At the Falkland Islands the all-big-gun ship appeared for the first time in a sea action and, although opposed by vessels whose armament was no match for such heavy metal, it was actually employed according to the tactics officially set out as the basis of the Dreadnought idea in design; the tactics, that is to say, of keeping away from an enemy, so as to maintain a range favourable to the more powerfully gunned ship. The battle resolved itself into three separate actions, and it was on this principle that Sir Doveton Sturdee fought the Graf von Spee and his two battle-cruisers, and that the Captain of the _Cornwall_ engaged _Leipzig_. But, curiously enough, in the engagement between _Kent_ and _Nürnberg_ a different principle is seen at work. Captain Allen pursued at full speed until he had crippled the enemy’s engines, and then, as his speed fell off, continued to close till he was able to silence him altogether at a range of 3,000 yards. Thus on a single day two diametrically opposed tactical doctrines were exemplified by officers under a single command. In each of these four actions the tactics of the gun escaped complication by the distractions and difficulties which torpedo attack imposes on long-range gunnery. In our next action, the affair off Heligoland, the torpedo figures largely, because visibility was limited to about 6,000 yards. The affair off Heligoland cannot be described as an engagement. It was primarily a reconnaissance in force developed into a series of skirmishes and single ship actions, which began at seven in the morning and ended at mid-day. Submarines, destroyers, cruisers of several types and, finally, battle-cruisers, were employed on the British side. There were sharp artillery engagements between destroyers, there were torpedo attacks made by destroyers on light cruisers and by submarines on battle-cruisers. But they were not massed attacks on ships in formation, but isolated efforts at marksmanship, and they were all of them unsuccessful. This failure of the torpedo as a weapon of precision is of considerable technical interest. The light thrown on gunnery problems by the events of the day is less easy to define. The chief interest of this raid into the Bight lies in the strategical idea which prompted it and in its moral effects on the British and German naval forces. That Sir David Beatty, in command of four battle-cruisers, should coolly have challenged the German Fleet to fight and that this challenge was not accepted, was extremely significant. It was of special value to our side, for it showed the British Navy to possess a naval leader who knew how to combine dash and caution and marked by a talent for leadership as conspicuous as the personal bravery which had won him his early promotions.