Why Fraser and Willis Lee closed before firing at night

The passage asks how Scharnhorst might have fared if Duke of York had carried 16-inch guns, or if Nelson, Rodney, or an Iowa-class battleship had been firing at roughly 12,000 yards. The comparison is a counterfactual, but its point is the lethality of heavy shells at a range where armor offers little margin. It links Bruce Fraser's method to that of US admiral Willis Lee: use sensors and tracking to approach closely, then fire with a high probability of decisive hits. In a night action, that discipline reduces the chance that the enemy can escape after a missed opening salvo. The passage turns the North Cape narrative into a broader lesson about radar-enabled fire-control doctrine.