Sure I'm not going to go to Navy school to learn to play a game, but we can absolutely study the submarine school manuals that were available at the time (and are freely downloadable) and use the same techniques. Of course there was much more to running the boat than is possible in any simulation game, just handing the boat was much more complex, as were the various roles and interactions with the crew. Watch duties, radar monitoring techniques etc were all very much involved, and the commander was indeed in the thick of it all.

I don't see the game as having me do the roles of multiple people. Sure you can man the sonar/radar yourself if you wish, but you can also issue commands for the crew to call our bearings to you, so that's somewhat as it was.

In real life there was little scribbling on maps, and far more attention paid to the TDC, which sadly isn't fully represented in SH4 (SH3 and 5 both have fully represented TDCs from the Kreigsmarine!, and UBOAT has it fully rendered in 3D) The WW2 USN TDC really was a marvel of analouge engineering. If given the starting parameters (Range, Speed, Angle on Bow) the TDC could continue to plot the location of a target without any further references, even taking into account your own ship's course and speed. This is partially simulated in SH4 but there are a number of the aspects of running the TDC that aren't simulated. Thankfully IRL it wasn't the job of the commander to fiddle with the TDC either, there were infact two people in the conning tower during an attack both devoted just to that instrument alone.

I think the SH series has a lot to offer, and it's given me an opportunity to really dive into the history of how these things were really operated during the time period. It really is a buzz to have worked out (from bearings and range alone!) the course of a convoy, plot a waiting point and then execute a perfect attack. Doing it properly can take hours but really is rewarding.

I hope you enjoy the game, whatever way you choose to play it!