No recent exercise fully reproduces the traffic, uncertainty, and asset demands of an actual Atlantic war. Realism would require withdrawing merchant ships from trade, assembling multiple convoys, and coordinating escorts across a very large theater. The Royal Navy's 1930s exercises are highlighted because they sometimes combined the Atlantic and Mediterranean fleets while using merchant ships and auxiliaries as protected convoys. The comparison shows that command-post procedures cannot substitute for practicing the commercial and naval system that wartime sea control must defend.
Notable Point · 1:48:14-1:49:29
Why peacetime ASW exercises struggle to reproduce war
Realistic oceanic ASW training requires merchant convoys and fleet-scale movement that modern exercises rarely reproduce.