My best attacks are in stormy weather, fog and rain, but not sure if you're just concerned about heavy seas.

The radar mod with TMO certainly helps. Still I try to approach so I'm shooting at overlapping targets. Course, before radar you can blast convoys on the surface with your deck gun in storms by getting close and shooting down the bearing.

One ship one eel-Silent Otto: Always attack from in front of the convoy; Set all eels 4-5 meters and on impact for rough seas making sure the eelmann has max passive skills against pre detonation and preheat the eels; enter the convoy to get very close but mind the 300 meter arming distance and go for dead-on bow or stern hits to severely disable the vessels; This has the added advantage that the freighter engines mask yours and the escorts must turn into the convoy to pursue which increases your time-frame for mayhem. Have the bosun assisting with quick loading. Use the advanced depth scale to rise to 9 meters (Das Boot)to clear the scope and be in the con-any higher and escorts and armed freighters can get hits. Exact as much damage, dive and escape quietly and reposition to repeat or wait safely and pick off any cripples with the deck gun or eels as necessary; mind there are usually some escorts which will rush back to assist the cripples but not usually in time to prevent you from completing the business at hand. VON CLausewitz.: "In war everything is simple but some times the simple thing becomes difficult." hence get close, aim the boat and LOS! viel gluck kaleun. When rising inside the convoy, remember Oberteil Nicht Zuschlagen-don,t slam the topside... against a hull bottom like the Americans.

Had just the opposite thing happen, the torpedo broached just as it reached the target. The freighter was going down and the torpedo was going up and hit the superstructure just above the main deck and that is where the game showed the damage. This was way back in stock 1.4 i think.

Magic

Head on zero or 180 AoB attacks give you the smallest possible target and if the target changes course you'll miss. Putting an American boat at 9 meters, 28' or so, means your boat is on the surface. In the game destroyers will fire at you when you are inside the convoy. They will kill you quickly. I wouldn't run any shallower than 50' for submerged approach and even at that in very rough sees you'll broach the surface every once in awhile.

There's no way to have the bosun assist in loading in the game and he'd just get in the way of highly trained loading crews anyway.

The Americans, on average, handled their boats much better than German crews. There was never a case where a slightly damaged American submarine surfaced and surrendered. There were dozens of German crews who did so. In fact it was so common that Admiral Daniel Gallery assumed it would happen in his attack plan for the successful capture of U-505.

Exactly: it is possible to lead slightly at close range with the scope to compensate for minor vagaries in the convoy target's course.. those little rangers are shifty. Read 'Steel Hearts Iron Boats' by the crewman who surrendered with the U-505 and, may have left the scuttle plate too near the drain which enabled the US squad to save the boat from scuttling, moved to Chicago, and gave tours at he museum until his recent demise. We own much to Admiral Gallery, who trained a squad for the capture, and was instrumental in having the IX saved for posterity. I attended school there in the 70's, and have been to see it.:arrgh!: