[merc4ulfate]

... along with what aristead said in real life it was a practice to sit on the surface all quite and listen. If the submarine went silent then the DD would go silent for a time to just sit and listen.

A DD can stay there for a long time but the submarine must surface for air. So it can became a waiting game. If you try to move will he hear you? If you simply go to periscope depth will he hear the the change of ballast and come after you before you can even line up a shot at him?

In the game I have had to do this plenty of times. If it was anywhere from 2400 to 0300 I'll put everyone at battlestations, man the deck gun and go ahead flank away from the escort and surface. The hope is that it will be to dark for him to see me on the surface. He will hear me underwater but then lose contact. Meanwhile I manually man the deck gun and start popping holes in him in the hopes of slowing him down or get lucky and sink him if he can not find me in the dark.

Manually using the gun is more accurate than having your crew do it. They depend on senor settings in the game. Many times you can actually see farther than the sensor setting. so while they may stop firing you can still see just enough to keep firing manually.

Saved my boat more than once doing it this way.