Fleet air defence provides the baseline for measuring jet-age tactical change because carrier-strike fundamentals remained comparatively recognizable after Taranto and Pearl Harbor. The late-war American Big Blue Blanket and John Thach's better-known Thach Weave show tactical adaptation in the Pacific air war. Radar-equipped destroyers, cruisers, and frigates reported an incoming raid's position and course so fighter controllers could vector the combat air patrol. The interception was intended to destroy Japanese aircraft before they reached the carrier force or another high-value target. The system worked well, although the next section cautions against treating coordinated radar direction as an entirely unprecedented American invention.
Chapter · 7:14-10:17
The Big Blue Blanket fighter-direction system
A Pacific air-defence watch point shows radar pickets directing combat air patrol fighters against incoming Japanese raids before they reached the carrier force.