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I like a good yarn and heroism as much as the next person, and I get that Taranto has quite the @royalnavy myth around it, but let's not get carried away. Thread 1/ @NavalAirHistory @navalhistorian @AC_NavalHistory @NavalHistWar @ITM_archives @Sweepers3945 https://twitter.com/smrmoorhouse/status/1326556528556597251
Only Cavour, an older BB was taken out, Littorio was repaired in much less time than it took to get Valiant back after 19/12/41 and Duilio same. This was at best a temporal shift, as can be seen by the fact that the Royal Navy never dominated the Central Mediterranean. 2/
Neither did the Regia Marina of course, it remained contested almost to the end. Taranto was a master stroke, daring, and had an impact. But the way propaganda reverberates to this day obscures that its real impact was not as much as is claimed. 3/
It has more than one similarity with Pearl Harbour in this regard. The idea that the Royal Navy through a few decisive actions (Calabria, Taranto, Matapan) dominated the Regia Marina in WW2 is as powerful as it is wrong. 4/
I understand that this is a bit like swearing in church, but if we actually want to understand what happened in WW2, we need to take leave of the old myths and propaganda and seek some actual insight. 5/end @ReassessHistory
Addendum. The one thing that gave the @royalnavy the chance to contest the Central Mediterranean with at least a chance of success had nothing to do with any operational decision it took but a lot with the strong pressure it put on to hold Malta well before the war. See Budden.
Add 2: What I'm talking about: 'Badly damaged'. Yes but Littorio was back in action after 4/6 months. That's not an unreasonable time for a BB. E.g. it took HMS Warspite 8 months to get back in action after a hit by a 250kg and a near-miss by a 500kg bomb https://twitter.com/WW2Today/status/1326655039306407947?s=20
