Early in World War II, both the US Army and the US Navy knew that if they could not establish air superiority in the battlespace over their forces, their ability to conduct coordinated campaigns was quickly reduced to raiding, surprise, and hit and run attacks. Then, as now, establishing and maintaining superiority in the air under which naval forces must operate generally involved a complex balancing of variables such as estimating enemy's weapons release range and density of the threat, mix of aircraft in the carrier air wing, and the capabilities of defensive systems installed in ships, among others.
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