Tonnage Wars

Tonnage war is a naval strategy of sinking merchant ships faster than the enemy can build them, to starve a sea-dependent state of supplies regardless of which individual ships are hit. Germany waged it against Britain in both world wars through U-boat campaigns; the Second World War Battle of the Atlantic, 1939 to 1945, was the central example, with Allied merchant losses near 14.5 million gross tons before convoy escorts, radar, and code-breaking turned it in mid-1943.