Warfare, be it Air, Land or Sea is mainly about information ... those who have the information about their enemies numbers, type, whereabouts and so on have the advantage ... if you lack this information you have a serious disadvantage because even in our High Tech world you have to "see" (i.e. know where it is and where it will be when your weapon of choice is there to meet it) something before you can hit it.
Now DW simulates this "information warfare" quite good ... you have most of the toys available that you would use in RL. But you don't have all of them and even those which you can use sometimes dont offer the same high fidelity as their RL counterpart. For example the fact that your Sonar Operator would probably be able to tell you if he hears the sounds of a sub which is sinking (unintentionally) and dead. Or all the other tidbits of info you might get from him (sub has stopped their screw, engines are dead ... whatever).
The walkaround for this shortcomming is in my eyes the option to show "Dead Platforms". To me this is my sonar guy telling me that I just hit the target (or whatever) for good and that I can now concentrate on something else. Thats the only information I get from this option and I don't consider it as a cheat.
Besides ... there is only one way to achieve ultimate realism ... enlist in the navy of your country, do the training and serve on the real deal (be it above or below the waves). Everything else is a simulation and thus always at least one step short of being realistic.
@ML : Everything you have mentioned might be obtained in RL through your own sensors (if a sub is blown up in my neighborhood I hear it, as well as the torps who have brought its demise about) or by other ways of information gathering either in real time or time delayed (Ok, small concession here ... the information which would only be available with a time delay is in this case - meaning as instant information in the game - "unrealistic").
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