Losses at sea

The success of the Allies in Europe was in part due to the great advantage of materiel over the Germans in France and in Italy, even though some of the best equipped and strength of divisions for Germany was on the Italian front. The Battle of the Atlantic swung both ways through about 1943. The Allies did have a massive advantage in tanks and air power in Europe, but in reality how many transports of tanks and planes do you think were sunk by Subs and never made it to the theater?

 

I have read numerous accounts of individual losses from this or that convoy that say how many pieces of equipment (tanks, planes, guns etc.), but no overall tally. It probably exist's but haven't seen it. As a guess I imagine enough equipment to outfit a western army was lost going to Russia and for the Allies in the west twice that.

Remember you asked me to guess.

This is the point where Takao produces the list that goes all the way down to how many cans of Spam were lost!

 

Thanks for the vote of confidence, but in this case it is misplaced. Like you, I have found dribs and drabs, but I have not found an overall tally either, and have been keeping an eye on this thread hoping that someone would have an answer.

 

I'm not sure I'd go with the Battle of the Atlantic swinging both ways in 43 but if you are willing to put some work into at least a partial answer may be available. For instance hanging off of www.usmm.org is a list of US Merchant Marine vessels sunk. It gives type location and date. By looking up each one you may be able to find the cargo they had on board for their last run. No good central site like the TROMs for the Japanese transports though. I think the Commonwealth equivalent of the Merchant Marine may have a similar page.

 

I meant by 1943 it was pretty much in Allied hands, Wrong use of words.

 

Not sure if you are interested or not but I did see a troop loss summary for the Japanese over on the j-aircraft board a while ago (may have been a year or more) it was a pretty impressive number. I don't remember if they went into equipment losses or not.

 

Its pretty interesting to think of the massive materiel advantage we had in tanks, planes, big guns, etc. over Germany when we had to transport everything overseas with the U-boat menace, and they were right on the continent with the relative ease of moving materiel around to the different fronts. Were most planes flown over or shipped over?

 

I know B-24's and P-38 were flown over. P-40's, P-47's, and most if not all the twin engine bombers were shipped over I believe. Not sure about P-51s or B-17s. I think only B-24's took the southern route. Some of those that flew over were probably shipped as well. There were losses in transit.

 

B-17s were flown over via the Northern route. As is well known, many of their crews liked to think that B-24s were used as the packing crates......