It seems like an awful waste of human talents and abilities.

That just about sums up my attitude to wars in general which, I acknowledge (before somone clobbers me), I can freely utter because my parents' generation and theirs before them went and got involved.

But, while your description of tactics deals with the events right up to the firing of armaments, the nitty gritty of the mystery is why the Sydney was seen to be afloat (but on fire) for long enough for survivors of the actual firefight to 'get away" but the whole crew was lost. The "how" of all this might be discernable from the archaeological evidence and is what engages me at this stage.

Cheers, Rowan