Well I finally passed the Convoy Attack exam with flying colors - which involved waiting until the rear escort turned back some distance and getting three quick shots off at the leading escort and two of the merchants. Missed the escort but slipped fast down the inside of one of the convoy lanes and managed to hit the returning rear escort before she even tried to shoot at me. Dove to 80 m and ran silent back up in between the fleeing merchants and evaded one depth charge run by the remaining escort. Came back to periscope depth after she seemed to have lost track of me and was able to take her out with one lucky shot. Much to my surprise the rear escort sank too while I was busy playing footsie with her comrades.
Still had some really stupid misses with my remaining eels and had to finish off the last couple of ships with the deck gun, but at least I didn't spend two solid hours running silent at 100 m down trying to outwit the Royal Navy, and then have to catch up again from 8 km away.