 After numerous extraordinarily brave but completely futile attempts to approach the shore to support the nationalist defenders on land which resulted in one gunboat sunk, one destroyer, two large patrol craft two minesweepers and two gunboats damaged, it was painfully clear that the outgunned nationalist fleet must withdraw to the open waters further away in order to avoid annihilation by the superior communist artillery on land.The communist's tactic of using numerically superior land artilleries with greater range than that of nationalist naval guns proved to be a great success and prevented any nationalist naval attempt to support their comrades-in-arms on lands.With the cover of superior firepower from the lands, the communist was able to deploy the leapfrog tactic to take the remaining islands in the nationalist hands.