Sounds stupid but did you know it was like that too in real life? Airplanes have huge potential that could have changed warfare forever, but despite the productions of big long range bombers, they never thought of carrying those bombers in smaller size on a ship and kept using the 7% accuracy rate ship cannons in naval warfare.
There is also the fact that even when automatic firing guns had became common, some country still have Cavalry charge units.
Stubborn higher ups who refuse to update their way despite it had became obsolete is a common thing in this world.
At least the first part is blatantly wrong. Wright brothers in 1903. First naval-launched air raid 1914. First ship sunk by torpedo bomber in 1915.
It took 11-12 years for these things to happen. Not just in testing, but in actual service with intention. The second time a ship was sunk by a torpedo bomber occurred just 5 days after the first. And people had thought of these ideas way earlier.
Mind you, I don't see the way it happened in this story as necessarily unrealistic. For example, it could speak to a less meritocratic (comparatively) oriented view on the part of the national/military leaders. Though even then, if wild dragons carrying wagons isn't unheard of, it's hard for me to imagine transport dragons as a novel idea.
Really, the thing that bothered me is moreso that they chose to narrate this chapter rather than just play out the conversations.
