Sheffield and Jamaica were light cruisers facing heavier opponents, but their tactics came from two decades of Royal Navy exercises. The choice of six-inch guns depended on likely fighting ranges, where their higher rate of fire offered more useful hits than the greater maximum range of an eight-inch battery. Radar and rapid gunfire helped them damage upper works and fire control before closing for a torpedo attack. Doctrine could improve through experience, while abandoning established practice for convenience discarded lessons developed over many exercises. The covering cruisers served both the outward and returning Arctic convoys, positioned to help whichever came under attack. A separate heavier covering force could intervene if needed, as HMS Duke of York later did at North Cape.
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British cruiser doctrine rewarded volume of fire and disciplined adaptation
Decades of exercises taught British light cruisers to use radar, rapid six-inch fire, and torpedoes against heavier ships without treating doctrine as either disposable or sacred.