PRK - Yes I can understand the need to limit the options on the table , Cerberus took a superior force away from the Biscay ports. Again with hindsight the raid was largely prepared , the days would lengthening and if as you say the option was to be taken away the raid would had to have been made ASAP or put off until the end of the summer. I do take your point on the problems of operating at sea for the Kgm . getting out and back being major issues - it was more by good/bad luck than anything that Tirpitz was not another Bismarck on her first operation - an aborted attack on a PQ convoy. Long range operations in the North Atlantic , the time for them and the ability of the navy to support a raiding force had largely passed - even from the Bismarck the volume of Allied aircraft had greatly increased and the North Atlantic was no place for an ocean raider. Hitler always took the negative ( apart from when he had no options) Crete and Bismarck both made an impact on him - capital ships would not be risked yet he still expected success - mission impossible for the man on the bridge as everything he did involved risk. ( Barrent Sea illustrated this.)
After a quick scan I think this is the best thread on Operation Chariot, due to the volume of posts. The author is an EOD expert and his opening has this: Link: The Operation Chariot IED - Standing Well Back
A book review in The Spectator May 2022 of 'The Greatest Raid: St Nazaire 1942 The Heroic Story of Operation Chariot' by Giles Whittell, by Jonathan Boff, a historian @ Birmingham University. Boff observes it was designed to prove far more than the destruction of a dry dock, and was intensely political - helping Lord Mountbatten's position too. From the Amazon summary: Link: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Greatest-R...ry+of+operation+chariot+,stripbooks,97&sr=1-1
