Several different viewpoints are available during play, including the bridge, the periscope - which could be used either submerged or surfaced - the navigation area displaying the area map, and internal status displays.
On other occasions the player may face sudden detection by warships and be forced to act quickly to escape. Common encounters involve the detection of a merchant ship or convoy, with the player determining whether and how to attack.
The length of each patrol is limited by the submarine's available fuel, but a typical war career can still take several hours of play time to complete. The player is able to select a home port and a patrol area on a map of the Pacific Ocean, and time acceleration allowed the submarine to move quickly to the chosen area. In the career mode, the player undertakes a number of consecutive patrols in the submarine, meeting other ships or convoys in unscripted encounters generated by the game. Silent Service II allows the player to choose either single scenarios (training, a single historical battle, or a single random encounter war patrol) or an extended war career.
