What if the Royal Navy developed a Tiny Tim equivalent by 1939?
Short answerIt would gain a valuable heavy air-launched weapon, but achieving it requires overcoming the Air Ministry's control of most aerial ordnance development.
NotesThe Royal Navy would welcome a heavy rocket carried by aircraft such as the TSR, but its ability to create one was institutionally constrained. The Air Ministry administered most aerial weapons, while the Navy retained torpedo work because naval torpedo development already supplied a natural technical base. The same divided authority that complicated dive-bomber development would also hinder a mature rocket program. Earlier experience with naval anti-aircraft rockets might nevertheless accelerate an air-launched system once its faults became visible. Swordfish could release torpedoes while rockets suppressed a target's defences at Taranto, a tactic that would complement rather than remove the need for dive bombers able to penetrate carrier flight decks.