Ships assigned to escort another ship should give that ship z-command over itself so that it can instruct them to regroup/engage their target at will, including the same "retreat back to your convoy to recover" from an overload the same way bombers do when they expend their payload, if the threat that has caused them to overload is not within engaging distance of their convoy
edit: and another thing! If you place an empty escort order on a vessel it gets the z-command and if it orders an escort engage it could pull from nearby, "unused" escorts that are sitting on "regroup", are away from fighting and haven't been specifically ordered to escort their escort target will get pulled to go escort the convoy that's requesting an escort strike. That way you could have a portion of your fleet assigned to being attenders, preferring not to engage alone-- for example placing light escort orders on destroyers in a large engagement to try to prevent your frigates from barging ahead & dying to enemy capitals
