What naval reform can still achieve in January 1940

The comparison uses 1 January 1940, which sharply limits what each navy can change. Germany is already fighting, Italy is watching the conflict before deciding whether to enter, and Japan has nearly two years before its war with the Western powers. Peacetime exercises can expose real problems, yet their lessons may prove conditional, universal, or simply wrong once war begins. The exercise asks what each service could recognize and alter from its actual position without giving its leaders knowledge of later wartime outcomes.