Old Gamers Never Die: 'Cold Waters' - Hunting Red Bears in the North Atlantic 1984 Campaign

My latest Achievements to Date report.  All game elements in this and other screenshots are © 2017 Killerfish Games.

 After I completed the South China Sea 2000 campaign late last month, I told myself that as fun and rewarding it was to finally complete a “tour of duty” in Cold Waters, it might be a good idea if I waited a few months to tackle one of the other two campaigns in the game – North Atlantic 1984 and North Atlantic 1968.

The Strategic Transit Map. It's a much-refined version of the one in 1988's Red Storm Rising.

I had several good reasons, including the need to focus on a new screenplay for Popcorn Sky Productions, the fact that I spend way too much time at my desk 24/7, and the realization that I’m not in my late 20s and early 30s (which is how old I was when I played MicroProse Software’s Red Storm Rising, the game that inspired the designers of Cold Waters).

And, more relevantly, I was bothered by my performance as a submarine skipper in the South China Sea 2000 campaign.

Yes, I completed it successfully, but that’s only because I got into the habit of saving the game at the end of every session. Thus, I could (and did) ignore the one time that I lost my boat with all hands and just ignored that result and resumed the game from the last “save” point.[1]

And yes, I helped the U.S. win the war against China in a Harry Turtledove-like alternate history where the Hong Kong colony handover between London and Beijing does not take place and Taiwan declares independence at a time when the People’s Republic of China is becoming more aggressive. But I lost five of the Navy’s fast attack boats, including USS Seawolf, the most expensive SSN ever built for the Silent Service.

As I wrote in my WordPress blog a few days ago:

It’s my belief that one of the reasons why I lost so many submarines in the South China Sea war is that I tried to rush through the campaign and went on more than one war patrol^[2] per day: The game isn’t physically tiring – beyond a certain amount of eyestrain or tired wrists and fingers from using the mouse a lot – but it is mentally challenging and immersive as hell. Some might even say Cold Waters – or any fun game, really – can be addictive. And because even simulated combat stress can affect your decision-making, you make bad choices or stupid tactical mistakes because you aren’t thinking clearly. Forgetting to make course alterations to deny enemy submariners a good Target Motion Analysis (TMA), firing a missile when there are Ka-27 Helix ASW helos hovering nearby, or not checking to see if an enemy sub is in your baffles – those are all fatal mistakes that can make things very, very bad for you and your crew.

So, with that in mind, I will not play more than one war patrol per day on Cold Waters during this particular campaign. I still might lose a boat or two in North Atlantic 2000, but not five out of six like I did in South China Sea 2000.

I started the North Atlantic 1984 campaign on Monday, and so far I have gone out on just five war patrols during a (simulated) 22-day period of war. Three of those patrols, including a particularly dangerous mission to insert a SEAL team near a Russian naval base in the Kola Peninsula town of  Gremkha, were aboard USS Salt Lake City (SSN 716). I lost that boat while attacking a Soviet surface group that included at least one capital ship, but most of my crew and I were rescued and reassigned to USS Minneapolis-St.Paul (SSN 708)[3].

The last war patrol tally sheet from USS Salt Lake City.

The Foxtrot sinks after our torpedo hit. Note that our hull integrity is down to 46%.

How the media covers our war. 

5 missions accomplished, 5 surface warships, and six subs sunk, as well as five amphibious and support ships. 

Our actions have consequences. (Red Storm Rising also had news reports like this, although the graphics are more primitive than these.) 

The Victor II, as depicted in the Cold Waters unit reference section.

And here's the Foxtrot. 

So far, the “Mighty MSP” has completed one harrowing war patrol that entailed an intercept of a Foxtrot-class diesel-electric sub that carried a team of Soviet Spetsnaz commandos bound for Oslo, Norway. We sank her, but unfortunately she was escorted by a Victor II-class SSN and our boat was damaged by two of three SET-65M torpedoes fired by the Victor.(The Foxtrot also fired one torpedo, but she was so busy dodging four Mk-48 ADCAPs that her “fish” missed.)

We were ordered to return to Holy Loch – which I was going to do regardless, as our hull integrity was down to 46% and our propulsion was damaged – for repairs and rearming. I saved the game after that, though, and I don’t plan on playing another session until tomorrow, so here’s how things stand:

• Capital Ships Sunk: 0
• Other Warships Sunk: 5
• Submarines Sunk: 6
• Merchants Sunk: 5
• Total Sunk: 16

Tonnage

• Capital Ships Tonnage: 0
• Other Warships Tonnage: 28,075
• Submarine Tonnage: 22,579
• Merchant Tonnage: 22,020
• Total Tonnage:  82,665

I also earned the Bronze Star and the Navy Commendation medals 

I will give you an updated SITREP in my next post. Till then, have a great weekend.  

 

 

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[1] Yes, I know. That only works in games. In real wars, there’s no “save game” option that lets a commander revive a lost ship, submarine, or aircraft and any of his/her dead crew members.

[2] A war patrol, or war cruise, is when you take a sub from a base – Guam or Holy Loch, Scotland, depending on the scenario – and carry out a series of missions until you receive orders from your commanders (COMSUBPAC in the Pacific, COMSUBLANT in the Atlantic) to return to base to rearm and repair your boat. In Silent Service II, the only other sub game I own, a war patrol consists of sailing to a designated area on a map and engaging any enemy convoys or naval task forces you run into. In Cold Waters – just as in Red Storm Rising, the game that Killerfish Games drew its inspiration from – you are not locked into a specific patrol area. Instead, COMSUBLANT “radios” orders, such as “Satellites have spotted a Soviet amphibious force heading for Narvik and may reach the area in 3-4 days. Intercept this force and destroy the landing ships.” You move your boat from Point A to Point B with the mouse on the Strategic Transit Map, keeping a wary eye on icons that represent friendly and enemy patrol planes, satellites, and enemy surface or submarine forces. (To avoid clutter on the map, the game never shows NATO or US sub or surface units.)  Once you finish your mission successfully – and there’s always a chance that you don’t – you will automatically send a report to headquarters, plus your boat’s status – weapons inventory and damage reports – and depending on your current condition, you’ll get further missions or told to return to base if you are out of ammo. In a worst-case scenario, a war patrol can end prematurely if you scuttle your boat and abandon it – there’s a 50-50 chance of being rescued – or if you and your boat are killed.  

[3] This is the first U.S. Navy warship named after the metropolitan area of Minneapolis-St. Paul, although both cities have been individually honored by having three warships each named after them. The Minneapolis-St. Paul was commissioned in 1984 and was in active service for 24 years, 5 months and 18 days, until her decommissioning on August 28, 2008.