I’m a huge fan of all SH series, and have all them installed on my « old » PC.
I played SH3 vanilla when it first came out, then SH4 when it came out, and SH5 later on, but never vanilla game.
Today I have SH3 GWX, SH4 FOTRS and TMOwtw, SH5 TWOS.
I prefer SH3 & SH5 mainly for the Atlantic theater. But i had some good time hunting in Pacific too with SH4...
All 3 Silent Hunter have their good points and bad points, so it’s more subjective and personal taste to say wich one is the best.
Looking at the playing time spent on each one, SH5 is coming far before the others here.
Maybe because TWOS is the most complex and difficult to play (real nav, enigma etc)
The scripted campaign is really well done, and let us some liberty nevertheless.
As for SH3, the ambiance is really nice, enhanced by amazing graphics.
After all those years, i’m Still discovering little nice details and/or features!
The thing is, when you got the satisfaction of some tonnage sunk in real nav, it’s difficult to go back into easy settings
On side note, the most difficult escorts to deal with, are by far in SH4 TMO/FOTRS.