I'm sorry I'm thick, but what's the premise? What is your proposition in support of a conclusion? That's a premise.
Oh you mean like an opening salvo?
Honestly part of why I started the thread is because everything I posted in the OP has been self-evident to me for 30+ years, and the more I've learned about the war since I was a kid, many of my older ideas have changed, but all of those positions are just more supported by the data, at least in my interpretation. At least two people on the other thread this one is forked from insisted that several if not all of those conclusions are wrong. For example, the Swordfish was a world class bomber, the Sea Hurricane and Fulmar had "excellent" records etc. The convoy fights in the Med were bigger battles than took place in the Pacific, and etc. Frankly, I find the very idea baffling, so this thread is meant to explore that, in detail. If I'm wrong about all that, I'm ready to learn.
But here is an opening salvo. The two largest air-naval engagements in the mid-war between the Royal Navy and the Axis took place in 1942 - the battle off the coast of Ceylon in April of 1942 and Operation Pedestal in August of that same year. That Ceylon duel was really the only substantial engagement between the Royal Navy and the IJN before 1945, unless you count the sinking of the Rodney and the Repulse. IMO the results of that engagement prove that the Japanese were a more formidable opponent for the Royal Navy than the combined Italian and German forces facing the Allied convoy in Operation Pedestal.
To support that conclusion, I propose that between April 5 and 8 the IJN wroght more havoc than the losses of the entirety of operation Pedestal which went on for 12 days, and suffered fewer losses themselves in the process. Specifically the Japanese sunk twice as many ships for half the losses in aircraft, and in one quarter of the time.
At least
according to Wikipedia, in and near
Ceylon, the IJN almost all on April 5, destroyed 5 front line warships, 3 second line warships, 23 merchant ships, and 40 aircraft:
1 x Carrier (Hermes)
2 x Heavy cruisers
2 x Destroyers
1 x "Armed merchant cruiser"
1 x Corvette
1 x Sloop
23 x Merchant ships
40+ aircraft
The Japanese also lost "20+ aircraft"
During
Pedestal 3-15 August,
according to Wikipedia the Germans and Italians destroyed 4 warships and 9 merchant ships, and 34 aircraft:
1 x Aircraft Carrier + 1 damaged
2 x Light Cruisers + 2 damaged
1 x Destroyer
9 x Merchant ships +3 damaged
34 aircraft destroyed
and the Axis lost 2 x submarines and "40-60 aircraft "
During the fight in Ceylon, both the Hurricane and the Fulmar proved to be badly outmatched by the Japanese A6M fighter. In the Med, such as above Malta, both the Hurricane and the Fulmar proved almost as unable as the Gladiator to stop front-line bomber raids (such as by Ju 88s) though they were able to take down older Italian and German aircraft such as the SM 79, 82, or 84.