Royal Navy exercises placed the carrier at the center of a protected formation. Even in peacetime movement, a carrier commonly had four destroyers, while wartime doctrine called for at least those destroyers plus a light cruiser. Multicarrier exercises scaled the pattern into groups with several cruisers and a larger destroyer screen. HMS Glorious was lost with only two destroyers, outside the navy's own practiced standard. These escort numbers give a concrete measure of interwar carrier doctrine and show that fleet formations already addressed the problem assigned to a flight-deck cruiser.
Notable Point · 21:13-22:03
Royal Navy exercises defined a carrier's escort
Exercises normally placed at least a light cruiser and four destroyers around each carrier, making Glorious's two-destroyer escort an exception to established practice.