Gun Crew Sleep?
 

I noticed when my sub is surfaced for a long voyage and thre shifts come and go, the gun crew never retires and is always doing maintenance.
OK, I dont see a place where the gun crew is defined in shifts, but does that mean they never sleep and if so, what happens to moral?

That is abnormal... Ensure that you have deselected the SUB CREW MANAGEMENT/CREW TO BATTLE STATION option
:Kaleun_Cheers:

this aspect of the game (gun crew at their station) was not handled by Ubisoft the same as the other crew. Why? no idea.

the gun crew rests when they need it, unless they are at Battle Stations. if you want, move the gun crew to open slots in the other compartments. for example, the Sensor compartment or Conning tower may have empty slots. move the gun crew into the proper slots for a watch-cycle and they will visibly sleep. however, if you leave them in their gun assignments, the game will rest them when they reach a certain level of fatigue.

keep in mind, that crew left at their gun stations and on deck watch are at greater risk for injury and death than other crew when you are submerged and under attack. you may find it a better practice to move them to other, more protected slots...such as crew berthing or damage control, conning tower, etc.
good luck and good hunting!
:Kaleun_Salute:

Another "nasty" little surprise to a player is that the gun and deck watch positions are not "protected" from depth charges. The way the game handles the positions on the deck is slightly weird, in that they are always out there, just that they turn "invisible" underwater. So if you are about to be depth charged, move your active watch crew and (especially) the gun crews to empty berths somewhere, if at all possible. That will place them "inside" the submarine, protected by its "armor" - not that they can't still be injured, just that they have a little more "armor protection". The deck watch has the conning tower "armor" to hide behind if left in position, but the gun crews don't - go figure... :salute:

Good info, thank you.

That leaves me with another question. Is it wise to leave a few births open when leaving a base or leave with a full compliment of crew?

i do.
in no particular order:
one typically does not need more than 1 seaman on duty for each section in the Sensor compartment.
check your equipment load and chances are there is no need to have crew assigned to the conning tower.
some boats have 8 or 9 crew assigned to each engine room section. probably don't need that many.
the damage control crew varies by mod and boat and there are two philosophies for its use. one says fill the DC with full-time crew and the the second says use the Deck Watch crew as DC because the boat will probably be submerged when you take damage and need to effect repairs.

there are probably more suggestions, but it is stormy outside and i ache so this is all i can think of at the moment.
good luck and good hunting!
:Kaleun_Salute:

I had to stay within 53nm ~ 100km of the watch point for 48 hours. Wish the orders told me that. I only have OTC mod. I dont know which other mods are helpful for little stuff like this, and or fixes. Running SH4 v1.5

that sounds about right!
mods don't help...they change the conditions you encounter.
you are doing just fine.
are you using Jones JSGME to manage your mod(s)?
if not, find it the Downloads section here and read up on it and use it.
if yes, there is an option: Tasks-Export...mods- to Clipboard. use that function and paste your mod-set here when you pose a question/problem/issue.
it helps me (us) to help you.
one more question: do you know how to use Notepad?
good luck. and good hunting.:Kaleun_Salute: