The documentation that ships with Silent Hunter 3 is quite lacking. Additionally, over time players have shared many insights that are worth repeating. In no specific order, I have documented the insights I have found most useful, from known bugs, to community mods, to useful methods for manual targeting and general gameplay information.
(It’s useful to note that SH4 has been released. I have posted my opinion of it.)
You may also wish to check out the excellent community documentation for Silent Hunter 3 hosted at communitymanuals.com.
In any event, you really should upgrade to SH3 v1.4, as it fixes many outstanding issues from SH3 v1.3. I believe users still running SH3 v1.2 should also upgrade, as the hydrophone operator issue has been resolved.
Performance
FSAutoStart
You can greatly increase available contiguous memory by running this application prior to starting Silent Hunter III. It was originally developed for MS Flight Sim 2004, but works with basically anything. Review the documentation for usage instructions. Thanks to Glassair for this suggestion.
DirectX Tweaker
With this software program, you can change some of the DirectX settings used for Silent Hunter III. You may notice a performance improvement if you select ‘Force Shader P’. There may be noticable abnormalities in the graphics, though. Test drive, first. You can also force full precision, which may increase the graphics quality on your card at a cost of fewer frames per second. Thanks to tycho102 for this tip.
Useful Community Modifications
Fixes
An alpha version of a mod to increase SH3’s default visual bubble to 20km is available, but still under heavy development. Refer to its thread for any updates. It’s strictly alpha at the moment and may require some additional configuration file changes or mods which are not included.
Experience Enhancements
NYGM Tonnage War and GreyWolves are the latest and greatest experience enhancement mods for SH3 and greatly improve upon the original game. Each is currently unique, although some components are shared and a unified version may be in progress presently. Unfortunately (or not) you’ll need a SubSim account to view those threads.
Real U-Boat v1.45 for SH3 v1.4b. Real U-Boat offer many fixes and enhancements to the game, with a strong focus on realism in addition to fixing any major bugs and omissions in the game. RuB features a new fatigue model, a modified medals system, realistic Flotilla and U-Boat availability, the Operations Mod, and numerous other realism corrections and modifications. Additionally, RuB1.45 fixes the uber sonar in v1.4 of SH3 that makes the commander attrition rate extremely high versus the actual war. It also includes my Improved Convoys mod which I worked on in the Spring and Summer of 2005.
Improved U-Boat incorporates Real U-Boat along with some additional changes. I haven’t been able to track down what’s changed on SubSim, but if you’re interested in trying it out for yourself, it includes Real U-Boat and thus Improved Convoys, too. It’s a mod by JonZ on SubSim.
Improved Convoys for SH3 v1.4b. If you just want some more realistic convoy encounters you may want to install my Improved Convoys mod. As of March, no other mod includes the latest version of ImprovedConvoys. You can download the latest copy from my mirror. You can also read the SubSim thread if you have an account.
Map Tool Enhancements
There’s a huge grab bag of improved plotting tools.
Pato’s Bearing Overlay tool. Pato has replaced the sub graphic when zoomed in with an awesome plotting too with both ranges are bearings that are accurate to 3000m on the map. It works on both the navigation map and the TDC and is really awesome. There’s some kind of bug with ATI’s driver that seems to consistently prevent them from using the new 3000m version. Pato’s original 1500m version is still available for those users.
Flag Identification
Someone was nice enough to capture the flags of the major players and make them available as a single file, although I do not know who it was. I have mirrored a copy locally here.
Manual Targeting Options
If you want to plot your own solutions, Wazoo’s guide is all you need. He describes several methods for determining ship’s course, speed, AoB, and finally plugging in the solution.
Manual Plotting Hints and Tips
There’s nothing quite like tracking down a contact on your own. Unfortunately, the game is mostly devoid of the tools you need to accomplish this feat. Checkout the community modifications mentioned earlier to resolve that.
Determing Target Speed via Mark One Eyeball
don1reed on SubSim posted the following formula, which you can use to determine a target’s speed fairly accurately:
Ships length past the vertical graticule / seconds x (3600/1852) = speed.
The bearing to your submarine from the targeted ship, your AOB, must be between 60 and 120 degrees. You should be at full stop for best results.
don1reed provided a quick example: i.e., T2 = 152.7m / 40 sec. x 1.94 = 7.4 kts.
Determining Target Distance with the Statometer
Using the Statometer in any sea state isn’t as hard as you’d imagine. caspofungin explained that you simply need to count the number of marks in your periscope from the waterline to the highest mast of the ship in question. Once you’ve done this, you can lock the target in the scope again. Do not try to move the cross hair over the highest mast, but instead move it to the highest mark you counted earlier. With the scope locked, it will show up on the notepad and actually be correct.
Determining Target Distance via MILS and Distance Table
Sawdust has created a detailed PDF with MILS, mast heights, and distances in meters. With the mast height of the ship in question from your recognition manual or from memory and the number of MILS ticks the ship’s mast is from the waterline in the periscope, you can look up the exact range to target. Exellent for manual targeting and feels quite real to boot!
Determining Target Course with Weapons Officer
If you have the Weapons Officer enabled, you can determine the true course of a target or convoy with the following pair of formulas, which I found courtesy of poster Gipodiablo on the SubSim forums.
If the target’s AoB is starboard, here’s the formula:
180 - AoB + Your Ship's Heading + Your Ship's Bearing to Target in Periscope
If the target’s AoB is port, here’s the formula:
AoB - 180 + Your Ship's Heading + Your Ship's Bearing to Target in Periscope
If your result for either formula is greater than 360, you need to subtract 360 from the result. There’s no accurate way to determine your own sub’s course, which is strange. You’ll need to click the compass as close to your current heading as possible and use the number reported to you by your navigation officer. The AoB can be provided by the Weapons Officer when you ask for a solution. If you are calculating the solution yourself you likely already have the ship’s course so that you can find AoB. These formulas won’t help you with that.
Miscellaneous Stuff
What’s the awful loud noise when I start a mission?
That’s the sound of your boat in proximity to a subnet. It can be disabled by renaming data/Sound/Collision_AntiSubmarineNet_int.wav to something else. You can also rename Collision_AntiSubmarineNet_ext.wav if you don’t want the external sound either.
How do I make the intro movies go away?
You can rename or delete the two files in data/Movies/Intro. Done.
Are there ever any ships in port? When are they in port?
Thanks to the somewhat cumbersome mission editor, it’s possible to open up the scripted mission file and determine when and where ships are in port. The short of it is, there are capital warships in both Loch Ewe and Scapa Flow, but never any other port. No merchants appear in port with the stock game, although if you’re using World Mod you can find many merchants in some ports, too.
Entry Exit Ship Location 19390915 19391010 Auxiliary Cruiser Scapa Flow 19391004 19391014 BB Revenge Scapa Flow 19391101 19400105 BB Nelson Loch Ewe 19391105 19391205 BB Revenge Loch Ewe 19400301 19400501 Auxiliary Cruiser Scapa Flow 19400307 19400425 CV Illustrious Scapa Flow 19400401 19400601 Auxiliary Cruiser Scapa Flow 19400517 19450101 CL Fiji Light Cruiser Loch Ewe 19400524 19400630 CL Dido Light Cruiser Scapa Flow 19401211 19401231 BB King George V Scapa Flow 19410201 19410217 Auxiliary Cruiser Scapa Flow 19410210 19410320 Auxiliary Cruiser Scapa Flow 19410315 19450430 CL Fiji Light Cruiser Scapa Flow 19420203 19420228 BB King George V Scapa Flow 19420215 19430903 CV Illustrious Loch Ewe 19420215 19430903 Passenger Liner Bristol 19420915 19430903 CVE Bogue Escort Loch Ewe 19430903 19440630 CVE Bogue Escort Norfolk
Where can I find task forces?
They spawn in various places throughout the war, travel along a moderately randomized course, then disappear at some preset endpoint. There are only three core task force groups in the entire game that actually have any desirable capital ships. The rest all contain light cruisers. One choke point for two of the three task forces with battleships is west of Gibraltar, so that’s generally the best place to be. Be warned as air coverage of that area increases throughout the war. (OpenOffice mostly yielded to me and produced a somewhat useable export.)
Battleships (BB) TF Entry Exit Capital Escorts Insertion Extraction Choke Grids 39_01 19390801 19411220 1 – 3 4 – 8 Firth of Forth Loch Ewe AM36 39_02 19390808 19411220 1 – 3 4 – 8 Scapa Flow Alexandria CG95, CN37 39_03 19390815 19411220 1 – 3 6 – 11 Gibraltar Loch Ewe CG95, AM36 Carriers (CV) TF Entry Exit Capital Escorts Insertion Extraction Choke Grids 39_03 19390815 19411220 1 – 3 6 – 11 Gibraltar Loch Ewe CG95, AM36 Escort Carriers (CVE)* TF Entry Exit Capital Escorts Insertion Extraction Choke Grids Many 1942 1945 1 3 – 5 Atlantic Atlantic AM,AL,BE,BF,CG Light Cruisers (CL) TF Entry Exit Capital Escorts Insertion Extraction Choke Grids 39_04 19390820 19411220 2 – 4 3 – 6 Alexandria Gibraltar CN37 39_05 19390825 19411220 1 – 3 3 – 6 Liverpool Firth of Forth BF33 39_06 19390806 19411220 1 – 3 3 – 6 Firth of Forth AM69 BF33 39_07 19390818 19411220 1 – 3 3 – 6 AM69 Capetown 39_08 19390822 19411220 1 – 3 3 – 6 Australia Capetown 39_11 19390801 19411220 1 – 3 0 Capetown Gibraltar CG95 39_12 19390807 19411220 1 – 3 0 Loch Ewe AM36 AM36 39_13 19390814 19411220 1 – 3 0 AN17 Scapa Flow 39_14 19390817 19411220 1 – 3 0 Freetown Capetown 39_15 19390821 19411220 1 – 3 0 AM69 AM61 39_16 19390824 19411220 1 – 3 0 Australia Arabia 39_18 19390827 19411220 1 – 3 0 Capetown Australia 39_19 19390807 19411220 1 – 3 0 AM38 AM38 AM36 Notes * Hunter Killer Groups * The same TFs exist after 1941, with identical routes, but different TF IDs, so Exit=May1945.