Training let Cunningham plan around a fleet action after dark

Admiral Willis Lee's decision to avoid a night battle when he did not trust the collective training of his ships contrasts with Cunningham's confidence around Taranto and Cape Matapan. Cunningham could place his battle fleet outside Taranto expecting it to meet an Italian sortie after dark, even though not every ship carried radar. That confidence came from a service-wide expectation that ships had rehearsed night operations and could act on orders in darkness. The later choice to delay an engagement with Bismarck concerned reliability, fuel, and certainty rather than institutional fear of night fighting.