Force Z
By 
This is not the first time I’ve written about Force Z…
Churchill referred to the attack as the war’s most shocking moment, and military historians and analysts have used it as a touchstone for thinking about how military technology becomes rapidly obsolete. And from a certain point of view, the events of December 10 demonstrated the obsolescence of the battleship. The sinking of Force Z showed that battleships could not operate on their own without air cover. It conclusively proved that prewar naval authorities had made several critical errors in resource allocation and technology evaluation. Finally, it demonstrated that military planners could not be trusted to manage their own toys. If the navies of the world could not understand, on the brink of World War II, that their primary technology platform was fundamentally obsolete, then how could they ever be trusted to manage their own affairs again.
Force Z is a touchstone because it seems to represent a military revolution with unusual clarity. Bismarck was damaged by a Swordfish, but was destroyed by battleships after previously having been damaged by another battleship. Taranto inflicted serious damage on the Italian battlefleet, but it was a surprise attack on ships at anchor. Pearl Harbor was the same, with the additional fact that most of the battleships sunk and damaged were viewed as obsolescent by their own navy. In the attack off Malaya Japanese aircraft didn’t need any help from surface ships to destroy a battlecruiser and a fast battleship maneuvering at speed. In a moment, the battleship is eclipsed, and the naval authorities who pursued the construction of new battleships are demonstrated to be fools.
Part of this story is right and part of this story is wrong, but it’s interesting to think of how much differently the narrative would have played out if events had gone somewhat differently. The British and Japanese missed each other by five miles in the night, in part because of Prince of Wales’ malfunctioning radar. If PoW and Repulse had torn apart a squadron of Japanese cruisers before succumbing to 24″ torpedoes, we would be telling a much different story about technological revolutions.