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Old 07-15-2020, 05:09 AM
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Legbreaker Legbreaker is offline
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It's worth bearing in mind that the Pact navies were virtually destroyed very early on in the war and there wasn't much left in the latter couple of years besides a few scattered commerce raiders. This isn't to say the NATO forces were must better off though.
Given the limited enemy naval forces, it's possible later war convoys could have risked the crossing without escort and probably have made it unscathed, perhaps even undetected nine out of ten times (or possibly better, who knows?). A single lightly armed and obsolete escort may have been deemed more than sufficient to protect ten, twenty or more civilian vessels - it's often all that was available in WWII during the height of the Battle of the Atlantic....

With regard to exercises and training, failure is often a far better teacher than success. Even after 25+ years I still remember those times which resulted in a "loss" for the good guys quite clearly, yet the "wins" all meld together. Provided an honest and open discussion/debrief is carried out, everyone involved learns something and improves their abilities. Consistently winning just plays on confirmation bias and doesn't make the participants actually think.

However, consistently loosing does very little besides impact morale. Being "allowed" to win (when deserved) helps to cement good tactics and skills, and promotes critical thinking and imaginative problem solving.
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