There are tutorials galore, but someone else will have to point you to them. I've never used them.
But in answer to your first question, yes you can play it without any external views with no problem whatsoever. SH3's forerunner SH2 was the first subsim to have any external views at all. Aces of The Deep and Silent Hunter 1 had none, and they worked just fine. Some people swear that it's the only way to get the full experience; others like to take lots of screenshots. Both work equally well.