Early high-velocity rockets transform Fleet Air Arm attack

What changes if the Fleet Air Arm receives the US Navy's 5-inch high-velocity aircraft rocket in September 1939?

British carrier aircraft gain a devastating early anti-ship weapon and may rely much less on dive bombing.

The weapon is the rocket nicknamed Holy Moses, imagined here in British service at the outbreak of war. Rocket salvos would let carrier aircraft inflict severe damage without relying on precise dive-bombing attacks. Cruiser upperworks would be especially vulnerable to the volume of explosive fire. One mature weapon can alter tactics even when the aircraft carrying it remain conventional.