Why the destroyer-and-below boundary remains debatable

The episode tests its destroyer-and-below boundary against awkward examples. SMS Emden was a cruiser, but it stays in the discussion because the available non-British First World War examples yielded no clearer case of a non-capital ship carrying out an important coastal bombardment. At the smaller end, a torpedo boat that merely passes a target and fires briefly raises the question of whether the event counts as naval gunfire support or bombardment. These cases explain why the episode uses a working historical boundary instead of a rigid list of eligible ship types.