Radar makes any surface approach a bad idea.
Your best bet is the classic "Night surface attack" up until about the middle of 1941. Thats when the first radar starts to appear, but their range is rather limited, but its wide enough to cause you problems. By 1942, i have all but abandoned any surface approaches.
If your attacking a 7 escort convoy, it sounds like your in 1943.
Your best bet is to get ahead of the convoy, submerge, and wait for them to cross your path. This is called an "end round attack". The key here is you have to know how to intercept a convoy. Once you have an idea of their course, you need to plot how long where they'll be, in how many hours. This is based on their speed.
For example a slow convoy is usualy traveling at 7 kt. I can tell you off the top of my head that they'll have gone 13 KM in one hour. At 20 kts you can cover about 37 KM in the same time period. If the distances overlap, your golden. Research this in the forum FAQ, theres guides that give further details about what im talking about assuming your not already doing this.
ONce you get ahead of the convoy and their approaching your position, ive found taht directly infront of the convoy is a bad idea, as the lead escort usualy can detect you. What i do is get off to oneside of the convoy at a diagnal, trying to get in between the side guard, and the convoy. Then, wait tell the lead escort passes, then move in so that i have the convoy at my bow, and the convoys flanking escorts at my stern. Often Im rambunctious enough that ill travel far enough to get inside the convoys first 2 columns of ships and bring both my bow and stern tubes to bear.
Once you let loose your fish, dont loiter, start diving before they impact. YOu need to buy yourself time while they dont know your there to get deep. You can get away with not diving right away pre1943, but once your into 43' shoot your fish, and set dive planes to normal dive before they impact.
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