lurker has the ships drive around about the correct time. However, the game does not always cooperate on actually doing something with it. The ships need a "target" to hit. Some of the time you see the ships come around is when they are supposed to be doing shore bombardment. If there isn't anything to shoot at, such as a ship, then they just drive around and waste fuel... Even some of the sea battles can end up being lame because of one thing or another, such as "AI", or lack thereof. There is no advantage to hooking up or following along. In fact, they might scare away easy targets from you...
