An intelligence-led ambush fails to destroy Hipper's force

German radio habits warned the British of the operation before any trawler at Dogger Bank could have reported it. The Royal Navy therefore entered the action with advance intelligence, superior numbers, and enough light forces to execute a real ambush. Beatty treated the action as a sectional battle in which his battlecruisers fought alone and destroyers were retained mainly to cover them. Once the battlecruisers fixed Hipper's heavy ships, the destroyers should instead have overrun the German screen and pressed a torpedo attack. That failure allowed most of Hipper's force to escape and made the deaths aboard Blücher and the other casualties of the action needlessly costly.