had quite some bugs (planes crashing into each other), but I think they were resolved by the later patch releases. Enigma: Rising Tide doesn’t follow the historical storyline, but this doesn’t prevent you from having a great time playing this game. This naval simulation game does have some great potential, too bad they haven’t created a recent sequel. Maybe in the future...