Aircraft, bombs, explosives, detonators, and aiming all improved during the war, making later bombing results easy to project backward. The destructive performance of late-war bombs therefore gives a misleading picture of what German planners could count on in 1939-40. At the beginning of the conflict, bombs were more likely to damage ships while torpedoes offered the better chance of sinking large targets. Earlier access to the Type 91 and its control technology could consequently have made German aircraft a more serious threat during the Norwegian campaign.
Notable Point · 31:58-33:31
Early-war aircraft depended on torpedoes to sink major ships
Later-war bomb damage can obscure the 1939 reality that aerial torpedoes remained the more dependable killing weapon against large warships.