The unrotated projectile as an aerial minefield

The weapon made sense against the threat its designers had been told to expect: concentrated formations of heavy bombers attacking ships from above effective gun range. Air Ministry forecasts made that attack profile authoritative even though the Royal Air Force, Italy, and Japan were developing torpedo or dive-bombing forces instead. Churchill's interest in an aerial minefield, awareness of French and German rocket research, and First World War experience with barriers all encouraged the concept. The naval seven-inch system threw explosive devices suspended from parachute wires into the attackers' path. Its weakness was less the internal logic of the design than the mismatch between the forecast and the maritime strike methods actually available to likely opponents.