On one hand, this sounds much like military folklore. "If you serve in role X, you have Y seconds/minutes to live once the fighting starts", or something like t

On one hand, this sounds much like military folklore. "If you serve in role X, you have Y seconds/minutes to live once the fighting starts", or something like that. Real wars are confusing and there is a lot of uncertainty about everything. Maybe China could sink every US Navy capital ship if they fire everything they have at once, but they are not sure about that. There have not been any major naval battles since WW2, and nobody really knows what would happen in one. If they fire everything and it doesn't work, their forces will be spent and vulnerable until they can resupply, and they may not want to risk that. On the other hand, big high-value targets do sound like a bad idea, given how warfare has evolved in the past 30-40 years.