How war-game umpires should handle unconventional plans

Should naval exercise umpires allow unconventional tactics to reveal how an opponent reacts?

Yes, provided the proposed operation is genuinely achievable rather than physically impossible.

British exercise umpires are presented as relatively willing to let participants attempt unusual operations. The useful boundary is not whether an idea is conventional but whether the fleet could actually execute it with the ships and conditions available. That discretion allows exercises to expose an opponent to surprising tactics and reveal reactions that a scripted event would miss. Experimentation should therefore be allowed, while impossible claims such as a fleet suddenly making 60 knots must still be rejected.