What makes DW great is there is no ONE way to play the game.
Really, you play the game as the OOD (officer of the deck) but you can also focus on the watch stations in Control and Sonar if you choose.
With the auto crew, I look at it as they are only as good as you let them be. Its your job to put the boat in the correct location so the auto crew can do their thing.
If they screw it up, its up to you to spot the mistakes and make the corrections.
The bigger issue you're asking about involves Situational Awareness. You're in a given location with other ships. What kind of ships are they? Where are they going and what are they doing? Once you figure that out, how capable are they?
If a patrol boat is blasting away with active sonar, is that a bad thing or no big deal? Can they detect you? Do they carry weps that can reach out and touch you?
Overall, the purpose of TMA is to put your weps where they can do the most damage. This is key, you don't get bonus points for figuring out a contact's speed and heading within one knot and two degrees.
Your weps tend to have good homing capabilities once they detect the target, all you have to do is put them in the right position without putting yourself in a bad situation.
I know this reply is very generic, my main point is for you not to focus-in on one detail so that you lose the big picture.
