Concisely this anime lacks accuracy for most of the dedicated military fans, offers no real fan service for those who intended to seek it from, and sometimes sacrifice logic and continuity for the sake of moefication, which by may be dismiss-able or even encouraged. However this is a fairly contrived subject of military exercise and the ships' complement even include an onboard accountant. Yet when compared to say Classroom X Crisis, it lacks realism.
So if you want a show similiar to Girls Und Panzer, this one is similiar enough (heck the production overlaps with Non Non Biyori). If you want to have a show with mostly daily routines on a ship this is not quite helpful (most of the dull deck washing has been stripped). If you want to know more about Japanese pop culture and geography of the older times this show provides a fair amount (I was able to acquire those thanks to fan-subbing group 花語&千夏字幕組). The battle sequence is fairly accurate but not as traumatizing as those in say Zipang (girls taking it easy when ship is taking water with only 3, pardon me, 2 damage control personnel). You can also compare this show to Miniskirt Pirates since they both have a rag tag crew on the run, but not enough jokes to be compared to Nadesico.
So I recommend High School Fleet on basis if you want something pleasing and laughable to watch and acquiring pop culture references. I finished it in 1 day.
____________Spoiler Containing longer rant____________
List of ships I have visited: USS Pompano, RCMP St. Roch, Some Torpedo Boat near the Military Museum of the Chinese People's Revolution (Not quite that much But it is enough)
I visit every military / aviation / maritime museum when I got the chance. This list is long and I will not list it here.
Now begins the pecking. First of, forgot which episode (I know it is more than 2), those gals spend quite some time in shower; (heck) the captain use the shower time to think. It is a troupe but on real training ships you won't get that much fresh water (I wonder how did they not ran out of water from those 3 measly tanks on the first week; and only collects rain water much later). O and don't use salt water in fresh water pipes, it corrodes them.
Speaking of rainwater, do you EVER see the deck being cleaned? Or do you ever see one paints on ship that is not a picture? Those are steel boats. Salt will shorten the life of the boat. A full complement of Kagero is 200+. Granted a lot of the task has been automated yet we don't see maintenance task carried out by a crew of 30.
Who uses 12.6m of TP? Or even 1.26m? Do you know anyone do? A typical roll is about 40m. I thought it was a joke about the cat.
They have radar, but it seems even worse compare to IJN radar circa 1943 (the spotter sees the ship before the radar warning). And the gals have cellphones and tablets (when it showed on StarTrek TNG people think it was futuristic)!
The type 13-Go has a range of 100km and only weighs 110kg. Your cellphone tower has about 70km of range (at most, but typically 30k). A modern AN/SPY-1 radar (part of Aegis combat system) has a maximum range of 324km. A modern OPS-28 or TAS mk23 radar has a range of around 370 km. It is about 3300km from Yokosuka to Truk. Thus it become very baffling how they could not find a giant slow (18kt or 33km/h or 20mph) Musashi that is not sunk. Heck they even have flying drones.
The schnitzel puffs because of the composition of the batter and light preparation. Not necessarily the amount of flour.
Seifuku are cute, fine. Service personnel are rarely in skirts unless it is part of dress uniform for occasions. Also quite a long skirt at that (pass knee length). (A nudge to the Girls und Panzer,) I wonder how do they survive burns and lacerations?
What administrator would risk the cadets' life? If the Harekaze disobey that is another matter.
Last one until I find more to poke, in the last scene the tugs pushed the Harekaze into the port. it was shown earlier the engine room was taking water and rammed the Musashi and some how survived. I speculate it has a top speed no faster than 16 knots due to damage. It is clearly towed by several ships. Why didn't they tow it to dry dock directly? The scene felt staged as the ship sinks on queue and efforts to save it prior seems lackluster (You survived 2 direct hit, rammed Musashi and performed little of damage control, you deserve to sink).
