Force Z...RSRD

[Daniel Prates]

Originally Posted by Armistead

Not sure how they could think planes were out of range when JP G3/4M bombers were already attacking Singapore before force Z went out.

Really, they did. I read this not only in WSCs book, but also in a ww2 bombers compendium which has an article on the G3M. Now, it sure was an ill-informed assesment.

However, they were indeed still to find out the decisiveness of air power by then. The Pearl Harbour attack was not 48-hours old by then, and it would be a lot of time till the coral sea engagement, so it's possible they were overconfident about their capital ship's survival abilities.