Not judging at all, but you seem to be thinking about this in a weird way (my opinion, of course). It's not a skill to learn for a job, but a game to enjoy. If it looks interesting to you, just hop in and try it out. The stock Russian Rebellion campaign ramps up in difficulty pretty well from easy to intermediate, IMO, and the game has rather decent AI Autocrew for the Sonar and TMA and such to help you ease in. But, yes, the game does not have dynamic content (the Quick Mission feature is technically dynamic but very predictably dynamic and tends to be broken). There is a lot of stuff to play, however - the stock campaign, stock missions, 3rd party missions, 3rd party Red Storm Rising campaign, 3rd party Liu Doctrine campaign, which are both rather lengthy. If you run out of content with Dangerous Waters, you can then play its predecessors 688(I) Hunter/Killer and Sub Command, which are almost identical to Dangerous Waters, just older and with slightly worse graphics, obviously.
Reading the manual cover to cover right away I don't think would be too helpful. It's definitely like a technical manual, as in, it's a resource for navigating through the stations but it's not an extensive theory manual on how to operate the submarine. You could also watch some video tutorials such as my own on YouTube if you prefer a more curated experience going through how the game works:
Hope this helps!
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