Frustrated - Can't pass torpedo tutorial

[Akela]

Okay, this is embarassing, but I cannot pass the torpedo tutorial at the Naval Acadamy. I have read every newbie guide I can find, I can plot courses and speeds from observed locations, I can plot intercept courses and set up firing positions, but it seems like I constantly run out of time and/or torpedos while running this mission. Here are some details.

First of all, I've got the realism turned up to about medium, most of which really shouldn't affect this run. Just to be clear though, I have limited everything, realistic vulnerability, repair and sensor, dud torpedos, and no external view or map contact update.

Now, just to remind y'all, you start out in the middle of 5 ships, you must sink 4 and one of the 4 must be the large C2 cargo ship. The cargo ship is rougly north of your starting position, moving NE at 2kts. (What's the abreviation for knots?) There is a small tanker rougly east of you moving south at 7kts, a Coastal Merchant to the south of you moving west at 5kts, and another Coastal Merchant to the west moving west at 5kts. There is also a 3rd Coastal Merchant sitting north of you not moving at all. Everyone starts at about 1500m away.

So I decide to leave the C2 for last, since it's not going anywhere quickly I figure I can always come back and kill it. The same thing is for the Coastal Merchant sitting dead in the water. So that leaves two of the three ships around you that must be destroyed. I decide that my first target is the Small Tanker since it is moving the fastest.

Now I have to kill 4 ships with 10 torpedos, and that C2 sometimes takes 3 hits to sink, so I figure I should try to sink the others with 2 torps each. That being said, here is what I've been doing lately.

The first thing I tried to do was just hit the Small Tanker right from the starting position. So I turn to 90 degrees, line up a shot after a few moments, and fire a salvo of two torps set to fast, from a range of about 1500km. These almost always miss, so I gave up on that plan since I can't really be wasting torps or I won't have enough to finish the mission.

So then I started driving east toward the tanker. I can bring my range down to about 700km in a few minutes and then blast it out of the water (under the water?) with 2 torps, although about 50% of the time one of them misses and I have to use a third torp to finish it off.

Now I need a second target. I have tried both the south target, and the west target. By the time I'm done sinking the tanker they are usually 2K to 2.5K away, moving away at about 5 kts. I drive towards one of them (well, not towards them, but towards where I think a good intercept point will be). This usually takes about 20 to 30 minutes or more before I can get my range down under 1K (I'm travelling at full at periscope depth) and by that time the crew starts to break down. If I miss with a torp here that leaves me pretty short handed for finishing the mission.

Anyway, I guess I'm not approaching this the right way, or I'm missing something here because I've read some faqs that say you should be able to do this mission without hardly moving at all, and others that say, "just run them down and point and click".

It's hard to describe everything that I'm trying, but based on this limited description above does anything stand out that I may be doing wrong? Or better yet, does anyone remember how their run went when they tried it?

I thank you in advance for all the advice.

Dan