Yeah, "Under The Cloak Of War" was an incredibly bitter pill after "Those Old Scientists", which I out-and-out loved. I unreservedly love Lower Decks warts and all, and I reservedly enjoy SNW, so for SNW to get injected with a bit of LDS pep in its step was wonderful, but it was a really well written episode too. Boimler having the impact he did on Chapel was very intelligent, and he and Mariner having the perspective to recontextualise Pike's priorities was nice. I didn't like the "You could just not-look" scene - too silly even for LDS.
"Under The Cloak Of War" was, by comparison, a dreary, tone-deaf mess. The flashbacks were cheaply acheived (a flat set with some props and a virtual environment on the holodeck wall) and poorly developed. They evoked DS9's ground-war episodes without any of the immersion or sense of mission or urgency. The denoument of the episode was quick, brutal, and insanely out of character for the show and the people involved. I now hate two characters I quite liked.