A warship that works by itself still has to integrate with destroyers, frigates, allied ships, and replenishment vessels. Fleet exercises can reveal too few communications positions for the traffic that must pass between ships and aircraft. A layout that places several vocal operators close together can also create enough overlapping speech to cause confusion even when they wear headphones. Data links reduce some spoken traffic, but command-space acoustics and human coordination still matter. Positions that regularly require speech can be interspersed with quieter stations, or with operators who usually speak at different times, so simultaneous calls are easier to hear.
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Fleet exercises reveal integration problems
Exercises with escorts, allies, and auxiliaries test communications capacity and reveal whether closely grouped operators can hear one another clearly.