Small crews gave Lütjens little practice in sharing command decisions

A torpedo boat might carry only two or three officers, with engineering and weapons duties keeping them occupied. Senior ratings ran much of the vessel and offered extensive practical experience, but a young captain had few peers with whom to discuss tactical decisions. Lütjens's training and service therefore encouraged self-contained command habits. A progression through larger destroyers, cruisers, and battleships would have required him to work with more officers and a larger organization. His later communication failures need to be assessed against the experience he had received. Repeated small-craft assignments gave him little reason to change habits that worked in those commands.