The Royal Navy needed both reconnaissance and striking power to find and defeat hostile cruisers across wide sea areas. Exercises increasingly placed carriers under a cruiser commander alongside battlecruisers and destroyer flotillas, foreshadowing a combined fast task group. Aircraft extended the search, while the battlecruiser supplied a powerful surface finish and protection against enemy cruisers. This recurring exercise structure helps explain why Force H was an established operational concept assembled from available ships rather than an improvised idea.
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Battlecruisers and carriers as hunting groups
Interwar exercises paired fast capital ships, carriers, cruisers, and destroyers into forces able to scout, intercept, and attack commerce raiders.