Of course there would be losses
Yes they got there in the first place, because the Allies sufered a number of setbacks in establishing mission profiles etc. for effectively interdicting traffic....but once they did...
Despite the difficulties posed by antiaircraft fire and a late start, the antishipping campaign was eminently successful in reducing the flow of supplies to Heeresgruppe Afrika. The Allies learned from ULTRA that of all the merchantmen that set sail for Tunisia in March, nearly half had been sunk-but a fifth had been lost in February. Because of the shortage of ships and general derangement of its logistical system, during the critical months of March and April the Axis was able to load only 140,572 tons of supplies for Tunisia. This equates to a barely adequate average monthly shipment of 70,286 tons, which was then subjected to a frightful loss rate. In April, 41.5 percent of all cargos were lost. This was slightly less than the percentage lost in March, but in April only 29,233 tons of supplies reached Tunisia-March’s figure had been 43,125. Of the vessels lost in these months, aircraft claimed about two-thirds. By the end of April, Admiral Friedrich Ruge, sent to Rome to expedite the flow of supplies to Africa, had come to agree with the conclusion reached some time before by the Italian Navy-that the losses on the run to Tunisia had become so great that they could no longer be justified by Heeresgruppe Afrika’s slim chance for survival. Berlin, however, continued to insist on throwing good money after bad.
The effect of the curtailed flow of supplies on the German and Italian forces in Tunisia was great. Even before the interdiction campaign became effective, their logistical position was weak. On February 13, Rommel’s quartermaster reported that he had not received enough supplies to cover consumption; the shortage of ammunition was critical when the attack through the Kasserine Pass began the next day. With the beginning of serious interdiction in late February, the logistical position of the Axis’ armies grew steadily worse. In early March, Rommel was still able to mount the Axis’ last offensive of the campaign. He struck at the advancing Eighth Army near Medenine, only to be repelled with heavy losses in tanks. Thereafter, the fortunes of Heeresgruppe Afrika declined rapidly. By the end of March, Montgomery had outflanked the Mareth Line, forcing the Germans to retreat north up the coast and to yield the ports of Sousse and Sfax. At this point the ailing Rommel left Africa, never to return. Von Arnim succeeded him as commaqder of Heeresgruppe Afrika. On the western front the First Army began a sustained offensive that by March 17 succeeded in capturing Gafsa. Not far from there, the two Allied armies linked up on April 7; four days later the First Italian Army joined the Fifth Panzerarmee. As the Tunisian Campaign entered its last month the forces of the Axis were completely hemmed in a small bridgehead defined by a front that stretched 100 miles from Cape Serrat just west of Bizerte to Enfidaville southeast of Tunis.
Heeresgruppe Afrika lacked the fuel and ammunition to counter the final Allied offensive. It reported on March 28 that it had entirely depleted its reserves of both commodities. On April 1 the quartermaster described the logistical situation as “very bad.” On April 10 the Allies intercepted a message that told of an armored division that for want of fuel had abandoned its equipment and retreated on foot.
From the earliest days of the Tunisian Campaign, the Germans had attempted to compensate for their inadequate supply of shipping by the extensive use of air transport. Nine groups of Ju 52 transports-468 aircraft- carried urgently needed supplies, particularly fuel and ammunition. They were aided by thirty large six-engine Me 323 transports. On some days as many as 585 tons were ferried across the Strait of Sicily, although the average appears to have been close to 172 tons a day. The Allies knew the details of the airlift from ULTRA, but the same problems that delayed antishipping operations stayed action against the German airlift. Strategic considerations dictated further delay. The assault upon the aerial convoys, Operation FLAX, was planned in early February but not implemented until April. FLAX was a card that could not be played more than a few times, as shown by the relative impunity with which the surviving Axis transports operated at night after the trap had been sprung. The flight time across the Strait of Sicily was so short that interception could be made only with precise intelligence. The Germans, understanding this but not knowing that their codes had been compromised, operated by day. Since their enemy had the option of flying by night, the Allies delayed implementation of FLAX until the most German transport aircraft were in operation so that the blow would be as decisive as possible. They also wanted to destroy the transports when they were most needed, and therefore timed FLAX to coincide with both a high point of the antishipping campaign and the final assault on Tunis.
The transport aircraft were mostly based at fields near Naples and Palermo; a few staged from Bari and Reggio di Calabria. Flights usually began at Naples and proceeded after stops in Sicily to the main Tunisian terminals, Sidi Ahmed and El Aouina. Occasional flights went directly to Tunisia, picking up their escorting fighters over Sicily.68 FLAX called for fighters to intercept the aerial convoys over the strait. There were also bombing attacks on the overcrowded staging fields in Sicily and unusually ambitious antishipping sweeps. On April 6 P-38s intercepted a large formation of Ju 52s a few miles from the Tunisian coast while bombers attacked airfields in Sicily and Tunisia. Further attacks on aerial convoys followed on April 10, 11, 18, and 19. These resulted in the destruction of about 123 Ju 52s and 4 Italian SM 82s. On April 22 an entire convoy of twenty-one Me 323s was destroyed; two of these giants had been destroyed earlier for a total loss of twenty-three. Thereafter reduced numbers of Ju 52s flew at night. FLAX dealt the German air transport fleet a blow from which it never recovered-and ended Heeresgruppe Afrikds last chance for any significant resupply of its rapidly dwindling supply of fuel.
http://www.africaaxisallied.com/blog/58 ... -may-1943/Without the reinforcements rushed TO Tunisia November 1942-February 1943....how does the DAK survive long enough to perform an orderly withdrawal by sea across a month's duration??? As well as what was left when they crossed from Libya into Tunisia - from mid-November through January,
243,000 men and 856,000 tons of supplies and equipment arrived in Tunisia by sea and air; in your WI, if Rommel INSTEAD persuades Hitler to allow a withdrawal...those reinforcements don't arrive and the Egypt/Libya-weary DAK will be overrun long before they can withdrawal effectively.
And scope out those rates of interdiction when the Allies got themselves in gear...
"Charming's a special town - not many folks take to it. I like to think the town chooses its occupants. Right ones stay, wrong ones...disappear."
by Politician01 on 09 Oct 2011 15:03 
And of course...plenty of nice fat ships in Tunisian ports of departure; compare it with the shipping losses in the Dunkirk Basins, or off Crete, or off Namsos....
