Silent Hunter III

Silent Hunter III was released in March 2005 and quickly became regarded as the most successful version of the Silent Hunter submarine series. The game was essentially an expansion to Silent Hunter II, utilizing the same game play method where the player commanded a German submarine during World War II, yet with several significant enhancements.

A Type VII U-boat departs from German submarine pens in Silent Hunter III

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As with previous game versions, the player is placed in command of a submarine which is operated by vising various stations on-board for attack, navigation, sonar (the hydrophone) as well as surface watches on the bridge. Unlike previous versions of the game, however, the submarine crew is now visible working at their stations while the graphics of Silent Hunter III allowed the player to virtually walk through certain compartments of the boat (mainly the control room, bridge, and conning tower). Some areas, such as the torpedo room, crew quarters, and most notably the engineering section, were still not accessible to view except on a master diagram of the entire submarine.

The control room in Silent Hunter III

A major advance of Silent Hunter III was in aspects of crew and submarine management. While in port, a player could upgrade their submarine or even replace the entire boat with a more advanced class (unlike the historic German Navy, however, a player transferring to a new boat would also transfer the entire crew of the previous submarine). Crew members also held individual names with careers of their own, including promotions and the award of medals.

The main menu from which crew and submarine management were conducted

Another feature of Silent Hunter III which differed from its predecessors was the "open play" concept where a submarine would simply be assigned a patrol sector with the player having free ability as to what actions, if any, to conduct once on station. Successfully reaching a patrol sector, remaining for twenty four hours, and returning to base earned a minimum amount of points while any ships attacked during the patrol (which were encountered at random) and the sinking of such ships added higher prestige to a successful mission.

To give homage to earlier game versions, "stand alone" missions were available where the player would be assigned a boat, with a fully trained crew, and tasked with specific mission orders and objectives. Single missions were conducted independent of the player's main campaign, as were "Naval Academy" missions which provided an in-game tutorial on how to operate the various features and controls of the game's U-boat submarine.

Attacking a cargo freighter in Silent Hunter III

Silent Hunter Commander

"Silent Hunter Commander" was an add-on shareware program created as an upgrade to the Silent Hunter III crew management system. The program vastly expanded the capabilities of crew management, beginning with altering all the in-game ranks to their correct German titles and also providing detailed biographies for each member of the crew. The program also allowed crew members to be promoted between "castes", whereas seaman could now become chief petty officers while chiefs could now earn officer commissions.

The crew management menu of "Silent Hunter Commander"

The program "Silent Hunter Commander" also allowed for an automatically generated and highly detailed ship's log to be kept during each patrol mission. Medals, promotions, and boat upgrades operated on the same principal once returning to port, but it was now possible for the player to rise to the rank of Kapitan zur See, whereas the original version of the game capped the player's maximum rank three grades lower at Kapitänleutnant (portrayed in the original game as "Lieutenant Commander").

Silent Hunter Grey Wolves

The "Silent Hunter Grey Wolves" program was a major expansion to Silent Hunter III in an effort to portray the game with far greater realism. As with "Silent Hunter Commander", "Silent Hunter Grey Wolves" altered the English game ranks to German titles while also adding dozens of new ships and aircraft which the player could encounter at sea. The program further added enemy submarines (with limited combat capabilities) and also greatly expanded the number of ports and harbors depicted in the game.

The "Silent Hunter Grey Wolves" expansion logo, also known as "GWX". The program itself had three upgrades, the latest (and final) of which was "GWX3"

These additional submarines were not available for the player to command, but could be seen as friendly vessels during missions, while the program also made possible the docking at sea with a resupply submarine for a restock of fuel and torpedoes.

The Grey Wolves expansion also expanded the number of U-boat flotillas, allowing the player to serve in Greece as well as with the "Monsoon Group" deployed to the Pacific. In-game modifications further allowed the player to be assigned a lengthy transit from Europe to the Pacific, in order to take up station with the 33rd U-boat flotilla. The game also made more realistic the locations and transfer dates to flotillas in France. An in-game expansion also added the 3rd U-boat flotilla at La Rochelle, which was portrayed in the submarine action film "Das Boot".

Silent Hunter II

Silent Hunter IV

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In addition to somewhat improved graphics, the game allowed a player to begin a career in August 1939, a month before the Second World War began, during which time all harbors and ports were portrayed as "neutral", including those on the British Isles. The program further added German supply ships as a type of "mobile port" and included new classes of submarine (under computer control) such as the Type IIB, Type XXIII, and the Type XIV supply submarine.

The Type XIV resupply submarine as depicted in the "Silent Hunter Grey Wolves" expansion