A peacetime squadron without a wartime exit

The squadron's rational wartime plan was an early escape toward friendly waters before Allied navies could close its routes. Sending another battlecruiser such as Moltke to East Asia would only have increased the value trapped there without solving the basing problem. The later victory at Coronel resulted partly from the difficult orders and inadequate ships given to Christopher Cradock, but it did not remove the squadron's strategic predicament. Doveton Sturdee then arrived with battlecruisers to destroy von Spee's force, correcting the earlier failure of dispersed penny packets. More coherent anti-raider hunter groups applied the lesson during the Second World War. After the River Plate action, Renown and Ark Royal approached Admiral Graf Spee as Force K, a concrete example of concentrated power closing a raider's options.