Steeltrap is pretty on point with the behaviour of escorts. Granted, I'm only playing in 1941-early 1942 so far, but I've made approaches on two different task forces. The destroyers picked me up pretty easily. Both cases I was able to slip past them. The second time I lost my approach because I just couldn't make the head way on a task force moving at least 9-11 knts and I'm not in a position to fall back and box intercept.
It seems that destroyers can easily initially pick you up and close. Once they get there they have a lot of trouble figuring out where you are. I've even run higher than your standard 1-3knt. I think once I didn't even rig for silent running for a duration. I don't know how well they're working together either. It may seem that one or two is listening while another pings are makes a depth charge run, but they get tangled up and cause traffic jams with each other pretty often. I've had two on up to five destroyers get in each other's way. Or they do this weird thing where they cut their engines and just sit (they'll keep throwing their engines in reverse and the forward) behind you and not do anything. Sometimes they'll stay, other times they'll seem to stay 500 yrds off of you. I've seen them do this many times, often with they're bow to me.
I definitely see what Tater's getting at as far as fleet destroyer dispersal, concentration, and assignment. They're EVERYWHERE and in huge numbers! One of the task forces I encountered was a carrier force containing two Shokaku's, one Taiyo escort carrier, two Chitose Seaplane Tenders, Maya and Takao heavy cruisers, Kuma light cruiser, 2-3 tankers, and a destroyer screen at least eight-ten deep. Now considering the assembled power and importance of that fleet I wasn't too bothered by the large destroyer escort. The second one was much smaller and was mostly an older "traditional" style task force. Made up of two Kongos, a Mogami, a Kuma, a Haruna Maru. But, the destroyer screen was just as big if not bigger than the carrier fleet.
That second instance I had four destroyers on me because once I figured that there was no way I was going to be able to disengage and move to intercept the fleet again I saved and tried an experitment. I surfaced and engaged a lone destroyer with my deck gun. He had a lot of trouble even splashing my decks. I took out his bow turret (Shiratsuyu class) and then dove. That brougt back three more destroyers with a forth joining them sometime later. They milled about looking for me, made a couple of DC runs, got tangled, then finally dispersed. The damaged destroyer stuck around, waited til the other DD's were out of visual range (this is at night don't remember there beign a moon), and surfaced and engaged again. It only managed to hit me once with minor damage. I sunk it with short barrage. It did however cause two destroyers to fall back on me pretty quickly.
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