Renown's speed and 15-inch guns gave the 1939 force a heavy answer to any German surface raider, while Ark Royal supplied carrier striking power. Renown later drove off Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, showing the threat she posed even against two German capital ships. Together the battlecruiser and carrier were the hunter of enemy hunters, able to find, slow, and destroy a commerce raider. The wider Royal Navy deployment formed a tightening net in which a raider might break into distant waters but would struggle to get home again.
Chapter · 10:01-12:59
Renown and Ark Royal in the raider-hunting net
Force K's battlecruiser-carrier pair was designed to make a German surface raider's return voyage increasingly dangerous.