Exercise participants pursue high-value objectives and accept assumptions unlike real combat, creating conclusions that can survive for years. Aircraft crews chase battleships and carriers for prestige during maneuvers, whereas combat pilots may attack the nearest destroyer rather than press through layered defenses. Similar distortions can make anti-submarine systems or disguised merchant raiders look more reliable than they are. A surface raider may nevertheless retain strategic value by forcing an opponent to convoy trade and hold carriers, cruisers, and destroyers in secondary theaters. The lesson is that false tactical confidence and genuine strategic distraction can coexist in the same doctrine.
Notable Point · 2:16:27-2:29:59
Exercises can reward the wrong ships and tactics
Peacetime rules and false positives can make surface raiders or other vulnerable concepts appear more effective than combat would prove them.