Silent Service

SILENT SERVICE — A Modern Tribute

A fan homage to the 1985 MicroProse classic by Sid Meier.

December 7, 1941. Japan attacks Pearl Harbor. The US Navy has 111 submarines in commission and a long, hard war ahead. Despite making up less than 2% of US Navy personnel, the Silent Service will sink more than 55% of all Japanese tonnage lost in the Pacific — at a cost of 52 boats and 3,506 men.

You are the skipper of an American fleet boat. Plot your patrol, stalk your convoy, line up the TDC solution, and put the fish in the water.

About this version

A loving tribute to Silent Service (1985) by Sid Meier / MicroProse — the game that brought submarine warfare to the home computer and defined the genre on the Commodore 64. This version is a single-file HTML5 browser game that captures the green-phosphor feel of the original while expanding the campaign, the TDC, the convoy AI and the graphical presentation. No installer. Just open the page and dive.

Five command stations

Switch between five views with keys 1-5 just as the original did:

• Bridge — surface watch, lookout on a moonlit horizon
• Periscope — crosshairs, ranging marks, scope-up / scope-down
• Radar — green-sweep PPI display, range rings out to 3,000 yards
• Deck Gun — the 4"/50 calibre topside, 15 rounds a minute against sampans and crippled hulls
• Map — chart your patrol box across the Pacific

Torpedo Data Computer

A proper TDC sits in the conning tower: target bearing, range, AOB, target speed, gyro angle. Trust the AUTO solver, or fine-tune the gyro by hand and shoot a spread.

Six patrol zones

Choose your hunting ground — each with its own escort strength, traffic density and danger rating:

• Empire Waters — Home Islands shipping lanes. Heavy traffic, heavy escorts.
• Luzon Strait — Major chokepoint between the Philippines and Taiwan.
• Formosa Strait — Narrow waters between Formosa and the mainland.
• Palau Passage — Central Pacific convoy routes.
• Truk Lagoon — Major IJN base. High-value targets, maximum danger.
• Marianas — Open ocean. Scattered convoys, light escort.

Historically grounded

Built-in Historical Notes cover the war honestly, including the painful first eighteen months when American submariners fought with the defective Mark 14 torpedo — running ten feet too deep, with a magnetic exploder that didn't work and a firing pin that crumpled on direct hits. The game touches the Pacific War's real story: wolfpack tactics, the Gato and Balao class boats, the deck gun war against small craft, and the legend of USS Wahoo under Mush Morton.

Game modes

• Campaign — Climb the ranks from Ensign to Admiral across multiple war patrols, scored by tonnage sunk
• Single Engagement — Drop straight into one convoy attack
• Tutorial Patrol — Learn the boat, the TDC, and the views
• Historical Notes — Read about the real Silent Service

Three graphics modes

• Retro C64 — pixel art, limited palette, scanlines — the way it looked in 1985
• Enhanced — modern rendering with full CRT post-processing
• Ultra — particles, reflections, screen shake, the lot

Toggle CRT scanlines, flicker, bloom, vignette and screen shake independently. Choose flat, animated or realistic water.

Controls

W/S Depth     A/D Rudder     Q/E Speed SPACE Torpedo G Gun          T TDC R Radio       C Crash Dive   F Time Compression Z/X Zoom      1-5 Views      M Music / SFX P End Patrol