False lessons from carrier exercises

Exercise pilots often sought prestigious capital ships instead of attacking the first worthwhile target, while cruisers benefited from knowing the limited operating area in which a carrier had to be found. Real combat removed both assumptions: pilots facing lethal defenses might attack an exposed destroyer, and carriers could maneuver across a much larger sea area. Even very large exercises retain artificial limits because ships and aircrew must not actually be destroyed, so successful exercise behavior is not automatically sound wartime behavior. Exercises remain useful when analysts separate genuine operational insight from behavior created by safety rules and scenario boundaries.