The raids were generally ineffective, at either damaging the British war effort, or their main goal of drawing out parts of the Royal Navy's Grand Fleet. The naval situation in the North Sea during WW1 saw the Grand Fleet heavily outnumber the German High Seas Fleet. The Grand Fleet allowed the British to enact a highly effective blockade of Germany, preventing weapons, food and supplies from reaching the country. For the Germans to win the war, the Grand Fleet would have to be destroyed. However, the Grand Fleet was so strong, that the High Seas Fleet was unlikely to destroy it in it's entirety without being destroyed itself - instead, the HSF would have to defeat it in detail, drawing out smaller squadrons that it could destroy. The raids on the British coast were intended to do just this. It was successful in this goal exactly once, but failed to actually make contact due to bad weather, bad luck, and poor leadership. On the 15th December 1914, the German battlecruisers bombarded the ports of Scarborough, Whitby and Hartlepool. The High Seas Fleet, under the command of Admiral Ingenohl, was lingering in support on the Dogger Bank. British codebreaking had detected the presence of the battlecruisers, but not of the High Seas Fleet. The RN sortied a force capable of defeating the battlecruisers - 4 of their own, plus six battleships. The battlecruisers nearly ran into the HSF, with their destroyer screens clashing, but Ingenohl withdrew, believing he was facing a much stronger force. The British turned away to deal with the battlecruisers, but bad weather meant that they never sighted them. This raid was also the most damaging of the three raids, with all three towns taking heavy fire. The first raid, which struck Yarmouth, missed the town completely, with shellfire falling only on the beach. However, British submarine was sunk by a mine during the raid. A later raid on Yarmouth and nearby Lowestoft was similarly unsuccessful, with the battlecruiser Seydlitz striking a mine, while little damage was done to the towns.