Advice needed - unlucky or stupid?

[u_tommy]

I'm looking for a little advice... was i unlucky or stupid?

(A litttle background) I'm new to SH3 & GWX, on my 1st 'training' career. For the 1st few patrols i had realism at 44% and have slowly raised it to 77%... i'm not ready for total manual targeting yet.. and i like the external cameras.

This is what happened.. where did i go wrong?

Contact report of large convoy...full load of torps aboard, i get ahead of it and wait... seas are very rough, its Aug 1940, there appears to be 3 destroyers guarding an approx. convoy of 5 wide 8 long.

As we are close to England and heading west, with the whole Atlantic to follow them across, i decide to target the lead destroyer. My thinking being if i can wipe out the escorts i can harry them all the way to the US without a threat to me. (Merchants are unarmed)

I sit, engines off, a 1000 yards off the lead escort's path, periscope depth. She doesn't see me or hear me.. my 1st torp just hits her stern, set to impact at 2.5m depth. But its enough... she's going down.

Now i'm right amongst the large convoy, i fire 3 torps at 3 merchants, one stern and 2 fore torps, all good hits. As this is going on one of the flanking escorts is trying to locate me...she cuts into the convoy... i crash dive. At approx. 30m i go silent and continue to dive to 120m.. plotting a zig zag course under the route of the convoy at 1knot (approx 70rpm), but in the opposite direction.

This bloody escort does one pass, drops maybe 4 or 5 depth charges, disables my electric engines, we have critical flooding. One compartment cannot be repaired... i sink to my death.

Just one pass. Was this very unlucky or did i screw up?

(this was my 1st patrol with the 'noise indicator' turned off)

Any advice for you pros would be much appreciated.