Editing Convoy (section)

====Tactics====
[[Image:Convoy_WS-12_en_route_to_Cape_Town,_1941.jpg|thumb|A convoy of merchant ships protected by airplanes ''en route'' to [[Cape Town]] during [[World War II]]]]
The German anti-convoy [[Naval tactics in the Age of Steam|tactics]] included:
* long-range surveillance aircraft to find convoys;
* strings of U-boats ([[Wolfpack (naval tactic)|wolfpack]]s) that could be directed onto a convoy by radio;
* breaking the British naval codes;
* improved anti-ship weapons, including magnetic detonators and sonic homing torpedoes.

The Allied responses included:
* [[airstrike|air raids]] on the U-boat bases at [[Brest, France|Brest]] and [[La Rochelle]];
* converted merchant ships, e.g., [[Merchant aircraft carrier]]s, [[CAM ship|Catapult Aircraft Merchantman]] and [[Armed merchantmen#Armed merchant cruisers|armed merchant cruisers]]
* [[Q-ship]]s, submarine-hunters disguised as unarmed merchant ships to lure submarines into an attack
* more convoy escorts, including cheaply produced yet effective [[destroyer escorts]]/[[frigate]]s (as [[corvette]]s were meant as a stopgap),  and [[escort aircraft carrier|escort carrier]]s;
* fighter aircraft (carried by escort carriers and merchant aircraft carriers) that would drive off German bombers and attack U-boats
* long-range aircraft patrols to find and attack U-boats;
* improved anti-submarine weapons such as the [[hedgehog (weapon)|hedgehog]];[[File:A convoy conference in progress, August 1942. A11796.jpg|thumb|A convoy conference in progress, August 1942]]
* larger convoys, allowing more escorts per convoy as well as the extraction of enough escorts to form hunter-killer support groups that were not attached to a particular convoy
* allocating vessels to convoys according to speed, so that faster ships were less exposed.

They were also aided by
* improved [[sonar]] ([[Sonar|ASDIC]]) allowing escort vessels to better track U-boats;
* breaking the [[Enigma machine|German naval cipher]];
* improved [[radar]] and [[radio direction finding]] allowing planes to find and destroy U-boats;
* improved escort anti-submarine tactics developed by the [[Western Approaches Tactical Unit]]<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/Wrens-Wargames-North-Atlantic/|title=Wrens, Wargames and the Battle of the Atlantic|website=Historic UK}}</ref><ref>Parkin, Simon (2020) "A Game of Birds and Wolves: The Ingenious Young Women Whose Secret Board Game Helped Win World War II." Little, Brown and Company</ref>