Smoke could hide a convoy from guns, but it also concealed destroyers preparing a torpedo attack. Rather than approaching as one visible line, pairs or groups could emerge at speed from different directions, launch, and withdraw behind the screen. This was still a mass attack, but one made more dangerous through maneuver and timing. The growing sophistication came at a price: coordination became an art requiring judgment and communications, not just a mathematical calculation of how many weapons were in the water.
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Smoke let destroyers attack from several directions
World War II destroyers used smoke, speed, and coordinated approaches to turn a single wave of torpedoes into a more difficult multi-axis threat.