Hi,
just my two cents. A real boat could keep its depth without moving, at least as there was some energy left in the batteries to actuate the bilge pump, and the electric compressors to recharge pressure tanks for re-blowing the dive and control cells from time to time (they sometimes leaked a bit). This was not possible for a longer time during silent "running" at full stop.
When the boat had a good 1st LI there would be no need to have more than a knot of speed to keep the boat level, at any depth, without pumping for an hour or more.
In 1945 there was even a hovering device that would keep the boat at a given depth automatically (also during a full stop), but it was only built into a few old boats, and certainly into all of the new XXI and XXIII types.
So imagine you are in 1943, in a VIIc boat which is hunted by some escort: you would run silent at not more than 2 knots, all pumps and compressors off. When the escort would start to throw depth charges (heard by the hydrophones) the speed would be set to full, course and/or depth changed, and the pumps would be used as well as the compressors to fill up the pressure tanks, but only for the time until the charges exploded, after which the boat would return to silent running again.
I do not know whether the light leaking of the boat during silent running is realized in SH3 or GWX (caused by stopped bilge pumps and not-watertight seals). Anyway you can run silent until you hear your hydrophone watch tell "depth charges", and switch off silent running as well as change course and raise speed, if only for a short time. Be sure to switch to silent running as soon as four or so charges have exploded. Watch your depth and reset it from time to time. That way you can even survive in the late war.
Greetings,
Catfish
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