English ammunition planning would have been fatal had they fought off Lisbon.

Evidence

Like Santa Cruz he was prepared to sail to meet the enemy with thirty rounds of ammunition per gun. In the actual encounter the English had spent more than that before they had done the Armada any real damage. Off Weymouth they were able to remedy their miscalculation; if they had been off Lisbon instead they would have been in serious trouble. — Garrett Mattingly, The Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 588

Categorization

• QUESTION: Why did both veteran admirals so badly underestimate ammunition consumption? Mattingly implies a systemic blindness — worth digging into the tactical assumptions behind the 30-round figure.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Garrett Mattingly, The Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 588
• XREF: connects to: Attacking Corunna instead of Lisbon allowed Spanish forces to regroup — Richard Bruce Wernham, The Expedition of Sir John Norris and…, 941

Broader Connections

• Attacking Corunna instead of Lisbon allowed Spanish forces to regroup #expands (0.70) — Richard Bruce Wernham, The Expedition of Sir John Norris and…, 941