What am I doing wrong?

[Bowcaster]

Hi,

I recently purchased SH3 to try it out. I liked it, so I bought SH5. I started playing SH5 on 100% realism. First thing I noticed is that on 100% realism, contacts do not appear on your map like in SH3, but I decided to try it anyway. What I soon noticed is that my watchmen can't do anything. They are incapable of sighting targets, making it impossible to find merchant vessels, and I don't notice combat vessels until they are right on top of me.

This means that I am sailing around trying to find some merchants, then before I know it my crew is yelling that we are under attack! I go back to 1x time compression and look around and see a destroyer about 500m away! Checking the log, I see that at NO point did my watchmen see her. This makes the game completely unplayable, I'm not going to drive around my patrol on 1x time and spot everything myself, that is what I have a crew for.

I must be doing something really wrong. Can someone help me. Also, my periscope is broken. It is stuck all the way up.

And can someone recommend me the "necessary" mods that I need to fix common bugs and give me the best experience.