During the Second World War, the British Army adopted a naval convoy system for all their merchant ships. Each convoy consisted of 30-70 freight ships and was surrounded by patrolling ships or airplanes. To minimize the chances of convoy being discovered and bombarded by the enemy submarines, the commandment considered two options: sending each convoy as one big flotilla, or splitting the convoy into a few smaller convoys and sending each separately. Can you help the commandment to make this decision?
Naval convoy usually consist of a few merchant ships surrounded by escort ships or airplanes. Looking from the air, we could approximate a convoy as a large blob or circle on the water. What do you think will have higher chances of safely arriving to the destination, one big blob or few small ones?
