The risk-fleet logic treated a battle fleet in harbour as a constraint on enemy operations, but the Second World War removed the assumption that harbour equaled safety. Copenhagen had already challenged the idea of anchorage safety, while British plans to use Sopwith Cuckoo torpedo bombers against the German fleet never produced a wartime demonstration because the armistice intervened. Taranto, Mers-el-Kébir, and Pearl Harbor showed that ships in confined waters could be caught unable to maneuver or use their guns freely. Later surprise is explained as the consequence of decision-makers relying on a historical experience that had not yet included mature carrier air attack, rather than as proof of conspiracy. The result was an outdated calculation of what a protected anchorage could provide.
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A fleet in harbour was no longer a fleet in safety
The First World War belief that a fleet in harbour remained a powerful, safe deterrent did not survive the vulnerability revealed by modern air attack.