Why early helicopters make the naval war unpredictable

Helicopter patrols might prevent the historic losses of Royal Oak, Courageous, or Glorious, but any one survival changes the forces available for later operations. Royal Oak could accompany Glorious home from Norway and add both gun power and its own airborne patrol. A surviving carrier could shift more British flight decks toward Taranto, the North Atlantic, or subsequent operations. Greater strike weight at Taranto might damage more of the Regia Marina, which then changes later Mediterranean and Crete calculations. Those benefits are not one-sided because Axis helicopters and fighter defenses still matter. The early losses are branching points rather than a basis for a neat alternate chronology.