How often did the Royal Navy claim to have a plan while staff were still writing or revising it?
Short answerPlanning was continuous: older plans were regularly renamed and updated, with strategic and operational work divided among different headquarters.
NotesThe 1938 documentation was not the beginning of British planning against Italy. The planning lineage reaches back to 1925, and changing file titles can hide that continuity. The Admiralty handled geostrategic requirements while the Mediterranean Fleet maintained detailed operational plans. Because only a fraction of government records survive, historians often have to reconstruct the process through multiple catalogues and officers' personal papers.