There are some good examples of air strikes defeating surface ship forces, but those do more to prove your point since the Germans of 1940 had not remotely the skill of the 1942 USN or IJN carrier aircrew.
A couple years ago I did some research on the German AF actual success against ships at sea 1939-1940. it was actually pretty abysmal. There was a small air unit that had specialized in attacking ships, the used extreme low level tactics, 'skip bombing' in US vernacular. Training pilots in this technique cannot be done in the classroom and requires more than a few hours in the air. Surprisingly the German dive bombing was not as successful as the IJN or USN. They'd not done it, and had given inadequate thought to the technique. It was not the same as dive bombing a stationary land target & the hit rate low. In the Channel Battle of July-August 1940 the German ratio of hits and sunk to bomber sorties was significantly lower than what the USN/IJN had in 1942. That was with the participation of their experienced maritime strike unit. The lack of a torpedo and poor dive bomber techniques meant that overall the hit to sortie ratio was very bad.
& as noted multiple times here the German attacks on the RN will be with RAF opposition. Perhaps at this point a example might be useful. In the summer of 1942 the Brits tried to run a convoy through the Sicillian Channel to Malta. Op PEDESTAL. Three RN carriers covered the convoy. Those had less than 100 fighters, between them. On the first day of opposition to the Brit operation the Axis air forces are credited with 220 bomber sorties vs the Brit ships from Sardinia & Sicilly. Just two hits are credited, one bomb hit the armored deck of the HMS Victorious, shutting down flight ops for part of the day, another damaged a destroyer. So two hits per 120 sorties against a cargo ship convoy with air cover. This with air forces using groups with two years developed experience in attacking ships at sea. Later days after the Brit air cover was removed the hit ratio per sortie went up considerably. Against cargo ships moving at 15 knots or less & dispersed AA cover the hit ratio fell well below 1-50 sorties.
When I return home Sunday maybe I can review and post the numbers I collected two years ago.
Pedestal is an absolutely fascinating operation and probably the most important WW2 battle in European waters. It's surprising that it's not better known - a bit like convoy ONS-5. But there's little glory in convoy escort. You're right to point out the remarkable effectiveness of the RN's fleet defence, particularly in comparison to the utter incompetence shown by the vaunted IJN at Midway (and earlier during the IO raid). But it's not a great example for Sea Lion, as the key to Pedestal was radar-controlled interception, just as the IJN's flaw was a fleet air defence doctrine based on looking around to see if your ships were on fire yet.
However, the point about the LW success rates at sea is most interesting. Earlier in this thread, Glenn asserted in his usual style that "The PK of a hit by a Stuka dive bomber in 1940 vs. a destroyer underway is about 5%-10%." Now, far be it from me to suggest that Glenn pulled that number out of a sea lion's arse, but it would be interesting to see some actual data...