The Armada achieved a smooth crescent formation that awed experienced English seamen.

Evidence

Expecting the English to attack, Medina Sidonia fired a signal gun and the Armada formed in battle order, each unit making or slackening sail with military precision, and changing course with due regard to its neighbours until the whole fleet presented to the English for the first time the famous crescent formation which was to puzzle and awe them all the way up the Channel. It was not, of course, a perfect crescent, but with the extended wings pointing towards the enemy, and thickened centre, it was sufficiently like one to make any experienced seaman wonder how so heterogeneous a lot of ships could achieve so smoothly and maintain so firmly so complicated a formation. — Garrett Mattingly, The Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 620

Categorization

• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Garrett Mattingly, The Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 620
• XREF: connects to: On the night of 7 August, English fireships broke the Spanish formation, and Medina Sidonia’s ships ‘scattered in a…’ — British History in depth: Armada Gallery; The English sent fire ships into the Spanish anchorage at Calais, and prevailing winds and storms ultimately scattered and destroyed the Spanish fleet on its retreat. — Winds of Change: Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 1588