Its not exactly mass, its cross-section/frontal area exposed to the ping.
Smaller subs tend to be a tad harder to find using active sonar not becuase its composed of less matter, but because it has a smaller cross-section so less sound bounces back.
In general smaller is better, fleet subs where much easier to find using active sonar compared to smaller earlier subs.
When they go passive its engine sounds and other noise caused by the sub, size may not matter as much, whats most important is design and technology used to reduce the subs sound signature and speed.
What ive learned is this, if he is pinging you damn being quiet, get moving. If he is pinging he cant use passive anymore anyway, if he is moving fast he cant use passive(plus he likly has found you anyway). Keep your speed up keeping in mind battery life and evade. Once your found the only thing that can save your from depth charges is speed, maneurving out of the plane of the depth charge drop pattern and depth.
They will try and pass over you nose to tail when they drop, if you cant get away from the DD or the drop what you want to do is keep crossing their path as close to 90 degrees as possible. This will hopefully limit the number od DC that even have a chance to hit you. If your fast enough you can throw off his timing with the DCs and they'll blow before or after you've crossed their path.
So basically if you cant get away, keep him at a bearing of 90 or 270 degrees, this may mean lots of turning and circles. But i'd rather have 3 dcs to my left and 3 to my right then 6 right along the spine of the sub.
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