Folkestone's smoke-and-signalling contingency

The confrontation may have compressed to ranges of only a few hundred meters, where Birmingham's six-inch guns and Japanese eight-inch weapons would devastate exposed superstructures. The Japanese cruisers would probably focus on Birmingham because she carried the torpedoes and heavy battery capable of immediate damage. That attention might let Folkestone fire her four-inch guns, make smoke, and break away rather than remain in an unwinnable gunnery exchange. Her survival mattered because she had orders to signal Britain with an account of the clash, making communications more useful in this contingency than armor or firepower.