I'm having trouble finding anything on this anywhere else so I'd hope I can get some clarification here.
When ships or submarines were sent on combat patrols did they have other vessels with them or did they patrol alone until a bunch of them needed to meet up? I know carriers were escorted by other ships, but I can't find anything on say destroyers or cruisers. Did these ships meet with carrier groups before fan out over a large area?
As for the second part of my question, how many ships (and what kind of ships) would be assigned to escort the average convoy?