New player - couple questions.

[ppk]

Okay so I've been playing this for about a week. I play using full realism except for weapon officer assistance (in GWX2.1)... Still getting used to manual targeting and I hope to be able to assign little Jürgen to another station soon... Not yet though, since my first career screeched to a halt when i took too long trying to figure out a firing solution and got rammed by a rabid V&W.

So I'm into the second one, nearing the end of 1940. When striking convoys, how do you determine the highest value targets? I know that BdU wants us to hit the merchies, but when presented with a big fat target like the Revenge class battleship I found in the middle of a convoy, what should I do? I aborted my attack on the merchants and fired a spread shot of four fish, three of which hit, sinking the battleship but from a historical point of view I wonder if it's the best decision.

Something else - I know that back in WWII ships would often be sunk by one torpedo (only). I find myself having to shoot two fish at most targets except for the really small merchants / escorts. And why is it that escorts blow up so easily? Aren't they supposed to be tougher than merchant ships?

Right now I'm driving an IXB boat, and I thought this thing was supposed to be sluggish... Well I'm finding it rather easy to outmaneuver destroyers at periscope depth when they're too close to dive immediately as long as they're coming up from behind me. I set the engines to flank and my rudder to 10-15 degrees either way, periscope up. Let him know I'm slowly circling around. Then when he gets really close (+/- 100 meters), I slam the rudder to full (in the same direction it was previously turned) and the DD will continue to turn at the same rate he was turning to follow my 10 degree turn, effectively dropping his depth charges just behind me. Then I either dive or back emergency and turn my bow into him to try and set up a broadside shot as he circles around for another attack. Is this realistic behavior for the IXB? Or is the AI just dumb?

And on a final note, I've been lurking for a couple days and this looks like a great community. Looking forward to getting involved and maybe even playing online with you guys.

Peace! And thanks for any input!

EDIT: Oh yea I forgot. On the question of raiding ennemy ports. I did it twice (at night, decks awash) and things got really hairy the second time. It was in Reykjavik and a torpedo boat spotted me just as I was launching my last salvo. After a half hour game of cat and mouse in shallow waters I had finally managed to sink the two destroyers that were after me, so I surfaced and gunned down the torpedo boats with the 10,5cm. But the boat was crippled and that was the end of my patrol. Is this what I should have expected? Are there always DD's patrolling near ports, far enough you don't see them but close enough that they can box you in when you attack?