[mookiemookie]

As far as your first question, it can be touch and go. A lot of it depends on variables out of your contol, such as the skill of the destroyer looking for you and the weather (rougher seas and the associated noise make it harder for them to find you on their sonar gear). The things that you can do are to go quiet (silent running mode on), go deep, and go slow (no more than 2 kts). Try and show a low profile to them. If you're a destroyer, it's much harder to find a submarine that's headed directly towards you, or directly away. Try not to show them a broadside angle on your sub, as it presents a larger target for pings to bounce off of.

Q2: You're exactly right. The reason why they're sonar-blind in their aft is due to the noise of their own engines.

Q3: This is new in SH4. Each one of the rows represents a shift. The crew automatically changes shifts every 8 hours, so there's no more of the micromanaging and putting sleepy crewmen to bed as if you were their nanny. If you call battle stations everyone is awake and each compartment gets a boost to performance, but nobody sleeps and thus no one restores fatigue. So if you call everyone to general quarters, make sure you don't forget to let them stand down once the threat is over.