Battle for the Atlantic Convoy Routes

[Edwin P.]

A book, Military Misfortunes, has an interesting chapter on the Battle for the Atlantic.

It shows a map detailing where most ships were sunk by German U-boats. The most sinkings occured along the coast of the USA down to New Orleans, around Cuba, the Bahamas and the West Indies.

"in March 1942, for example, the Eastern and Caribbean Sea Frontiers, together with the Bermuda area (where the US had naval and air bases), witnessed losses of over 380,000 tons of merchant shipping - this during a month when total Allied and neutral shipping lsot 840,000 tons to all causes in all theaters of the war, including the Pacific."

"In May, for example, more than 85 percent of the merchant shipping losses suffered by the allies occurred in American eastern and southern waters."

Perhaps the American convoy route should extend from New Orleans up the Atlantic Coast and then over to England. This might better reflect the range of targets available to the U-boat fleets of the period (in addition to giving the Axis player a much larger target zone for sinking allied shpping). Any comments?

I think that this change may prove interesting in a future mod using a map that extends further south.

[ January 26, 2006, 08:48 PM: Message edited by: Edwin P. ]

[synystr]

I have a detailed map showing every known allied vessel and axis sub sunk in the Atlantic in each year 1939-1945. This could be of some help.