But as I noted given the intended operating areas, the Swordfish had enough range. This seems to something those from the USA have trouble getting their heads around. The RN never intended to go to the Pacific. Any fighting in the Far East was expected to be in the South China Sea.
Ah, but let me help you a bit, this is for the geographically challenged, whether they be from your country, my country, or one of the many others represented in this forum. Most of whom already grasp this, like I assume the British planners in 1933 actually knew this fairly well, but from the context of the discussion it is not clear whether you are aware.
1 - The South China Sea
2- The Pacific Ocean, that vast body of water of which the South China Sea is a subset, technically a 'marginal sea of the Western pacific Ocean', according to Wikipedia.
3- The Aleutian islands, Alaska, US, for scale
4 - The Indian Ocean
The goal of an aircraft carrier is in fact to move around the seas and oceans. If one's goal is to sink enemy ships in range of land air bases, as was often possible in the Med and may in some cases be possible in the South China Sea, then you can use land based aircraft (most of which have vastly longer range than a Swordfish). But in naval combat, one presumes that the airbase, i.e. the aircraft carrier, is moving. That being key.
And in a combat between
moving warships, even within the confines of the South China Sea (which covers 3,500,000 square kilometers) one will still need to outrange enemy aircraft, or at least come close to their range, otherwise your strike aircraft is dangerously obsolete really by definition, and your fleet sailing into treacherous waters in mortal peril. Like just a teensy bit further out into the vast Pacific or Indian Oceans which are contiguous bodies of water, the latter of which borders arguably the most important colonial holdings of the British Empire.
So once again, yes, a Swordfish was indeed probably adequate for 1933. Seven years later it's looking a little old. Nine years later it's looking positively creaky.
But the RN trained from pre-war to use its TB to attack at night or in bad weather, something they did successfully from the earliest days of the war. They recognised the limitations of the aircraft they had worked to minimise the risks. Only in extreme circumstances were they forced into attacking in daylight against modern fighters (Channel Dash or Kirkenes)
I did myself emphasize the ability to use the Swordish, in fact I think I introduced the concept to this very thread.
The ability to use radar on board aircraft, even painfully obsolete aircraft like the Swordfish, was a major achievement by the British, for which they should be (and by all appearances are)
extremely proud.
However, the idea that one could rely on the enemy being unable to approach within range of their daylight bombers when they out-range your strike aircraft by hundreds of miles, and when their ships are even a fair bit faster over the water, is shall we say, an extremely optimistic way of looking at things.
No matter how much you want it to be the case, this
was not in the same league as this
When was the first USN night attack? Oh yes Feb 1944 at Truk using 12 Avengers.
Those Americans were clearly fools not to re-equip all of their navy squadrons with Swordfish and Sea-Hurricanes! I suspect this may have been only the latest by that time in a long series of dreadful mistakes they kept making, and might have been talked out of had they only been willing to listen.