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SCOTT PREPARED TO enter battle on the basis of partially correct and incomplete information. American search planes found the Reinforcement Group but mistook the tenders for cruisers—a near-perfect reversal of the error made by the New Zealand scout pilot back in August, who reported tenders or gunboats, thereby masking the identity of cruisers. Now Goto’s cruisers approached undetected, and behind the Reinforcement Group. The manner of approach suggested the Japanese had no fear of an American surface fleet. On October 11 and 12, attacks by the planes of the 11th Air Fleet would suppress Henderson Field and enable the tenders to reach Tassafaronga, while the cruisers struck the airfield.

In the San Francisco’s flag quarters, Scott studied the charts with his staff and did the math, figuring the approaches his enemy was most likely to use and planning his own countermoves backward from the point of optimum contact. His designation as “Commander, Night Screening and Attack Force,” suggested the approach he would use in defending Savo Sound. There was nothing attack-oriented about Admiral Crutchley’s approach back in August. Scott intended to choose the circumstances of first contact. He seemed to appreciate something a surviving officer of the Quincy wrote regarding the disaster of August 9—that “Battles can only be won by ships engaged in offensive actions. … In spite of the fact that we had numerically superior forces in the area, a bold attack by the enemy was partially successful. Doubtless a similar attack by our own forces on a Japanese stronghold would have been equally successful.” In an evaluation released by Admiral King’s headquarters, it was urged, “Surface ships should be employed as striking forces. So far the war in the Pacific has been featured by long-range carrier air duels. We have, however, suffered equal if not greater losses from submarine and surface ship attacks. We must use our surface ships more boldly as opportunity warrants.” Scott saw the night patrol as a hunt. He would remain hidden, and set out to intercept when the moment was right, seeking the enemy. At a conference at Espiritu Santo, he discussed the new mission with his commanders and formulated the doctrine that would give them a chance to beat the Japanese at their own game.

Doctrine, simply put, is an agreed plan of action that clarifies who will do what, how, and when. Existing tactical instructions for combat commanders emphasized major actions between capital ships fought at long range. According to General Tactical Instructions, formulated in 1940, any firing that took place below seventeen thousand yards was considered “close range.” The light forces that engaged at those close ranges had no standardized doctrine at the fleet level; squadron and division commanders had the responsibility to devise their own doctrine and battle plans. Norman Scott’s plan for Task Force 64 on the eve of battle would go like this: On the night he planned a sortie, Scott would keep his nine ships south of Guadalcanal near Rennell Island, outside the range of enemy bombers, until about noon. He would begin his run after the open window to air attack had closed. Moving north during the midafternoon, with his cruisers’ aviation divisions stripped to a single floatplane, he would accelerate to battle speed—twenty-five knots—when he was about 130 miles south of Savo Sound. As his task force made its five-hour sprint toward the battle zone north of Guadalcanal, friendly search planes would confirm the enemy’s position by last light. Once the battle area was reached, he would form into a single column with the destroyers Farenholt, Duncan, and Laffey in the van, followed by the flagship San Francisco, Boise, Salt Lake City, and Helena, with the destroyers Buchanan and McCalla bringing up the rear. He would then launch his floatplane for tactical spotting leading up to the engagement. Radio silence on the talk-between-ships frequency would be broken only to report actual contacts.

If the timing worked out, Scott would intercept