Aerial view of Naval Station Norfolk shows the U.S. has not learned much from Pearl Harbor

The photographs in this post, just released by the U.S. Naval Air Forces Facebook page, are impressive for a lot of reasons.

First, they provide what we could call an indirect “show of force”: there’s so much naval power (including USS Eisenhower, just returned from its last deployment) docked at Naval Station Norfolk that it’s hard to believe Washington will ever be scared of the only Chinese aircraft carrier currently at sea.

Second, it seems to suggest that the U.S. has not learned much from Pearl Harbor attack. Even though an aerial raid on Norfolk would probably be not easy (nor does it appear to be likely), the impressive line-up of flattops in the most important American naval station raises the question: is it better to concentrate or disperse?

I thought that Dec. 7, 1941, had shown that military targets have to be dispersed to be protected against (aerial, missile or terrorist) attacks. But the stunning photographs taken at Norfolk most probably prove that dispersion is not a requirement of modern scenarios.

About David Cenciotti

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David Cenciotti is a journalist based in Rome, Italy. He is the Founder and Editor of “The Aviationist”, one of the world’s most famous and read military aviation blogs. Since 1996, he has written for major worldwide magazines, including Air Forces Monthly, Combat Aircraft, and many others, covering aviation, defense, war, industry, intelligence, crime and cyberwar. He has reported from the U.S., Europe, Australia and Syria, and flown several combat planes with different air forces. He is a former 2nd Lt. of the Italian Air Force, a private pilot and a graduate in Computer Engineering. He has written five books and contributed to many more ones.