"Blind" Hunter?

[badger_ken]

hi everyone,

I wonder if anyone can give me a pointer/tip:

After a several-year hiatus, I am just re-starting SHIV (gold edition, U boat missions), used JSGME to give myself a nice bunch of mods (details below), set realism to 88% (everything BUT "no map contact updates"), and set off on my first cruise. And everything is going fine, EXCEPT for one thing -
My crew never spots anything, even when I'm surfaced, except for at EXTREMELY short range (like under 300 yards!). It's not just at night-time, either - I had one memorable encounter at dusk, in calm seas, where I rammed an oil tanker which nobody had told me about. I had the same thing happen with a troop carrier - not exactly small targets! I believe in the first case time compression was at 2X, in the latter 8X, before this happened.

I had thought that maybe this is first-cruise incompetence on the part of the crew, but the thing is, it seems to be reciprocal - the enemy, similarly, doesn't seem to take any evasive action, fire its guns, or chase me (in the case of destroyers) until this very-short range meeting, at which point they go bonkers.
Has anyone seen anything like this? Any tips? It's so bad that I'm about to give up on the game in frustration.

thanks in advance - the mods I'm using, BTW, are
Webster's GFO Mod v1.1
#1 Real Environment mod install
SCAF for SH 1.5
MaxOptics3 for SCAF 1.5
Webster's GFO Patch for Real Env #1
Webster's Better Air Patrols for v1.4 and v1.5
Webster's No Crew Fatigue for v1.4 and v1.5
Webster's Ship Draft fix for v1.4 and v1.5
Webster's Ship Maneuvering Fix for v1.4 and v1.5
Webster's Better Mouse Arrow for v1.4 and v1.5