A dawn strike compounds Taranto's damage despite torpedo limitations

The historical comparison credits twenty-one Swordfish with disabling three battleships and damaging a heavy cruiser and two destroyers, although some aircraft carried bombs or flares instead of torpedoes. Fifteen additional Swordfish lead to an estimate of four battleships damaged during the counterfactual night attack. Surviving ships would then have to manoeuvre around their damaged sisters while a dawn strike arrived. The American Mark 13 torpedo and Japanese difficulties with harbour attacks remain limitations, with adequate water depth assumed for the Japanese weapons. In the version with American participation, thirty-six torpedo bombers and potentially fifty-four dive bombers would attack with fighter cover. Further hits on already damaged ships would complicate damage control and repairs, leading to a forecast that Italian heavy units would cease to influence operations for twelve to eighteen months. Even a surviving Giulio Cesare is judged insufficient to cover the proposed operations around Crete, Malta, and North Africa.