The Russian ships are said to have rolled very heavily owing to their having so much coal on board, and to the circumstance that their bunker coals were used before their extra supplies carried on their decks were consumed. However, the Russians fought their ships with the utmost bravery and determination, but the superior training of the Japanese sailors and their better gunnery told its tale, and in less than a couple of hours the Russian fleet was hopelessly defeated. Admiral Togo, according to Lieut.-Commander W. S. Simms, must have gone into action with two principal objects clearly defined in his mind. One was to fight at the maximum range at which actual experience of battle practice had shown him that he could hit effectively, viz. about 6,000 yards, and at which he knew the Russian fire would not be dangerous; and the other was to manœuvre so as to maintain as exactly as possible that range upon the head of the enemy’s column. If he had not been able to accomplish these two objects, says the American authority, he might still have won the battle because of the Russian inferiority in many other respects, but the Japanese fleet would certainly have suffered more. If the Russians had been able by superior speed to run into 1,800 yards range, the battle range of their choice, they would have made a large percentage of hits, and those hits would have been very effective, especially from their modern ships of French design, the _Suvaroff_, _Alexander III._, _Borodino_, and _Orel_. The Japanese at first scored three hits to every one they received, and as the battle progressed and their men became more used to their work their hits averaged four to every one the Russians could manage to inflict on them. The accuracy of shooting at a greater distance than was formerly thought possible in an engagement showed the necessity of cultivating this branch of naval gunnery, and its value was demonstrated when the Japanese were able to concentrate the rapid fire of their best battleships upon the leading vessels of the Russian columns at such a range that the Russian fire was ineffective and wide of its intended mark. Most of the Japanese big guns had lengths equal to thirty-five or forty times their calibres, and had already seen a great deal of hard work. This to a great extent may account for the Japanese not having hit oftener. The Japanese shooting in the later naval stages of the war, as compared with that in the naval attack on Port Arthur when the Russian squadron already in Far Eastern waters was crushed, is said to have shown a slight falling off.