The United States expected rapid expansion to bring merchant officers, engineers, reservists, and newly commissioned personnel into naval service. Doctrine written by fast-track career officers could still assume that readers possessed the same vocabulary, priorities, and years of naval context as its authors. The problem resembles a specialist manual that is accurate but inaccessible because the programmer assumes everyone already understands the tool. A numerical command system helped, yet jargon and unstated assumptions could still obstruct the people it was meant to guide. The lesson extends beyond the U.S. Navy: doctrine must translate professional expertise into instructions usable by the actual wartime force.
Notable Point · 1:39:37-1:47:57
Doctrine fails when experts assume their own knowledge
American task-force doctrine was sound, but its professional authors sometimes wrote for officers who shared their naval frame of reference rather than wartime recruits from other backgrounds.