Interwar roots of wartime naval innovation

Histories that jump from the First World War to the Second can make naval innovation appear suddenly in 1939. Many small landing-craft types were mature designs from the 1920s and 1930s that could be produced in much greater numbers once war began. New landing ships still required wartime design work, but the fleet already possessed much of the amphibious system. A comparison with pandemic planning explains the broader institutional method: begin with an existing plan, adapt it quickly, and accept that the inherited model will not fit every feature of the crisis. Preparedness resides in the stock of workable concepts available for modification; the finished wartime product came later.