On the surface, the Kormoran Survivor, who is AFAIK the last surviving officer, has a point.
Problem is, only on the surface.
He cites the correct method how the RN successfully dealt with raiders, how Pinguin and Atlantis were sunk.
In both chases, RN cruisers made use of their superior fire control to open fire at long range. The raiders with their WW1 guns and verbal fire control could not effectively respond. Rogge of the Atlantis scuttled and survived to save Hamburg in 1961 while Krüder of the Pinguin had his mine load blowing up on him and his allied POWs.
Burdett on the Sydney did not open fire at long range like HMS Dorsetshire or HMS Devonshire, but rather closed in.
It seems like he violated standard procedure, while in fact he did not.
Problem is, this long range firing on Atlantis and Pinguin (and later on unarmed blockade runners) was NOT how the RN dealt with a SUSPECTED raider, but rather a pre planned intercept and destruction of a CONFIRMED raider due to Ultra intercepts.
Except for Kormoran, not a single german raider was sunk in a chance encounter.
Thor survived three chance encounters with RN vessels, but those were armed merchant cruisers, not regular warships and sank one of them.
Each time the AMC acted quite similarly to Sydney, and each time the result was similar down to the fact that the german raider did not linger to observe results but rather fled the scene as fast as possible.
The only thing that made engagement ranges in 2 of three of Thor's battles with AMCs longer was that Thor was not as successful as Kormoran in keeping that masquerade intact until the last moment. That allowed 2 of the 3 AMCs to survive damaged.
This shows that Sydney's behaviour was not as unusual as one might think.
The more succesful actions against german raiders can all be put down to Ultra, while without Ultra, every allied warship showed a cautious approach like HMAS Sydney.
Re the bracket shooting, I'm not a fire control officer, but maybe something went utterly wrong in the chaos.
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