First impressions....

[Leandros]

Hi, guys – having played the game a few days I find it quite promising. If there had been a PT community like the Silent Hunter gang, with its clever developers, I would have been enthusiastic. But, alas, there isn’t one so I fear it won’t get much farther than the current version. The lack of activity here surely indicates this. For the serious military-history gamer I see some major problems, as well as for the more leisure action player. I waited eagerly for this game as it was to come with two specifics which I miss in the Silent Hunter III - torpedo-launching MTB’s and aircrafts, which the PT has. That is nice. My purpose is to make video scenarios to underline many of my arguments in a book that is to be released in the new year:

http://daleypublishing.com/sealion.htm

For my own part, and so far, I react negatively to 3 major items in the PT game:

1. Historical correctness.

2. Game-play layout

3. Lack of space….

The game does not take into consideration many of the variations on the different vessels as the war developed. The British MTB’s in 1940 had a top speed of approx. 25 knots as their third engines hadn’t been installed. At that time their armament consisted mainly of the .30 caliber Lewis machine guns, nothing like the .50 caliber Browning or 20 mm Oerlikon. The RN’s MGB’s – Motor Gun Boats - did not come into service until 1941. The German minesweeper that we see in many scenarios is the coal-driven Type 40/41 which did not come into use until 1941/1942. The prevailing German minesweeper (and escort vessel) was the Type 35. Their speed and armament was the same. The early S-boote did neither have the rounded command bridges nor the heavy armament seen in the game. Very few, if any, merchant vessels had quad 20 mm. machine cannons for air defense. These were limited to the fighting ships. The S-boote and R-boote are very well portrayed in the game as opposed to those in Silent Hunter III.

I have tried a couple of attacks on submarine with depth-charges. They work every time. That is not very realistic. There are many daylight scenarios in the game. This is not realistic. Especially in the Channel area the majority of all the MTB actions took place in the dark. As a matter of fact, all RN vessels had standing orders to be back under their own air defense screen before daybreak. This applied till after the Normandy invasion in 1944. The same practice was implemented by the Germans. The reason for this was the increasing air power yielded by all parties.

Sea movement is rather crude in comparison to the SH. In that game many such improvements have been made by the game modders. There are some blatant oversights in the mission texts. One mission is said to start in the Barents Sea but the action is happening in the Baltic. I find the game build-up somewhat childish and the whole archaic game idea is so artificial. The SH concept is much better in that you follow a timeline where you can choose which area of the world within your cruising range you want to operate in or follow strictly the chart references given by the commander of the U-boat force.. Or play individual scenarios of your choice. To follow this line the game speed would have to be possible to increase much more.

What is almost worst is the plain dull chart area usually offered. That takes so much away from the feeling of being in a situation. In one scenario the length of the convoy takes up half the map area. Surely, most often you won’t see land in a real scenario but the MTB’s were, by definition, short-range vessels and much happened close to the shores. A realistic map gives a different kind of reference, also historically. In the bonus missions there are a couple of good examples on this.

The Southern Gambit seems to make the game generally more interesting, if not for me. I haven’t bought that part yet since the Channel area is what I want to explore. However, the main plus factor should be the newly released mission editor. I haven’t tried that yet but it looks much like the SH ME. So far I have only leafed through the instructions. Not simple, but neither are other ME’s I have seen.

Alas, my greatest loss is the lack of the German invasion barges constructed during the Fall of 1940. Without those it is awkward to simulate the Sea Lion operation.

[Joe Shaw]

I agree for the most part, I too have been disappointed with the original game and for many of the reasons you mention. When the game was first announced and for years thereafter it looked and sounded as if it would be what I was looking for ... a true simulation of the widespread and fascinating coastal warfare in WW2.

Unfortunately the game ended up being some strange mixture of good looking boats and wildly unrealistic situations.

However, I also hope that the mission editor will pan out and allow the community to create some realistic and, of course, fun scenarios for us to play. As of now I haven't been able to crack the code on the editor and create anything that works but then I haven't had a lot of time to work on it.

We'll see ...

Joe