[henkster]

Especially as the war dragged on, year after year, with the Confederacy's lack of industrial capacity to produce more rail, engines & other equipment, to make up for both war losses and normal wear & tear.

Substitute "Japan" for "the Confederacy" and "merchant shipping" for "rail, engines and other equipment" and you've described World War 2 in the Pacific.

By the way, great resources submitted by everybody. It's good to have the band back together.

[FreedomPoster]

One of the generally less well known aspects of WWII in the Pacific was how effective the U.S. submarine fleet was at eradicating Japanese merchant shipping. It wasn’t headline worthy, but it was very effective, after they got the early war torpedo fuse issue sorted out. I recommend Silent Victory on this subject.

< /digression>