Flattops and Flyboys: The Carrier War in the Pacific 1942-44

GB, by the date of your OOB , I would expect Albacore's on fleet carriers not Swordfish ( Formidable for instance had them from Nov 1940 in OTL ).
 
Also in the late winter of 1942.
In the Atlantic, German U-Boats sink 168 Allied merchant ships between January 1 and March 30, 1942 or nearly 850,000 tons of shipping. This is called the "Second Happy Time" by the Uboat sailors.
I know it's very late to be raising this issue, but I'm catching up on this fine TL, and can't let this pass. The stated losses are less than half of the OTL losses (452 ships, 1.9M tons). That's a huge improvement for the Allies, with no explanation or knock-ons.
 
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authors note:
Art is from websites remembering 75 years after the attack

Better than historical result here, partly due to butterflies (an Allied convoy with two cruisers in port) and similar bad luck for the Allies. Japanese losses are a bit higher (only 4 aircraft lost OTL).

The Japanese carriers are being used more aggressively in the DEI, as Yamaguchi is more aggressive than Nagumo in OTL.

Im kind of suprised they painted one of the Aussies naked. That'd be a hell of a place for a hot shell casing to hit.
 
I know it's very late to be raising this issue, but I'm catching up on this fine TL, and can't let this pass. The stated losses are less that half of the OTL losses (452 ships, 1.9M tons). That's a huge improvement for the Allies, with no explanation or knock-ons.

per this, total Allied losses for the year 1942 were a 8,339,000 tons (1,859 ships, average tons per sinking 4,500)
http://www.usmm.org/wsa/shiploss.html

luckily the Americans built some 6,000 ships during the war (mostly of larger tonnage per ship than those lost)
a useful link that wikipedia draws from
https://web.archive.org/web/20070611063848/http://coltoncompany.com/shipbldg/ussbldrs/wwii.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Shipbuilding_Program#Program_summary

Uboat.net gives around 700,000 tons sunk in the Atlantic for this period
https://www.uboat.net/allies/merchants/losses_year.html
which was my primary source for that section

Losses really start to climb April-November 1942, with the worst months being during the summer and early fall per UBoat.net

So actually, losses are higher in this time line for the same period, as a significant number (all of the carriers at one point) of US carriers and escorts were in the Pacific for a time post Hawaiian Campaign before returning in the late spring of 1942.
 
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per this, total Allied losses for the year 1942 were a 8,339,000 tons (1,859 ships, average tons per sinking 4,500)
http://www.usmm.org/wsa/shiploss.html
...

Uboat.net gives around 700,000 tons sunk in the Atlantic for this period
https://www.uboat.net/allies/merchants/losses_year.html
which was my primary source for that section

OK, I see that you used the monthly figures from U-Boat.net. Or did you?
I see these numbers for early 1942:

Jan 284,764 tons
Feb 392,161 tons
Mar 452,349 tons

which is 1,129,474 tons, not "around 700,000" tons. Or did you perhaps mean Jan-Feb only, 677K tons per U-boat.net? I think that may be the problem. Because you wrote "between January 1 and March 30, 1942".

Another problem: the total of U-Boat.net's monthly figures for 1942 is 5.9M, which is much less than the 8.3M tons given in the British government statement quoted by US Merchant Marine.org (your first link above). (That figure is for losses from all causes in all theaters, which may explain some of the difference.)

However - my source is the appendix of data tables at the end of U-505 (or Twenty Million Tons Under the Sea) by RAdm Dan Gallery (Chicago's greatest naval hero, the man who captured U-505). The book is a narrative of his role in the Battle of the Atlantic (commander of the USN patrol base in Iceland, then commander of a Hunter-Killer task force as captain of USS Guadalcanal (CVE-60)), and of the war career of U-505, up through its capture. I don't know where Gallery got his stats. (I have them transcribed on my computer; the book is packed away.) The 1942 total from Gallery's stats is 7.7M tons, which is less than the British statement, but still much larger than the U-Boat.net figure. (For Jan and Feb, 1.07M tons).
 
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OK, I see that you used the monthly figures from U-Boat.net. Or did you?
I see these numbers for early 1942:

Jan 284,764 tons
Feb 392,161 tons
Mar 452,349 tons

which is 1,129,474 tons, not "around 700,000" tons. Or did you perhaps mean Jan-Feb only, 677K tons per U-boat.net?

Besides which, the total of U-Boat.net's monthly figures for 1942 is 5.9M, which is much less than the 8.3M tons given in the British government statement quoted by US Merchant Marine.org. (That figure is for losses from all causes in all theaters, which may explain the difference.)

However - my source is the appendix of data tables at the end of U-505 (or Twenty Million Tons Under the Sea) by RAdm Dan Gallery (Chicago's greatest naval hero, theman who captured U-505). The book is a narrative of his role in the Battle of the Atlantic (commander of the USN patrol base in Iceland, then commander of a Hunter-Killer task force as captain of USS Guadalcanal (CVE-60)), and of the war career of U-505, up through its capture. I don't know where Gallery got his stats. (I have them transcribed on my computer; the book is packed away.) The 1942 total from Gallery's stats is 7.7M tons, which is less than the British statement, but still much larger than the U-Boat.net figure. (Jan and Feb, 1.07M tons).

hmm, made an error on the March figures it seems, so the 800,000 figure will go up (to historical plus 10%)

I am trying to use losses all theaters when possible because the Allied global shipping shortage was a serious problem for most of the war and it affects what Allied operations are possible.

The April-June figures will be essentially the historical figures, as the limiting factor seems to be more about how many ships can be attacked by the Axis rather than the Allied defense of that shipping.
 
Glad to see these updates! If I may offer some thoughts on the variations between the British and German claims, I suspect that ships that were sunk by U-boats that were themselves sunk might not be known to the German command, and ships that the U-boats damaged that sailed away and later sunk out of sight of the U-boats might also account for a big part of the discrepancy, as a damaged ship whose patchwork repairs give way in heavy seas would show up in the British losses figures, but not in the German Kills figures. Just saying.
 
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