Senior officers serving in 1922 had watched naval technology transform throughout careers that began in the late nineteenth century. Someone born in the 1860s could have seen the fleet move from ironclads through pre-dreadnoughts to carriers, making an expectation of continuing change more plausible than simple technological blindness. Skepticism about the immediate ability of aircraft to sink ships did not preclude expectations of what aviation might achieve a decade later. A conference-paper argument, presented with explicit caution about its evidentiary status, holds that Beatty accepted RAF control so another service would fund aviation until it matured. A time-specific capability judgment does not prove that an officer rejected the technology's future.
Notable Point · 12:38-16:32
Interwar admirals could doubt current aircraft yet expect rapid change
A 1922 judgment that aircraft could not yet reliably sink ships did not prevent officers from anticipating much greater capability by the 1930s.