The German Squadron—the two armoured cruisers _Scharnhorst_ and _Gneisenau_, each with eight 8.2-inch guns, and the three light cruisers _Nürnberg_, _Dresden_, and _Leipzig_, each armed with ten 4.1-inch guns—made off at full speed, and for awhile the English Squadron followed at the leisurely gait for the battle cruisers of about twenty knots so as to keep together. It was at once apparent that our ships had the legs of the enemy, and could catch them when they pleased and could fight at any range and in any position which they chose to select. That is the crushing advantage of speed; when to speed is added gun power a fleeing enemy has no chance at all, if no port of refuge be available for him. In weight and power of guns there was no possible comparison. The _Invincible_ and _Inflexible_, which had descended from the far north to swab up the mess of Coronel, were at least three times as powerful as the _Scharnhorst_ and _Gneisenau_, crack gunnery ships though they might be. Their 12-inch guns could shoot with ease and with sufficient accuracy for their purpose at a range beyond the full stretch of the German 8.2-inch weapons however deftly they might be handled. Their 10-inch armour upon the turrets and conning-tower was invulnerable against chance hits when closing in, and the armoured decks covering their inner vitals were practicably impenetrable. The chances of disaster were reduced almost to nothingness by Sturdee’s tactics of the waiting game. When at length he gave the order to open fire he kept out at a distance which made the percentage of his hits small, yet still made those hits which he brought off tremendously effective. A bursting charge of lyddite in the open may do little damage, even that contained in a 12-inch shell, but the same charge exploded within the decks of a cruiser is multiplied tenfold in destructiveness.