Technological objections to convoys are traced through the Napoleonic era and both world wars. Radio-guided bombs near the end of the Second World War are another example of a threat used to question concentrated shipping. The defence of convoying is that a long war still requires goods to move and a convoy can receive concentrated protection. Individual ships are harder to cover across a large area. Stationing escorts at selected points leaves other routes open to attack. The Red Sea comparison asks how much more difficult those gaps could become against a peer opponent with submarines.
Notable Point · 54:59-56:12
Convoys, guided bombs, and gaps between escorts
The convoy argument compares repeated technological objections with the need to concentrate protection around moving merchant traffic.