On FDR provoking the Pearl Harbor attack

[Mk VII]

With hindsight the obsolescence of battleships and their vulnerability to aircraft attack seems obvious but the evidence was less clear-cut at the time. British capital ships had survived numerous Italian attacks in the Mediterranean with little damage, and despite British aviation’s best efforts the Scharnhörst and the Gneisenau had transited the English Channel with only minor damage earlier that year.

 

[JPL]

Battleships at PH were the newest in the American fleet...

West Virginia joined the fleet in 1922.

After that, noting, becse of Washington and London treaties. No new battleships.

North Carolina and another bb joined the fleet in mid 1941, bt both had problems and weren't fleet ready. They were still being shookdown on the East Coast.

So, the bbs at PH were the newest, most capable bbs in the navy at the tiem

 

[agricola]

With hindsight the obsolescence of battleships and their vulnerability to aircraft attack seems obvious but the evidence was less clear-cut at the time.

I think this point can be overstated - certainly the RN understood the days of the big-gun capital ship were coming to an end, and (given the prewar orders) the USN probably did so as well, both navies choosing to focus attention on aviation, destroyers / ASW and submarines. When, just after Pearl, it was accepted that sending Prince of Wales and Repulse out without air cover was risky, and indeed this proved fatal when they were both sunk.

British capital ships had survived numerous Italian attacks in the Mediterranean with little damage, and despite British aviation’s best efforts the Scharnhörst and the Gneisenau had transited the English Channel with only minor damage earlier that year.

One forgets Taranto (an attack completed with less than a tenth of the aircraft of Pearl Harbour, and all 21 of the strike aircraft were biplanes) , and the "Channel Dash" actually took place in the Febuary of 1942, under very heavy air cover provided by the Luftwaffe (cover which claimed Lieutenant Commander Eugene Esmonde, one of the Bismarck Swordfish pilots, an action which earned him a postumous VC).

 

[JPL]

I don't think it can be overstated.

Both the Royal navy and American navy still had lots of high level brass who thought the carriers were good for not much more than being the eyes of the fleet.

Those who thought the carrier were the wave of the future were still thought to be mavericks.

The Royal navy ordered 6 new bbs in the years leading up to WW II.

The American navy ordered 10, with another 6 that were later cancelled.

Orders for carriers under the two ocean navy plan were about the same number.

Halsey was a carrier driver, but still thought in terms of a big-gun battle at Leyte gulf.

British response to the Channel Dash wasn't coordinated.

It took the British almost completely by surprise.