Destroyer Command

Destroyer Command was created as a companion piece to the then-new Silent Hunter II and turned the view of the Battle of the Atlantic around to the other side of the periscope, with the player now commanding an Allied destroyer whose job was to protect convoys from German submarines. The game combined patrolling around merchant ships with the active use of sonar and depth charges, requiring the player to estimate a hidden submarine's position from sound traces and react quickly before a U-boat could launch torpedoes at one of the escorted convoy ships. Besides the direct hunting role, the player also had to manage coordination with other escort vessels and decide when it was more advantageous to split forces into a wider patrol and when to instead concentrate the defense close to the most threatened cargo ships.

Technically, the game benefited from the same engine as Silent Hunter II, offering a convincing depiction of a stormy ocean, burning ships, and nights lit by flares while searching for an enemy submarine. The sound design, with active sonar pings, crew reports of detection, and the rumble of depth charges, nicely built the tension of a chase in which the roles of hunter and hunted could flip at any moment. The campaign offered a sequence of patrols of increasing difficulty, matching the evolution of anti-submarine tactics over the course of the war, and the player could thus watch how the technical means of detecting submarines gradually improved on both sides of the conflict.

Destroyer Command is seen today as an interesting complement to the classic submarine series, offering a contrasting perspective that let players experience the Battle of the Atlantic from the hunter's side rather than the hunted submarine. Although the game never achieved the same popularity as its companion Silent Hunter II, among genre fans it is valued precisely for this rare opportunity to see the same conflict from the opposite side of the surface. Bundling both games together also let players experience the very same battle both from a submarine's viewpoint and from that of its pursuer, a unique approach within the genre to a single historical subject.

Why play it: Fans of submarine simulators will be drawn in by the rare chance to experience the Battle of the Atlantic from the hunter's perspective rather than the hunted submarine's, especially combined with Silent Hunter II as two sides of the same conflict.