ORIGINAL: rtrapasso
ORIGINAL: Terminus
ORIGINAL: bobogoboom
i believe she still had sea gadiators at the time. and no it wouldn't of made a diff it would of just got it sunk. there were not enough fighters to deal with all the bombers.
Good grief, no... Sea Gladiators??? During this time period, she carried Fulmars, Sea Hurricanes and Martlets. Still wouldn't have saved her or the rest of Force Z, since she (like all other RN carriers) carried too few aircraft to be effective.
Who knows? If a couple of key "leader aircraft" of the attacking aircraft had been forced to abort, the whole attack could have fallen apart... i doubt the odds on this were high, but strange, strange things happen in combat.
This could be an interesting "what if" scenario...
There would have been three instead of two targets, and Force Z would have had some CAP. Experience in WWII was that anti-shipping attacks by IJN bombers were
much less effective if they encountered opposition, and without escorting fighters, they were extremely vulnerable to interceptors. Look at what happened to the same air group in the South Pacific. Yes, this could be an interesting "what if" scenario.