Assuming that you are on the surface and they cannot see you, you are either in good shape or completely hopeless shape.
The first step is to determine the convoy's course and speed. If you already know that, or if you do not have manual targetting on, skip down.
If you got the notification of the convoy from a radio contact that should have the speed. Failing that, you will need to monitor the convoy from visual range for at least 1m37s and 3m14s is better. The distance any ship travels during the 3.14 can be multiplied by 10 to give you its speed in knots. The 1m37s will need to be multiplied by 20. Assuming you have map contact on (who doesn't?) you can simply watch the ships on the F5 screen, mark their location, wait for a few minutes, mark their new location and then measure. By drawing a line between the two points you can see the course and calculate the speed.
Once you have the course and speed you can plan an attack. Generally speaking you will want to find the biggest ship and hit it with a 2-torpedo salvo. Firing one torpedo at multiple ships usually results in two small ships, one sunk and the other limping along. You won't be able to finish it off with the deck gun, so I recommend just hitting the biggest thing with 2 torpedoes.
Set the torpedoes for salvo, 1º spread (unless you are very close) and 90º AOB with the speed and everything set as you normally would. If you are using automatic targetting you can skip this part. You should set the depth to about 5 meters.
Once you have your target lined up and take the shot start diving immediately. Run silent. Do not turn to the left or to the right. Turning slows you down and makes you dive more slowly. Going deep is far more important than changing course. Do not change course until you are at least 70 meters under.
From there you can continue to stalk the convoy. Turn to parallel the convoy's course and you can do a little line drawing to find out the best way to follow. The procedure is as follows:
Draw a line from your boat in the direction that the convoy is traveling. Next measure along that line in accordance with the convoy's speed. Let's say the convoy's heading is 40º and it's moving at 8 knots. You can measure 0.8 along your line, or 8, or any convenient multiple of the convoy's speed.
Once that's done, draw a line at 90º going through the point you measured. In our example this will be 130º. Once that's done, use your compass to draw a circle from your starting point based on the velocity your boat can maintain on the surface. For example if your boat can make 11 knots surfaced, choose 1.1 or 11 or whatever multiple matches up with the method you used to draw the convoy's velocity. From there you can draw a line through your starting point and the intersection of the compass circle with the line. That will give you a new course that will permit you to move a safe distance away from the convoy while not falling behind it.
The problem is the weather. You didn't say exactly what the weather was like. If you have high winds, it's possible that your boat may be unable to keep up with the convoy on the surface. That's what I meant when I started by saying that you might be in completely hopeless shape.
Good luck. Let us know how it goes.
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