Strange Escort Behavior (Possible bug?)

[WFGood]

I came across something last night and did a little experimenting. I observed some strange behavior by the escorts, and I am wondering if it is a bug or just a programming error. I was stalking a large convoy which had some aggressive escorts around the periphery. They were racing about at 14 - 19 knots and charged at me several times forcing me to dive. I actually had to work to get into firing position. I fired all torpedoes, sank 3 and damaged 3, but then I surfaced in the middle of the convoy to try the deck gun while reloading.
As I began firing at the damaged merchantmen of which a couple fired back, the escorts which were outside the convoy, began to charge me. A funny thing happened though. As they entered the convoy, all three slowed to convoy speed, four knots and did not open fire. One came directly up my stern. I switched fire and managed to put 8-10 AP rounds on her without her returning fire. She never even sped up, just kept plugging along at four knots. My last shell obviously hit her magazine because there was a terrific explosion, and she sank. Even more striking was the second escort, which due to tunnel vision, I had not kept track of. Just as the first exploded, the second cruised by my stern at four knots. She could easily have rammed or blown me out of the water, but instead kept steaming on. I switched fire to her and poured in the rounds. The guns never even turned in my direction, and I eventually switched back to the merchies to finish them off. The last I saw the DD was a burning wreck dropping behind a merchant which I was pounding with deck rounds. I have screen shots, but this is my work computer, and they are at home.
My question is, since the escorts were so aggressive outside the convoy and then became docile as they entered, could their be a parameter set inside the convoy box which forces all ships to conform to the convoy's speed? It would seem to make sense, but my knowledge of programming ended with Fortran when I graduated the Naval Academy quite a few years ago. Could it be set that way? If so, is it something that could be easily fixed? It would seem to explain the aggressiveness of some escorts and the lack of interest by others? Just a thought. (It's that engineering mindset trying to do some problem solving.)

[Deep Six]

WFGood did you also notice that when you were first seen by the Escorts that instead of the Convoy speeding up to get away....Ala SH3...The whole convoy slows down to a snails pace??

I approached a convoy that was clearly doing 10-12 knots when i was seen by the escorts, who charged me....The whole convoy practically stopped!!

Took a little dodging a weaving from me to evade the escorts but sunk to juicy Target's...2 Medium Composite Merchants..Both doing about 1 knot average speed at time of sinking...

Deep six

[E.Hartmann]

Happens all the time with me as well. Convoy just stops or goes in slow motion. Now task force will at least speed up and zigzag at least but not convoy's.

[tater]

The AI needs serious work, IMO. The stopping convoys is pretty silly. Even if the ASW of the IJN is lacking, driving around and dropping DCs will at least keep an attacking sub DOWN while the convoy escapes, forcing the sub to end-around to make another attack (if they even can).

[WFGood]

Yes, as a matter of fact, once a ship was damaged the entire convoy would slow down. Wouldn't that seem to confirm it? There is some parameter set so that the entire convoy slows to the speed of the slowest vessel. So, if I damage a merchant, and it is able to make 3 knots, then the entire convoy slows to 3 knots. It does tend to make it easy to decimate a convoy, but I would assume that it would something rather easy to fix?

[AVGWarhawk]

Actually sometimes that slow down messes up my calculations. I get everything set, send of the torps with a certain speed set. The convoy notices and the slows down. Now my torps are leading to far ahead and useless

So the weird convoy behavior can be good or bad. Heck, I have had singletons stop when the see the wake of the torp. Crew on the deck will run to the side to look.....another wasted torpedo

[WFGood]

I have had the same madening thing happen. I could see merchants perhaps having to slow down temporarily to avoid a collision or survivors, but then I would be hell bent to be out of the area. Sorry as I would be for the stragglers, I have my own ship to worry about. It just seemed odd for the escorts to adopt the same behavior. As I said, I am by no means a programming genius; so I was wondering if this could be the effect of some global setting, or if indeed it could be intentional for some ships but an unintended consequence for the warships as well.
I have seen the same odd behavior in Task Forces as well, but at the time there was seriously bad weather, and I attributed it to that.

[TheSatyr]

Got to be a bug. In real life the whole convoy would NOT slow down if one of the ships in it got hit. Japanese convoys generally broke up with all ships putting on max power,scattering and "getting the hell out of there"

They might designate an escort to stay with a damaged ship...but that was about it.

[WFGood]

My thoughts exactly, but I should think that it would be easy to fix. I know that I would not stick around. I would be buring deck chairs if I had to!