Early aircraft had to prove their naval value

The claim that battleships were already known to be obsolete in the 1920s gives early aircraft more certainty than their capabilities warranted. Early aircraft resembled other promising but immature technologies whose useful form and arrival date remained uncertain. Naval officers asked advocates to demonstrate concrete capabilities before displacing existing ships. Wartime experience then supplied proof for missions that had previously been experimental, which helps explain gradual institutional adoption and the limits of dismissing it as blind conservatism.