[wahern]

By that logic we'd never have single engine or single seat attack aircraft. In a lot of situations, you _have_ to rely on the technology in order to most efficiently spend your resources, even considering the potential failure modes. In many situations you're better off perfecting one mode of operation than in maintaining two redundant modes.

Seems the best reason to teach these things isn't because we expect them to be used to any substantial extent in combat, but because they're critical and necessary exercises for honing and maintaining the skills needed to wield the high-tech tools, much like in bballard's example. Learning and regularly applying the fundamentals is often critical to understanding the problem space. When you're commanding a naval ship I imagine the problem space is immensely complex, much more so than most other roles in the military, or anywhere else for that matter. If you can't foresee or recognize the problems quickly, you certainly won't be able to respond in a timely manner no matter how fancy the tools.