Churchill's observation about the immobility of a bomber squadron also applies to maritime patrol: aircraft may range widely from a base, but moving the whole formation means relocating fuel, maintenance, personnel, and support. Aircraft already in service, designs being specified, and theorists' predictions offered very different levels of capability. Giulio Douhet's forecast expected routine one-hundred-ton biological bomb loads, far above the roughly thirty-two-ton payload cited for the B-52. Nuclear weapons later made city destruction possible with a single aircraft, but their strategic deterrent role differed from a prediction of routine bombing. First World War anti-submarine seaplane patrols likewise required large aircraft numbers, purchases from abroad, and backing from destroyers, torpedo boats, cruisers, and sloops. An airframe's theoretical reach did not substitute for the operating system needed to find, attack, and sustain contact with maritime threats.
Notable Point · 1:19:36-1:24:15
Airpower forecasts versus deployable forces
Interwar claims about aircraft often described future possibilities while overlooking the bases, maintenance, surface forces, and payload limits of a force that could actually operate.