War games made damage assessment part of officer education

Damage umpires used chips to record the consequences of torpedo attacks while still making the weapon dangerous enough to force realistic deployment decisions. The same rules could be used at Greenwich, on flag staffs, aboard larger ships, or by destroyer flotillas working from depot ships and shore. Officers of different substantive ranks could be given exercise commands above their ordinary standing, so the game tested judgment and made its decisions visible to umpires. The service also encouraged historical reading as part of professional development. Wargaming was a distributed school for command in which the result was only one part of the lesson.