Olson (among others) believes that Burnett was placed under conflicting orders: raiders were to be destroyed (preferably at range to avoid retaliation), but merchantmen and raider supply ships were to be captured to replace Allied freighters sunk in the tonnage war. The suggested method of capture was to quickly manoeuvre in close and deploy a boarding party before the ship could scuttle. Olson thinks that "Kormoran"s actions (turning away from the coast upon seeing an unknown vessel, delays in replying to signals, the distress call transmitted long after "Sydney" appeared) made Burnett suspicious, and he was trying to position "Sydney" so he could identify the merchantman's physical features and to facilitate capture. Following the loss of "Sydney", Admiralty instructions on capturing merchant ships changed to only encourage attempts if there was no risk of the ship being a raider or accompanied by a U-boat; no such attempts were made for the rest of the war.