The Royal Navy's preparations before Cape Matapan combined reconnaissance with attention to signals passing between Italian forces. Local staffs could study those patterns even when they lacked the personnel or equipment to decrypt the messages. Material requiring codebreaking had to go elsewhere, while traffic analysis could use information gathered in the theater. That made it a substantial part of the immediate intelligence available to operational commanders.
Notable Point · 1:47:25-1:48:37
Local traffic analysis before Cape Matapan
Mediterranean staffs could draw conclusions from Italian communications patterns while decryption depended on distant specialists.