Three navies built different carrier task-force models

The Yorktown class combined speed and long range in a form well suited to independent raiding, even though the Royal Navy would have preferred armor and an enclosed hangar for Atlantic conditions. Similar British and American requirements could produce similar carrier designs without one navy copying the other. Their task-force concepts nevertheless differed. The United States dispersed carrier-cruiser groups to raid and stretch Japanese defenses because it lacked fast capital ships. Britain paired carriers with fast capital ships for global presence and anti-surface-raider work, as Force H demonstrated. Japan concentrated carriers and Kongo-class ships around the decisive-battle concept. Richardson appears to have helped assess where the Kongo-class ships would operate, alongside other intelligence specialists. The extent of that advisory role is reconstructed from indirect sources, so it remains an interpretation of how American commanders avoided a dangerous interception.