One thing the sim does poorly is replicate just how difficult a target an escort was. The following factors are relevant:
- they're relatively small targets (especially something like a Flower class corvette), meaning your solution needs to be more accurate.
- they have shallow drafts.
- they have 'proper' lookouts, so the chance of your torp (assuming it's steam) being detected is greater, and they have a greater capacity to evade once the torp is detected.
- they don't follow a simple course like the main body of the convoy. Historically, they tended to zig-zag within their sector of the escort screen.
- you don't really want to get too close to an escort if possible, and firing from longer range means you're even less likely to hit what is already, for the reasons stated above, a difficult target.
I've always found the fact that people talk of "killing all the escorts" then sinking the whole convoy an indication of how this factor is poorly handled. That's not to say subs wouldn't sink an escort under the right circumstances, but they generally avoided them. Note that the most effective maulings of convoys were done despite the escort, not as a result of sinking them....
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