Keep an eye on the stickied major mods in the works. Trigger Maru/TM (playability mod), Real Fleet Boat/RFB(playability mod), Run Silent Run Deep/RSRD(historical shipping and campaigns) and Reflections on the Water/ROW (environment mod..sun, water, sky improvments). These are your major mods and they are growing. Yes, it is confusing but the mods keep growing and changing every minute
. Currently, I have download ROW and then got the download for RFB for ROW/RSRD. This is a combined package of the three major mods. Trigger Maru is also going in the direction from the looks of it.
Find it here:
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=125529
If this looks like the way you want to go. Go get the ROW files and RSRD. Then download RFB from the link above. Use the mod enable program, load them up and happy sailings.