If this is your first time playing, try out the first campaign without mods, and then start a new campaign with mods; you'll notice a huge difference in terms of gameplay and immersion. Although playable without mods, they're for all intents and purposes mandatory.
In the "vanilla" game, a 7000 ton ship "unrealistically" takes 3 torpedoes to sink, the only way to sink a ship is to bring down its "health", airplanes won't attack you whatsoever, and the interface and controls are so minimalist that it feels like an arcade shooter rather than a simulation. The game's manual doesn't even cover manual TDC and expects you to man the deck guns yourself, rather than let you order the crew to do it. In short, grab mods.
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