his theories on gunnery, scoring the unprecedented success of 80% during the 1897 gunnery trials. His accomplishment was unbelievable for the time, and many thought that he had cheated in order to gain such a success. As a result of the turmoil, the Lords of the Admiralty removed him from command of HMS Scylla and placed him on half-pay. During his time on Scylla Scott noted that night time signalling between ships in the fleet was slow and inaccurate. He addressed this in two ways: he devised training aids and put his signallers under instruction and he devised a new more effective flashing lamp. The new efficiency of his ship's signalling was quickly noticed by the Commander-in-Chief resulting in Scott's programme being adopted by the whole Mediterranean fleet. A report by the fleet's flag lieutenant to the Admiralty was submitted in 1899 setting out the inadequacies of the old system and promoting Scott's ideas. It was however, many years before they were adopted. Because of poor equipment and shortage of time allocated by the fleet to training, Scott was unable to make much progress in improving his ship's gunnery until 1898 when Scylla was detached to make an independent cruise in the Eastern Mediterranean. In this period Scott solved the problem of the sub-calibre gun which was used for practice and which proved highly erratic and inaccurate, and thus useless for training. Scott devised a new sub-calibre gun whose use involved fitting a one-inch calibre rifled barrel inside the barrel of the main armament but which used the main guns controls. He also devised new sights employing telescopic optics and new training targets. The new arrangement proved highly effective in improving the ship's gunnery but when the plans were sent to London in 1899 they were rejected and Scott was reprimanded because the new scheme required an extra man in the gun crew. Nevertheless, four years later Navy policy changed to mandate the introduction of the extra crew. He was then given command in 1899 of which was ordered to China. Expecting hostilities to break out in South Africa, Scott managed to persuade the Admiralty to allow him to make passage via the Cape of Good Hope rather than the originally planned Suez Canal route. Terrible arrived at the Cape in October to find war imminent. With no threat from the sea, Scott set about determining how he might adapt