Hmmm, Not convinced by this; I don't think it was the threat of the Swordfish that caused such an upset, this is a tactical use of available resources. The Swordfish was a torpedo bomber and its equal in the RAF between the wars was the Blackburn Shark, the two compare closely in terms of size, weight and performance, with the edge going to the Shark, not the Swordfish, yet the latter remained in service for much longer - although it did enter service a year after the Shark. No one would qualify the Blackburn Shark as a game changer, yet, if it were Sharks aboard RN carriers in WW2, the same accolades accorded the Swordfish would have gone to the Shark"
The difference is in the ability of the swordfish to operate from carriers, including escort carriers, in weather conditions that would ground most other aircraft. The shark may well have been able to be adapted to that, im really unsure of its flying qualities. I do know that NO other aircraft of WWII was able to come close to the reliability of the swordfish and its rough weather and STOL qualities as well as its fantastic adaptability. Quoting, or looking at the outright performance will lead you into error with the swordfish. it was a poor performer by any standard, except that it could do what it could do under the most unfavourable conditions.
"We also know that there were senior British (and overseas) naval personnel who were decrying the obsolescence of battleships even during the Great War; Murray Sueter comes to mind, so the impact of aircraft carrier based aviation had already shown to have generated support, and in support of proposed raids against the High Seas Fleet in Wilhelmshafen, the conversion of existing hulls into aircraft carrying ships had already been proposed before the war's end - Courageous and Glorious. By the end of the war, every British capital warship had facilities for carrying aircraft, although not all were allocated its own and this was introduced in 1917, so the concept of aviation at sea and its implications were not unknown and were readily foreseen"
Nearly all the major naval powers, except Germany had their believers in Carrier aviation, but with 1 or two major exceptions, these men were not in a position to change policy. Most navies remained firmly wedded to the supremacy of the BB until after the trifecta of Taranto, Bismarck and PH. The swordfish gave the carrier club a weapon at last able to break the battleship sword off at the hilt. Before that, whilst experiemts and trials pointed to the obsolescence of the BB, not many people were moved to accept that.
"As far as changing the nature of warfare, the Swordfish did not. It took part in gallant actions, which were in effect the day to day tasks that aircraft of the RN were expected to do - the concept of what we know as a Taranto style raid was first proposed in the Great War and serious planning was undertaken to its end before the war ended and, as Steve pointed out in an earlier post, taking out enemy ships in their own harbours was RN policy; it was, at the time known as a 'Copenhagen', after Adm Nelson's manoeuvring in 1801."
I can tell you that Taranto is considered in Carrier men's consciousness as a watershed events. after Taranto, the rules of warfare had to be re-written. Some continued to think the attack a fluke of nature, an abherration in the conduct of naval warfare. A result of the so called lacklustre italians. almost on cue the attacks in Taranto were followed by the airstrikes on the Bismarck, when all else had failed the obsolete swordfish again stepped up and proved the fallacy that battleships had nothing really to fear from carrier aircraft, and that this time it happened whilst the ship was at sea, against a ship with the most modern systems and the most aggressive and effective naval commanders then in existence on the planet. Other men had planned and dreamt of this outcome since preparations for the furious attack in 1917 but none of them, without exception had amounted to anything until proven operationally by the swordfish. The swordfish can lay claim to changing the nature of warfare at sea because it was they that put the runs on the board and proved in an operational sense what until then had only existed as untested theory.
"So, no, can't agree Parcifal; the Swordfish did not bring about a fundamental sea change (pardon the pun) in warfare at all. It was just doing its job; something that the navy did and had been doing for years".
Which navy was doing this for years before the Swordfish? There were theories, experiments, some promising experiemtns, but no hard results to base that on before the swordfish. Even the swordfish itself until the latter part of 1940, incorrectly used, could not lay claim to changing the way warfare was conducted. after the battles led by the swordfish were fought, naval power was measured in a fundamentally different way and naval warfare fought in a fundamentally different dynamic to all that came before it. after this brief era of success more modern and well equipped navies took the concept even further. Principally the Japanese, and then finally the Americans who devastated an empire using carriers and to this day project themselves as a world power mostly by their force projection capabilities through their huge carriers.
